• Janus
    16.3k


    Now you're contradicting yourself.
  • bahman
    526
    Now you're contradicting yourself.Janus

    No. Why?
  • Janus
    16.3k
    No. Why?bahman

    How could you get something determinate, B, from something indeterminate, C?bahman

    Yes, an indeterminate state could lead into many determinate things since it is indifferent.bahman
  • bahman
    526
    Double post. Deleted.
  • bahman
    526

    I should have written "No, an indeterminate state could not lead into many determinate things since it is indifferent.". I don't know why I made such a mistake. Sorry for that.
  • Janus
    16.3k
    "No, an indeterminate state could not lead into many determinate things since it is indifferent."bahman

    Do you have an argument for that?
  • bahman
    526
    Is indeterminate state an indifferent state? You understood that the former statement is contradictory therefore its negate should be correct.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    An indeterminable (note that in our exchange you changed this to "indeterminate" so let's stick to the original term for the sake of clarity) state is a state that cannot be determined. What do you mean by "an indifferent state"?
  • Rich
    3.2k
    No one knows for sure what Peirce really had in mind; that's why there are scholars who spend lifetimes studying the great philosophers and disagreeing over how to interpret them.Janus

    Peirce is pretty clear:

    https://archive.org/stream/C.S.Peirces5FamousTheMonistPapers/1.TheArchitectureOfTheories1891_djvu.txt

    "The materialistic doctrine seems to me quite as repugnant to scientific logic as to common sense."

    "The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective
    idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming
    physical laws."

    He is actually pretty close. Bergson some how was able to intuit it much better, having somehow been able to conceive of quantum behavior before it was actually discovered.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    Did I say Peirce was a materialist? Apparently you see that as the only alternative which doesn't surprise me.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    It it's the second quote that counts.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    I've alteady agreed that Peirce thinks matter is effete mind. So that quote tells me nothing new. Just what he means by that is the issue in question.
  • Rich
    3.2k


    "Mind is First, Matter is Second, Evolution is Third."

    "It would suppose that in the beginning, — infinitely
    remote, — there was a chaos of unpersonalised feeling, which being
    without connection or regularity would properly be without exist-
    ence. This feeling, sporting here and there in pure arbitrariness,
    would have started the germ of a generalising tendency. Its other
    sportings would be evanescent, but this would have a growing virtue.
    Thus, the tendency to habit would be started ; and from this with
    the other principles of evolution all the regularities of the universe
    would be evolved."

    So close, but no cigar. Very Daoistic though.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    Still nothing about consciousness being fundamental.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Please. Give it a break already. I really find word games useless. I'm only interested in understanding the nature of nature. Mind is First. It evolves out of Feeling.

    However, what he said about Materialism was precious. I must save that somewhere.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    Yeah right! :-}
  • bahman
    526
    An indeterminable (note that in our exchange you changed this to "indeterminate" so let's stick to the original term for the sake of clarity) state is a state that cannot be determined.Janus

    An indeterminable state could be anything and it could lead to anything. An indeterminable state could be X, Y, Z etc and in that sense is indifferent.

    Moreover, even if we accept that there is no problem in defining the state of C then we face with the question that how could we reach from C to B, through another indeterminable state and this is problematic.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    You seem to be missing the point. A determinable state is one which is restricted to some temporal duration. For example, say a prehistoric animal (a determinable state insofar as we define what that animal was like) is.trapped in silt, and millions of years later a fossil (a determinable state) is found. In between may be an indeterminable state the precise duration of which cannot even be determined.

    The reason I used the term 'indeterminable' is to highlight that this is an epistemological, not an ontological, term. In actuality there may be no changeless states, the idea of a changeless state is an heuristic device, an epistemic facility.

    The problem you are trying to assert is just a rehashing of Zeno's Paradox in different apparel.We don't know if nature is a continuum or truly quantum. If it is truly quantum then there would be, at the utmost micro level, changeless states of infinitesimal duration; but on the macro level there are no changeless states, but continual becoming.

    Think of a film projector; is there anything in between the individual frames apart from blank film? Blank film is blank film, from the point of view of the film there is nothing determinable there, but it is nevertheless not nothing.
  • Wayfarer
    22.6k
    I've alteady agreed that Peirce thinks matter is effete mind. So that quote tells me nothing new. Just what he means by that is the issue in question.Janus

    I've mentioned this before, but it's worth having a read of The Intelligibility of Peirce's Metaphysics of Objective Idealism. Lays it out pretty well.
  • Janus
    16.3k


    Thanks, will read.
  • Cavacava
    2.4k


    If you start with a determinate state (I would say concept not state but...) and negate it you get an indeterminable state (concept), and if you negate that you end up with another determinate state (concept) and all three are intimately related. (Hegel)
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