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}Mary- Yes, I did get your post and thanks very much.
I found the selection from 8.318 to be very interesting. His outline
of cosmology [here and see also 6.217] where we find that we start
with zero, with an indeterminate chaos..and then [1.412] 'there is a
flash', which we might view as a flash of frozen energy [aka a unit
of matter] - but as Peirce outlines, these flashes of 'bits of
similitude' appeared, dissolved, reappeared' by chance'. At the same
time - if we can use the notion of time here - habits emerge, which
operate as a 'tendency to generalization .These habits."lighted up
and been quenched. Had reappeared; had strengthened itself. Like had
begun to produce like".[318].
What I think we see here in these several outlines is his analysis
of the emergence of Mind and Matter as co-evolving corelates. That
is, following from his outline in 6.24 of Objective Idealism, Peirce
rejects the independence of these two, Mind and Matter. He rejects
Matter and primordial [materialism] and rejects Mind as primordial
[Idealism] and instead posits "some form of hyolpathy, otherwise
called monism'..or..Objective Idealism, where the two are co-evolving
correlates. Matter cannot last for more than a nanosecond without Mind
- and Mind operates only as a 'tendency to form habits' and as such,
requires Matter to do so.
As we see in his cosmological outlines - Matter emerges 'as a
flash', as an infinite multitude of unrelated feelings'. This means
that they are lacking Mind - for Mind enables not only continuity but
Relations. Pure Feeling is without Relations. And without Mind,
Matter ..dissolved. Instantly. But Mind, as Habits, was working at
the same 'time' - and controlling these 'sparks' or feelings such
that Mind, setting up habits and thus Relations, was strengthening
itself and Matter was able to exist - within continuity and
Relations.
What is interesting is that, if one follows through with Peirce's
cosmological outline we note that both Matter AND Mind are not merely
correlates but that both are continuously evolving. Mind is evolving!
This is, to me, the basis for viewing Peirce as outlining a CAS,
complex adaptive system. If we are studying 'habit-change' then, we
are studying not merely the evolution of Matter but also the
evolution of Mind. After all, if Matter/Mind has a supreme tendency
to 'take habits' - then, it also has a tendency to lose and change
them.
Edwina
On Wed 24/11/21 7:04 PM , Mary Keeler mkeeler(a)uw.edu sent:
[Let's see if this goes to the list?]
Thank you, Edwina, I have similar interests and agree with your
conclusion about the applicability of the Peircean framework.
I met John Holland before he died, and explained my extension of his
CAS to CAR, leading to the idea of the "game of pragmatism" — which
he called "a flight simulator for the mind"!Here are a couple of
papers that might help to explain (see more at the Revelator site,
below)?
Complex Adaptive Reasoning:
Knowledge Emergence in the Revelator Game
http://conceptualgraphs.org/revelator/web/papers/keelerkcap09.pdf
[1]
Games of Inquiry
for Collaborative Concept Structuring
http://conceptualgraphs.org/revelator/web/papers/iccs05.pdf [2]
Revelator: Game of Complex Adaptive
Reasoninghttp://conceptualgraphs.org/revelator/web/research/Papers.php
[3]
If pragmatism is essentially the scientific method, and we need that
method for experimenting with ideas in order to develop Normative
Science as the study of habit-change, then that game might give us a
collaborative way to proceed? It could (and should) incorporate
graphical logic so that players can keep track of the development of
effective arguments.
Here are just a few paragraphs from Peirce in support of this idea
(selected from many more).MaryCP Vol 8 (1891)
Chapter 6: To Christine Ladd-Franklin, On Cosmology†1
316. My work in philosophy has consisted in an accurate analysis of
concepts, showing what is and what is not essential to the subject of
analysis. Particularly, in logic, my motive for studying the algebra
of the subject, has been the desire to find out with accuracy what
are the essential ingredients of reasoning in general and of its
principal kinds. To make a powerful calculus has not been my
care.317. I may mention that my chief avocation in the last ten years
has been to develop my cosmology.†2 This theory is that the
evolution of the world is hyperbolic, that is, proceeds from one
state of things in the infinite past, to a different state of things
in the infinite future. The state of things in the infinite past is
chaos, tohu bohu, the nothingness of which consists in the total
absence of regularity. The state of things in the infinite future is
death, the nothingness of which consists in the complete triumph of
law and absence of all spontaneity.†3 Between these, we have on our
side a state of things in which there is some absolute spontaneity
counter to all law, and some degree of conformity to law, which is
constantly on the increase owing to the growth of habit. The tendency
to form habits or tendency to generalize, is something which grows by
its own action, by the habit of taking habits itself growing. Its
first germs arose from pure chance. There were slight tendencies to
obey rules that had been followed, and these tendencies were rules
which were more and more obeyed by their own action. There were also
slight tendencies to do otherwise than previously, and these
destroyed themselves. To be sure, they would sometimes be
strengthened by the opposite tendency, but the stronger they became
the more they would tend to destroy themselves. As to the part of
time on the further side of eternity which leads back from the
infinite future to the infinite past, it evidently proceeds by
contraries.
318. I believe the law of habit to be purely psychical. But then I
suppose matter is merely mind deadened by the development of habit.
While every physical process can be reversed without violation of the
law of mechanics, the law of habit forbids such reversal. Accordingly,
time may have been evolved by the action of habit. At first sight, it
seems absurd or mysterious to speak of time being evolved, for
evolution presupposes time. But after all, this is no serious
objection, and nothing can be simpler. Time consists in a regularity
in the relations of interacting feelings. The first chaos consisted
in an infinite multitude of unrelated feelings. As there was no
continuity about them, it was, as it were, a powder of feelings. It
was worse than that, for of particles of powder some are nearer
together, others farther apart, while these feelings had no
relations, for relations are general. Now you must not ask me what
happened first. This would be as absurd as to ask what is the
smallest finite number. But springing away from the infinitely
distant past to a very very distant past, we find already evolution
had been going on for an infinitely long time. But this "time" is
only our way of saying that something had been going on. There was no
real time so far as there was no regularity, but there is no more
falsity in using the language of time than in saying that a quantity
is zero. In this chaos of feelings, bits of similitude had appeared,
been swallowed up again. Had reappeared by chance. A slight tendency
to generalization had here and there lighted up and been quenched.
Had reappeared, had strengthened itself. Like had begun to produce
like. Then even pairs of unlike feelings had begun to have similars,
and then these had begun to generalize. And thus relations of
contiguity, that is connections other than similarities, had sprung
up. All this went on in ways I cannot now detail till the feelings
were so bound together that a passable approximation to a real time
was established. It is not to be supposed that the ideally perfect
time has even yet been realized. There are no doubt occasional
lacunae and derailments.†4
Supposing matter to be but mind under the slavery of inveterate
habit, the law of mind still applies to it. According to that law,
consciousness subsides as habit becomes established, and is excited
again at the breaking up of habit. But the highest quality of mind
involves a great readiness to take habits, and a great readiness to
lose them [(CP 6.613) 1893].
Pragmatism is the principle that every theoretical judgment
expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form
of thought whose only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to
enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional
sentence having its apodosis in the imperative mood [CP 5.18, Lecture
1, “Pragmatism: The Normative Sciences” (1903)].
CP Vol. 5
What Pragmatism Is [First of three Monist articles, 1905]
1. Experimentalist’s View of Assertion
. . .
412. … The laboratory life did not prevent the writer (who here
and in what follows simply exemplifies the experimentalist type) from
becoming interested in methods of thinking; and when he came to read
metaphysics, although much of it seemed to him loosely reasoned and
determined by accidental prepossessions, yet in the writings of some
philosophers, especially Kant, Berkeley, and Spinoza, he sometimes
came upon strains of thought that recalled the ways of thinking of
the laboratory, so that he felt he might trust to them; all of which
has been true of other laboratory-men.
Endeavoring, as a man of that type naturally would, to formulate
what he so approved, he framed the theory that a conception, that is,
the rational purport of a word or other expression, lies exclusively
in its conceivable bearing upon the conduct of life; so that, since
obviously nothing that might not result from experiment can have any
direct bearing upon conduct, if one can define accurately all the
conceivable experimental phenomena which the affirmation or denial of
a concept could imply, one will have therein a complete definition of
the concept, and there is absolutely nothing more in it. For this
doctrine he invented the name pragmatism. Some of his friends wished
him to call it practicism or practicalism (perhaps on the ground that
{praktikos} is better Greek than {pragmatikos}. But for one who had
learned philosophy out of Kant, as the writer, along with nineteen
out of every twenty experimentalists who have turned to philosophy,
had done, and who still thought in Kantian terms most readily,
praktisch and pragmatisch were as far apart as the two poles, the
former belonging in a region of thought where no mind of the
experimentalist type can ever make sure of solid ground under his
feet, the latter expressing relation to some definite human purpose.
Now quite the most striking feature of the new theory was its
recognition of an inseparable connection between rational cognition
and rational purpose; and that consideration it was which determined
the preference for the name pragmatism. ---------------------
He explains pragmatism as a method that helps us to know what we
think, the meaning of which is interpreted as our willingness to act
on that thought—in terms of its conceived consequences.
Modern science, with its microscopes and telescopes, with its
chemistry and electricity, and with its entirely new appliances of
life, has put us into quite another world; almost as much so as if it
had transported our race to another planet. Some of the old beliefs
have no application except in extended senses, and in such extended
senses they are sometimes dubitable and subject to just criticism.
It is above all the normative sciences (esthetics, ethics, and logic)
that men are in dire need of having severely criticized, in their
relation to the new world created by science. Unfortunately, this
need is as unconscious as it is great. [CP 5.513 (c.1905)
"Consequences of Critical Common-Sensism"]
“Pragmatism is not a system of philosophy. It is only a method of
thinking ...” (CP 8.206, c. 1905).
On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 9:08 AM Edwina Taborsky wrote:
With the opening of this new site for the open and exploratory
discussion of, among other things, the use of Peirce in the analysis
of the modern world, I'd like to outline, briefly, my interests in
this area.
I consider that the triadic semiosis is both a continuous process in
the generation of matter on this planet - and- can also be understood
as the morphological form of discrete entities. That is, a cell is
both a triadic semiosic unit and an active process of the semiosic
processing of matter...connected and networked to other semiosic
units/processes. I consider this outline well-documented within
Peircean texts.
This view also goes along with my understanding that Peirce's
'objective idealism' is a view that neither Mind nor Matter are
primordial but that both are co-evolving correlates. {See 6.24 and
other texts].
And as such - I am interested in examining the world as a Complex
Adaptive System, which means that both variety and stability are
correlates in this generative, adaptive, 'far-from-equilibrium' world
- with no final state.
These are major areas of my interest, which means that I consider
that the Peircean framework is applicable to the physic-chemical,
biological and societal/conceptual realms.
Edwina Taborsky
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[3] http://conceptualgraphs.org/revelator/web/research/Papers.php
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Since the list is now working, we can discuss issues about the list on the
list. But if there are "sensitive" issues, it may be better to send them
offline.
John
Tom Hanika added all of your names and addresses to the list.
You should get two copies of this note: one from my cc directly to you and one from the email list.
If you only get one copy, that indicates a problem with the list.
For more info, see Tom's note to me (copied below).
John
----------------------------------------
From: "Tom Hanika" <Tom.Hanika(a)cs.uni-kassel.de>
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2021 7:06 AM
To: sowa(a)bestweb.net
Cc: "Edwina Taborsky" <edwina.taborsky(a)gmail.com>, "Robert Marty" <martyrobert(a)orange.fr>, "Mary Keeler" <mkeeler(a)uw.edu>, "Martin Irvine" <Martin.Irvine(a)georgetown.edu>
Subject: Re: New members for the CG list
Dear John,
I added the names+addresses from the CC to the list.
Manually subscribing to the email list is quite easy:
Send an (empty) email to
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The system will then ask automatically for confirmation (usually, just hitting the reply button and send is enough). Only messages are moderated, subscription is not.
I will add a note for the list to the iccs-conference webpage during the next week.
If you, or someone else, has any more questions about the CG email list, do not hesitate to ask me :)
Best regards
Tom On 11/19/21 11:39 PM, John F Sowa wrote:
Dear Tom,
The four people on the cc list above would like to subscribe to <cg(a)lists.iccs-conference.org>.
During the next few weeks, other people will be asking to subscribe. What is the procedure for subscribing? Do you add new subscribers? Or is there some automated procedure for them to subscribe?
John
-- Dr. Tom Hanika Universität Kassel Tel.: +49 (0) 561 804 6350 https://www.kde.cs.uni-kassel.de/hanika ---------------------------------------------------------------------
