My friend Schröder fell in love with my algebra of dyadic relations. The few pages I gave to it in my Note B in the "Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University" were proportionate to its importance! His book is profound…

A certain number of ideas, A1, A2, A3, etc. have had their separate vividnesses much reduced by clustering. They attract a dim idea, B, and the vividness of the whole cluster of As is much reduced, while that of B is much increased. /1

Hence, as a general rule, the stronger attractions acting first, any given combination of ideas grows to a maximum vividness and then subsides. The relative vividness of the constituents is equalized in the clustering. The way in which this acts is this.

The total vividness is diminished when the clustering tends away from reaction between the inner and outer worlds. For the abstract is less vivid than the concrete.

The total vividness is increased when the clustering tends toward a reaction between the inner and outer worlds. For this is no more than to say that that which concerns our desires is interesting.

But other things being equal, vivid ideas cluster and suggest others more energetically than dim ideas. A given cluster draws first those ideas for which it has the most energetic attraction. That is to say, all ideas move toward it, but some come into close union with it sooner than others.

Modern psychology has made an admirable beginning. Every student of exact science who is in a situation to judge of what has been accomplished in this department must applaud it with his whole heart. /1

A new version of my piece arguing that Bell correlations are selection artefacts. Much improved by discussions in recent weeks, including with audiences at CausalWorlds 2026, Grenoble, and @lmu-mcmp.bsky.social, Munich. #quantum #philsky #philsci

Bell Correlations and Selection Bias

Methods of selecting samples from larger populations may produce bias, in either direction: inducing correlations between variables independent in the full population, or masking correlations between ...

arxiv.org

The reverse of vivid is called dim.

The second element of consciousness is the consciousness of duality in the opposition, or over-against-ness, or reaction between subject and object, between ego and non-ego. The intensity of this element of consciousness is called the vividness of the idea.

It is in short so fairy-land like that instead of lamenting that it has to last till Friday I wish almost I could be going to Volo for all eternity.

There my three fellow-passengers disembarked & today all day I have been alone in my glory until this evening a new companion has appeared who speaks Greek & Italian but not a word of French & it is quite useless to inquire about English or German.

After immerging from the Hellespont into the Mediterranean we took Andros on our left & then Samothrace on our right & passed up to Lagos where we arrived late last night.

Peirce overstates the ontological status of the past and future. Causality is not an action upon ideas but a category understanding “All alterations take place in accordance with the law of the connection of cause and effect” Kant

Happy Bday to Maria Mitchell (1818-1889).Here's her house on Nantucket & telescope of historic comet fame in window.She was hired 1845 by A.D.Bache at USCoastSurvey to establish cardinal point for latitude & longitude in US & spent season in field w/ Survey as 1st fed funded woman scientist in US 🧪🗃️

Admirable Women@admirablewomen.bsky.social · 5d ago

Maria Mitchell was the first professional female astronomer in the US.🔭 * First American to discover a new comet, 1847 ☄️ * First woman elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences & the American Assoc for the Advancement of Science She was born #OTD in 1818. #WomenInSTEM #astronomy

These seem to me to be strong arguments to prove that temporal causation (a very different thing from physical dynamic action) is an action upon ideas and not upon existents. But since our idea of the past is precisely the idea of that which is absolutely determinate, fixed, fait accompli, /1

For, according to that law, all that happens in the physical universe consists in the exchange of just so much vis viva ½m (ds/dt)^2 for so much displacement. Now the square of a negative quantity being positive, it follows that if all the velocities were reversed at any instant, /1

It may also be argued that, according to the law of the conservation of energy, there is nothing in the physical universe corresponding to our idea that the previous determines the subsequent in any way in which the subsequent does not determine the previous.

Accordingly, the relation of time concerns only ideas.

We pragmatists think of moral progress as more like sewing together a very large, elaborate, polychrome quilt, than like getting a clearer vision of something true and deep. PasAA p.141 #Pragmatism #Rorty #Antiessentialism

Of the arguments upon the affirmative side, none is stronger than the following. It is said that not to utilize in logic the results which psychologists have obtained concerning abstraction and concerning association would be a wasteful proceeding. /1

Experience may begin in what affects us from without, but it is not constituted by affection alone. The mind does not merely receive; it orders what it receives. Kant, “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”

Pragmatists suggest that we simply give up the philosophical search for commonality. PasAA p.141 #Pragmatism #Rorty #Antiessentialism

For an experience is the irresistible influence from without which an incident exerts upon the mind.

Mathematical hypotheses are arbitrary creations of the mind. As such, their substance is not experienced.

There is a mathematical logic, just as there is a mathematical optics and a mathematical economics. Mathematical logic is formal logic. Formal logic, however developed, is mathematics.

In conclusion, fuck your genAI slop.

Charles S. Peirce@charlespeirce.bsky.social · last wk.

The existence of the word effort is sufficient proof that people think they have such an idea; and that is enough. The experience of effort cannot exist without the experience of resistance. Effort only is effort by virtue of its being opposed; and no third element enters.

Thus, the system of real numbers is used as such a middle term of comparison; and so is the system of imaginary numbers. The last system has two dimensions; but that does not prevent mathematicians from calling it a system of quantity. /1

A theory that cannot be falsified is not humble enough to be true.

A multitude of individual objects in regular systematic relationship to one another, if it is employed as a middle term of comparison for determining the relations between other things, may be called a scale of quantity.