SYNECHISM
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 3307 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model |
The tendency to regard everything as continuous.
This neologism was introduced by PEIRCE (see collected papers 1998) and is quoted by R. ROBERTSON (2001, p. 22)(who, by the way, observes “Peirce was always one to coin a new term, which often makes reading him a process of translation) (Ibid.)
Anyhow, the scope of Peirce's studies on continuity in space and in time shows him as a precursor of D. BÖHM's “implicate order ”, based on quanta ; of PRIGOGINE's emergence of more complex entities through dissipative structuration and even possibly of still more recent physics models that tend to consider any structured matter as a provisional “ripple” in the basic space-time continuum.
The similarity with SPENCER BROWN's laws of form using recursive distinctions is also intriguing and probably significant as signaling a connection between the concepts of “whole ” and “void”. (see J. ENGSTROM, 2001, p.25-66)
See also
Quantum vacuum