A polarity has external relation influence. A paradox does not. — Mapping the Medium

A paradox is also a relationship to external factors : truth and falsity. It asserts that a statement is True, when it is conventionally known to be False. True/False is a polarity. So, is Pierce saying that there's no such polarity as True/False? That all propositions are Maybes? I can see that in Enfernity (eternity/infinity) there is no such polarity as True/False, because everything exists only in Potential. But in the Actual world, we usually assume that all statements can be compared to some verifiable Fact, or axiomatic Truth. :smile:

This is a proposition to which the principle of the excluded middle, namely that every symbol must be false or true, does not apply. — Mapping the Medium

That sounds like my own BothAnd Principle, which assumes that all Paradoxes are ultimately resolved in Enfernity -- the ideal realm of G*D (imagined as the Whole, of which our world is a Part). But in the real space-time world, for ordinary humans, paradoxes must be resolved by Logic and Data. And we don't usually spend much time contemplating such circular thought-problems as Russell's Paradox, the Liar's Paradox, or Zeno's paradoxes. So, what's the point here? What is the real-world application of "Polarity", as opposed to "Paradox"? :chin:


Both/And Principle :
* My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
* The Enformationism worldview entails the principles of Complementarity, Reciprocity & Holism, which are necessary to ofset the negative effects of Fragmentation, Isolation & Reductionism. Analysis into parts is necessary for knowledge of the mechanics of the world, but synthesis of those parts into a whole system is required for the wisdom to integrate the self into the larger system. In a philosophical sense, all opposites in this world (e.g. space/time, good/evil) are ultimately reconciled in Enfernity (eternity & infinity).
* Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ─ what’s true for you ─ depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does. Opposing views are not right or wrong, but more or less accurate for a particular purpose.
* This principle is also similar to the concept of Superposition in sub-atomic physics. In this ambiguous state a particle has no fixed identity until “observed” by an outside system. For example, in a Quantum Computer, a Qubit has a value of all possible fractions between 1 & 0. Therefore, you could say that it is both 1 and 0.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

you will see that Peirce also points out that there is a difference between what is explicitly asserted versus what is tacitly asserted. — Mapping the Medium

Yes. That's always a problem in human communication. But usually, we can only infer the "tacit" meaning. Does Peirce's "Polarity" allow us to read minds? :brow:

The part of his statement that you are leaving out is "So in the action and reaction of bodies, each body is affected by the other body's motion". — Mapping the Medium

So, how is that obvious fact, a "mode of existence"? Actor and Reactor are factors in causation. Are those factors the modal difference? Perhaps Positive and Negative modes of existence? How does that distinction affect our understanding of True Reality versus Apparent Reality? :confused:

'what is real' and 'what physicallyexists. — Mapping the Medium

Materialists usually assume that "what is real" is "that which physically exists". So, how does Peirce distinguish those "modes of existence"? :cool:

Consciousness is essentially energy and electrical impulses in the brain. of which is still not understood.

"we must acknowledge the role of energy in the brain. Energetic activity is fundamental to all physical processes and causally drives biological behavior. Recent neuroscientific evidence can be interpreted in a way that suggests consciousness is a product of the organization of energetic activity in the brain. The nature of energy itself, though, remains largely mysterious, and we do not fully understand how it contributes to brain function or consciousness."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6225786/

It is not hard regarding what we actually know to dismiss that consciousness is beyond the individual mind. see group consciousness for example and the studies there. The universe is full of energy and no one can prove that there is not a mass consciousness outside of Earth. i maybe leaning slight of topic now but I could not ignore this point you make.

It is like in death, energy can not be destroyed and it is common knowledge the human brain is full of energy it is highly likely to be converted elsewhere. Such as the atomists theory on the body being dispersed atom by atom to create something else.

"we must acknowledge the role of energy in the brain. Energetic activity is fundamental to all physical processes and causally drives biological behavior. Recent neuroscientific evidence can be interpreted in a way that suggests consciousness is a product of the organization of energetic activity in the brain. The nature of energy itself, though, remains largely mysterious, and we do not fully understand how it contributes to brain function or consciousness." — Fuckiminthematrix

Great article! Thank you for sharing it. And what the paragraph above states makes perfect sense. "Energetic activity is fundamental to all physical processes and causally drives biological behavior." ... I think this follows well with the topic of this thread. What we need to stay focused on in this discussion is the continuity of formal causality, and the fact that just because we can't hit our head on it, punch it, or otherwise manipulate it with a tool of which the idea came to us from formal cause within our consciousness, doesn't mean that it's not real.

My favorite part of your article is this .....
"There are, however, signs that attention is turning again to energetic or thermodynamic-related theories of consciousness in various branches of science and in philosophy of mind.

The present paper builds on this work by proposing that energy, and the related properties of force and work, can be described as actualized differences of motion and tension, and that – in Nagel’s phrase – ‘there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo’ actualized differences. Recent neuroscientific evidence suggests that consciousness is a product of the way energetic activity is organized in the brain. Following this evidence, I propose that we experience consciousness because there is something it is like, intrinsically, to undergo a certain organization of actualized differences in the brain."

BINGO! This pointing to thermodynamics is precisely why Ilya Prigogine is in my list of favorite thinkers. Ilya Prigogine discovered that importation and dissipation of energy into chemical systems could result in the emergence of new structures due to internal self reorganization.

And as Gregory Bateson said....
"What we mean by information - the elementary unit of information - is a difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continuously transformed are themselves provided with energy."
http://faculty.washington.edu/jernel/521/Form.htm

It's all the same thing! CONTINUITY

consciousness is a product of the organization of energetic activity in the brain — Fuckiminthematrix

In my Enformationism thesis, the common denominator between Energy & Consciousness is Information. As noted in the quote from Bergson, "the elementary unit of information is a difference". In mathematics, a difference is indicated by a colon (X : Y) or a division slash (X / Y). And the difference is interpreted in the human mind as Meaning or Proportion.

In Thermodynamics, Energy is a ratio between Inputs & Outputs (100% In / 75% Out ; Difference = 25%). It's the proportional relationship between Hot & Cold. Human senses perceive the difference, and conceive it as meaning. Einstein revealed that invisible & intangible Energy can transform into Matter. (E = mc2). But now it seems that Energy can organize the brain to produce the meaningful process we call "Thinking" or "Mind". And thought processes yield what we call "Consciousness" or "Awareness" (what it's like to think, perceive, and conceive). Energy, Matter & Mind are all emergent properties of Natural Evolution. Emergence is a Phase Transition like water to ice.

One sense of the verb "To Enform" is to organize in a meaningful pattern. So, I view information as both Physical Energy (Causation) and Metaphysical Mind (Knowledge). But, I also distinguish (differentiate) between General Information (power to enform; to evolve), and its most organized (highly evolved) form in the world : Consciousness. Like Energy, Information is everywhere, but Consciousness emerges only at the highest levels of evolution. Hence, no need to assume that energy-exchanging atoms are conscious of "what it's like" to be a fundamental particle of matter. :smile:


Difference : inconsistency, variation, diversity, imbalance, inequality, divergence, contrast, contrariety.
Note -- these synonyms a various ways of looking at relationships between things. In mathematics, it's a Ratio (Rational ; Reason). In Minds, it's a Meaning -- relationship to me.

The Meaning of Diffference : perception is more basic than conception, given that perceptual states are a significant source of information about the world, and conceptions ultimately depend on the information provided by experience in order to get off the ground, but not vice versa.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-013-9170-z

Is Information Fundamental? : What if the fundamental “stuff” of the universe isn't matter or energy, but information?

Hence, no need to assume that energy-exchanging atoms are conscious of "what it's like" to be a fundamental particle of matter. :smile: — Gnomon

Agreed.

The words I used in the title of the original post were chosen for a reason.

An energy exchange does not necessarily account for awareness, and there is often a residual left behind after an exchange of energy (fossil record of the interaction).

But what about an 'exchange of awareness'? Can that be measured as one would measure energy? It certainly seems to import, as in love.

import
transitive verb
1: to bring from an external source

What about dissipate?

dissipate
verb
PHYSICS
cause to be lost, typically by converting.

definite
adjective
having exact and discernible physical limits or form
Definitely is first recorded in English around the early 1580s. It is a combination of the adjective definite and the suffix –ly, which makes adverbs out of adjectives.

beyond
preposition
happening or continuing after

individual
adjective
single; separate

mind
67 examples of definitions
https://www.yourdictionary.com/mind


And of course, this one...

"Consciousness, at its simplest, is "sentience or awareness of internal or external existence".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

It kind of gives one a sinking feeling in the gut to think about and realize all of the time that's been wasted over centuries because of semantics. It's one of the reasons, along with the others I mentioned previously, that I really dislike thinking about semantics. :shade:

I'd much rather think about 'information delivery vessels' (semiotics). :grin:

The nature of energy itself, though, remains largely mysterious, and we do not fully understand how it contributes to brain function or consciousness." — Fuckiminthematrix

Energy is correlated with frequency and thus wavelength. Energy is also correlated with mass. In an atom, mass is correlated with shape. In visible electromagnetic radiation, wavelength/frequency synthesis or "superposition" is correlated with color. So maybe the structure of mass alongside its energies in matter are associable with hybrid wavelength phenomena, which would also explain the capacity to generate qualia, in this definition a sort of qualitativity intrinsic to matter, out of which first person experience in organic lifeforms is constructed. Adding superposed wavelength theory to atomic theory might allow a table of the perceptual elements.

Materialists usually assume that "what is real" is "that which physically exists". So, how does Peirce distinguish those "modes of existence"? :cool: — Gnomon

There is much more explanation at the bottom of this post. ..... But after mulling this over a bit, I was thinking that perhaps it would be helpful to consider this discussion parallel with Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. The language of mathematics is a bit more challenging for me than the language of semiotics, but examining these topics along with the perspectives of Kurt Gödel or Eric Temple Bell may be a way for us to more easily dialogue about them. I'm all about finding ways for people of different perspectives to engage in dialogue. That's sort of my 'thing'. :cool:

"The liar paradox is the sentence "This sentence is false." An analysis of the liar sentence shows that it cannot be true (for then, as it asserts, it is false), nor can it be false (for then, it is true). A Gödel sentence G for a system F makes a similar assertion to the liar sentence, but with truth replaced by provability: G says "G is not provable in the system F." The analysis of the truth and provability of G is a formalized version of the analysis of the truth of the liar sentence.

It is not possible to replace "not provable" with "false" in a Gödel sentence because the predicate "Q is the Gödel number of a false formula" cannot be represented as a formula of arithmetic. This result, known as Tarski's undefinability theorem, was discovered independently both by Gödel, when he was working on the proof of the incompleteness theorem, and by the theorem's namesake, Alfred Tarski."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems

I can see that in Enfernity (eternity/infinity) there is no such polarity as True/False, because everything exists only in Potential. — Gnomon

Yes. That is Peirce's Firstness (Potential)

But in the Actual world, we usually assume that all statements can be compared to some verifiable Fact, or axiomatic Truth. :smile: — Gnomon

This relates to Peirce's Secondness (Actuality)
Your comment also points to Peirce's Pragmaticism,
differing from standard Pragmatism because it includes the addition of chance (Tychism).

What is the real-world application of "Polarity", as opposed to "Paradox"? :chin: — Gnomon

Peirce's Thirdness (Law, which also includes habit, as in what I explained previously)

Polarity (or Unity of Opposites) pulls, pushes, influences change (this points to the chance I referred to above), etc..
From a human reasoning perspective, it is the momentum that helps us differentiate. We perceive differences in the polarities (opposites). We reach conclusions habitually in inductive reasoning, as we go about our lives on autopilot. It is also the momentum that creates the 'tendency' to take habits, and because of that, it propels evolution forward by taking on that growth direction.

Thirdness works in tandem with Firstness and Secondness.

Does Peirce's "Polarity" allow us to read minds? — Gnomon

No. Of course not. .... But, understanding these irreducible modes of being can certainly help us understand our own mind, how the minds of others may reach seemingly polar opposite conclusions, and how the 'biological dialogue' works that is always taking place within the Medium as we individually and together go about the very natural mapping of our way.

that I really dislike thinking about semantics. :shade:

I'd much rather think about 'information delivery vessels' (semiotics). :grin: — Mapping the Medium

Ha! I guess you really dislike philosophy forums, which are mostly wrangling about Semantics. Maybe you can teach us to think in terms of Semiology (sign, object, interpretant). Apparently, Semantic meanings differ depending on the "interpretant". Which is why the threads on this forum often go-off in different directions. I haven't read-up on Semiology, partly because most of what I've seen appears more academic than realistic. But, in the Enformationism thesis, words, signs & symbols are not the only "information delivery vessels". :smile:

The relation between semantics and semiotics might seem straightforward: semantics is the study of the meaning and reference of linguistic expressions, while semiotics is the general study of signs of all kinds and in all their aspects. Semiotics comprises semantics as a part.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=semiology+and+semantics

Maybe you can teach us to think in terms of Semiology — Gnomon

No. I can't teach anyone to think in terms of Semiology. As I mentioned previously, Semiology is the semiotics of Ferdinand de Saussure, not C.S.Peirce.

I haven't read-up on Semiology, partly because most of what I've seen appears more academic than realistic. — Gnomon

You are correct Saussurean semiotics IS NOT realistic!

I seem to have to keep repeating myself.

I have a very full day, and this is clearly not a productive use of it. If no one here reads, well... so be it.

Great new article! :grin: Just out this month!!!

Temporal Synechism: A Peircean Philosophy of Time
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10516-020-09523-6

And I LOVE how this part of Peirce's manuscript mentions Heraclitus!

"20.
Peirce explains:

"Indeed, so far is the concept of Sequence from being a composite of two Negations, that, on the contrary, the concept of the Negation of any state of things, X, is, precisely, a composite of which one element is the concept of Sequence. Namely, it is the concept of a sequence from X of the essence of falsity. (R 300:52[51], 1908)"

This is why, in his system of existential graphs (EGs), he derives a cut for negation from a scroll for implication with its inner close containing the pseudograph (“the essence of falsity”) and reduced to infinitesimal size (CP 4.454–456, 1903; CP 4.454n, c. 1906). Further explaining EGs is beyond the scope of this essay, but I recommend Pietarinen (2015) for a concise introduction. Peirce’s text continues:

"The question will here pop up, Why does not this show that the concept of Sequence is a composite of three concepts; that of some antecedent state, that of some consequent state, and between them, that of a state of Heraclitan Flux? It will suggest itself that if a state of motion is sequent upon a state of rest, then before the instant of starting, there is a state of rest; after that instant, there is a state of motion; but at the very start, there is neither rest without motion, nor motion without rest, but equally or indifferently neither rest nor motion, or else, and likewise, both rest and motion. Your question answers itself, since it proposes an analysis that cannot be stated nor distinctly thought, without absurdity. For, to pass over as unspeakable your “or else, and also,” your supposition assumes that there is what we conceive of as Time … (R 300:52–53[51–52], 1908)"

The concept of different prolonged states with a gradual state between them presupposes the concept of time, which already involves the concept of sequence.

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem — Mapping the Medium

What does that "incompleteness" (shortcoming, fallibility) have to do with "modes of existence". The fact that humans are not omniscient, does not deter us from shorthand thinking in terms of True vs False. Is Non-omniscience (human) a different mode from Omniscience (G*D)?

Yes. That is Peirce's Firstness (Potential) — Mapping the Medium

Why doesn't he just call it "Potential", as Aristotle did? I guess Potency must always come before Actuality.

This relates to Peirce's Secondness (Actuality) — Mapping the Medium

Ah! Now I'm beginning to see the sequence.

Your comment also points to Peirce's Pragmaticism,
differing from standard Pragmatism because it includes the addition of chance (Tychism). — Mapping the Medium

How does Chance affect the practical application of theories? We usually assume that to put a theory into practice, either it will work or it won't. But of course, the test may also be inconclusive (incomplete). But why dwell on the Maybes, instead of the Yes or No results? Is there something to be learned from our misses?

Peirce's Thirdness (Law, which also includes habit — Mapping the Medium

I assume that, by "habits", he doesn't mean pre-conceived notions? Perhaps, he means "Patterns", which might fit into the Potential - Actual - Pattern sequence? Some refer to Natural Laws as merely "habits" or "regularities or "tendencies" or "inertia", rather than absolute binding unbreakable Rules handed-down by God. Is Peirce implying that Nature accidentally falls into certain un-planned grooves? Is that the same as Random Chance? Perhaps that's a Non-law, or Law-breaker. In my thesis, I see an important role for Randomness, to allow for some freedom from Determinism, from Destiny. There are meaningful Patterns, even in Random Chaos.

Chaos theory helps us to understand patterns in nature. . ... Chaos theory states that, under certain conditions, ordered, regular patterns can be seen to arise out of seemingly random, erratic and turbulent processes.
http://www.patternsinnature.org/Book/Chaos.html

We perceive differences in the polarities (opposites). We reach conclusions habitually in inductive reasoning, as we go about our lives on autopilot. It is also the momentum that creates the 'tendency' to take habits, and because of that, it propels evolution forward by taking on that growth direction. — Mapping the Medium

To me, that sounds like Hegel's Dialectic, which synthesizes opposing forces. Two prior vectors are merged into a third vector, which becomes the new "growth direction".

understanding these irreducible modes of being — Mapping the Medium

Are you referring to Pierce's three laws as "modes of being". Please elaborate. :smile:

Please elaborate. — Gnomon

For anyone here who may be serious about learning, and they are suspicious that I am only here to promote my educational site, you can find a lot of information here that is separate from my work. Very brilliant people discussing this in detail....

https://youtu.be/gbvkNPiYPuI

@Gnomon

You may find this interesting, as Yagmur Denizhan discusses the difference in information compared to Shannon. This is a live stream, and she just finished her presentation. If you don't access until a later time, you can find her in the line up.

https://youtu.be/vssNEELP2VQ

No. I can't teach anyone to think in terms of Semiology. As I mentioned previously, Semiology is the semiotics of Ferdinand de Saussure, not C.S.Peirce. — Mapping the Medium

Semiology - Semiotics - Semiosis ; Pragmatism - Pragmaticism ; Synechism - Cynicism ; Structuralism - Deconstructionism ; Semantics -Sheemantics! It's all post-Greek to me. :joke:

You are correct Saussurean semiotics IS NOT realistic! — Mapping the Medium

In what sense is Semiotics more realistic than Semiology? How are these extremely abstract analyses of Signs & Symbols, and deconstructions of Texts & Meanings applicable to concrete reality? Since I'm rather lazy, I have skipped over these tedious texts in my reading of philosophy. I need a translation into the vernacular to dumb it down to my level. Teach me! :cool:


Semiology // Semiotics : All believed semiology is the key to unlocking meaning of all things.
https://people.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/semiolog.htm

linguistics-as-a-science : https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9282/linguistics-as-a-science

I came upon this paper that carries a lot of information and references.

Applied Communicology in Organizational
PR and R&D: Peirce on Synechism, Fuller on
Synergetics, Gordon on Synectics, and Alinsky
on Socialism
Richard L. Lanigan
International Communicology Institute, USA
http://lass.suda.edu.cn/_upload/article/files/cd/45/137ed7c24aa3b38b19539d0e4154/818d85db-9a0e-45f3-b9ed-e96d3a4d0c71.pdf

I found this excerpt from page 23 to be relevant to the original post topic, and to my most recent writings.

" that view of consciousness based on Freud and Jung was necessary. This model holds that the
(1) Conscious mind, and (2) the Unconscious mind, are mediated by (3) the Preconscious
mind, wherein cultural habits constitute a “censor” on the preconscious; censors prevent
creativity, synectics methods (based on metaphor) overcome the censors."

I am also very interested in the references to Foucault. I recently had a listener/reader ask me to do an episode on Foucault, and I will, after I get past the next planned writing of 'The Inside Out of Color'.

@Gnomon
This is on page 2 .....

"Research often reveals the fascinating conjunction of activities thought to be
inherently oppositional, yet they often constitute the very apposition of creativity
choice (similarity; both/and) that escapes the paradox of polar opposite dilemmas
(difference; either/or). "

@Gnomon

This brand new video that was just recommended to me delves into semiosis and 'information behavior'.

I was especially happy to hear them mention 'birds', as that was the focus of my last episode.

SOME NOTES ON THE REPRESENTATIONAL ASPECT OF LOW-LEVEL SEMIOSIS
https://youtu.be/8Y_glNZ0D0o

Temporal Synechism: A Peircean Philosophy of Time — Mapping the Medium

Thanks for the citation. I posted some of my thinking that appears in the paper a while back in a thread on "The Reality of Time." Here is a link to a complete online version that anyone can view: https://rdcu.be/b9xVm

Thanks for the citation. — aletheist

You are very welcome. :smile:

Speaking of information...

I'm not at all surprised by this news. This is precisely why David Bohm is also featured on my educational website. ....
"To be more precise, their analysis argues information could be transferred between two points without an exchange of particles." ..... "We found it extremely interesting – the possibility of communication without anything passing between the two people who communicate with each other," Aharonov explained to Anna Demming at Phys.org."
https://www.sciencealert.com/schrodinger-s-cat-gets-a-cheshire-grin-in-a-mind-bending-quantum-physics-analysis

Elementary particles part ways with their properties https://phys.org/news/2020-12-elementary-particles-ways-properties.html

Someone living whose work I highly admire. He brings the wonderful work of Spinoza and Peirce into real application in regard to so many of the challenges we face today. This is very relevant to consciousness, artificial intelligence, economics, politics, and more.

Rocco Gangle PhD

I was perusing a book on Scottus Eriugena, a medieval philosopher-monk. It noted that his Neoplatonic cosmology posits a God 'beyond being' from which all creation emanates 'in a triadic manner'. Light bulb moment - I searched 'Peirce Triad and Trinity' and lo. (The kind of book that will profoundly annoy naturalist exponents of Peirce, I suspect, but still worth mentioning...)

Light bulb moment - I searched 'Peirce Triad and Trinity' and lo. — Wayfarer

Yep. :smile:

Thanks for bringing up the topic. One of the biggest difficulties I run into is that so many people read something someone else has written about Peirce, and that writer may have only read something that someone else has written about Peirce, and so forth. It's kind of like a gossip chain. By the time the story goes 'round, it is completely incorrect.

The most important thing to know about Peirce is that he was a very independent thinker, and that he did exhaustive historical research before reaching conclusions. He even humbly admitted when he did make errors, realizing that he was somewhat blinded in the beginning of his pursuit of truth because of still being somewhat afflicted with the nominalistic thinking that surrounded him.

By the way, I came upon this book today, and I do plan to purchase and read it. I am very intrigued. You might also find it interesting. I admire you for your willingness to dig past the nominalist lines of thought, all the while being sure to employ logic and the willingness to hold up a light to often dismissed history in pursuit of your research. Just as it happens today, gems of thought were tossed aside for the politics of the day, and we are still paying the price.

Here's that book info......

"Kojin Karatani questions the idealization of ancient Athens as the source of philosophy and democracy by placing the origins instead in Ionia, a set of Greek colonies located in present-day Turkey. Contrasting Athenian democracy with Ionian isonomia—a system based on non-rule and a lack of social divisions whereby equality is realized through the freedom to immigrate—Karatani shows how early Greek thinkers from Heraclitus to Pythagoras were inseparably linked to the isonomia of their Ionian origins, not democracy. He finds in isonomia a model for how an egalitarian society not driven by class antagonism might be put into practice, and resituates Socrates's work and that of his intellectual heirs as the last philosophical attempts to practice isonomia's utopic potentials. Karatani subtly interrogates the democratic commitments of Western philosophy from within and argues that the key to transcending their contradictions lies not in Athenian democracy, with its echoes of imperialism, slavery, and exclusion, but in the openness of isonomia."
https://www.dukeupress.edu/isonomia-and-the-origins-of-philosophy

One of the biggest difficulties I run into is that so many people read something someone else has written about Peirce, and that writer may have only read something that someone else has written about Peirce, and so forth. It's kind of like a gossip chain. By the time the story goes 'round, it is completely incorrect. — Mapping the Medium

May well be true, but what I was commenting on was the resemblance between the 'triadic' structure found in Eriugena's neo-platonism, and Peirce's much later 'triadic' schema, and its possible connection to the 'trinity'.

And there's a feasible connection - Dermot Moran, who wrote the book on Eriugena I'm referring to, says there was a definite influence of Eriugena on the German idealists, who in turn were an influence on Peirce - even given Peirce's independence of mind. 'Triadicism' or 'three-ness' is an archetypal theme in various cultures. That doesn't undermine Peirce in the least, but it does provide a wider context in which to interpet that fundamental idea of his.

Just as it happens today, gems of thought were tossed aside for the politics of the day, and we are still paying the price. — Mapping the Medium

That's for sure. Untangling it all is like one of those forensic pathology TV shows where they try and reconstruct the scene of the crime from bone fragments.

Karatani subtly interrogates the democratic commitments of Western philosophy from within and argues that the key to transcending their contradictions lies not in Athenian democracy, with its echoes of imperialism, slavery, and exclusion, but in the openness of isonomia." — Mapping the Medium

Intriguing!

'Triadicism' or 'three-ness' is an archetypal theme in various cultures. That doesn't undermine Peirce in the least, but it does provide a wider context in which to interpet that fundamental idea of his. — Wayfarer

In order to examine this, you would need to look at what the archetypes of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have in common with Peirce's Firstness (potential), Secondness (actuality), and Thirdness (law/including habit). Peirce reached the understanding of these three categories of being because they are 'irreducible'. Perhaps it is true that when humanity tries to understand what is universal from a human perspective, an irreducible triad continues :wink: to be as irreducible as we can get, whether it is examined through a religious perspective, or a logical scientific one.

It is true that Peirce did discuss the trinity with an Episcopal priest he knew, as he wanted to understand the religious perspective on the trinity as part of his overall research in understanding the human perspective, but this was in addition to the work he had already done on his three catagories of being. .... It is extremely important to remember that Peirce was very against the idea of organized religion, and for what I also think are very good reasons.

Peirce's much later 'triadic' schema, and its possible connection to the 'trinity'. — Wayfarer

I also want to mention that Peirce's perspective on God was his understanding of a guiding principle in the Universe, not that of a 'man in the sky' (as in what he said about God being 'real', but not 'existing'). He really felt that if enough people understood synechism, that there was a potential for those who are religious to understand this guiding principle in a more logical light.

I get all that. I understand well Peirce's attitude towards formal or organised religion, but he was also not a materialist nor atheist - belief in a higher intelligence formed part of his intellectual background. He was part of what is called the 'golden age' of American philosophy, other notables being Josiah Royce, Wiliam James, and Borden Parker Bowne, all of whom had an idealist side to their thinking. They all lived and worked before Moore and Russell rang the closing bell on philosophical idealism. But none of them were adherents of 'churchianity' (neither am I for that matter! Although on reflection, I think Parker Bowne was a practicing Christian.)

In any case, one of the essays I frequently quote on this forum, Thomas Nagel's Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, opens with a passage from Peirce, which Nagel says are generally Platonist reflections on the order of nature. And that is very much in keeping with Peirce's outlook. //also note his conception of 'agapē' as a driving force in evolution.//

I'm not so sure of how receptive Peirce would be of Nagel's opinion of him. :wink: ....

also note his conception of 'agapē' as a driving force in evolution.// — Wayfarer

This is an excellent example of what I mentioned previously about the gossip chain. So many people latch onto that word and then jump to the conclusion that Peirce's 'agapasm' is the same as the Christian version of 'agapē'. I myself have read how various writers interpret this so differently!

I think it's also very important to remember that Peirce often used cultural analogies that others could understand in order to try and get his points across. He did occasionally point to religious examples to illustrate them, and I think that haunts his work to this day, but I can't imagine what other option he had at the time. I can relate to that dilemma! Again, semantics! Ugh! :roll:

I personally discovered that it takes exhaustive readings of his work to see that he did this out of necessity, and it's certainly one of the reasons why some scholars have devoted so many years to deciphering his manuscripts.
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/agapasm

From that dictionary page entry on 'agapasm':

Three modes of evolution have thus been brought before us: evolution by fortuitous variation, evolution by mechanical necessity, and evolution by creative love. We may term them tychastic evolution, or tychasm, anancastic evolution, or anancasm, and agapastic evolution, or agapasm. The doctrines which represent these as severally of principal importance we may term tychasticism, anancasticism, and agapasticism. On the other hand the mere propositions that absolute chance, mechanical necessity, and the law of love are severally operative in the cosmos may receive the names of tychism, anancism, and agapism.

All three modes of evolution are composed of the same general elements. Agapasm exhibits them the most clearly. The good result is here brought to pass, first, by the bestowal of spontaneous energy by the parent upon the offspring, and, second, by the disposition of the latter to catch the general idea of those about it and thus to subserve the general purpose. [—] Just so, tychasm and anancasm are degenerate forms of agapasm.

Leaving aside that 'agapasm' is a most ungainly word - sounds something like a hernia or spasm! - I think it's unarguably influenced by, or an expression of, a generally Christian sentiment. It is thoroughly teleological in orientation, envisaging nature as working towards some end, which is completely rejected by current evolutionary theory as being a form of 'orthogenesis'. (And for that matter, looking at the next entry on that page, it ends with 'for it [agapasm] is due to the continuity between the man’s mind and the Most High.')

As for what Nagel says about Peirce, in relation to a passage he quotes from his 'Reasoning and the Logic of Things', ed. Kenneth Laine Ketner (Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 112.

Far from being a pragmatist in the currently accepted sense, [Peirce] seems much more of a Platonist:

Belief is the willingness to risk a great deal upon a proposition. But this belief is no concern of science which has nothing at stake on any temporal venture, but is in pursuit of eternal verities, not semblances to truth, and looks upon this pursuit, not as the work of one man's life, but as that of generation after generation indefinitely.[

Here we may have some indication of the familiar Peircian idea of convergence at the end of inquiry, but if so, it is certainly not presented as a definition of truth, but as a hope that rational inquiry will lead us to truths that depend not on our minds but on nature:

The only end of science, as such, is to learn the lesson that the universe has to teach it. In Induction it simply surrenders itself to the force of facts. But it finds . . . that this is not enough. It is driven in desperation to call upon its inward sympathy with nature, its instinct for aid, just as we find Galileo at the dawn of modern science making his appeal to il lume naturale. . . . The value of Facts to it, lies only in this, that they belong to Nature; and nature is something great, and beautiful, and sacred, and eternal, and real,--the object of its worship and its aspiration.

And one final Platonic morsel:

The soul's deeper parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the eternal forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with will, by slow percolation, gradually reach the very core of one's being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities.

Now I find these declarations not only eloquent but entirely congenial; but they have a radically anti-reductionist and [scholastic] realist tendency quite out of keeping with present fashion. And they are alarmingly Platonist in that they maintain that the project of pure inquiry is sustained by our “inward sympathy” with nature, on which we draw in forming hypotheses that can then be tested against the facts. Something similar must be true of reason itself, which according to Peirce has nothing to do with “how we think.” If we can reason, it is because our thoughts can obey the order of the logical relations among propositions — so here again we depend on a Platonic harmony. — Thomas Nagel, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion

I think at Peirce's point in history, this kind of Platonism was simply assumed, it was part of the intellectual background of any educated person. It wasn't until during the 20th century that this kind of sentiment began to be questioned by today's cultural relativism.

I think you need to disentangle religious ideas from religious traditionalism or dogmatism. No, Peirce was not the least religious or deferential to religious organisations, but again, he's still part of the idealist philosophical tradition and as such, no stranger to a broadly Platonist outlook - as Nagel demonstrates.

no stranger to a broadly Platonist outlook - — Wayfarer

Oh, I'm by no means saying that he was a stranger to a Platonist outlook, but I definitely understand him to be more complex. In the last decade of his life, he stated that he and Spinoza were kindred in their perspectives.

I was recently reading a philosophical response by a philosopher named Jasper Reid that I stumbled upon online when I was doing some research on Spinoza. I think this is fitting for our conversation as well, and I think you'll appreciate some points in it. I have always understood Spinoza, Peirce, and Bohm (referencing the enfolded and unfolding in the statement below), to be 'pan-en-theists' rather than pantheists due to the 'active information' of Bohm, Peirce's tychism, and many aspects of the relativities involved in polarities per Heraclitus, Spinoza, Peirce, and others in my list of thinkers.

"There certainly is a strong Platonic (or, perhaps more accurately, Neoplatonic) flavour to Spinoza's metaphysics. One way of characterising the general philosophical outlooks of Plato and Aristotle would be to say that Plato focussed on an eternal and intelligible reality while Aristotle was more down to Earth, instead concerning himself with temporal and sensible things. Spinoza's substance was, first and foremost, supposed to be eternal and intelligible, and, as such, it would be likely to appeal to a Platonist. When Spinoza said that God was extended, a lot of his contemporaries took him to be saying that God was corporeal: but what he had in mind was really much closer to the uncreated and immutable Platonic Form of extension than to the created and ever-changing extensions that were commonly ascribed to bodies.

In many respects, Spinoza's God is a lot like the Neoplatonic concept of The One, which the Neoplatonists themselves would normally equate with God. And this is not just true of Spinoza's God as considered purely in its own right, but is to some extent also true of it when considered in relation to the sensible world. Although Spinoza perhaps pressed a little bit further in the direction of pantheism than the Neoplatonists themselves did, that theme was present in their writings too. It was standard for Neoplatonists to claim that the world was an emanation from The One and, although this notion of 'emanation' can be variously interpreted, what is pretty clear is that it was not to be understood as the sort of voluntary creative act that more orthodox theology would require. And some Neoplatonically-inclined authors did go some considerable way in undermining the ontological separation between The One and the sensible world. In such Medieval authors as John Scottus Eriugena and Nicholas of Cusa, for instance, one finds the notion that God is the 'enfolding' of all things, while the universe is the 'unfolding' of God. This is a notion with which Spinoza would have been entirely comfortable.

However, one should always treat these 'either/or' claims with a certain caution. To say that Spinoza's philosophy had a Platonic character in some respects in no way entails that he could not also find considerable common ground with Aristotle. For an example, I'd say that Spinoza's theory of the relation between mind and body is extremely Aristotelian. Spinoza believed that, to every mode of extension, there would correspond a mode of thought. The former would be a particular body, the latter the idea of that body. And he claimed that, in the special case where the body in question happened to be a living human body, the corresponding mode of thought would be that person's mind. (See the early propositions of part two of the Ethics). Aristotle, meanwhile, felt that any ordinary object would possess both matter and form. In the special case where the object in question happened to be a natural, organised body, its form would qualify as its soul. (See the first chapter of book two of De anima). The two theories boil down to much the same thing."

As David Bohm said, "Whether or not you want to call it God..." (semantics :roll: ), and again, as Peirce said, the understanding of synechism has the potential to be the 'onement' of science and religion. .... The scientists who want to argue against it will call it too religious, and the theologians who want to argue against it will say it isn't close enough to the divine. There will always be contraries, but that's an integral part of what gives it its identity. :blush: :cool:

Is Consciousness an Ultimate Fact?
Fred Alan Wolf
https://youtu.be/a1A2xdv-X6k