043 - Evolution is Everything: Charles S. Peirce and Hegel

Hedge fund head Ray Dalio, in his book "Principles" states, "To be 'good,' something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole; that is what is most rewarded. Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe; it is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything." Dalio is not a trained philosopher but has plenty of street smarts.  And street smarts should never be discounted.  

American pragmatic philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce put evolution at the core of his philosphy. Regarding Peirce and Hegel, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states, "These thinkers, of course, all have a single theme in common: evolution.  . . both Hegel and Peirce make the whole evolutionary interpretation of the evolving phaneron (world of appearances) to be a process that is said to be logical, the 'action' of logic itself.” 

Peirce had access to Darwinian evolution which Hegel did not. And importantly, Peirce incorporates Darwinism in his theory of evolution and yet goes beyond. Hence his philosophy is an update of sorts of Hegelianism, particularly regarding Nature. This episode explores.  

Transcript

Gregory Novak 0:00

Hello. This is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist episode 43. Welcome back. The purpose of this podcast is to show how our minds are free and creative. Enabling us to pursue purposeful activity to improve and elevate our own lives and to make the world a better place. Please like, and follow the podcast. Facebook page at Cunningham Geist. And follow me on Twitter also at Cunningham Geist. I will be devoting this entire episode to the fascinating subject of evolution. And in particular, the revolutionary philosophy of American pragmatic philosopher, Charles Sanders Pierce. Specifically, I'll be covering three levels of evolution that he proposed first blind, random evolution. Second efficient. Evolution through mechanical necessity and third purposeful holistic teleological evolution. I believe Charles S Pierce's philosophy as a great deal of correspondence with Hagle. Which I'll be pointing out as we go through this episode. I'll also be covering two contemporary scientists who can incur with much of what Pierce was saying. Back in the close of the 19th century. we'll be discussing a physicist Lee Smolan and biologist Rupert Sheldrake. And we've discussed both of these gentlemen before, particularly in episode 26. But we'll be. Providing some interesting quotations from them later on. Now. There's also an interesting point that I'm going to be making in this episode. And that is that. Evolution may not just apply solely to biological creatures. It may also apply to the laws of the universe. Uh, these laws may have been evolving as well, and we'll be exploring this. Now on a related note, I was reading a business book. A while back, By hedge fund manager, Ray Dalio. Uh, Ray Dalio heads, the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater associates in the United States. And it's funny sometimes how you get wisdom from outside traditional disciplines. Dale you wrote a book. A year or two ago called principles, outlining his rules for success in business. And let me read his principle 1.4 quote. Look to nature to learn how reality works. Don't get hung up on your views of how things should be, because you will miss out on learning how they really are. To be good. Something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole. That is what is most rewarded. Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe. It is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything evolve or die. And quote. Let me repeat this important point of his. Quote to be good. Something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute. To the evolution of the whole. That is what is most rewarded in quote? And this is the essence of what I'm going to be covering today. Now. Before I begin. I just want to say that I've learned a tremendous amount when doing the research for this particular episode. And this happens often to me. it's, it's one of the biggest benefits of doing this podcast. I, I learned so much in my preparation and hopefully this is beneficial to you as well. and what I'm going to be presenting here. I some definitely some new ways of thinking about the evolution of the cosmos. Now I would like to begin with a review of, Charles S Pierce's work and how it relates to the subject in hand. Although I had heard of Pierce before. I really knew very little about him before this week. I knew he was one of the founders of the American philosophical school of pragmatism along with John Dewey and William James in the late 19th century. And that was about all I knew though. So here's what I discovered in my research. Pierce was born in 1839 in Cambridge, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. Is the home to Harvard university. His father was a professor of astronomy and mathematics at that university and Pearson himself graduated from Harvard in 1863. He then went on and worked as a surveyor for the government for some time. And then he became a logic professor at Johns Hopkins university in 1879. He later went on to try farming in 1887, but failed at it and faced economic ruin. He spent the rest of his life, basically in poverty and he'd submitted articles to journals for meager pay. And he had to unfortunately rely on handouts from friends to sustain himself, including from fellow pragmatic philosopher, William James. He passed away in 1914. Unfortunately Pierce's recognition as a major force and philosophy only began after his death. Let me provide some worthy praise that he has received from philosophers that followed him. First from American philosopher, Paul Weiss. He said that Pierce was quote the most original versatile of American philosophers in America's greatest logician and quote. Bertrand Russell said, quote beyond doubt. He was one of the most original minds of that, of the later 19th century and certainly the greatest American thinker ever in court. It's been reported that Alfred north Whitehead was taken by how much Pierce had anticipated his own process, thinking. Or reading some of Pierce's unpublished manuscripts soon after arriving in Harvard. In 1924. And Karl popper called Pierce. One of the quote, one of the greatest philosophers of all time in quote. So it's pretty. noteworthy praise indeed. Well, what did Pierce have to say? What was he all about? Well, he wrote on a wide variety of subjects. Pretty unbelievable. And I'll just be discussing a few elements of his philosophy here and, and show how it relates to, again, leadism. Pierce advocated, a metaphysical doctrine. He called sinus schism. And it's the view that all phenomena are one character consisting of a mixture of freedom and constraint that tens in a teleological matter to increase the reasonableness of the universe. Now, this is a very similar concept to Hagen's overall scheme. Where the freedom of the logical idea meets the constraints of nature and develops a spirit, increasing the rationality, the realness of the universe. And we've discussed table's overall scheme, many times in previous episodes. Now here is how pierces sign a chasm, specifically links to evolution. Let me quote, Joseph Esposito here. Who's written about Pierce quote. In the. Tightly woven universe. There is no permanent disconnection between thoughts or representations and things or objects. Thoughts influence and shade into things. And vice versa. If there's a disconnect, it is a local condition. The trend is always for an increase in connections to emerge in quote. So there's a trend going on a process and evolution of thought. The Stanford encyclopedia sums it up. Well, let me quote. Pierce makes everything in the fan. Iran evolutionary, the whole system evolves. Three figures from the history of culture loomed exceedingly large in the intellectual development appears and in the cultural atmosphere of the period. In which Pierce was most active Hagle in philosophy, Lyle in geology and Darwin in biology. These thinkers, of course all have a single theme in common evolution. Hegel described an evolution of ideas. Lowel and evolution of geological structures and Darwin and evolution of biological species and varieties, Pierce absorbed it all. Pierce's entire thinking early on and later is permeated with the evolutionary idea, which he extended generally. That is to say beyond the confines of any particular subject Matter. For Pierce, the entire universe and everything in it is an evolutionary product. Indeed. He can see that even the most firmly entrenched of nature's habits. For example, even those habits that are typically called natural laws have themselves evolved. And accordingly can and should be subjects of philosophical and scientific inquiry. One can sensibly seek and Pearce's view evolutionary explanations of the existence of particular natural laws. For Pierce, then the entire fan Iran. That is the world of appearances. As well as all the ongoing processes of its interpretation through mental significations has evolved and is evolving. Furthermore, both Hagle and Pierce make the whole evolutionary interpretation of the evolving fan around to be a process that is said to be logical, the action of logic itself and quote. That covers it very nicely. In a sense. Pierce has sort of an updated Hagle, a Hagle 2.0, if you will. Hey, Google in light of Darwinian evolution. Now let's delve more specifically into Pierce's notion of evolution. He says there are three modes to it. First random change. I in Darwinian revolution where random changes appear in our genetics that make possible advances and capabilities Pierce called this type schism. Second is mechanical or efficient change. This would correspond to survival of the fittest in Darwinian evolution. Chris called us antique ism. Awesome. And thirdly you have what Pierce termed evolution by creative love. Pierce called this egg, a prism. Now it is here where Pierce breaks with the blind re. Random evolution of Darwin. This third point. He believed in the first two elements, random change and efficient change. He has to Darwin and believed that it was part of the story of evolution, but he ended a third element, which he called creative love. And he believed it to be a fundamental force of the universe for us, which guides evolution toward a purpose, a teleology, if you will. And I believe this is the same essential message is Hagle. That life has a purpose. We discussed this in much detail in episode 20 Hagle realizing the purpose of history. And an episode 27, the truth of nature, the historical movement of spirit. Hey, Google uses the term spirit. And Pierce uses the term creative love. And I believe they essentially refer to the same thing. I thinking beyond common left-brain either, or me, you type of thinking and more of a right brain holistic us together, type of reasoning. I believe this is also similar to the creative mind versus the competitive mind, the creative plane versus a competitive plane that William waddles. Referenced. Um, which we discussed in episode 41. Now, let me quote Pierce here regarding this quote, three modes of evolution have thus been brought before us evolution by fortuitous variation, evolution by mechanical necessity and evolution by creative love and. And as all three, that drive evolution, as he says is more than just change its betterment progress. Increase. Not for one, but for all, as Ray Dalio emphasizes. Also appears clearly acknowledged is that the Hagle as he himself puts it. Quote, my philosophy resuscitates Hagle though, in a strange costume and quote. Now, before we move on to the evolving laws of nature, there's one element of Pierce's system that needs to be mentioned. Because it relates directly to Hagle and that is his notion of thirds. We've covered the triadic nature of Hagle system before we went into detail. And in episode 13, Hagle the love three in the Christian, Trinity. But Pierce is much, much more explicit about this line. I'll quote him now. Quote. Well among the many principles of logic, which find their application and philosophy. I can hear only mentioned one. Three conceptions are perpetually turning up at every point and every theory of logic and in most rounded systems. They occur in connection with one another. They are conception so very broad and consequently indefinite that they are hard to seize and maybe easily overlooked. I call them the conceptions of first, second, third. First is the conception of being or existing independent of anything else. Second is the conception of being relative to the conception of reaction with something else. Third is the conception of mediation whereby at first and a second abroad into relation mind is first matter is second evolution is third and quote. As you can see, this is a very similar conception to Hegel's logic, nature, and spirit. And it's spirit that is evolving. Now let's move on to another very interesting aspect of Pierce's work regarding evolution. Which is just getting recognition now in the scientific community. And it concerns the laws of nature. Pierce had the benefit of nearly a century, more of scientific findings available to him than Hagle did. And what he did was he took his evolutionary theory. and made it underlied the laws of nature themselves. Now here's the issue that's going on here. Uh, physics has established certain Constance. Let me mention just a few of them. There's Planck's constant, which is measuring the photons energy. Gravity is a constant. The speed of light is a constant. And Einstein special theory of relativity. The relationship between speed and length and time is a constant and there are many, many more constants that sciences identify. Fact. It's estimated there are at least 26 constants required for the universe to be, as it is. And that universe includes life. Us. Now the big question is where did these laws come from? Did someone or something decide them to be this way. And so who, why. Let me quote, contemporary author Carter Phipps on this very point. Cool. I find it remarkable to discover in the course of my research. That all the way back in the 19th century Pierce was questioning the most sacred carols of the physical sciences, the laws of nature. For Pierce, the entire universe and all of its forces and creations were subject to evolution. Indeed Pierce's work was one of the first to begin to theorize us something. As extensibly absolute as a law might be created the processes of evolution. Perhaps the laws of nature are not unchanging applying to everything for all time. He suggested. Perhaps they didn't predate the universe, perhaps they to evolve along with the forms and structures of our cosmos. Peer suspected that many of the seemingly fixed structures of our universe are in fact, better described as habits. Hebert said it becomes so deeply embedded in nature that they behave like laws fixed and unchangeable and quote. And I'll now quote, contemporary physicist Lee. Smolin on the same subject regarding Pierce. Cool. If I had been an educated person, rather than a narrowly educated person in science, I would have known the quotation that I'm going to read to you, which is from the 1890s. From the American philosopher, Charles Paris. It was one of the founders of the philosophical school called pragmatism. Already in the 1890s, he was worrying about the question of why these laws. Which shows that sometimes philosophers really are a century ahead of the scientist he wrote, and I'll read it slowly so that the translator can get it. Sub court. To suppose universal laws of nature. Capable of being apprehended by the mind. And yet having no reason for this special forums. But standing inexplicable and irrational is hardly a justifiable position and sub quote. He's saying it's not enough to know what the laws are. You want to ask why these laws and just to say, these are the laws tough is irrational and unjustifiable. He said sub quote. Uniformities are precisely the sorts of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence. The thing that wants a reason. And subcon. And now here, his thesis is this. Uh, sub coat. The only possible way of accounting for laws of nature. And for uniformity in general. Is to suppose them the results of evolution and sub court. By which from the context, we know it's evolution by natural selection because he was fully observing the impact of Darwinism. And that's a lot of what his philosophy and the American pragmatist philosophy was about end quote. So there you have it. Let me provide another quote now by contemporary biologist, Rupert Sheldrake who holds a similar view. Quote. The conventional idea is that there are eternal laws, but nature has no memory. So the way, the name thing knows how to do what it does such as a spider, making a web of solution crystallizing into salt. The formation of water molecules is nothing to do with evolution or anything that has happened in the past, but it is determined by laws of nature. These laws are understood to be outside of nature. And early scientific thought they were eternal trues in the mind of God, but of course, God is no longer there for modern scientists. So since 1966, which was when the big bang theory of creation was proposed. We have seen the universe as evolving and expanding rather than eternal and static. And these laws have become a kind of hangover from an old worldview, which is no longer necessary. And they are leading monitoring cosmologist into a lot of difficulties. This would, because it is. Increasingly clear that the laws. And the constants of the universe are exactly right for us human beings to exist in it. And this raises the question why. Yes, it looks as if the universe is designed to be just right for human beings. There are basically only two possible answers to this. If we want to retain the concept of immutable laws. One is that there's some kind of deity who's manipulating the laws and constants from the outside so to speak. But this is not an acceptable theory for most scientists. The alternative is that we are living in a multi-verse that there are lots of universes and we just happened to be living in one. That is exactly right for us. But all the others actually exist. However, another way of looking at all, this is to say that everything is evolving, even the laws of nature and that nature has memory, which means that things behave as they do, because they remember what they did in the past. We were talking about atoms and molecules here, as well as biological species, a collective memory, similar to the archetype or memory proposed by psychologist, CG young. And memory is cumulative. The more often particular patterns of activity are repeated, the more habitual they tend to become and quote. Now, how do these habits get acquired? Sheldrake proposed that there is a memory function in the universe. Much like it is in our own, our own self. Sorry for all the quotes here, but this is really good stuff. Let me quote Chicago Drake again. Cool. The universe is more like an organism than a machine. The big bang recalls the mythic stories of the hatching of the cosmic egg. It grows and as it grows and undergrowth. And internal differentiation is more like a gigantic cosmic embryo than the huge eternal machine of mechanistic theory. With this organic alternative, it might make sense to think of the laws of nature is more like habits, perhaps the laws of nature habits of the universe, and perhaps the universe. Has a built-in memory. About 100 years ago, the American philosopher CS Pierce said that if he took evolution seriously, if we thought of the entire universe is evolving, then we wouldn't have to think of the laws of nature as somehow linked to habits. This idea was actually quite common, especially in America. It was espoused by William James and other American philosophers. And it was quite widely discussed at the end of the 19th century in Germany, Nicha once so far as to suggest that the laws of nature underwent natural selection. Perhaps that there were many laws of nature in the beginning, but only the successful laws survive. Therefore, the universe. We see has laws which have evolved through natural selection and quote. So perhaps the universe itself possesses a memory and evolves through the three laws of evolution. To the point where we are today. And of course this evolution of the universe is, is ongoing. And it's interesting. We talk about laws. we, you know, we have laws in society and these laws are subject to change. they're not immutable. and, governments often do change laws. And, it's an interesting concept to think about. that there may not be anything. Is it immutable, eternal law? Um, so to summarize what pier Smolan and Sheldrake is saying, is that in the distant past of the universe, the physical laws evolved. We don't know when this occurred. It may have occurred right after the big bang. It may have happened during the cosmic inflation in the first fraction of a second of the expanding universe, or perhaps it occurred in the period before the expansion of which we know nothing other than it existed. And this evolution continues. To summarize Pierce is saying that the universe. As a whole is evolving, including its laws. And his views are fun, meaningful today by some contemporary scientists. Pierce believes this is occurring based on three evolutionary principles, randomness, coupled with efficiency, coupled with creativity. And purposeful direction. And for the benefit of all. And. The key is that this direction of evolution is purposeful. It's to build a home for us thinking rational. Creatures in this evolution continues including our own evolution. This puts evolution in the broad sense of the word. Uh, the way Pierce describes it as fundamental to the universe. And hedge fund king Ray Dalio would agree. And I believe the same can be said for Hegel's philosophy And we've seen how Pierce's theories round out again, lean ism. They put some meat on the bones of Hegel's views of nature. Now. Just to finish off here. Let me quote William waddles. well, we talked about in a previous episode, quote, Intelligence is a consciously living substance. It must have the nature and inherent desire of every living intelligence for increase of life. Every living thing must continually seek for the enlargement of its life because life in the mere act of living must increase itself. Intelligence is under the same necessity for continuous increase. Every thought we think makes it necessary for us to think another thought. Consciousness is continually expanding and quote. So hopefully I've adequately covered Pierce's philosophy of evolution, how it relates to Halian ism. And how does being endorsed by some current scientists are not afraid to think outside the box. Okay. That's it for this episode. Again, thank you so much for listening. Um, really appreciate it. I love all the great comments that I receive. And I continue to want your input on future episodes. Please like shared rate this podcast, wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to tell your like-minded friends about it. All quotes will be listed in the podcast. Facebook page, add cutting of guys to few hours after the episode drops. This is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist. See you next time.