ONT Re: Just In Time Logic
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JITL. Note 2
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| [On Time and Thought, MS 215, 08 Mar 1873] (cont.)
|
| It remains to show that, adopting this conception, the possibility of the
| resemblance of two ideas becomes intelligible; and that therefore it is not
| inconceivable that one idea should follow after another, according to a general
| rule. In the first place, then, it is to be observed that under this conception,
| two ideas may be both present to the mind during a longer interval, while they are
| separately present in shorter intervals which make up the longer interval. During
| this longer interval they are present to the mind as different. They are thought
| as different. And this longer interval embraces still shorter intervals than
| those hitherto considered, during which there are ideas which agree in the
| respects which are defined by each of the two ideas, which are seen to be
| different. During the longer interval therefore, the ideas of these shortest
| intervals are thought as partly alike and partly different. There is therefore
| no difficulty in the conception of the resemblance of ideas. Let us now see what
| is necessary in order that ideas should determine one another, and that the mind
| should be aware that they determine one another. In order that there should be
| any likeness among ideas, it is necessary that during an interval of time there
| should be some constant element in thought or feeling. If I imagine something
| red, it requires a certain time for me to do so. And if the other elements
| of the image vary during that time, in one part it must be invariable, it
| must be constantly red. And therefore it is proper to say that the idea
| of red is present to the mind at every instant. For we are not now saying
| that an idea is present to the mind in an instant in the objectionable sense
| which has been referred to above, according to which an instant would differ
| from an interval of time; but we are only saying that the idea is present at
| an instant, in the sense that it is present in every part of a certain interval
| of time; however short that part may be. The first thing that is requisite
| therefore to a logical mind, is that there should be elements of thought which
| are present at instants in this sense. The second thing that is requisite is,
| that what is present one instant should have an effect upon what is present
| during the lapse of time which follows that instant. This effect can only be
| a reproduction of a part of what was present at the instant; because what is
| present at the instant, is present during an interval of time during the whole
| of which the effect will be present. And therefore since all that is present
| during this interval is present at each instant, it follows that the effect
| of what is present at each instant is present at that instant. So that this
| effect is a part of the idea which produces it. In other words, it is merely
| a reproduction of a part of that idea. This effect is memory, in its most
| elementary form. But something more than this is required in order that the
| conclusion shall be produced from a premiss; namely, an effect produced by
| the succession of one idea upon another.
|
| C.S. Peirce, CE 3, pp. 70-71.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, MS 215, 1873, ["On Time and Thought"], pages 68-71 in:
|'Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 3, 1872-1878',
| Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1986.
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