This may add to the discussion:
47. But it may be asked whether if there were an element of real chance in
the universe it must not occasionally be productive of signal effects such
as could not pass unobserved. In answer to this question, without stopping
to point out that there is an abundance of great events which one might be
tempted to suppose were of that nature, it will be simplest to remark that
physicists hold that the particles of gases are moving about irregularly,
substantially as if by real chance, and that by the principles of
probabilities there must occasionally happen to be concentrations of heat
in the gases contrary to the second law of thermodynamics, and these
concentrations, occurring in explosive mixtures, must sometimes have
tremendous effects. Here, then, is in substance the very situation
supposed; yet no phenomena ever have resulted which we are forced to
attribute to such chance concentration of heat, or which anybody, wise or
foolish, has ever dreamed of accounting for in that manner.
Peirce: CP 6.48 Cross-Ref:††
48. In view of all these considerations, I do not believe that
anybody, not in a state of case-hardened ignorance respecting the logic of
science, can maintain that the precise and universal conformity of facts to
law is clearly proved, or even rendered particularly probable, by any
observations hitherto made. In this way, the determined advocate of exact
regularity will soon find himself driven to a priori reasons to support his
thesis. These received such a socdolager from Stuart Mill †1 in his
examination of Hamilton, that holding to them now seems to me to denote a
high degree of imperviousness to reason, so that I shall pass them by with
little notice.
Peirce: CP 6.49 Cross-Ref:††
*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 11:15 AM, Stephen C. Rose <stever...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> How fixed is the scientific argument for this law? Certainly in this
> century there have been some who have chipped away at the idea of entropy
> as a fixed star in an otherwise fallible (subject to revision) scientific
> universe. And I am unaware of where Peirce stood on this matter. Were his
> notions of continuity and logic uneasy in the shadow of the assertion that
> everything falls apart?
>
> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>
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