It doesn't matter that Peirce liked our disliked Bergson's perspective of life, the one commonality they shared was that mind has primacy and matter is derived from mind. He directly described matter as "effete mind". Peirce, whatever his goals were, realized as did Whitehead, there was no getting away from this within his metaphysical description of nature.

Any description of Peirce's metaphysics is woefully incomplete if it does not include that everything, in Peirce's description, is derived from the mind. ... even his own description of nature.

What is interesting it's that both Bergson and Peirce viewed matter as some sort of decayed or constrained mind. In is unitary but manifesting differently. This is the point of opposition of the two.

From The Law of the Mind

"Consistently with the doctrine laid down in the beginning of this paper, I am bound to
maintain that an idea can only be affected by an idea in continuous connection with it. By anything but an idea, it cannot be affected at all. This obliges me to say, as I do say, on other
grounds, that what we call matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind hidebound with
habits. It still retains the element of diversification; and in that diversification there is life."

Mind is preeminent in Peirce's philosophy (as in Bergson's), and any presentation to the contrary does not represent his works fully. Mind has to be there. It's always there, even if it is denying its own existence.

And it is all one to me / Where I am to begin; for I shall return there again. (B 5) — P

This is a most crucial idea. The wholeness of nature and being. However, it I've comes to it by simply reading it, one can never wholely embrace or fully believe it. I've must come to it by actual experience of wholeness, by full observation and practical applications. Via this method one thoroughly understands and proceeds. I am a very practical person who discards that which doesn't present more and embraces that which leads to greater understanding.

Thanks for sharing the passages with me. I believe at one time I had read Parmenides when I was much younger, one of several philosophers who have probably affected the course of my life.

But what the machine actually does is physical, right? Just because a human designs a machine to serve a human purpose, doesn't mean the machine itself is doing something non-physical, does it? We use shovels to move physical dirt, physically, don't we? — Srap Tasmaner

To the extent that anything we perceive is "physical", ultimately a machine is only transferring and transforming. It is fundamentally without "meaning" until the mind gets involved, and the mind begins the process of pattern discernment from which it may or may not find information. Individual minds will find different or no information within the patterns. The thought itself just sits there and is not tangible or measurable in a "physical" sense.

But, is there a universal moral code that can be agreed upon and if there is, is it then wrong to force other people to adopt said moral code? — Matthew Gould

I don't think there is a universal moral code, or any that comes even close. Some larger communities, e.g. religions, do attempt to adopt one, but still communities and individuals pick and choose.

Certain moral stances are forced upon people by governments, usually for the benefit of those in power. To what extent people actually adopt these codes depends. Life can be quite a mess.

My guess is that this poll is being taken to aid in some self-reflection by everyone. I think it is a very good idea.

I have been pondering these questions for a while. Specifically, why is it that moral codes are different depending on where you are? If there really is a universal moral code then why is it that it is different depending on where you are? Also, where does Morality come from? Did it come from religion or did it come from our evolutionary past? I am curious as to what some of you think. — Matthew Gould

Morality is a loosely defined concept that provided some guidance as to how one might act in a community. Every community is different as are its members, and everything is constantly changing which will coax morality to change with it. We all have our own value systems which need to work somehow in the communities we choose to live in. But everything is always changing, though I find personal value systems rather constant within a single lifetime.

My question is what are we doing by continuing this whole community thing in the first place? — schopenhauer1

Everyone is doing things in order to learn the effects of different actions.

If I am duty-bound to help others (something I nominally agree with), then why are we keeping community going in the first place? — schopenhauer1

One can care, and not help, which often leads to healthier outcomes. It is all a process of learning and becoming a better navigator in life. Navigation (making choices) is a skill that takes time to learn. Ethical "rules" are if no assistance, as one learns in life. We do things and then judge effects. This is why ones own understanding of the nature of life has a substantial impact on the way over lives a life. So much meaning is lost if we see ourselves as just following rules, or worse yet, programmed robots.

Thus ethics is a means to an ends. But what ends? — schopenhauer1

Ethics is a discussion point. It one treats it as hard and fast rules, then it becomes more difficult to learn.

Yes, but what of the problem I mentioned? What is it that we need to perpetuate the help-cycle to begin with? In other words, why do we keep the whole society thing going where people are in constant need to be helped? Why is this a good thing to persist and continue into the future for more people? This becomes circular reasoning, and rather absurd. — schopenhauer1

The "help cycle" is complicated. At a community level one can choose to participate depending upon circumstances. At the government level it is automatic with unpredictable results. I chose whether or not to participate based upon my experiences, which are constantly changing. There is no straightforward answer, there are only choices we make in our lives when there are choices to be made.

To deflate this a bit, all you're really saying is that helping others in need is moral. — schopenhauer1

Care is a feeling that may manifest as action or inaction. It all depends.

I don't think there was a value judgment made about the ability to care for women more-so than men. If you want me to make a value judgment for the sake of discussion, then I can say that women profess an attitude of care more than men do on average. Does that make them more ethical beings? Not really, it's just that they are more caring than men are in regards to the welfare of others. — Posty McPostface

Yes, they do profess. It is part of the character role. In actual practice .... I have observed no differences between men and women when it comes to caring. Some people do and others don't.

Caring is not an ethic, it is a feeling. Where does this feeling come from, is tough to say? Some people certainly seem to care more than others. In part, caring can be somewhat learned by trial and error in a lifetime, but then again it may take, many, many, many lifetimes.

I put "too strict" but I would have put "inconsistent" if that were an option. Emptyheady was banned on bogus charges. TGW was banned on far too trivial charges. I've seen way too many innocuous, sarcastic posts deleted, and yet most of the mods do nothing but post bitter sarcasm. I've seen certain posts deleted or censured for apparently being "offensive" and yet many of the mods themselves, depending on one's perspective, post highly offensive dreck. — Thorongil

This I agree with. The Mods most certainly have biases and act based upon them. It's inevitable.

Only to the extent that we are trying to figure out how to live as a community. It is part of the process of discovery.

Thanks for the link. I'll be researching it some.

As for editing posts, the button is invisible (don't ask me why, it is part of technology fads), and appears when you hover over there region next to the posting time at the bottom of the post.

If you highlight text, a quote button will appear somewhere above the text in the post. All like this is highly counterintuitive, but some programmer designers like to be cute even if makes life difficult for users I guess.

Hope you enjoy the forum.

BUT If there is no human nature, then in what are our moral theories grounded? — bloodninja

If there is a common denominator it appears to create, explore, and learn, and developing a consensus of values to direct this purpose as a group is the what can be called a community morality. However, it does change all of the time depending upon the community and the individuals in the community. So it is very changeable.

Thanks. I always enjoy learning about the origins of ancient myths. In many ways they saw more clearly as the territory was not as littered. I knew a bit about the pre-Genesis story, but enjoyed learning more.

Religion seeks some kind of absolute authority for its moral and aesthetic codes. — apokrisis

Which is worshipping science is all about. Those who live in the bubble of science have no idea how little science offers. Practically nothing other than some technology and a constant stream of new stories about stuff it knows nothing about. Too much is made of gadgets and weapons. At the end they are pretty meaningless.

But how does one break out if the Bubble if "science" is all that is permitted? It is like the Dark Ages when religion when religion ruled (it once again rules in a different form). The only way to know something more, something that brings real meaning to life, is to search outside of science, in arts, sports, literature, ancient cultural traditions, and from this learn about life. Lots of benefits will come.

Initial assumptions are supposed to be ''obvious'' truths that need no arguments to prove — TheMadFool

The only problem is that people have been taught there are such things as truths and logic, in some magical way, gets you there. Philosophy can be process of gaining skills in how to navigate through life. It can also be a simple parlor game of arguing facts and truths that one can play throughout one's life. How one chooses to approach philosophy determines what one gets from it. My guess is the OP is about the parlor game approach.

Kind of sounds like a postmodern stance- everything is just narrative. Here was something I found on Stanford Encyclopedia under postmodernism that sounds similar to what you are getting at: — schopenhauer1

What we have going on here, is narrative replacing actual experience, observation, and intuition (the detective work).

It is so much easier to read about something and then write about it than it is to experience it and explore it. So we write obscure, obtuse, opaque, overwrought narratives filled with palatable words which say and mean nothing, instead of actually spending the necessary effort to actually learn. It is a mouse on a treadmill going no where.

So we have, instead of insight, we have stories. Stories about how neuro-science knows this (e.g. the origin of qualia) and they know that (e.g., the origin of thought). And the same people who believe in these stories believe in God because They Want To. They want to believe that science and God know what they are doing and are watching out for them. They want to feel safe in this unknown, probabilistic universe in which nothing is determined and everything is constantly changing (psychologically there is no difference between Determinism/Materialism and God).

My approach is different. To accept Mind as real and fundamental because it simply IS. It is what we all share. To accept uncertainty because that is all there IS. And from this point on departure, actually learn skills about life that increase my ability to navigate through life without relying on either the myth of a omniscient and benevolent God or Science. Tales are not useful when navigating through life, but skills are.

I actually agree with much of what you stated. I am not comfortable in the home of panpsychism/panexperientialism. I think one of your best critiques in your previous post was when you stated: — schopenhauer1

I think I understand what you are getting at. Cosmic Goals and Thermodynamic Purpose are much more palatable words.

Philosophers can be quite interesting when they gather together to invent new stories and phrases. The exact difference between these concocted phrases and God is zero. You can throw panpsychism in there as well. Ultimately the Cosmic Cause has to be there somewhere. I just prefer to call it Mind since that is the only thing we all experience. I guess I like to keep it simple.

What is mind-boggling is that people actually take this Thermodynamics Purpose seriously. Humans just love their myths. This never changes, pre-historic or modern, always weaving myths.

So information cannot be a purely abstract entity - it has a physical footprint that makes an observable difference. — Andrew M

Everything is real but information is a construct of the mind to convey and share with another mind. There is nothing informative about quantum with the interest of an interested mind.

I think you're tilting at windmills. Your "getting to the point" is just a repetition of dogma, a mantra. You love Bergson. Cool. I like Bergson, too. If that's the last word for you and everything else is a conspiracy to cover up his final revelation of the Truth, then I'm OK with that. Proceed. Believe. Preach on. — t0m

The difference is that Bergson was direct. He didn't need to invent stuff out of thin air.

A philosophy that depends upon Vagueness as its center is actually more than that, it is deliberately obtuse and full of nothing. Worthless in all respects.

So in answer to the OP, we have pages upon pages of not only Vague but impenetrable Nonsense. For Materialists this is not only sufficient, it is all that is available. "It just happens", over and over and over again. Thank you for the well constructed (concocted) argument.

I prefer to make a case for my ideas. — t0m

A Vagueness Imperative, is not making a case. It is a manufactured phrase designed to replace the word God so as not to upset the sensibilities of "scientific materialists." Pure obfuscation embedded in long paragraphs in the hope that the sleight of hand is not noticed. In short (I do prefer getting to the point), nonsensical babble masquerading as intellectualism.

Answer if you dare what God means to you. — t0m

I have no idea what God means.

However, I do know my Mind and that is the creative force that is shaping and evolving as the universe.

You write a vagueness as origin. Would this not be a brute fact? — t0m

I don't understand why the long paragraphs. It's quite simple:

1) First there is the Vagueness (the Dao)

2) Then the Dao/Consciousness (Thermodynamics Imperative) begins to differentiate into a multitude.

It is straight out if the Dao De Jing or Whitehead's God. At least Whitehead was intellectually honest about it while Peirce neatly hides it away as The Vagueness. It is the Dao. There is always a sleight of hand in materialistic descriptions of Genesis.

Is it appealing because the word Thermodynamics is bring used? Well it isn't. The phrase Thermodynamic Imperative is being used to replace God.

It is a good video, but makes the classic mistake in calling
It a deterministic theory, which it isn't. It is causal, but the initial conditions (the quantum potential) remains probabilistic. This is where Bohm claims there is room for conscious choice, i.e. a causal, probabilistic, initial condition.

There is nothing material about the non-local, real wave as is the case with any field. All, including gravity, share the non-local, action, at a distance.

Continue with your little yarn about Thermodynamics Imperatives. Didn't mean to interrupt your storytelling hour. Definitely much more scientific than God or the Dao.

Bless you my child. Take a pew and I'll tell you a story. — apokrisis

That's all you've been doing. Spinning a yarn about Thermodynamic Imperative, your God. No different than Whitehead's God. But you like pretending it is "scientific". It's a palor game you like playing.

consciousness causes wave-function collapse' — Wayfarer

De Broglie-Bohmian QM does away with wave collapses, since the quantum-potential is real as is the wave perturbation which is observed as the electron. Bohmian QM was the inspiration for Bell's Theorem and non-locality while also eloquently explaining the double-slit and delayed choice experiments. It v had a lot more going for it then either the Copenhagen it fantastical Many-Worlds Interpretation. De Brolie's interpretation was initially rejected because Von Neumann declared it was impossible. Bohm proved him and others wrong. Consciousness in the Bohm Interpretation is embedded in the quantum potential.

So the key difference is that I am arguing that all meaningfulness is ultimately grounded in the materiality of the thermodynamic imperative. — apokrisis

God.

The least valuable being describing something one knows nothing about. Ever try learning golf by reading about it?

That's not how I see it. To me, the Tao Te Ching is a joke. — T Clark

Oh course. You know nothing about it other than what you read. And you have no idea what you are reading. Daoism and all of philosophy for that matter is experiential. Arm chair philosophy is pretty useless. Without practical experience it is all storytelling.

It's OK. Most people rather watch sports than play it.

Story telling is also very Taoist. It's how we bring the world, the 10,000 things, into existence. — T Clark

Not at all. It is a precise description of universal change that had lots of practical implications. The problem it's that in Western culture, because it is not practiced, because it is not understood, because it is characterized as poetry (I don't know how many times I had to sit through lectures given by academics who had no idea what Daoism was describing), it is treated as a story. People rather sit and read or watch as opposed to doing, experiencing, and understanding.

To understand the nature of nature and the nature of life one must experience and observe and with such knowledge one gains enormous practical skills about life. One doesn't learn how to navigate a sail boat by watching and reading about it though I know those who claim that it is all that is needed. Bookworm philosophy yields nothing but stories. Experiencing philosophy yields knowledge and skill. I don't watch sports, I play then and learn time in the process.

It's plausible that the worldy institutions of science are imperfect. It's also plausible that money is involved in this imperfection. But hating on science itself because individual humans or institutions are imperfect doesn't really make sense to me. — t0m

It's not a minor or side issue. It, along with the collapse of the integrity of our financial institutions, are major social and political issues as money has taken precedence over the welfare of people. Is it a coincidence that the U.S. spends almost 40% more per capita than other countries for medicine (almost 20% of our GDP) yet produces the worse outcomes? And what have we with the new prescription opioid epidemic that is killing tens of thousands of people each year while pharmaceuticals go unpunished due to their control of academic and government institutions. This is not a benign issue.

To speak of "illusions" is to become metaphysical. — t0m

Yes. And scientists slyly hide under the umbrella of science as they broach into the metaphysics and ontology of life. In order for science to justify the billions spent on controlling the mind/body they must first reduce humans to a sack of chemicals. .

Then God is a brute fact interpreting itself. — t0m

This would be more or less Whitehead's viewpoint, only because he acknowledged the creative impulse that was undeniable. Ultimately, it must be incorporated in any metaphysics though sometimes neatly hidden away in some manufactured concept and/or phrase. The alternative is "Everything just happened" (the initial miracle) and then keeps happening (the ongoing, never-ending infinite miracles).

Keep up the good fight - of denial.

I would say that telling stories is a lifetime endeavor as much as developing the skills of observation. — T Clark

There is a difference between developing an idea from pure imagination as troubadours do and understanding patterns in nature. It is the difference between writing about skilled sailors and being one. Writers have far more latitude in the tales they can spin. Sailors' have their lives in the game.

Philosophers tell stories as much as scientists do. Humans are story telling creatures. Everything we say is a story about what can't be spoken. — T Clark

Apparently this is what is happening. I am suggesting there is a difference between philosophy and fiction writing, not that humans don't get carried away with their imagination in all endeavors.

Developing the skill of observation (with all facilities) is a lifetime endeavor. Writing imaginative stories begins in grade school. It is a matter of desiring to understand, developing the skills, and having patience. The act of meditating for 5 minutes is all that is necessary to begin the development of a keen awareness of life and nature.

Does humanity as a group have an essence that has been or will be discovered? Or must each individual human decide for herself what her essence is? — anonymous66

Both. Sheldrake refers to it as morphic resonance. Whitehead describes his own version of categories.

The underlying phenomenon is persistence of memory which can be considered embedded in the fabric of the universe.

You see little bits of 'quantum weirdness' like entanglement and vague references to FTL signalling, wave/particle duality, the probabilistic nature of the computations, and Schrödinger's cat suggesting that quantum weirdness occurs on all length scales. — fdrake

Because it does:

https://phys.org/news/2017-08-china-world-quantum-network.html

http://newatlas.com/quantum-entanglement-nuclei-university-chicago-argonne/40884/

Materialism and Determinism die hard.

Philosophers should observe and understand not be caught up in story telling. That is what makes Daoism so interesting and practical. It is about the experience of life not the imagination of the mind.

That some scientists can make a living spinning stories had no practical value to me. Understanding how the body naturally heals does.