Re: [peirce-l] Deacon's incompleteness and Peirce's infinity
Cathy, yes, Deacon’s “absence” is the absence of existing things, concrete
physical objects or actual events. (This was not clear to me from his first
chapter but does become clear later in the book.) He wouldn’t use the term
“Being” in the way that Peirce does, but he is arguing against the tendency in
biological psychology to reduce all causality to efficient causes, which are
necessarily present as actualities. So he affirms the reality of formal and
final causes, neither of which is present in that sense (the presence of
Secondness, i think Peirce would call it.) Deacon’s universe is not very
Platonic, it’s more Aristotelian.
Jon, yes, “incompleteness” has been on the mathematical agenda since Gödel’s
famous paper, but Deacon’s argument is essentially non-mathematical; he
mentions Gödel only once and briefly, and doesn’t mention people like Rosen at
all. I think Rosen’s idea that a living organism (anticipatory system) is one
that has no largest model is very similar to what Deacon is driving at. But
Deacon would have no use for that approach because he deliberately restricts
himself to physics (whereas Rosen thought that physics was not generic enough
to encompass life). He doesn’t have much use for mathematical complexity theory
either.
I don’t think the main thrust of Deacon’s argument is all that original – it’s
not really different from what Peirce argued, for one thing – what’s original
(in my view anyway) is Deacon’s concepts of orthograde and contragrade change,
and teleodynamics, which allow him to build his argument for the reality of
final causality in purely physical terms (and without appealing to ‘quantum
weirdness’).
Gary F.
} We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that
abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves. [Norbert Wiener] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic
studies: Peirce
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf
Of Catherine Legg
Sent: March-13-12 10:41 PM
Very rich post, Gary (F), thank you! I've recently been alerted to the
importance of Deacon by Gary (R) and he is now 'on my list'.
On the interesting issue of Deacon's 'Absence' which you raise in the last
paragraph, I wonder whether the Absent is absent from Being or just the actual
world. If the latter, perhaps it is not entirely inaccessible to a Peircean
phaneroscopy fearlessly navigating the Platonic Universe.
Cheers, Cathy
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Re: [peirce-l] Deacon's Incompleteness and Peirce's Infinity
Gary, It wouldn't do for me to make anything more than tangential remarks on Deacon's work, as it doesn't appear I'll be able to get around to reading it anytime soon. Most of the words I've heard so far are reminiscent of some hoary old topics in my own studies -- "incompleteness" especially, in logic, math, physics, and the sciences generally, was a constant theme throughout my undergraduate decade, and though I did not exhaust the subject I fear I exhausted my fascination with it. But I may need to emphasize that I always use the words "object" and "objective" with 1 or 2 eyes to the pragmatic senses that refer to "pragmata", and these senses remain ever open to the future. As far as dispositions, final causes, intentions, teleology, and all that goes, I think those questions are best handled by the ways and means that have become available to us since the dawning of classical cybernetics, mathematical systems theory, and systems engineering. On the theme of "absence", all I have at present is this corollary ... http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Papers/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_:_Part_5#5.2.4._Either.2FOr_:_A_Sense_of_Absence Regards, Jon Gary Fuhrman wrote: Jon, Gary, Ben and List, There's another part of the Minute Logic which may be related to the connection Jon is making between “objective logic” and “categories”. It is definitely related to the argument in Terrence Deacon's Incomplete Nature, which Gary R. suggested some time ago as worthy of study here. We haven't found a way to study it systematically, but maybe it's just as well to do it one post at a time. Or one thread at a time, if replies ensue. The central part of Deacon's argument presents “a theory of emergent dynamics that shows how dynamical process can become organized around and with respect to possibilities not realized” (Deacon, p. 16). Depending on the context, he also refers to these “possibilities not realized” as “absential” or “ententional”. His argument is explicitly anti-nominalistic and acknowledges the reality of a kind of final causation in the physical universe (“teleodynamics”). It has a strong affinity with Peirce's argument for a mode of being which has its reality in futuro. In other words, he argues for the reality of Thirdness without calling it that – indeed without using Peirce's phaneroscopic categories at all. (Personally i doubt that he is familiar enough with them to use them fluently, but maybe he decided not to use them for some reason.) “Incompleteness” is a crucial concept of what i might call Deaconian realism. In physical terms, it is connected with Prigogine's idea of dissipative structures (including organisms) as far from equilibrium in a universe where the spontaneous tendency is toward equilibrium, as the Second Law of thermodynamics would indicate. Teleodynamic processes take incompleteness to a higher level of complexity, but i don't propose to go into that now. Instead i'll present here a Peircean parallel to Deacon's “incompleteness”. The connection lies in the fact that incompleteness is etymologically – and perhaps mathematically? – equivalent to infinity. First, we have this passage from Peirce's Minute Logic of 1902: [[[ I doubt very much whether the Instinctive mind could ever develop into a Rational mind. I should expect the reverse process sooner. The Rational mind is the Progressive mind, and as such, by its very capacity for growth, seems more infantile than the Instinctive mind. Still, it would seem that Progressive minds must have, in some mysterious way, probably by arrested development, grown from Instinctive minds; and they are certainly enormously higher. The Deity of the Théodicée of Leibniz is as high an Instinctive mind as can well be imagined; but it impresses a scientific reader as distinctly inferior to the human mind. It reminds one of the view of the Greeks that Infinitude is a defect; for although Leibniz imagines that he is making the Divine Mind infinite, by making its knowledge Perfect and Complete, he fails to see that in thus refusing it the powers of thought and the possibility of improvement he is in fact taking away something far higher than knowledge. It is the human mind that is infinite. One of the most remarkable distinctions between the Instinctive mind of animals and the Rational mind of man is that animals rarely make mistakes, while the human mind almost invariably blunders at first, and repeatedly, where it is really exercised in the manner that is distinctive of it. If you look upon this as a defect, you ought to find an Instinctive mind higher than a Rational one, and probably, if you cross-examine yourself, you will find you do. The greatness of the human mind lies in its ability to discover truth notwithstanding its not having Instincts strong enough to exempt it from error. ]] CP 7.380 ] This suggests to me that fallibility – which not even Peirce attributes to Go
Re: [peirce-l] Deacon's incompleteness and Peirce's infinity
Very rich post, Gary (F), thank you! I've recently been alerted to the importance of Deacon by Gary (R) and he is now 'on my list'. On the interesting issue of Deacon's 'Absence' which you raise in the last paragraph, I wonder whether the Absent is absent from Being or just the actual world. If the latter, perhaps it is not entirely inaccessible to a Peircean phaneroscopy fearlessly navigating the Platonic Universe. Cheers, Cathy On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 4:24 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote: > Jon, Gary, Ben and List, > > ** ** > > There's another part of the *Minute Logic* which may be related to the > connection Jon is making between “objective logic” and “categories”. It is > definitely related to the argument in Terrence Deacon's *Incomplete Nature > *, which Gary R. suggested some time ago as worthy of study here. We > haven't found a way to study it systematically, but maybe it's just as well > to do it one post at a time. Or one thread at a time, if replies ensue.*** > * > > ** ** > > The central part of Deacon's argument presents “a theory of emergent > dynamics that shows how dynamical process can become organized around and > with respect to possibilities not realized” (Deacon, p. 16). Depending on > the context, he also refers to these “possibilities not realized” as > “absential” or “ententional”. His argument is explicitly anti-nominalistic > and acknowledges the reality of a kind of final causation in the physical > universe (“teleodynamics”). It has a strong affinity with Peirce's argument > for a mode of being which has its reality *in futuro*. In other words, he > argues for the reality of Thirdness without calling it that – indeed > without using Peirce's phaneroscopic categories at all. (Personally i doubt > that he is familiar enough with them to use them fluently, but maybe he > decided not to use them for some reason.) > > ** ** > > “Incompleteness” is a crucial concept of what i might call Deaconian > realism. In physical terms, it is connected with Prigogine's idea of > *dissipative > structures* (including organisms) as *far from equilibrium* in a universe > where the spontaneous tendency is *toward* equilibrium, as the Second Law > of thermodynamics would indicate. Teleodynamic processes take > incompleteness to a higher level of complexity, but i don't propose to go > into that now. Instead i'll present here a Peircean parallel to Deacon's > “incompleteness”. The connection lies in the fact that *incompleteness*is > etymologically – and perhaps mathematically? – equivalent to > *infinity*. > > ** ** > > First, we have this passage from Peirce's Minute Logic of 1902: > > ** ** > > [[[ I doubt very much whether the Instinctive mind could ever develop into > a Rational mind. I should expect the reverse process sooner. The Rational > mind is the Progressive mind, and as such, by its very capacity for growth, > seems more infantile than the Instinctive mind. Still, it would seem that > Progressive minds must have, in some mysterious way, probably by arrested > development, grown from Instinctive minds; and they are certainly > enormously higher. The Deity of the Théodicée of Leibniz is as high an > Instinctive mind as can well be imagined; but it impresses a scientific > reader as distinctly inferior to the human mind. It reminds one of the view > of the Greeks that Infinitude is a defect; for although Leibniz imagines > that he is making the Divine Mind infinite, by making its knowledge Perfect > and Complete, he fails to see that in thus refusing it the powers of > thought and the possibility of improvement he is in fact taking away > something far higher than knowledge. It is the human mind that is infinite. > One of the most remarkable distinctions between the Instinctive mind of > animals and the Rational mind of man is that animals rarely make mistakes, > while the human mind almost invariably blunders at first, and repeatedly, > where it is really exercised in the manner that is distinctive of it. If > you look upon this as a defect, you ought to find an Instinctive mind > higher than a Rational one, and probably, if you cross-examine yourself, > you will find you do. The greatness of the human mind lies in its ability > to discover truth notwithstanding its not having Instincts strong enough to > exempt it from error. ]] CP 7.380 ] > > ** ** > > This suggests to me that fallibility – which not even Peirce attributes to > God – is a highly developed species of incompleteness. The connection with > infinity, and with Thirdness, is further brought out in Peirce's Harvard > Lecture of 1903 “On Phenomenology”: > > ** ** > > [[[ The third category of which I come now to speak is precisely that > whose reality is denied by nominalism. For although nominalism is not > credited with any extraordinarily lofty appreciation of the powers of the > human soul, yet it attributes to it a power of originating a kind of ideas > the like of which Omnipotence has failed to
