Like others who come here to post, I am only hoping to find others who are familiar with these topics so we can engage in productive dialogue. I mistakenly thought that was the intention of this forum

I really don't think I've been rude, even though I was treated very rudely when I first came here. My intentions have been genuine and sincere. I apologize if I came across as anything other than that.

Oh my... So sorry. It was definitely not intentional.

I have just listed this book as the first approved textbook for the Synechism Center for Learning and Dialogue.

Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy

Since I received no responses on my last couple of posts, I can only suppose that they are not understood. This doesn't really surprise me, because the nominalism thought virus runs so extremely deep.

If you have taken the time to fully read these posts, and you do understand them, you should now understand why I am neither Left nor Right, Republican nor Democrat, Conservative nor Liberal. .... As a synechist, I do not subscribe to that house of mirrors cage. This 'understanding' also reveals similar insight into religions, atheistic scientism, generational gender expectations, and so much more. My eyes are fully open to what is real. Nominalism is not real.

Well wishes on your willingness to be open to learning, exploring others' perspectives, and sharing in kind dialogue. Take care.

I wrote to my pen pal, Dr. Richard Lanigan, for his insight on this. As always, he is brilliant. Here is an excerpt from his response to me. ...

"There is a convergence point in Peirce, the isonomia concept, and Bateson’s butterfly example (Alice in Wonderland is about logic in language)—all are a point about logic (about which I am currently writing). Double bind, or paradox [either/or choice] is always after Triple Bind, or ambiguity [both/and choice]. The problem is Culture, where “convention” [habit] is the “forgotten rationality” [G. mēmēra].
Culture makes this time consuming process more efficient as Double Bind [“x /either-or/not-x], obviously you forget that y or anything else is possible as a new context. Choosing a new context is creativity or learning. Children are not constrained by cultural habit, so their answer to an either/or choice is simply “Both!”. People discover that another Culture [language] allows them to see at least one other context (rediscovery of “both”). Here is where psychologists talk about the mirror [“through the looking glass”]. Double Binds are always one’s perception, so the corrective is self vs. other, or the communication distinction of Addresser (speaker) and Addressee (listener). In a mirror, "self vs. other" adds "same vs. different". This is all Peirce, quadratics [self/other//same/different] becomes triads [Western Rule: self/other/same = double bind; aphorism = Others are the Same”], only because the new context [Eastern Rule: self/other/different; aphorism “Others are Different"] is not allowed by cultural convention (aphorism). I am assuming that for Kojin, the Eastern rule is Ionia democracy [Plato, monarchy], and the Western rule is Athenian democracy [Aristotle, democracy](!).
Of course, the USA is the grand "mirror" experiment where Republlc = "monarchic [representative] democracy as democratic monarchy [the people]”. This is why the "founding fathers" resorted to Latin “E pluribus unum” in good English is “One from Many, from Many, One” [basic chiasm concept = A:B :: b:a]. A Latin aphorism (two concepts = double bind) is reduced from the English “reality" of four concepts in the analogy. Aphorisms always derive from reduced Analogies; the Sophists called them a chiasm (mirror cross-over of values)."

An excellent video! And as nominalism evolved and 'convention' became more and more 'particular' and 'individualized', it became more and more divisive, leading to the challenges of our time, and to the damage we have inflicted upon our biosphere.
Video...
Law and Justice

I've been reading 'Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy' by Kojin Karatani (also excellent), and it seems so unfortunate for humanity that the origins of nominalism and the birthing of human-constructed dualism are not better understood by everyone. Here is a link to his book..... https://www.dukeupress.edu/isonomia-and-the-origins-of-philosophy

I think that to really understand synechism means to understand the difference between this human-constructed dualism and the propensity for living organisms to take on habits in nature (the difference between what is human-constructed convention and what is natural emergence and habit). ... I also think that our ignorance on this matter is what may be leading the human species into a double bind (Gregory Bateson excerpt link below). Our species is certainly far from being as intelligent as it thinks it is.
https://vimeo.com/15492840

Where is consciousness in all of this? It is in the connectedness of observation that is clear in this understanding (for those who can see and are not lost to mere convention).

be cautious when people try to prove their points by the philosophical implications of quantum physics — Gregory

I'm not trying to prove anything other than precisely that... perspective. Everything I have talked about in this thread expresses that.

Asking where it 'resides' is a nominalist perspective (see my previous views on nominalism).

My perspective is more akin to this perspective and this perspective.

1. Can you define consciousness as you understand it in your first post. Do you mean the individual consciousness or the collective? — avalon

Hmm... I suppose the only way to directly answer that is to say "neither?". If you are coming at this topic as a nominalist, you will probably only get frustrated with me.

2. Do you see the mind as something immaterial? If so, how is this different than any mind / body dualism argument? For a physicalist, there is no evidence that the mind is anything other than matter. — avalon

I suppose the answer to this question would involve a discussion about what you think is 'material'. Here is a link that might be of interest to you. In a Mind-Bending New Paper, Physicists Give Schrodinger's Cat a Cheshire Grin

Hello Avalon :smile:

You are basically asking me to start over with this thread. I'm afraid I cannot devote the time to doing that for every person who joins the conversation late. I'm sorry. Please consider reading through the thread. Thanks for understanding. :blush:

You're very welcome. :blush:

Here's a better link for 'Transactions'

Yes, some of those articles seem almost as if they are trying to confuse people with complexity. I think the most important thing to remember is that Peirce really tried to explain these things simply, but he sometimes had to invent words to express what he meant. This can scare some people away if they are the type to be intimidated or judgmental of something new, or else they may take the nominalistic reductive approach and dissect the terms to such an extreme that it becomes overwhelming (I would liken that to the story of the goose that laid the golden egg).

Anyway, this link expresses some of these things in his own words..... Logic and Habit

And subscribing to Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society is very helpful for understanding Peirce. Excellent articles!

So... there are a couple of pages (well, there's more than a couple, but these two are in the forefront of my mind this morning) in 'Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy' by Karatani Kojin. If you have read the book, I point you to pages 40-41. These pages point to some of the differences between nominalism and synechism. ..... Synechism is a natural philosophy, that although will respect other perspectives and abide by the laws of the social environment the synechist physically finds oneself in, a synechist does not subscribe to any culturally constructed nomoi (of any kind; religious, atheistic scientism, political, cultural fads, generational gender expectations, etc.). ...... I am a synechist. .... There is no freer freedom than being free from nominalism.

Yes, I see your point and agree — Jack Cummins

:up: :blush:

And I would agree! — Wayfarer

:up: :blush:

I think it would be a big mistake to regard reflection upon our consciousness as being narcissistic. — Jack Cummins

Just thinking out loud here, but if we consider this question in light of what physicist Fred Alan Wolf said about 'willful intention' in that video I posted previously, I have to wonder if 'intention' might be the determining factor about whether or not reflecting upon consciousness, individually or collectively, could be considered a form of narcissism.

"Research participants found that they could apply statements of the Collective Narcissism Scale to various groups: national, ethnic, religious, ideological, political, students of the same university, fans of the same football team, professional groups and organizations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_narcissism

Perhaps consciousness thinking about theories of consciousness is narcissism taken to its ultimate degree. — Pam Seeback

Excellent point!

What is the 'sweet spot' of evolution, where an organism becomes aware of 'self', and recognizes that its reflection is not that of another, but doesn't go to the nominalist extreme of ontological individualism, and narcissism so engulfing that it stares at itself on its cell phone all day, constantly contemplating how its image reflects back onto the world? We are certainly at a point where dialogue is breaking down, as more and more people are only waiting to speak rather than sharing time in an interaction to actually listen.

which is completely rejected by current evolutionary theory as being a form of 'orthogenesis'. — Wayfarer

I would argue against this point.

Although the word 'orthogenesis' is taboo, here are some things to consider......

The science of epigenetics has taken a turn somewhat toward the ideas of Lamarck.

Per Wikipedia.... "but the notion that evolution represents progress is still widely shared"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogenesis

And here is a very new finding that I just read last night....
"The idea that mass extinctions allow many new types of species to evolve is a central concept in evolution, but a new study using artificial intelligence to examine the fossil record finds this is rarely true, and there must be another explanation."
https://scitechdaily.com/artificial-intelligence-discovers-surprising-patterns-in-earths-biological-mass-extinctions

My own theory is that we may eventually discover that this is due to 'double bind', being that it has to happen in order for the 'whole' to continue its progress 'towards'. ...... My favorite Gregory Bateson lecture excerpt explaining evolutionary double bind ...... https://vimeo.com/15492840

I personally think that because of nominalism, humanity has for some time now been moving itself toward a double bind.

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

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:

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

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.

'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.

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

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

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

Thanks for the citation. — aletheist

You are very welcome. :smile:

@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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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:

"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

But I too, make a distinction between "what exists" and "what is physically real". — Gnomon

Gnomon,
Upon re-reading some of this thread's posts, I realized that I somehow overlooked this. Try switching these when contemplating our discussions. I think it may help you get a better grasp of Peirce. Switch them to making a distinction between 'what is real' and 'what physically exists. :nerd:

What is he really trying to say? That there is no such thing as a paradox? I sometimes say that all paradoxes are resolved in Enfernity (eternity & infinity). But that has nothing to do with the real world. :smile: — Gnomon

Okay, Devil's Advocate. I'll play. :naughty:

No, Peirce is not saying that there is no such thing as a paradox, but there is a very clear difference between a polarity and a paradox. A polarity has external relation influence. A paradox does not.

Here is how Peirce explains this using the Liar's Paradox (links below excerpt) ....

"In Lecture 1 he discusses the sentence, "This very proposition is false."; in Lecture 3 he examines the sentence in the form "What is here written is not true." This sentence, as we know, leads to paradoxical conclusions. I will first consider Peirce's analysis of the problem and then his solution to it.

1.1 The Problem Stated

S1 This very proposition is false.
S2 What is here written is not true.

Peirce argues that the problem with this sentence is that it is logically meaningless or logically nonsense, where nonsense is defined as "that which has a certain resemblance to a symbol without being a symbol. "Each genuine symbol is subject to three systems of formal laws; these are the laws of (1) grammar, (2) logic, and (3) rhetoric. Each symbol to be meaningful must satisfy the formal conditions of grammar, of logic, and of the intelligibility of symbols. This symbol is grammatically correct but
fails to be a genuine symbol because it does not satisfy the formal conditions of logic.
In the case of the above sentence, SI, a logical law, the law of the excluded middle, does not apply. Peirce says,
This is a proposition to which the principle of the excluded middle, namely that every symbol must be false or true, does not apply. For if it is false, it is thereby true. And if not false, it is thereby not true.
A logically meaningful sentence will satisfy the laws of logic. Peirce argues that this logical law does not apply to SI because this symbol has no object. Logic, Peirce says, is concerned with assertoric propositions. He says of assertoric propositions, "Propositions which assert always assert something of an object, which is the subject of the proposition."In the case of SI, however, the proposition "does itself state that it has no object. It talks of itself and only of itself and has no external relation whatever." That is, the subject of the proposition being the proposition itself, the predicate makes no assertion of an object to which the proposition refers. An assertoric proposition, then, makes reference to an external object, but this proposition "talks of itself and only of itself and has no external relation whatever." "Logical laws," however, "only hold good as conditions of a symbol having an object."

Similarly concerning S2 Peirce says that we get an infinite number of
propositions:
What is here written
The statement that that is false
The statement that that is false
The statement that that is false
and so on to infinity." <<< There is your infinity that has nothing to do with the real world. :wink:

As you read further into the essay, you will see that Peirce also points out that there is a difference between what is explicitly asserted versus what is tacitly asserted.

Liar's Paradox

Peirce's Paradoxical Solution to the Liar's Paradox

referring to "modes of existence" other than reality? What other kinds of existence are there? Do ghosts exist in a parallel universe? Are entangled particles a polarity of different modes of existence? — Gnomon

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". He is not referring to ghosts. :razz: .... Whether or not this can be applied to parallel universes is left for the quantum physicists to figure out. One of the reasons there has been such interest in Peirce (and renewed interest in Spinoza) is because the most recent findings in physics have pointed to how correct and far ahead of their time these brilliant men were, and all by working these things out by using highly skilled logic. ... And again, 5 centuries BCE, Heraclitus was on the right track with his Logos.

I will write more later, but for now Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful to have a friend like you that I can banter with about such things. :blush:

derived from Physics — Gnomon

Okay....

I plan to walk through this part of our discussion somewhat slowly, because anyone else reading this (not necessarily referring to you) may have difficulty following this, and it is my hope that they may want to, or at least try.

It's important to remember that C. S. Peirce was first and foremost a brilliant logician, and he approached all of his work with that mindset.

your posts are often like a foreign language to me. For example, "the view that to exist in some respect is also to not exist in that respect", simply sounds like a contradiction. Yet, I suppose that to you it may be merely an apparent paradox — Gnomon

What some might read as a 'contradiction' when I referred to "(4) the view that to exist in some respect is also to not exist in that respect (CP 7.569); " and you referred to as possibly being a paradox, is actually a 'polarity'. .... This also relates to Heraclitus's 'Unity of Opposites' that I mentioned in a previous post.

More on 'Polarity'

Peirce reached his conclusions by way of his correct understanding of negation, and the Law of the Excluded Middle. As a matter of fact, the misunderstanding of this by some of his 'Logic' students at Johns Hopkins (Dewey, James, and others) due to their immersion in the popular nominalism of the day, was of great frustration to Peirce.

Peirce's Law allows one to enhance the technique of using the deduction theorem to prove theorems. This work points to 'inference' in consciousness, and what I spoke of previously about 'habit' as law (Thirdness) as evidenced in Inductive reasoning. .... Let me know if you want to delve into this topic in more detail at any point in our discussion, but for now I'm moving on to Physics.

Peirce's Law

Peirce asserted that "the continuity of space so acts as to cause an object to be affected by modes of existence not its own, not as participating in them but as being opposite to them. . . . So again, when a force acts upon a body the effect of it is that the mean of the states of the body not actual, but indefinitely approximating to the actual, differs from its actual state. So in the action and reaction of bodies, each body is affected by the other body's motion, not as participating in it but as being opposite to it. But if you carefully note the nature of this generalized formula you will see that it is but an imperfect, somewhat particularized restatement of the principle that space presents the law of the reciprocal reactions of existents." (CP 6.84)

Take a look at the attached link on Peirce's Law, and then please tell me what you've written in your thesis about Polarity. This may be where our jargon polarities come together. :grin:

One more thing to add....
Here is an excellent video explaining the sequence of events involving Peirce, James, Dewey, and the different perspectives and splits.......

Who Founded Pragmatism.....

Semiology and Synechism — Gnomon

Synechism (Holism??) or Semiology (Semantics??) — Gnomon

Before I switch to the language of Physics, and since the original purpose of this thread is to discuss Consciousness, I want to point out the differences between Saussurean and Peircean semiotics (dyadic vs triadic thinking). This really shines a light on another symptom of the 'nominalism thought virus', and how it has affected the way Western Civilization thinks. It is also my hope that you will eventually see how this even connects back to Physics.

After so much time that I've devoted to studies to uncover these wrong turns in branches of thinking, that I liken to the difference between following a singular line in an intricate math pattern, or actually understanding the underlying Law (Thirdness) that causes the pattern to blossom (by the way, Peirce was also a brilliant mathematician, and often used diagrams to illustrate his work), I've gotten to the point where whenever I see the word 'General' in a coined term (General Semantics, General Linguistics), I become a bit suspicious. It often points to nominalism in a desperate attempt to try and capture generality after having travelled too far down the wrong path. Saussurean semiotics is dyadic (dualistic). Whereas Peircean semiotics breaks away from that dyadic, dualistic, wrong path. I could delve deeper into the differences here, and anyone reading this is free to look further into the two, but I do want to switch our language and discussion to the topic of Physics.

Regarding semiotics, keep in mind what I said previously about signs being 'information vessels'. They can present to our senses in many ways (icon, index, symbol, sounds, chemical signals, etc), but the complexities brought about by evolution have taken what originally and fundamentally is 'biological dialogue' to a level that has become words and writing in human culture. So semiotics is the study of the 'delivery method' of meaning (In other words, the 'delivery method of information' (and even the delivery method of 'Enform'ation). As I mentioned previously, Thirdness/Law, as represented in the 'habit' we see in Inductive reasoning, is a feature of Formal Cause, both Physically and Cognitively.

That was a good segue into Physics, which I will pick up on in the next post. :nerd: