a peircean panentheist scientific mysticism

7/30/2019 A Peircean Panentheist Scientific Mysticism

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International Journal of Transpersonal Studies20 Brier

A Peircean Panentheist Scientifc Mysticism1

Sren Brier2

Copenhagen Business SchoolCopenhagen, Denmark

Peirces philosophy can be interpreted as an integration o mysticism and science. In Peircesphilosophy mind is eeling on the inside and on the outside, spontaneity, chance and chaoswith a tendency to take habits. Peirces philosophy has an emptiness beyond the three worldso reality (his Categories), which is the source rom where the categories spring. He empha-sizes that God cannot be conscious in the way humans are, because there is no content inhis mind. Since there is a transcendental3 nothingness behind and beore the categories,it seems that Peirce had a mystical view on reality with a transcendental Godhead. TusPeirce seems to be a panentheist.4 It seems air to characterize him as a mystic whose pathto enlightenment is science as a social activity.

Introduction

he relation between science and Christianity inthe West has been somewhat hostile ever sincethe trials against Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) in the Renaissance. Butso have relations between the Church and the mystics eversince Meister Eckhart (12601328) was excommunicatedrom the church ater his death in the Middle Ages. Inmodernity, science and religion have divided the arenao metaphysics between them. Tey are, however, stillcompeting about how to explain the origin o humans

and the universe, especially in the situations whereundamentalist versions o one or both o them are beingpromoted. But in general they seem to have establisheda peaceul division o territory in which mechanisticsciences Big Bang theory covers nature, including thehuman body, and religion covers the area o the innerworld or the soul. As the scientic worldview hasnot been able to render the idea o a metaphysics o thesacred and o personal and cultural values superuous,institutionalized religion is still one o the major ormso organizing the existential-phenomenological aspect

o human lie. But there are neither empirically norphilosophically good reasons to believe that either classicalmechanical and positivistic science, or the present ormso organized religion, or attempts to combine theirknowledge, have made usor will make usable tounderstand and control the undamental processes omind and nature. Te promise o articial intelligence,which would represent such mastery, remains unullled(Ekbia 2008). Where questions o the origin o mind,

lie, matter, and nature meet, there seems to be a blackhole in our conceptual knowledge. Tis chasm points toa undamental lack in the oundation o our knowledgeand/or our understanding o knowledge. It is here that onecan see Peirces (1866-1913/1994) semiotic philosophy oreligious and scientic knowing as an attempt to createa new transdisciplinary start on what I claim to be apanentheistic basis.5

Classical positivism, and later classical empiricismand rationalism, developed into the logical positivismand nally logical empiricism with its physicalistic

vision o the unity o science; these are the rst realreective philosophies o that conception o theempirical-mathematical sciences that emerged during theRenaissance. Logical empiricism owered, especially in the1930s, and ater World War II almost rose to be sciencesonly well-established sel-understanding. But ater WorldWar II, the majority o the theoretical developmentswithin the philosophy o science became critical o thisparadigm. An attempt was made to develop a morecomprehensive understanding o the cognitive processeso science, as well as an epistemological understanding

o its type o knowledge vis--vis other types o knowingsuch as an everyday understanding o the world.

Karl R. Popper (1972) and Tomas Kuhn (1970)are two o the most prominent philosophers o sciencein this development. Poppers and Kuhns theories oscience discuss whether observations and experiments canexpand our knowledge o nature in such a way that weget a more and more truthul description. Is the growtho science an approach to a nal description o the law(s)

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 27, 2008, pp. 20-45


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International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 21Peircean Panentheist Scientifc Mysticism

o nature, or are we just establishing still moreotenincompatibleviewpoints to describe an impenetrablecomplexity? Are we just receiving more inormationwithout getting nearer the truth? Popper (1972) has beenendorsed as believer in the view that science get closerto the truth, and Kuhn (1970) as a social constructivistdenying any kind o objective measure o truth andscientic progress. But Popper and Kuhns viewpointsare not as incompatible as they might appear. Accordingto my analysis (Brier, 2006), Kuhn and Popper meet inthe middle, the ormer attaching more importance to thesocial psychological mechanisms in science and the lattermore to the logic o research. Te important point is thatboth abandon the simple view o sciences truth-value thatis oten based on a mechanical monistic or dualistic viewo the world. Pierce, like both Kuhn and Popper, pointsto the allibility and incompleteness o science and to theimportant inuence o metaphysical ideas and valuesupon the development o scientic knowledge. BothPopper and Kuhn agree that we cannot measure how neara theory is to truth or i science should even be portrayedas getting nearer to some kind o big truth, but we cansee that knowledge grows and evolves and becomes morecomprehensive. Tus it seems that science alone is not anapplicable tool to reveal the big truth about the nature,meaning, and purpose o lie and/or the nature o theuniverse. Peirce wrote:

Tus, the universe is not a mere mechanical result

o the operation o blind law. Te most obvious oall its characters cannot be so explained. It is themultitudinous acts o all experience that show usthis; but that which has opened our eyes to theseacts is the principle o allibilism. Tose who ail toappreciate the importance o allibilism reason: wesee these laws o mechanics; we see how extremelyclosely they have been veried in some cases. Wesuppose that what we havent examined is like whatwe have examined, and that these laws are absolute,and the whole universe is a boundless machine

working by the blind laws o mechanics. Tis is aphilosophy which leaves no room or a God! No,indeed! It leaves even human consciousness, whichcannot well be denied to exist, as a perectly idle andunctionless neur in the world, with no possibleinuence upon anything -- not even upon itsel.(Peirce, 1866-1913/1994, Vol. 1, p. 162.)

Since the start o classical physics in the 16thcentury, our mathematical and logical description o the

physical, chemical, and biological universe has graduallygrown to dominate our worldview. Our understandinghas been invaded by this universe to an extent where it hasbecome common sense to see our lived worlds as a parto the universe, each individuals lie a small subjectiveworld ull o signication and sense-making withinan objective universe. Trough communication and co-operation these small signication spheres (Brier, 1999)are connected in social and cultural practice domainsto that world o signication we call a culture. But stillthis world isrom natural science-based disciplinessuch as Western medicineparadoxically seen as parto an objective and meaningless universe (well-describedby Monod, 1972). Te paradox lies in realizing that theability to obtain knowledge comes beore science, thatsymbolic knowing needs a sel-conscious, embodiedlanguage user, that language needs signs to representthe nature and origins o reality and a society to conveymeaning. Tis allows one to see the limitation o purelyscientic explanations o the phenomenon o knowledge(Brier, 2008a, b, c).

Te process o knowing is the prerequisite orscience. How then can knowledge and intelligence everbe thought to be ully explained by a science based onphysicalistic or unctionalistic worldviews? As there isno knowledge without mind, no mind without nature,and no meaning without meaningully embodied signscommunicated in a society, how are we to explainknowing (the process) rom a materialistic, bottom-upmodel based on a mechanistic understanding o theBig Bang theory, where lie, intelligence, language,and knowledge are supposed to be explained throughmathematical laws and logic? My suggestion is, thereore,that we have to live with both the universe and the worldin a new and ruitul way, rst by acknowledging thatthere are dierent worlds o description (Brier, 2008a, b,c).

Human scientic knowledge seems to be con-nected to an undetermined amount o non-knowledge,

and it seems that the more exact and universal we wantto make our knowledge, the more non-knowledge goeswith it. It does leave open the possibility that realityprovides an inner connection between dierent worlds,and that the universe is beyond a thorough scienticdescription but roughly describable anyway. Such aramework might help us to gain a less undamentalistview o science and religion, and give us a better chance tojudge the inner logic and consistency o dierent kinds ospiritual healing practices. Based on C. S. Peirces (1866-


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1913/1994) semiotic philosophy, I will attempt to outlinea modern metaphysics o origin and cognition with thepurpose o adding the existential-phenomenologicaldimension to the modern scientic evolutionary BigBang model o the creation o the Universe by relatingeeling, meaning, willing and conscious knowing toour scientic concept o reality without experiencedmeaning. Tus I will interpret Peirce in the light o themodern development o science and philosophy.

Te Myth o Creation

and the Teory o Evolution

In the Christian world, the biblical stories o creationare the principle myths o origin. Here the world isunderstood as being created by a personal God through aperiod o seven days. All order in nature (laws o nature)and in the human world (morals, laws) are given onceand or all. Tere is nothing new under the sun. Tereis more in the cause than in the means. Man has, assomething quite exceptional, received a soul. Nature assuch is without soul. Tese myths in their undamentalistand dogmatic understanding do not allow any symbolicinterpretation and are in conict with modernitysmaterial, evolutionary sel-understanding.

An important eature o modernity is itsconception o itsel as a participant in a unique culturalprocess o progress. Te universal, historical, linearunderstanding o time, which appeared in the 18thcentury in connection with the Enlightenment, is animportant contribution to mankinds view o the worldand itsel. In the 19th century it spread rom geology(e.g., Charles Lyell [1842], Principles o Geology) toan evolutionary understanding o the origin o thespecies advocated by Charles Darwin (1859/1998) andothers. Trough thermodynamicsas in Prigogines(1980; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984) understandingthis materialistic conception o evolution can now becoupled to the 20th centurys cosmological understand-ing o the universe as something that came into being

once, approximately 15 billion years ago, with a BigBang, when nothing became everything.In the modern developments o historical

materialistic theory o society and culture, the worldand humankind are seen as historical developmentscarrying this grand evolution. We understand therebyour world(s) as something, which has developed rom theuniverse through time rom simple physical beginnings(Popper, 1972). Furthermore we understand ourselvesundamentally as material end-products o an historical

development. Tis has very oten been considered as theabsolute opposite to the more phenomenological idea ocreation.

Te question now is whether the dierence betweenevolution and creation is o an absolute character. Whatis the relation between the physical and the phenomeno-logical reality, i any? Is there no connection betweenthe universe and our worlds? Should it not be possibleto make a modern metaphysics o creation, which doesnot contradict physics and, at the same time, aimsat explaining the organizing power o evolution andthereby the origin o mind and consciousness? For itis a peculiarity that modern evolutionary materialismactually ascribes all creative abilities in the universeeither to absolute deterministic law or to absolute chance(oten understood as the negation o deterministic law)and postulates that lie, mind and consciousness appearout o the organization o dead matter as new emergentqualities in sel-organized systems. It is here the concepto inormation in nature is introduced as an objectiveorganizing power, a natural orce (Brier, 1992). Butunortunately, as soon as inormation is scienticallydened as objective, mathematical and mechanical, itcan no longer be used as a tool to explain the emergenceo lie and mind in evolution (Brier, 1999).

Te Cartesian metaphysics o modern scienceorces it to look or some kind o meeting point o theinner and outer worlds in the dynamics o the humanbrain. For medicine, this is where the psychosomatic linkmust be. Tat we have not ound this link is supposedto be caused by our lack o physiological knowledge othe nervous system, especially the brain. Tat is one othe reasons neurosciences and cognitive sciences haveexperienced such a big boom over the last decade: wewant to nd that connection (Penrose, 1995; Searle,1986). o Peirce (1866-1913/1994),6 it was his triadic,evolutionary, pragmaticistic semiotics that provided theconnection between inner and outer, or rather the basisor going beyond this dichotomy.

We have come to understand that the nervoussystem, the hormone system, and the immune systemare chemically linked to each other like a biologicalsel in the way that they al l produce receptors or eachothers messenger molecules. Tis supports the idea o asecond-order cybernetics, one which sees living systemsas sel-organized and sel-producing beings: autopoieticas Maturana and Varela (1986) called it. From a bio-cybernetic point o view, one can point out that livingsystems organize worlds, which I, rom a semiotic point


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o view, call signication spheres (Brier, 2008a). Butthis theory is still based on the pre-assumption o aninner world or lie o the living systems in the ormo an observer (Brier, 1999) and it does not provide theexplanatory connection. It is too cybernetic to developa theory o rst person experience, emotion, will, andqualia (Brier, 2008b).

Is it possible to arrive at an understanding o manand the universe that embraces modern science withoutseeing phenomenological man as a gypsy on the edge o adead, oreign, and meaningless wastelandwhat Monod(1972) so eloquently described as the consequence omechanism also encompassing the biological descriptiono lie? Is it possible in the natural-science-technical age tobring man and the living into the center o a philosophicalexistential vision again? Tis is in my opinion whatPeirce (1992) does in his scientic mysticism. o namehis view as scientic mysticism will seem to many to bea paradox. Mysticism is a mode o thought, or phase ointellectual or religious lie, in which reliance is placedupon a spiritual illumination believed to transcendthe ordinary powers o understanding. As such is it isoten viewed as opposing a rational understanding othe world, and thereore the whole scientic enterprise.

But Peirce shows that it is actually mysticism andrationalism that represent opposite poles o theology.Rationalism regards reasonoten in the orm o logicor mathematicsas the highest aculty o man. In amodern (positivistic) interpretation o Plato, then, itis the rational thought o the philosopher or scientist,or both working together, that is the sole arbiter in allmatters o knowledge and as such overthrows all religiousdoctrines. Tis view oten sees the world as a computerand believes that all knowledge can be algorithmicallyrepresented. Mysticism, on the other hand, is otenunderstood to declare that spiritual truth cannot beapprehended by the logical aculty, nor adequatelyexpressed in any orm o natural language. Peirce managesto combine both views in a pragmaticistic semiotic

evolutionary philosophy, where logic is semiotics.I it is correct, as Prigogine and Stengers (1984)claimed, that thermodynamics and quantum physics,seen together philosophically, are a more realistic andcomprehensive worldview than classic mechanism, thenspontaneity, irreversibility, time, and evolution havemade their entrance as basal conceptions in physics(Prigogine, 1980). Ten the belie in the completescientic description o nature also ceases. We mustrealize that it is probably not possible or natural science

to uncover Natures or matters inner being, i thereis one. In natural science we are obliged, on the basiso observation, experiment, and generalization to makestatistical models or laws based upon the calculus oprobability and our critical judgment.

Te new recognition o complex non-linearsystems accentuates that, even i one knew the laws thatgovern a systems basic dynamics, this is not enoughto understand its detailed development, as the initialconditions are very crucial. Physics also realizes thatno version o the Big Bang theory will tell us how theUniverse was created, because the original singularityeludes scientic examination. Physical explanations donot start until ater the universe is initiated. Further,mechanical physics does not have an interest inexplaining the rise o mind and consciousness throughevolution, as it was ounded in a dualistic worldviewwhere nature was mechanical by necessity. Tis was aoundational aspect in Kants (1781/1990) philosophy,an approach that Peirce (1866-1913/1994) urthermodied.

As Kultgen (1959-60) argued, it is important thatboth Peirce (1866-1913/1994) and Whitehead (1929)deny Kants (1981/1990) distinction between natureand reedom. o Peirce, nature has spontaneity andpure eeling at its basis in Firstness and teleology in itsagapistic habit-taking o Tirdness. Tus Peirce deniesthe distinction between the phenomenological and thenoumenalunderstood as the thing in itselbecausethis idea o the incognizable appears as a null-term otheoretical and practical thought. It is not ruitul to tryto think about something that one cannot think about.For Peirce, the real is wholly open to our pragmaticobservation and thinking and there is no absolutedierence between the object o theoretical and practicalthought. Metaphysics is seen as an observable ideallimit o empirical inquiry (Kultgen, 1959-60, p. 288).Peirce did not have the modern and post-modern earo metaphysics, and certainly did not see it as opposed

to the scientic inquiry; thereore, he did not have thetype o conict between science and religion that is seenin the modern debate about intelligent design theory(see Fuller, 1998, 2002a, 2002b).

Peirces Philosophy

o Creation and Evolution

It is important to notice that we do not here discussreligion as a social enterprise or the dogmas oestablished religions. Peirce (1976) is against dogmas in


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religion and he does not cling to any single religion. In aletter to William James he wrote:

I cant help thinking that the mother o Christianity,Buddhism, is superior to our own religion. Tat iswhat one o my selves, my intellectual sel says. Butenough, I will keep my religion to mysel and to One

that does not sco at it. (Vol. 3[2], p. 872)In the quote above Peirce seems keen to work

with that which is the oundation o all religions. Histheory o the immanent7 divine as Firstness8 is close tothe Buddhist idea o the void. Secondness is, in Peircesphilosophy, necessary in order or anything to take orm inthis world, while Tirdness is needed to stabilize any kindo structure and process. Tis is a principal philosophicaldiscussion o how and where a concept o God may enteror have to enter a philosophy that can produce a concepto meaning and signication. It is important to notethat Peirce is inspired in his theological philosophy notonly by transcendental Christianity and by Buddhismwith its concept o emptiness, but also by Aristotle andPlato.9 Te divine is both immanent and transcendent inPeirces philosophy. It is both an emptiness behind andbeore the maniested world in time and space as well asa Firstness o possibilities, random sporting, qualia, andpossible mathematical orms. Peirce (1866-1913/1994)wrote:

I we are to proceed in a logical and scientic manner,

we must, in order to account or the whole universe,suppose an initial condition in which the wholeuniverse was non-existent, and thereore a state oabsolute nothing. . . .

But this is not the nothing o negation. . . . Tenothing o negation is the nothing o death, whichcomes second to, or ater, everything. But this purezero is the nothing o not having been born. Tereis no individual thing, no compulsion, outward norinward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which thewhole universe is involved or oreshadowed. As such,

it is absolutely undened and unlimited possibilityboundless possibility. Tere is no compulsion and nolaw. It is boundless reedom.

Now the question arises, what necessarilyresulted rom that state o things? But the only saneanswer is that where reedom was boundless nothingin particular necessarily resulted. . . .

I say that nothing necessarilyresulted rom theNothing o boundless reedom. Tat is, nothing

according to deductive logic. But such is not thelogic o reedom or possibility. Te logic o reedom,or potentiality, is that it shall annul itsel. For i itdoes not annul itsel, it remains a completely idleand do-nothing potentiality; and a completely idlepotentiality is annulled by its complete idleness.(Vol. 6, pp. 215-219)

On this basis o the divine, the concept o law in Peircesphilosophy is not the same as in Platonic inspireddeterministic mechanism, where laws are universal,precise, mathematical, and thereore deterministicin themselves, upholding their own existence in thetranscendent. Peirce wrote:

I do not mean that potentiality immediatelyresults in actuality. Mediately perhaps it does; butwhat immediately resulted was that unboundedpotentiality became potentiality o this or that sortthat is, o some quality.

Tus the zero o bare possibility, by evolutionarylogic, leapt into the unit o some quality. (Vol. 6, p.220)

For Peirce, Firstness is a vague, dynamic, random mixo possible orms o existence in pure eeling. Tepotentiality o a quality, in Peirces metaphysics, is atimeless, sel-subsisting possibility that serves as themetaphysical ground o the world o actual existence. Hewrote:

Te evolutionary process is, thereore, not a mereevolution o the existing universe, but rather a processby which the very Platonic orms themselves havebecome or are becoming developed. (Vol. 6, p. 194)

Tese orms start as vague qualities and become developedin the irreversible evolution o the worlda conceptoreign to Platoto become more stable and precise inorm. Peirce urther wrote:

Te evolution o orms begins or, at any rate, has or an

early stage o it, a vague potentiality; and that eitheris or is ollowed by a continuum o orms having amultitude o dimensions too great or the individualdimensions to be distinct. It must be by a contractiono the vagueness o that potentiality o everything ingeneral, but o nothing in particular, that the worldo orms comes about. (Vol. 6, p. 196)

Tus in Peirces cosmology the qualities are vague; Peircesaw trancendentality and vagueness as going together in


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reality. It is not as in classical logic, where the very preciseis also the very abstract and universal, which is also theway in which Platos ideas are usually interpreted. Peircewrote:

We must not assume that the qualities arose separateand came into relation aterward. It was just the

reverse. Te general indenite potentiality becamelimited and heterogeneous. (Vol. 6, p. 199)

Tis is when the basic categories maniest or sort themselvesout. As the categories are phaneroscopic, Peirce also reersto them as universes o experience. With the emergenceo the continuum o positive possibility, the Universe oIdeas or Possibility, Firstness is established (Vol. 6, p.455). Te next step is then the emergence o Secondness,as Peirces categories are also evolutionary:

Tere is, however, an element o Secondness in the

emergence o the continuum o orms where there wasonly indenite nothingness beore, and an element oTirdness in the continuity and eternal subsistence othose orms. As the evolution continues, Secondnesscomes to the ore. Nascent relations o identityand dierence emerge in and among parts o thecontinuum o orms, and qualities thereby come tobe dierentiated.

Te second element we have to assume is thatthere could be accidental reactions between thosequalities. Te qualities themselves are mere eternal

possibilities. But these reactions we must think o asevents. Not that ime was. But still, they had all thehere-and-nowness o events. (Vol. 6, p. 200)

Peirce also stated that Secondness is the category obrute acts, resistance, will, orce, and concreteness. Hethereore wrote: Te next milestone in the evolution othe cosmos is the appearance o enduring existence, theUniverse o Brute Actuality o things and acts (Vol. 6,p. 455).

How is this possible? Peirce (1866-1913/1994)

has the ollowing suggestion that is very similar to theway modern physics talks about the universe emergingrom a quantum vacuum eld, except that Peirces eldhas another nature because it is in another metaphysicalramework. Like Aristotle, he is a hylozoist10 and acontinuation thinker. Hyl11the sensitive matteris akind o eld. He wrote:

Out o the womb o indeterminacy we must say thatthere would have come something, by the principle

o Firstness, which we may call a ash. Ten by theprinciple o habit there would have been a secondash. Tough time would not yet have been, thissecond ash was in some sense ater the rst, becauseresulting rom it. Ten there would have come othersuccessions ever more and more closely connected,the habits and the tendency to take them everstrengthening themselves, until the events wouldhave been bound together into something like acontinuous ow. (Vol. 1, p. 412)

Here Peirce is close to the quantum eld view o the origino the universe, where original quantum events, such asthe constant spontaneous play o virtual particles withinthe Planck time and space limit, is suddenly pushed overthe limit and starts a new orm o regular existence. Tisis what Peirce described as nature taking habits and drasticevents in that habit-taking are oten in physics called phase

shits. Peirce next turns to the principle o habit-taking,which is so essential or stability and evolution at the sametime:

all things have a tendency to take habits. . . . [For] everyconceivable real object, there is a greater probability oacting as on a ormer like occasion than otherwise.Tis tendency itsel constitutes a regularity, and iscontinually on the increase. . . . It is a generalizingtendency; it causes actions in the uture to ollow somegeneralizations o past actions; and this tendency itselis something capable o similar generalizations; andthus, it is sel-generative. (Vol. 1, p. 409)

Peirce is again close to how modern quantum metaphysicsconceptualizes a many-world ontology, where mutualuniverses are possible, existing side by side unaware o eachother. He wrote.

Te quasi-ow which would result would, however,dier essentially rom time in this respect that itwould not necessarily be in a single stream. Dierentashes might start dierent streams, between which

there should be no relations o contemporaneity orsuccession. So one stream might branch into two, ortwo might coalesce. But the urther result o habitwould inevitably be to separate utterly those that werelong separated, and to make those which presentedrequent common points coalesce into perect union.Tose that were completely separated would be somany dierent worlds which would know nothing oone another; so that the eect would be just what we


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actually observe. (Vol. 1, p. 412)

Peirce then described how the orms o the world appearthrough stabilization o the early habit-ormation tendenciesin ways similar to how modern science also describes theearly universe beore matter and radiation separate. Pairso states will also begin to take habits, and thus each state

having dierent habits with reerence to the dierentother states will give rise to bundles o habits, which willbe substances. Some o these states will chance to takehabits o persistency, and will get to be less and less liable todisappear; while those that ail to take such habits will allout o existence. Tus substances will get to be permanent.

Peirce does not assume eternal transcendentalideas, like Plato, or their existence only in consciousness,like Husserl. As a true evolutionary, he started with vaguebeginnings, which within the Firstness o all possibilitiescrystallize out in a kind o phase shitI suggestinto

some basic dierences that make up the oundation othe evolution o what Peirce call Secondness. In thisway the cosmos develops into a state where Secondnesspredominates, which Peirce calls the Universe o Actuality(Parker, 2002).

In this way Peirce dares to give an ontologicalexplanation based on a metaphysics o how the rstdierences come about and then avoids the philosophicalembarrassment o an open ontology as in Luhmanns(1995) ontological oundation o his epistemology. Still Peirceavoids a deterministic universe because in such a domain

nothing orces there to be a tendency in evolution towardregularity in what Peirce calls the Universe o Actuality. Hedoes not use the concept o orces here, because the notiono orce implies necessity, and here we are rather talkingabout a selection process out o a spontaneous variety.Tis o course brings in the concept o irreversible time,where Pierce is close to Prigogine and Stengerss (1984)interpretation o thermodynamics and the arrow o time.Habit-taking can grow by its own virtue (Peirce, 1866-1913/1994, Vol. 6, p. 101) and is a sel-ampliying process,which leads to the ordered regularity and reasonability o

Peirces Tirdness.Te laws in the universe represent deviations rom the

random and are thereore o signicance. As argued earlier,it is difcult to talk about knowledge without assuming anykind o regularity in both the inside and outside reality, asalso Heinz von Foerster realized (Brier, 2005). Peirce (1866-1913/1994) wrote:

Uniormities are precisely the kind o acts thatneed to be accounted or. Tat a pitched coin should

sometimes turn up heads and sometimes tails callsor no particular explanation; but i it shows headsevery time, we wish to know how this result hasbeen brought about. Law ispar excellencethe thingwhich wants a reason. (Vol. 6, p. 12).

But as regularity comes to operate with increasing orce

in the universe, law takes hold. In the innite uture,Peirce saw a universe developing in which law wouldbecome (almost) perect. But he also saw that the onlypossible way o accounting or the existence o laws onature and uniormity in general was to suppose themresults o evolution. Ten his concept o law becomesqualitatively dierent rom the mechanistic one.He does not suppose the laws to be absolute or to beobeyed precisely. Tere will always remain an elemento indeterminacy, spontaneity, or absolute chance innature. Tis view also pertains to his concept o time.

In the ollowing quote he sums it up his view on law,physicality, mind, and time. He wrote:

I believe the law o habit to be purely psychical.But then I suppose matter is merely mind deadenedby the development o habit. While every physicalprocess can be reversed without violation o thelaw o mechanics, the law o habit orbids suchreversal. Accordingly, time may have been evolvedby the action o habit. At rst sight, it seems absurdor mysterious to speak o time being evolved, orevolution presupposes time. But ater all, this isno serious objection, and nothing can be simpler.ime consists in a regularity in the relations ointeracting eelings. Te rst chaos consisted in aninnite multitude o unrelated eelings. As therewas no continuity about them, it was, as it were,a powder o eelings. It was worse than that, or oparticles o powder some are nearer together, othersarther apart, while these eelings had no relations,or relations are general. Now you must not askme what happened rst. Tis would be as absurd

as to ask what is the smallest nite number. Butspringing away rom the innitely distant past toa very very distant past, we nd already evolutionhad been going on or an innitely long time. Butthis time is only our way o saying that somethinghad been going on. Tere was no real time so ar asthere was no regularity, but there is no more alsityin using the language o time than in saying thata quantity is zero. In this chaos o eelings, bits osimilitude had appeared, been swallowed up again.


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Had reappeared by chance. A slight tendency togeneralization had here and there lighted up andbeen quenched. Had reappeared, had strengtheneditsel. Like had begun to produce like. Ten evenpairs o unlike eelings had begun to have similars,and then these had begun to generalize. And thusrelations o contiguity, that is connections other thansimilarities, had sprung up. All this went on in waysI cannot now detail till the eelings were so boundtogether that a passable approximation to a real timewas established. It is not to be supposed that theideally perect time has even yet been realized. Tereare no doubt occasional lacunae and derailments.(Peirce, 1866-1913/1994, Vol. 8, p. 318)

Tus we have a proound evolutionary and processview, with only three basic categories, which determinesthe types o possible interactions, the triadicity o semiosis

being the third mediating type that is the primary driveo evolution. Tis is also the Universe in which the(almost) completely reasonable state o thingsthatPeirce in his esthetics saw as an idealwould be madepossible. Te (almost) caveat is there because this universeis unrealizable in principle, as it would destroy any sorto the spontaneity and eeling that emanates romFirstness balancing necessity. But it is the regulative idealtoward which sel-controlled thought and action move,and which is Peirces personal, social, and philosophicalaim: the summum bonum in Peirces philosophy12 (see

Parker, 2002) that is the inspiration o many o theabove ormulations. Tus Peirces (1866-1913/1994)pragmaticist concept o truth is dierent rom analyticalphilosophy combined with that dualistic combinationo mechanism and Platonism that Descartes ounded.Peirce wrote:

truth is the concordance o an abstract statementwith the ideal limit towards which endlessinvestigation would tend to bring scientic belie,which concordance the abstract statement may

possess by virtue o the conession o its inaccuracyand one-sidedness, and this conession is an essentialingredient o truth. (Vol. 5, p. 565)

Te scientic nding o truth is thus in principle apossibility and is thereore still a guiding light or allscientic and scholarly enterprise. Te world is made o akind o abstract knowledgethe dynamic structures andprocesses, which in themselves are a kind o signsandthereore it is knowable. It is the indierence o the sign

to mind-independence or mind-dependence that makesit possible or us to relate the real and the ideal withoutdetriment to either.

In Brier (2007, 2008a) I argued that the rstdistinction or sign making process must be breakingsome kind o original wholeness. Teoretically somekind o original observer13 has to be accepted in order tounderstand the rst semiotic creation o an interpretant.Tus this theory or philosophical consistency demandsa kind o objective idealism where mind is rst, matteris second, and the tendency to take habits is third, asPeirce theorized. Tere has to be some kind o awarenessresting in itsel, that can make the rst distinction,and thereore the rst system-environment dierence,which is something else than the wholeness.14 It breaksthe wholeness and makes space and time appear. Tisis consistent with Peirces view that time emerges withevolution. For Peirce, his creational understandingmeans that subject/selves are elements in the potentialsuper mind and that they discover themselves as partlyignorant beings that make mistakes. Tey/we come toknow themselves as individual selves or egos becausethey/we lack knowledge o the whole. Tey/we realizethat they are not the whole and are thereore imperectand distinct rom the whole. We are individual imperectselves.

o Peirce cognition is sign producing and thereorethe production o signication and meaning. Peirce(1868) saw introspection as one o the our incapacitieso the human being. o him knowledge o the internalworld is wholly a matter o inerence by way o signmaking. Te human sel can thereore only be inerred(Peirce, 1866-1913/1994, Vol. 5, p. 462) and surprisingly,it is inerred rom our mistakes, rom realizing that assel-conscious semiotic beings we are not the whole (i.e.,we are not the Godhead). Human individuation is oundin ignorance and error. Peirce wrote that Ignoranceand error are all that distinguish our private selves romthe absolute ego o pure apperception (Peirce, 1866-

1913/1994, Vol. 5, p. 235). Peirces argument concerningthe sel was developed in his discussion o the dawningo sel-consciousness in children:

It must be about this time that he [the child] beginsto nd that what these people about him say isthe very best evidence o act. So much so, thattestimony is even a stronger mark o act than theacts themselves, or rather than what must now bethought o as the appearances themselves. (I may


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remark, by the way, that this remains so throughlie; testimony will convince a man that he himselis mad.) A child hears it said that the stove is hot.But it is not, he says; and, indeed, that central bodyis not touching it, and only what that touches is hotor cold. But he touches it, and nds the testimonyconrmed in a striking way. Tus, he becomes awareo ignorance, and it is necessary to suppose a sel inwhich this ignorance can inhere. So testimony givesthe rst dawning o sel-consciousness.... (Vol. 5, p.233)

He continued and concluded this way:

[Tus children] iner rom ignorance and error theirown existence. Tus we nd that known aculties,acting under conditions known to exist, would riseto sel-consciousness. (Vol. 5, p. 236)

We then here see the metaphysical oundationthat supports Peirces view on science and the religionor rather the relation between the search or truth andthe divine in a way that is unique and which I interpretas a new type o mysticism. Te unity o truth is not inthe explicit knowledge system as a grand story. Tisis what the postmodern movement rightully objectedagainst (Luntley, 1995). Peirce realized this, but kept itlike a regulative idea (i.e., similar to Kant, 1781/1990),as a stage we might reachnot only in theory, but aslived reason in harmony with ethics and aestheticsin

a very distant uture. I thereore agree with Deely (2001)in calling Peirce the rst truepostmodernist.

Religion and the Sacred

o go beyond undamentalist religion and its dogmas,I would like to maintain a distinction betweenreligion and the sacred. Religion is predominantly asocial-political institution that organizes the relationshipbetween the sacred and the proane with the help orituals and codes. Te sacred is dened through the

undamental myths, which in the same breath establishthe worldview and understanding o the human,meaning, and society. Trough the sacred, the worldis given meaning, and thereby makes a distinctionbetween meaning and the meaningless possible. Tesacred, thereore, seems to be a power o a completelydierent orm than those powers o nature that sciencedescribes. ypical or many religions is precisely thatthey organize the sacred by combining the emergence othe world with the history o the emergence o society

and its cultural meaningul order based on distinctiono right and wrong as well as good and bad. In this way,it seems obvious that nothing could be dierent. Tere isthereore no room or a gradual development o religioustruth, when all the dogmas have been written down. Itwas this understanding o religion that Peirce broke within his new synthesis.

It is, however, exactly the reective knowledgeo the act that we can change paradigms that we havegained rom modern philosophy o science, which isa decisive trait in the democratic (dialogue-ethical)societys liberation rom undamentalist religions. Inthe liberal democratic society we are human being rst(i.e., we start in the world o the living, eeling, languageusing, and embodied knowing beings), then we canchoose to be Christian, Muslim, Marxist, Scientistic, orembrace other traditions. Tis means that one is humanand has ones own existential relation to the sacred beoreone is religious, ideological, scientic, party political, oranything else. I think Peirce would have agreed with thisview.

Fundamentalism can now be ormulated as theopposite view, namely those who understand themselvesas belonging to a given system rst, and second as amember o the human race. It is within such belies thatthe goal easily becomes justiable or any means. Whenyou know the undamental truth, then you also knowthat the others are undamentally wrong and need tobe saved, or condemned as evi l should they resist. Tepattern is the same within religion, philosophy, politics,and science (Brier, 2008a).

It is important to stand by the undamentalstatus o the estimation/abduction principle or allknowledge, both regarding religion and the sciences:none o them should be assigned the patent o truth.Peirce (1866-1913/1994) wrote on universality:

I object to absolute universality, absolute exactitude,absolute necessity, being attributed to any propositionthat does not deal with the Alpha and the Omega,

in the which I do not include any object o ordinaryknowledge. (Vol. 6, p. 607)

Tis is exactly where Peirce started in his A NeglectedArgument or the Reality o God (p. 452), where heurther developed the philosophical oundation or hisconcept o abduction. Tere is in his semiotic philosophyneither skepticism about human ability to acquireknowledge about the world, nor about the existenceo a partly independent material reality, living reality,


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or about the reality o mind as well as o the sacred.Combined with his proound evolutionary thinking thisis a highly original point o view that may nally haveound its time. But beore we analyze Peirces viewpointwe must briey discuss the concept o mysticism. In theChristian tradition this worldview has oten been seen asan opposition to the churchs dogmas and in science asan opposition to belie in scientic method as the onlyway o obtaining reliable and clear rational knowledge.

Mysticism

he word mystery (mysterion) comes rom theGreek verb muo, to shut or close the lips or eyes.oday the concept mysticism points to a belie inthe possibility o the mind to make a break throughthe world o time and space into a phenomenologicalbeingness o eternal timelessness, all-presence, and

spacelessness. About this idea o a general mysticallevel, oten called the perennial philosophy, Happold(1973) wrote:

In the deepest religious experience, whether it beChristian, Buddhist, Hindu, or Mohammedan,when all ideas, thoughts, sensations, and volitionswhich make up the sel are exhausted, there is oundto remain only a Void, the One o Plotinus, theGodhead o Eckhart and Ruysbroeck, the Brahmano Hinduism. Te Void is not only Emptiness. Inmystical experience it is ound to be a Plenum-Void.

Te Emptiness and the ullness are one. (p. 80)

Mysticism includes the theory o a unity betweenconsciousness, body, and universe that is beyondlanguage (Happold, 1973; Maharishi, 1979; Stace,1960): a unity where distance is gone (i.e., beyondspace) and presence is total (i.e., beyond time), andwhere words and objects unite (the triadicity o semiosiscollapses into unity).

o Peirce (1866-1913/1994), Firstness is anelement o experience unrelated to other experiences.

Everything starts as mixed together as a vaguenessoverwhelmingly present in the now that cannot begrasped in signs and language. He wrote:

Te idea o the absolutely rst must be entirelyseparated rom all conception o or reerence toanything else; or what involves a second is itsel asecond to that second. Te rst must thereore bepresent and immediate, so as not to be second to arepresentation. It must be resh and new, or i old

it is second to its ormer state. It must be initiative,original, spontaneous, and ree; otherwise it issecond to a determining cause. It is also somethingvivid and conscious; so only it avoids being theobject o some sensation. It precedes all synthesisand all dierentiation; it has no unity and no parts.It cannot be articulately thought: assert it, and ithas already lost its characteristic innocence; orassertion always implies a denial o something else.(Vol. 1, p. 357)

All these qualities o absolute Firstness tswith the descripton o the mystical union or pureconsciousness. As Peirce wrote, then it is not anexperience or a cognition because that would demand aull semiosis and thereore the presence o Secondnessand Tirdness. Te Peircean Firstness o monadicvagueness becomes the Secondness o a dyadic

separation through interaction. Consciousness, thebody, and reality have a sort o common oundationin something beyond what we can experience by thesemiosis o cognition. It is interesting that rational andempirical analysis o space and time in physics actuallyleads theories into this paradoxical domain as theypoint beyond the Planck Scale where measuring o timeand space become impossible. Te Planck scale limit omeaningul measurement is a part o the oundationor quantum theory.

In his Conessions, St. Augustine (1961) made

a amous analysis o time where he already made itclear that the universe is not created in time but withtimeand Aristotle draws our attention to the actthat the universe, which is the place or everything,has no place or itsel (i.e., one cannot ask meaning-ully what there was beorethe universes creation, stillless, where it was or what is/was outside, as time andspace only exist as a possibility in a universe). Tis isin accordance with general mysticism, as or instancein the writings o Meister Eckhart (1958) and Happold(1973, p. 269). Spirit or the sacred is precisely that

which is transcendent, says the mystic. Tereore itis also everywhere at the same time, and therebyalso inside you and me, as well as outside us. Tequotation marks are put in to show that the usualconceptions and distinctions are not enough whenwe speak o spirit. Te mystics here will also say thatinnityand with it this space-timelessnessisound behind or in every point in the universe (pp.119-120). Te spirit is also immanent in the world as


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love and creative power in matter. Te mystics see itshine through the material appearances. Every sel-conscious person thereore has in principle directaccess to the spirit, since consciousness is also one o itsmaniestations. When consciousness is without contentit is pure consciousness: that is to say, consciousnessthat is only conscious o itsel (Maharishi,15 1968,1979). Te human nervous systems most undamentalachievement is precisely this capacity to reect realitysnon-maniest aspect, which is the connection betweenthe inner and the outer world. Peirce (1866-1913/1994)is a bit skeptical about this capacity. He wrote:

Te immediate present, could we seize it, wouldhave no character but its Firstness. Not that I meanto say that immediate consciousness (a pure ction,by the way), would be Firstness, but that the qualityo what we are immediately conscious o, which is

no ction, is Firstness. (Vol. 1, p. 343)Tis mystical understanding o the ability

o human consciousness to be in a sort o absoluteFirstness as oundational to human consciousness iscentral to mysticism and so persistent over dierentcultures, historical periods, inside and outside dierentreligions that the philosopher Leibniz (1992) calledthis view the perennial philosophy, a name AldousHuxley (1945/1979) renewed in 1945 with a book onthe subject. Te perennial philosophy is the idea thata common, eternal philosophy exists that underlies allreligious movements, in particular the mystical streamswithin them. Te induction on many observationsis that humans in many dierent cultures and allhistorical eras have recorded similar perceptions andexperiences about the nature o reality, the sel, and theworld, including the meaning and purpose o existenceand human lie. Scholars supporting this view arguethat these similarities point to underlying universalprinciples. Tey urther conclude that these are theprinciples that orm the common ground o most

religions. Opposing those who claim that experiencesamong them the religious onesare totally determinedby the cultures metaphysical views in the given periodo history, the perennial philosophy claims that thedierences in the way these undamental perceptionsare described arise rom dierences in human cultures.Tus in opposition to those scholars that claim thatthere is no unity behind the dierences, the perennialphilosophy claims that there is a undamental unityand the dierences can be explained in light o cultural

conditioning. In a philosophical analysis, Stace (1960)and Happold (1973) concluded that this is a wellounded theory and, in his history o philosophy, theNorwegian ecological philosopher Arne Nss (1969, p.69) pointed to convincing similarities between MasterEckhart and Shankaras paradigms o consciousness,even though one o them is a German Christian andthe other an Indian Hinduand several centuriesdivide them. Happold (1973) wrote:

the essence o that perennial mystical philosophywhich is ound in all the higher theistic religions:

Tat the Godhead is absolute Stillness and Rest, reeo all activity and inaccessible to human thought,yet alive through and through, a tremendousEnergy, pouring Itsel out into the created worldand drawing that world back into Itsel.

Tat there is a complete unity in everything, all isin God and God is in all.

Tat mans real sel is divine.

...the Godhead is not only Eternal rest,Unconditioned Dark, the Nameless Being, butalso the Superessence o all Created things. Manis, thus, not a creature set over against God; heis united with this triune lie, and, this union iswithin us by our naked nature and were this natureto be separated rom God it would all into pure

nothingness. (p. 66)Conscious development is thus to regain

consciousness (the ull awareness o) realitys immanentas well as transcendent aspects without violating thediversity in the relative maniestation. Expressed inconcepts rom Heideggers (1949/1962) philosophy,it is to be aware o the connection between daseinand the universe in which we are thrown. It is to beconscious o the roots o our thrownness. Only romthis position can we get rid o the blindness in our

perception o reality.16

I think Heideggers concept oblindness is pointing out what in the Vedic traditionis called Maya. It is that, which the unenlightenedconsiders ultimate reality, but is still only a veil, aconstruction projected by our own inability to seethings as they are in ull.17 In science, it is the physicalreality that is the last veil. Grand narratives are alsoveils. Te relative (Maya) is not unreal in the sensethat it does not exist, but rather in the sense thatthere is a more stable background behind it o pure


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consciousness, in which the root o all knowledge is tobe ound. Happold (1973) wrote that this is ound:

when religious eeling surpasses its rational content,that is, when the hidden, non-rational, unconsciouselements predominate and determine the emotionallie and the intellectual attitude. In the true mystic

there is an extension o normal consciousness, arelease o latent powers and a widening o vision,so that aspects o truth unplumbed by the rationalintellect are revealed to him. (p. 19)

Knowledge (gnosis) has here a deepphenomenological oundation that transgresses but doesnot rejectour normal understanding o the scienticand the rational. Mystical knowledge is subjective,without being personally individualistic, in that it basesitsel on subjectivitys general aspect. o reach this is toattain what our culture once called wisdom. Tis typeo knowledge may well be the central or undamentalaspect o human knowledge. It is embodiment o thedeepest knowledge o ourselves and nature connectinginner and outer being. It is rom his musing that Peircecreated his concept o science as a social and ethicalcommitment to create a logically consistent oundationo knowledge or the development o human culture. Hesaw science as another orm o religious commitment inthe never-ending search or truth. I think the second parto the ollowing quote by Happold (1973) describes verywell Peirces understanding and the basis o his methodo musing:

One view o the world is that it is an intelligiblepresentation which is spread out beore us or ourdetached and dispassionate examination; its naturecan be grasped by thought, analysis and classicationalone. Tis view has been held by most philosophersand scientists. Another view is that the world is notlike that at all, that it is a mystery, the secret o whichcan only be partially grasped by thought, analysis,and classication. o penetrate its deepest secrets

one must not stand aside rom it but try, as it were,to eel it. One must be content, intently and humbly,to contemplate it, to gage at it as one might gage ata picture, not in order to analyse the technique o itsbrushwork or colour arrangement, but to penetrateits meaning and signicance. Tis intent, lovinggazing in order to know and understand is what ismeant when we say that contemplation is a tool oknowledge. (p. 70)

One can say that Peirce combined both visions byconsidering none o them to be absolutely true alone,but both may well be true together. A lot o the universeis within the reach o human understanding throughscience, but it seems that only a very little part is laid outin the open as simple computational laws. Still Peircebelieved that in principle we should be able to get to knoweverything i we worked on it in a dedicated scienticway. But in reality he was aware that there was probablynot time and money enough to ever reach that stage insemiotically based knowledge.

Peircean Scientifc Mysticism18

In the article A Neglected Argument or the Existenceo God, Peirce (1866-1913/1994, Vol. 6, p. 452)contended that the very rst step in abductive reasoningis a orm o Pure Play, which he calls Musement. He

describes it this way:Pure Play has no rules, except this very law o liberty.It bloweth where it listeth. It has no purpose, unlessrecreation. Te particular occupation I meanapetite bouche with the Universesmay take eitherthe orm o aesthetic contemplation, or that o distantcastle-building (whether in Spain or within ones ownmoral training), or that o considering some wonderin one o the Universes, or some connection betweentwo o the three, with speculation concerning itscause. It is this last kindI will call it Musement onthe wholethat I particularly recommend, becauseit will in time ower into the N.A. One who sitsdown with the purpose o becoming convinced o thetruth o religion is plainly not inquiring in scienticsingleness o heart, and must always suspect himsel oreasoning unairly. So he can never attain the entiretyeven o a physicists belie in electrons, although this isavowedly but provisional. But let religious meditationbe allowed to grow up spontaneously out o Pure Playwithout any breach o continuity, and the Muser willretain the perect candour proper to Musement. (Vol.6, p. 458)

Tis rst stage o abduction is to be undergonewithout rules or restrictions. Tere should be no censorshipas to what can or cannot be considered. o that end, apositive attitude towards the world and the possibilityo knowledge is needed, as a pessimistic outlook wouldeliminate the open mind attitude. Tere are all sorts orelations not amenable to being investigated i it is decided


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a priori that they are not worth making. Chiasson (1999)ended her analysis o the Neglected Argument or Godin the ollowing way:

From this criterion, perhaps we could say that wecould redene Peirces use o the word Godinto: anyhypothesis-ormed by means o optimistically undergone

abductive reasoningthat leads one into consciouslychoosing ethical conduct that results in the living o a goodliewhether or not the concepts we know as God oran ater-lie enter into the matter at all. (n.p.)

On this basis the search or scientic knowledge or thebenet o mankind is seen as a sort o holy quest, like it wasin the early Renaissance and long ater, maybe especiallyuntil Darwins evolutionary theory. Only Peirce managedto take that into account and still keep the original visiono science intact, but now also combined with aestheticsand ethics.

Knowledge thus has its origin in the divinestability and intelligibility o the world according to Peirce.As Descartes (1984), Peirce saw the divine as the guarantyagainst total skepticism. But Peirce went much urther inhis evolutionary metaphysics. Peirce (1866-1913/1994)wrote in the Monist paper Evolutionary Love:

Everybody can see that the statement o St. Johnis the ormula o an evolutionary philosophy, whichteaches that growth comes only rom love, rom I will notsay sel-sacrice, but rom the ardent impulse to ulll

anothers highest impulse. Suppose, or example, that Ihave an idea that interests me. It is my creation. It ismy creature; it is a little person. I love it; and I willsink mysel in perecting it. It is not by dealing outcold justice to the circle o my ideas that I can makethem grow, but by cherishing and tending them as Iwould the owers in my garden. Te philosophy wedraw rom Johns gospel is that this is the way minddevelops; and as or the cosmos, only so ar as it yet ismind, and so has lie, is it capable o urther evolution.Love, recognizing germs o loveliness in the hateul,

gradually warms it into lie, and makes it lovely. Tatis the sort o evolution which every careul student omy essay Te Law o Mind must see that synechismcalls or. (Vol. 6, p. 289)

In Peirces philosophy, the production o meaning is broughtinto what mechanism sees as dead nature by the conceptso Firstness and Synechism, combined with hylozoismand the development o the universe through the threedierent kinds o evolution: (1) evolution by ortuitous

variation (tychasm); (2) evolution by mechanical necessity(anancasm); and (3) evolution by creative love (agapism).But it was with Peirce (1866-1913/1994) as it was with St.John that, o those three, love is the greatest and the mostproound. He wrote:

Evolution by sporting and evolution by mechanical

necessity are conceptions warring against one another.Lamarckian evolution is thus evolution by the orceo habit. Tus, habit plays a double part; it serves toestablish the new eatures, and also to bring them intoharmony with the general morphology and unctiono the animals and plants to which they belong. Buti the reader will now kindly give himsel the troubleo turning back a page or two, he will see that thisaccount o Lamarckian evolution coincides with thegeneral description o the action o love, to which, Isuppose, he yielded his assent. (Vol. 6, p. 301)

Further we must keep in mind that matter is eete mind.Tus the Law o Mind also breaks up habits o matter.Peirce wrote:

Remembering that all matter is really mind,remembering, too, the continuity o mind, let us askwhat aspect Lamarckian evolution takes on withinthe domain o consciousness. the deeper workingso the spirit take place in their own slow way, withoutour connivance Besides this inward process, thereis the operation o the environment, which goes to

break up habits destined to be broken up and so torender the mind lively. Everybody knows that the longcontinuance o a routine o habit makes us lethargic,while a succession o surprises wonderully brightens theideas. A portion o mind, abundantly commissuredto other portions, works almost mechanically. It sinksto a condition o a railway junction. But a portiono mind almost isolated, a spiritual peninsula, orcul-de-sac, is like a railway terminus. Now mentalcommissures are habits. Where they abound,originality is not needed and is not ound; but where

they are in deect spontaneity is set ree. Tus, therst step in the Lamarckian evolution o mind is theputting o sundry thoughts into situations in whichthey are ree to play. (Vol. 6, p. 301)

Tis, o course, relates to his epistemology o abductionounded in Pure Play. It is the Lamarckian developmento mind that makes science as a collective inquiry possibleat all. Tus in Peirces philosophy, the categories workaccording to the Law o Mind and there is an inner


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aspect o Firstness (pure eeling) in matter. But one has tobe aware o Peirces (1866-1913/1994) special conception omind and consciousness. He wrote:

Far less has any notion o mind been established andgenerally acknowledged which can compare or aninstant in distinctness to the dynamical conception

o matter. Almost all the psychologists still tell usthat mind is consciousness. Butunconscious mindexists. What is meant by consciousness is really in itselnothing but eeling.there may be, and probably is,something o the general nature o eeling almosteverywhere, yet eeling in any ascertainable degree isa mere property o protoplasm, perhaps only o nervematter. Now it so happens that biological organismsand especially a nervous system are avorablyconditioned or exhibiting the phenomena o mindalso; and thereore it is not surprising that mind and

eeling should be conounded.that eeling is nothingbut the inward aspect o things, while mind on thecontrary is essentially an external phenomenon. (Vol.7, p. 364)

Tus, the essence o consciousness is eeling and animportant aspect o Firstness is pure eeling. Te possibilityo being aware on other levels may be reinterpreted as amystical theory in a Peircean ramework, as is the possibilityo being aware o the basic Firstness uniting all maniestthings. Te universe is permeated with Firstness, but thatis not the same thing as human sel-conscious awareness,though a consistent theory o evolution has to point toit as the origin o human consciousness. Peirce (1866-1913/1994) wrote:

What the psychologists study is mind, not consciousnessexclusively. consciousness is a very simple thing. notSel-consciousness consciousness is nothingbut Feeling, in general, -- not eeling in the Germansense, but more generally, the immediate element oexperience generalized to its utmost. Mind, on thecontrary is a very difcult thing to analyze. I am

not speaking o Soul, the metaphysical substratumo Mind (i it has any), but o Mind phenomenallyunderstood. o get such a conception o Mind, ormental phenomena, as the science o Dynamicsaords o Matter, or material events, is a businesswhich can only be accomplished by resolute scienticinvestigation. (Vol. 7, p. 365)

Peirce was not speaking o human sel-consciousness buto the essence o consciousness as a phenomenon that

develops in nature to emerge in new and more structuredorms in living beings, nervous systems, and language-based culture. Being a sort o semiotically objectiveidealist, Peirce argued or a scientic study o mind seenas a oundational aspect o reality. Tis is in my view(Brier, 2008a) not possible or the mechanistic sciencethat starts o with xed and dead laws that cannotdevelop and cannot encompass emotions and ree willas causal powers. I am also convinced that cyberneticinormational computational articial intelligenceapproaches will also be insufcient (Brier, 2008a), as wella biosemiotic ideas o semiosis without interpretation,which has it most well argued orm in MarcelloBarbieris work (Barbieri, 2008). My main interest inPeirce is his work on establishing a new oundation thatwill make it possible or us to work scientically withboth matter, mind, and consciousness within the sameramework. Peirce (1866-1913/1994) wrote about thisconcept o thought, understood as a unction o mindand semiosis:

Tought is not necessarily connected with a brain.It appears in the work o bees, o crystals, andthroughout the purely physical world; and one canno more deny that it is really there, than that thecolors, the shapes, etc., o objects are really there.Not only is thought in the organic world, but itdevelops there. But as there cannot be a Generalwithout Instances embodying it, so there cannot be

thought without Signs. We must here give Sign avery wide sense, no doubt, but not too wide a senseto come within our denition. (Vol. 4, p. 551)

Here Peirce widened the semiosis concept to includepattern-creating processes as natures thinking. I wouldpreer to call these proto- or quasi-semiotic processes toavoid a too broad sense o the concept leading into a pan-semiotic metaphysics. Nevertheless, Peirces metaphysicsoperated with the inside o material nature. He wrote,Wherever chance-spontaneity is ound, there in thesame proportion eeling exists. In act, chance is but theoutward aspect o that which within itsel is eeling (Vol.6, p. 265). I nd it compatible with an interpretationo Peirces theory and in accordance with perennialphilosophy mysticism (Stace, 1960) to see living systems,most o all the human, as the way in which the universeis becoming aware o itsel. Evolution is the developmento sel-organization o systems until they become closedand thereby individuals with their own cognition andintentions. One needs a body and a nervous system to


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become (sel)-conscious! As Peirce (1866-1913/1994)wrote:

Since God, in His essential character o Ensnecessarium, is a disembodied spirit, and sincethere is strong reason to hold that what we callconsciousness is either merely the general sensation

o the brain or some part o it, or at all events somevisceral or bodily sensation, God probably has noconsciousness. (Vol. 6, p. 489)

Tus, Peirces concept o God is rst and most basicallyan abstract transcendental origin and continuity behindit all. It is a state o utter nothingness like the Godheado Eckhart and the emptiness o the Buddhists, and itmaniests as an immanent order and drive in evolutionreminding me most o Hegels spirit, but in a somewhatdierent metaphysical ramework where evolution andscientic thinking is integrated in a model that deviatesrom the Greek Logos thinking and does not have thesame sort o determinism as Hegels theory had. In tryingto give some hints about what pragmatism is and howit can be used on the highest metaphysical principles,Peirce summed up his general view o cosmic evolutionin the ollowing way:

A disembodied spirit, or pure mind, has its beingout o time, since all that it is destined to think isully in its being at any and every previous time.But in endless time it is destined to think all that

it is capable o thinking. Order is simply thoughtembodied in arrangement; and thought embodiedin any other way appears objectively as a characterthat is a generalization o order, and that, in thelack o any word or it, we may call or the nonce,Super-order. It is something like uniormity. Puremind, as creative o thought, must, so ar as it ismaniested in time, appear as having a characterrelated to the habit-taking capacity, just as super-order is related to uniormity. perect cosmologymust show that the whole history o the three

universes, as it has been and is to be, would ollowrom a premiss which would not suppose them toexist at all. But that premiss must represent astate o things in which the three universes werecompletely nil. Consequently, whether in time ornot, the three universes must actually be absolutelynecessary results o a state o utter nothingness.We cannot ourselves conceive o such a state onility; but we can easily conceive that there should

be a mind that could conceive it, since, ater all,no contradiction can be involved in mere non-existence. (Vol. 6, p. 490)

Here Peirce dealt with the classicalseemingly aswe shall seemystica l paradox o the impossibilityo characterizing the transcendent or absolute in any

precise way. It is not directly conceivable in conceptsand it cannot be perceived in the way things can.Nevertheless, it seems a logical inerence o the analysiso Plato. In the Christian mystical tradition, the problemis oten ormulated as the relation between God and theGodhead.

Godhead and Superorder

One o the worlds most amous interpreters o themystical tradition in the East and the West isDaitsetz Suzuki,who lived in periods both in the East

(Japan) and the West (United States). He specialized inthe mystical oundations or Buddhism and Christianityand wrote a book comparing them that was recognizedas a masterpiece. Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist(Suzuki, 2002) is now a world classic published on theInternet. What is most interesting though is that Suzukiwas a contemporary o Peirce and worked or the editoroTe Monist, Dr. Paul Carus19. Peirce had an intensiveexchange with Carus and the Monist was the journal inwhich Peirce published some o his most amous articles(see or instance Peirce 1892 a, b, & c, 1893). Like Carus,

Peirce had an interest in the mystical side o Buddhism.Suzuki (2002) commented about the above-mentionedparadox within the mystical view and explained why itis only seemingly a paradox in the ollowing way:

God goes and comes, he works, he is active, he be-comes all the time, but Godhead remains immovable,imperturbable, inaccessible. Te dierence betweenGod and Godhead is that between heaven and earthand yet Godhead cannot be himsel without goingout o himsel, that is, he is he because he is not

he. Te contradiction is comprehended only by theinner man, and not by the outer man, because thelatter sees the world through the senses and intellectand consequently ails to experience the proounddepths o Godhead. (p. 9)

In the last quote by Peirce, he also touched upon thenecessity o a generalization o order as the drive behindthe evolutionary processes o the three basic categories.Tis pull towards order seems to be the nal causation


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o the evolution o the universe. It has an urge to embodyits thoughts in maniest creation. Or as Plato (2004)put it in imaeus, the One desire to share its love andperection with the imperect.20 It ows over rom thetranscendent into the relative and maniest in time andspace creating matter as eete mind. Te last is a Peirceanormulation. Te paradox is that such a transcendentorder cannot be ormulated in any human language.David Bohm (1983) discussed the same consequenceso his own ideas o Wholeness and the Implicate Order,the amous book where he worked with the idea o animmanent order in natureinspired by the mysticKrishnamurtithat produces the holomovement.Tus I would say that Bohms conception o evolution isclose to Peirces in having a sort o immanent Firstnessontology in a process philosophy. In an interview (Weber,1972), Bohm talked about the super implicate order,which seems very similar to Peirces Super-order thathas its existence out o time.

Like the Buddhists, Peirce saw this order asno-thing. Te Buddhists talk about emptiness. Peircewrote that the three universes, Firstness (qualia andpotentialities), Secondness (resistance, will, and bruteorce), and Tirdness (mediation, understanding, andhabit-taking) must evolve rom a transcendental basis inan evolutionary metaphysics. Such metaphysics is alsobehind Shankaras Advaita Vedanta that represents oneo the purest mysticisms based on the Vedas, and MasterEckharts Christian mysticism (Nss, 1971). Suzukiquoted Eckhart in this matter (Suzuki, 2002, pp. 12-13),but here is the original quote rom Eckhart (1929/1941):

When I existed in the core, the soul, the river, thesource o the Godhead, no one asked me where Iwas going or what I was doing. Tere was no oneto ask me, but the moment I emerged, the worldo creatures began to shout, God. I someonewere to ask me: Brother Eckhart, when did youleave home?Tat would indicate that I must havebeen at home sometime. I was there just now. Tus

creatures speak GodBut why do they not mentionthe Godhead? Because there is only unity in theGodhead and there is nothing to talk about. Godacts. Te Godhead does not. It has nothing to doand, there is nothing going on in it. It is never on thelookout or something to do. Te dierence betweenGod and the Godhead is the dierence betweenaction and nonaction.

When I return to God, I shall be without orm,

and thus my reentry will be ar more exalted thanmy setting out. I alone lit creatures out o theirseparate principle into my own, so that in me theyare one. When I return to the core, the soil, the river,the source which is the Godhead, no one will ask mewhence I came or where I have been. No one willhave missed meor even God passes away. (pp.225-226)

Suzuki (2002) commented on this: It is in perect accordwith the Buddhist doctrine o snyat and advancesthe notion o Godhead as pure nothingness (ein blossniht) (pp. 12-13). Te ormulation out o this paradox isessential in much mysticism and in panentheism. Tereis a transcendental reality beyond time and space thatcannot be spoken o but, still, it is somehow the source oeverything. Why is it necessary? Peirce (1866-1913/1994)explained:

For all Being involves some kind o super-order. Forexample, to suppose a thing to have any particularcharacter is to suppose a conditional proposition tobe true o it, which proposition would express somekind o super-order, as any ormulation o a generalact does. o suppose it to have elasticity o volumeis to suppose that i it were subjected to pressure itsvolume would diminish until at a certain point theull pressure was attained within and without itsperiphery. Tis is a super-order, a law expressible by adierential equation. Any such super-order would bea super-habit. Any general state o things whatsoeverwould be a super-order and a super-habit. (Vol. 6,p. 490)

Tus logically the idea o things having universalproperties demands a logos as universal oundation.Te big question is then, how does evolution start romthere? Plato wrote in imaeusthat the One overowsby love to create something that can contain at leastsome love in an imperect way, as it is not jealous. In theVedas, it is desire that makes Brahman create the world

through his Shakti (emale orce o creation; Sharstein,1978). Brahman is in itsel the unmovable oundation,like Aristotles unmoved mover. In Christianity, it isthe Holy Ghost that acts in creation on behal o theunmovable Father. Peirces solution is close to these.But it is ormulated within his own metaphysics and,thereore, much closer to a view and a wording acceptablerom a scientic viewpoint o, or instance, quantumeld theory and its idea o the world developing rom


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a vacuum eld that is never quite at ease. Its nature isa spontaneous quantum uctuation within the limitso the Planck Scale (see, or instance, Bohm, 1983).Peirce (1866-1913/1994) wrote the ollowing about hisCosmology in 1891:

I may mention that my chie avocation in the last ten

years has been to develop my cosmology. Tis theoryis that the evolution o the world is hyperbolic, thatis, proceeds rom one state o things in the innitepast, to a dierent state o things in the inniteuture. Te state o things in the innite past is chaos,tohu bohu,21 the nothingness o which consists inthe total absence o regularity. Te state o thingsin the innite uture is death, the nothingness owhich consists in the complete triumph o law andabsence o all spontaneity. Between these, we haveon our side a state o things in which there is some

absolute spontaneity counter to all law, and somedegree o conormity to law, which is constantlyon the increase owing to the growth o habit. Tetendency to orm habits or tendency to generalize,is something which grows by its own action, by thehabit o taking habits itsel growing. Its rst germsarose rom pure chance. Tere were slight tendenciesto obey rules that had been ollowed, and thesetendencies were rules which were more and moreobeyed by their own action. Tere were also slighttendencies to do otherwise than previously, and

these destroyed themselves. o be sure, they wouldsometimes be strengthened by the opposite tendency,but the stronger they became the more they wouldtend to destroy themselves. As to the part o time onthe urther side o eternity which leads back romthe innite uture to the innite past, it evidentlyproceeds by contraries. (Vol. 8, p. 317)

Tus Peirce believes in creation ex nihilo (out o nothing),but as an evolution going rom ohu Bohu to some kindo perect order, as soon as the rst tendency to take habit

maniest itsel in and with space and time. Tis is veryclose to David Bohms view o the Super Implicate Order(Bohm & Weber, 1983) that is his attempt to unite themysticism o Krishnamurti with the modern quantumtheoretical understanding o reality. Clearly, we moveover rom Firstness into Secondness and Tirdness assoon as the tendency to take habits has some dierencesto work on that will not sel-destruct. Peirce (1866-1913/1994) wrote:

Hyperbolic philosophy has to assume or starting-

point something ree, as neither requiringexplanation nor admitting derivation. Te ree isliving; the immediately living is eeling. Feeling,then, is assumed as starting-point; but eelinguncordinated, having its manioldness implicit.For principle o progress or growth, somethingmust be taken not in the starting-point, but whichrom innitesimal beginning will strengthen itselcontinually. Tis can only be a principle o growtho principles, a tendency to generalization. Assume,then, that eeling tends to be associated with andassimilated to eeling, action under general ormulaor habit tending to replace the living reedom andinward intensity o eeling. Tis tendency to takehabits will itsel increase by habit. Habit tends tocoordinate eelings, which are thus brought into theorder o ime, into the order o Space. (Vol. 6, p.585)

For David Bohm this will be when we go orm theSuper Implicate Order to the Implicate Order; or putin another way rom the transcendent to the immanent.Here is another quote rom Peirce where he makes thisclear:

In that state o absolute nility, in or out o time,that is, beore or ater the evolution o time, theremust then have been a tohu bohu o which nothingwhatever afrmative or negative was true universally.Tere must have been, thereore, a little o everythingconceivable. Tere must have been here and therea little undierentiated tendency to take super-habits. But such a state must tend to increase itsel.For a tendency to act in any way, combined with atendency to take habits, must increase the tendencyto act in that way. (Vol. 6, p. 490).

I think that Peirces semiotics ts both Suzukis mysticismand Eckharts, since Suzuki (2002) pointed out thatGod is not creating the world in time, mathematicallyenumerable:

His creativity is not historical, not accidental, notat all measurable. It goes on continuously withoutcessation with no beginning, with no end. It is notan event o yesterday or today or tomorrow, it comesout o timelessness, o nothingness, o AbsoluteVoid. Gods work is always done in an absolutepresent, in a timeless now which is time and placein itsel. Gods work is sheer love, utterly ree romall orms o chronology and teleology. Te idea o


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God creating the world out o nothing, in an absolutepresent, and thereore altogether beyond the controlo a serial time conception will not sound strange toBuddhist ears. (pp. 3-4)

Tus the Big Bang theory does not tell us how the worldwas created. It is an attempt to tell us about the physical

development o time, space, and energy. ranscendencebreeds immanence and immanence makes the distinctionback to transcendence beore time and outside spacein an ever ongoing process o being and becoming.

o return to this articles argument, then, it ispossible to understand Peirces (1866-1913/1994, Vol. 6,p. 452) Neglected Argument or the Reality o Godthrough the musing o pure play in the light o hisbenign orm o panentheistic mysticism.22 o makevaluable abductions, the scientist must in a positive wayopen his mind to the basic creative dynamics o both

mind and matter. Many mystics speak o emptyingthe mind, being simple, going beyond the ego, andletting God in. But this is not to be understood as divineand intentional messages rom a personal God or theperception o some ready-made and exact transcendentalideas. It is rather a listening to the hum o creation orthe general or basic vibration o the Godhead, owinginto time, space, lie, and mind and back again into itsown nothingness in that undamental vibration thatupholds our reality.23

As Suzuki (2002) pointed out, God is neither

transcendental nor pantheistic (p. 9, emphasis supplied),meaning that God in this conception is not onlypantheistic or transcendental, but both (panentheism24),and thereby the concept covers innitely more. Tismystical theory lits theories o knowledge and natureout o determinism. We cannot give a nal deterministicdescription o nature, culture, or the knowledge process.Tus knowing is much more than knowledge.25 Humanknowing is a processional ow. It is only by letting gointo this sporting o pure musement, as Peirce (1866-1913/1994) called it, by leaving behind any limits imposed

by previous knowledge and skeptical attitudes that onecan hope to abduce basic and universal knowledge. Ithink that Suzukis (2002) understanding ts well withPeirces when he wrote:

Eckhart quotes St Augustine: Tere is a heavenlydoor or the soul into the divine nature where somethings are reduced to nothing.

Evidently we have to wait or the heavenly door toopen by our repeated or ceaseless knocking at it when

I am ignorant with knowing, loveless with loving,dark with light. Everything comes out o this basicexperience and it is only when this is comprehendedthat we really enter into the realm o emptinesswhere the Godhead keeps our discriminatory mindaltogether emptied out to nothingness. (p. 14)

Tus the completely open mind that does not haveany goal o its own gain is the position where yourconsciousness is open or abducting new ideas throughmusing. But that is o course not the mystical union thatthe mystics seek to stay in. In musing you can at the mostget a ew glimpses and get inspired by those. AlthoughPeirce actually did have a mystical experience, whichhe reported in a letter to a priest but never sent (Brent,1998), his major path to the divine insight was clearlyscience,but an abductive-allibilist pragmaticistic science.Where Plato and Descartes believed in transcendental

ideas that our mind could contemplate in the highestand most divine status o mind, Peirces abduction witha basis in musing gives an evolutionary view on the basicsource o human ideas. Te ideas are vague and can onlybe claried through the collective dynamic processes oscience, which is the collective eect o being logical andpursuing the empirical testing o hypotheses throughinduction and deduction.

Our understanding is not ready made and xedbut allible, and has to be tested and developed throughhuman scientic practice. Tus, a lthough Peirces musing

can be seen as a technique o mystical revelation asabductive inspiration, it is not about orgetting real lie inthe ultimate divine existentiality, but a rich inspiration inbuilding a common cultural understanding o reality.

Peirce does not underline the paradoxicalityo the mystical experience and how it escapes linearthinking and presentation in language as, or instance,in the ao e Ching:

When you look at it you cannot see it;

It is called ormless.

When you listen to it you cannot hear it;

It is called soundless.

When you try to seize it you cannot hold it;

It is called subtle.

No one can measure these three to their ultimateends,


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Tereore they are used to one.

It is up, but it is not brightened;

It is down, but it is not obscured.

It stretches endlessly,

And no name is to be given.

It returns to nothingness.

It is called ormless orm, shapeless shape.

It is called the intangible.

You ace it but you cannot see its ront.

You ollow it but you cannot see its back.

Holding on to the Ancient Way (ao)

You control beings o today.

Tus you know the beginning o things,

Which is the essence o the Way (ao-chi).

(Suzuki, 2002, p. 15)

On the other hand, Peirce said that Firstness is vague.It is only beingnot existence, as Secondness isexistence. Qualisigns need signs o Secondness to bemaniest. Peircean philosophy thus can be viewed asbeing on a mystical metaphysical oundation. But likeAristotle he develops a philosophy o science on thisbasis, but Peirces logos o evolutionary love is vagueand evolutionary. With his theory o abduction, Peirceplaces himsel between Plato and Aristotle. It is ouraccess to the divine that inspires our understandingo the material world through abduction. Induction isallible because the ideas are vague and the laws o naturenot exact. We have to deduce tests rom our abductivelycreated theories and then make inductions rom themto test our allible theories and keep on correcting themin the hope o a steady evolutionary improvement o our

societys knowledge basis.

ime, Creation and Evolution

Seen rom the Eternal Now

he mystical theory o cognition and consciousnessthus point to an inner link between universe andworld. I this is possible it should also be possible toconceive o an outer link between universe and world.Now, recapitulating that we cannot speak o timeand space outside and beore the universe comes

into being, we must realize that, seen rom the non-maniest, one can thereore neither say that the worldcame into existence at a certain time nor that it alwayshas been, because time rst came into existence duringand with the creation o the universe. Te Universe iscreated and

a peircean panentheist scientific mysticism

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