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PEIRCE_OF_MELODY

                                             February 15, 2010
                                             August   12, 2011
                                             May      11, 2022

                                              http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/ideas/id-main.htm#CP5.395

C.S. Peirce, "How to Make our Ideas Clear" (1878):

     "In this process we observe two sorts of elements of
     consciousness, the distinction between which may best be
     made clear by means of an illustration. In a piece of music
     there are the separate notes, and there is the air. A single
     tone may be prolonged for an hour or a day, and it exists as
     perfectly in each second of that time as in the whole taken
     together; so that, as long as it is sounding, it might be
     present to a sense from which everything in the past was as
     completely absent as the future itself. But it is different
     with the air, the performance of which occupies a certain
     time, during the portions of which only portions of it are
     played. It consists in an orderliness in the succession of
     sounds which strike the ear at different times; and to
     perceive it there must be some continuity of consciousness
     which makes the events of a lapse of time present to us. We
     certainly only perceive the air by hearing the separate
     notes; yet we cannot be said to directly hear it, for we
     hear only what is present at the instant, and an orderliness
     of succession cannot exist in an instant. These two sorts of
     objects, what we are immediately conscious of and what we
     are mediately conscious of, are found in all
     consciousness. Some elements (the sensations) are completely
     present at every instant so long as they last, while others
     (like thought) are actions having beginning, middle, and
     end, and consist in a congruence in the succession of
     sensations which flow through the (W3.263) mind. They cannot
     be immediately present to us, but must cover some portion of
     the past or future. Thought is a thread of melody running
     through the succession of our sensations."



                                         An excellent passage, with a killer
                                         punch line, though it takes it's
                                         time getting there.

                                         Pierce makes a key distinction here,
                                         between that which can be percieved
                                         in "an instant", and perceptions that
                                         are built up over time, assembled in
                                         the mind.

                                         The shape of the chair is not seen
                                         at a glance, but built-up from viewing
                                         it at different angles, *and* from your
                                         expectations having encountered chairs
                                         in the past.


                                     (It is also possible that you have an
                                     in-built facility to detect chairness, a
                                     category lodged in the collective
                                     unconscious and evolved to confer a
                                     survival advantage on those who need to
                                     bang something over the heads of mating
                                     competitors.  Or something.)




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