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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Hi,, Jon, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Another case of my being at risk of drowning in my own thread.* Ach!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Please see larding below.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Nick <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>*!!!!! Mixed metaphor alert. Can one drown in a thread? I think Dave is going to like that metaphor! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Nicholas S. Thompson<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>Clark University<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/">http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> Friam [mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Jon Zingale<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, September 17, 2019 12:46 PM<br><b>To:</b> friam@redfish.com<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>Nick,<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>`Signs all the way down` ... hmm.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>Such a theory strikes me as necessarily objective, in the sense that:<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>1) there is nothing that signs ultimately refer to, signs<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>are not produced through reflection about the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>[NST==>To be honest, I am having trouble understanding your meaning of “objective”, so I may be off the mark, here, but… : Let’s say for starters that a sign is a relation such that if I stands in relation to O via S, S is a signifier of O for I. OK, now that is an objective relation in the sense that you and I, and scientists everywhere, could have a meaningful conversation about whether these conditions are fulfilled by any situation in nature. I think when those conversations are held, we will see controversially that all biological systems, including human social systems, are governed by signs. In some of his writings, Peirce seems to take the step down to the next level and insist that physical laws are of the same character. People like me call that “Weird Peirce”: we are tantalized by it but we don’t like to be caught talking about it in public. Please see my comments about Sheldrake, below. <==nst] </span></i></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>2) that the corresponding system of signs is to be taken<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>as the privileged frame of reality, there is no world.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>[NST==>Well, I agree if you mean by “no world”, no world apart from experience as I use the term (monistically –i.e. the world consists of everything that is experienced and there is not experience outside of experience because experience is just everything that is. Or, you could put it the other way around and switch the words experience and world in the above sentence and still be a proper monist.) It really doesn’t matter to a monist what you call “it”, because every naming I inevitably falsifies monism by implying a contrast. <==nst] </span></i></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>To the extent that you agree with this <i>characterization</i><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>of your own Piercean interpretation, what prevents the<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>ultimate collapsing of sign (and reality) under Baudrillard's<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>`sign as universal equivalent`?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>[NST==>alas, I don’t know what you are talking about here. <==nst] </span></i></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>Wrt Sheldrake, I remember being tempted by his theory<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>that the universe evolves through habit.</span><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>[NST==>Oh, Crap! Now I have to read Sheldrake. Your words might have been written by Peirce. In fact, come to think of it, I think they WERE written by Peirce. Since I cannot do this justice now, I am going to cc Mike Bybee, and see what he has to say. <==nst] <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'> I very much enjoy<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>thinking that physical law began through arbitrary and<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>frivolous fluctuations before settling on <i>what happened</i><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>most</span></i><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>. In an effort to see where he would take such a<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>theory, I found some youTube videos of him speaking.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>My favorite and perhaps most disillusioning was a<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>talk he gave at Google, where with maybe six people<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>in the room, I had the privilege to observe what a<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>rhetor he was capable of being. Now, I almost<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>never think about him or his theory.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Garamond",serif;color:#333333'>Jon<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'>[NST==>Jon, please put aside readings for me for when I get back. N<==nst] </span></i></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>