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Appendix to The Laws of Form Controversy: Laws of Form via Existential Graphs, and Beyond Randolph Dible Professor Mar, PHI 490

Here you are at a certain crossing and a certain imaginary intersection of the void. Edmund Jabes, Book of the Absent; part 3, section 6.

On its own and through its inuence on Schroder and Peano, the work of the great logician Charles Sander Peirce (1839-1914) helped shape modern rst-order logic. But in his later years his focus was on his Existential Graphs, which he dubbed his chef doeuvre and considered superior to his symbolic system. The Existential Graphs were not symbolic like the standard logical notation he had so inuenced, but rather diagrammatic, graphic and iconic, meaning it bears a likeness to what it signies, rather like the familiar Venn diagram, the reader may nd illustrative, and those of Euler. in Euler diagrams, we can represent relations between sets iconically: the syntactic (topological) properties of enclosure, exclusion and intersection of circles resemble the set-theoretic properties of subset, disjointness, and intersection. (John Howse, Book Review, The Iconic Logic of Peirces Graphs)

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Peirces Existential Graphs, like the rest of his architectonic, is tripartite. The three parts are called the Alpha Graphs, Beta Graphs, and Gamma Graphs, and these respectively represent propositional, predicate, and modal logic (Sun-Jo Shin). Traditional symbolic logic could be understood as expressing speech (it describes), in comparison to iconic logic which could be said to express vision (it shows). And it is Peirces Alpha Graphs we will focus on, in its likeness to the Primary Algebra of George Spencer-Browns Laws of Form, in its interpretation of propositional logic. The Primary Algebra is a development of the Primary Arithmetic, by the addition of variables to represent propositions. The Primary Arithmetic has two initials: Initial 1. Number () () = () Initial 2. Order (()) = These initial equations begin Chapter 4 The Primary Arithmetic, but are the axioms taken from Chapter 1 The Form. These axioms are, respectively, the law of calling and the law of crossing. The former means that for any name, to recall is to call (if a name is called and then is called again, the value indicated by the two calls taken together is the value indicated by one of them and the crossing of the boundary can be identied with the value of the content Spencer-Brown, Chapter 1, Laws of Form), or as Spencer-Brown puts it, the value of a call made again is the value of the call (ibid.) The latter axiom means that for any boundary, to recross is not to cross (if it is intended to cross a boundary and then it is intended to cross it again, the value indicated by the two intentions taken together is the value indicated by none of them Ibid.). In Chapter 2 Forms Taken Out of the Form, we learn that the former equation is called the form of condensation and that latter is called the form of cancellation. Chapter
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3 The Concept of Calculation ends in a section called The calculus of indications where these two axioms of the Laws of Form are rst called the initials of a calculus, and the forms generated from direct consequences of these initials he calls the Primary Arithmetic, also known as the Calculus of Indications. And going back to Chapter 4, The Primary Arithmetic, we nd that these two initials of the Primary Arithmetic may be read either way: forwards, the former reads as condensation of the form, and the latter as cancellation of the form; backwards, the forms reads as conrmation, and the latter as compensation. Take a moment to consider how these readings apply to the form of the initials by referring to the parenthetical forms of enclosure I have given to represent the two axioms of the Laws of Form. Chapter 4 The Primary Arithmetic explores primitive general statements called theorems that are formal consequences of these initials. Eight theorems are developed therein; the rst three are called theorems of representation, the next three are called theorems of procedure, and the last two are a gateway into a new calculus and are called theorems of connection. This new calculus is the Primary Algebra, so similar to Peirces Existential Graphs. An Alpha Graph consists of two kinds of primitive vocabulary; sentential or propositional symbols and the cut, a simple closed plane curve. In Spencer-Browns Laws of Form, the Primary Algebra consists of the Primary Arithmetic (which, itself, consists merely of cuts) and variables, symbols of sentential or propositional symbols. In Laws of Form, a cut or cross, a mark indicating the crossing of distinction represents negation of its contents, and juxtaposition represents disjunction or alternation. In the Alpha Graphs, juxtaposition represents conjunction, and the cut represents negation.

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The cut in both systems represents negation of elements and can be construed as any closed curve, a circle is used in both systems, but in Spencer-Browns system, the right-angle bracket (inverted capital L) is the standard symbol, called the Mark, which indicates the crossing of the rst distinction. The Primary Algebra consists of the introduction of variables (representing variable expressions, which are interpreted for propositional or sentential logic) into the Primary Arithmetic which itself consists of constants, and is a non-numerical arithmetic. These constants are prototypes or archetypal forms of indication of the primary constant, the rst distinction. The rst distinction is drawn in an otherwise unmarked state or unmarked space, or Void, and is the basis of Laws of Form. In the Existential Graphs, the primary state is the Page of Assertion, like the unmarked state, which is the blank page upon which are drawn the cuts and variables. In Existential Graphs, the Page of Assertion has the truth value of True. In Laws of Form, the two equivalence classes are Mark and Void, and either may be interpreted as true or false, so long as the interpretation is consistent throughout the form. An equivalence class consists of all the forms that reduce to the same value (Mark or Void). Despite the great interest shown in diagrams, nevertheless a negative attitude toward diagrams has been prevalent among logicians and mathematicians. They consider any nonlinguistic form of representation to be a heuristic tool only. No diagram or collection of diagrams is considered a valid proof at all. It is more interesting to note that nobody has shown any legitimate justication for this attitude toward diagrams. Let me call this traditional attitude, that is, that diagrams can be only heuristic tools but not valid proofs, the general prejudice against diagrams. - Sun-Joo Shin, Introduction, The Logical Status of Diagrams

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This prejudice is behind the prejudice against Laws of Form, besides the general discomfort of investigating unfamiliar territory. In Shins book, by demonstrating the soundness and completeness of his modied Venn diagrams, he shows that the prejudice against diagrams and visualization is unjustied. In my paper, The Laws of Form Controversy, I come to the conclusion that most problems the authors of the key critical paper, Flaws of Form (Frank and Cull) come to are consequences of inappropriately imposing the criteria of symbolic logic on the iconic logic of the Primary Algebra. Spencer-Browns exploration became a quest that arrived at the vision that the various forms encountered in our experience and existence arise in stages out of formlessness by drawing a distinction and then arranging tokens of that distinction. (Jack Engstrom, C. S. Peirces Precursors to Laws of Form, pp. 1) In his article, Engstrom shows that Laws of Form is signicant to a metaphysical and mystical understanding of knowledge because the primary ground of Laws of Form is unmarked space [or undivided wholeness], and that forms can not only be created (constructed) out of this unmarked space [or undivided wholeness], but may also be voided (deconstructed) back into this unmarked space [or undivided wholeness]. (Ibid., pp. 3) This is called the voidability of relations. Even the basis of forms, the drawing of a distinction, is merely the crossing of a supposed distinction, and the rst crossing is an event rather than an entity, making this metaphysical interpretation a process-metaphysics with an ontology of becoming; it is the primary act. Spencer-Browns system is also tripartite. The mark of distinction (the inverted capital L, or right-angle bracket) consists of three points which remind us that the mark itself is the third element between the two states distinguished in the primitive act of drawing a distinction or

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crossing a boundary. The marked state is the content or inside of the mark, and unmarked state is the outside of the mark. By a series of four experiments (thought experiments) of alternatively marking the inside, outside, both and neither sides of the two primitive equations in the last chapter of the book, certain fascinating conclusions are reached, but for reasons of brevity, the triplicity is shown here in the last conclusion of the main corpus of the book: We see now that the rst distinction, the mark, and the observer are not only interchangeable, but, in the form, identical (Ibid.). The Mark, in its thirdness, is the operative constant (in the calculus there are two constants, but only one operative constant; the Mark) and what it indicates is the rst distinction. The ontological status of the rst distinction not explicitly mentioned, that is, there is nowhere in Laws of Form a discussion of ontology by that label. But ontology is always present implicitly, and in Laws of Form the rst distinction is the only constant, from which are built the existential precursors or prototypes of the forms of articulation of the universe. These archetypes are mentioned in the authors explanation of Laws of Form in another of his books, Only Two Can Play This Game (1972). There, he describes Laws of Form as an account of the emergence of physical archetypes by starting with nothing and making one mark and tracing all the eternal forms. From these we obtain two axioms, and proceed from here to develop theorems. The consequences of just having drawn one mark in an otherwise unmarked space, he there claims, are the principles underlying Boolean algebra. He states that he take Only Two to be a complimentary kind of book, a companion to the rigorous mathematical treatise Laws of Form, and indeed it does enlighten one as to the further interpretations of the Laws of Form in the mystical form. In particular, the triple-identity (akin to Peirces metaphysical doctrine of Thirdness) is likened to the Trinity of not only Christian religion, but also of Vedanta, and
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explains it also in terms of Space, Time and the Void. This occurs in the Notes, in the midst of his discussion of the ve orders or levels of eternity. The literature of this genre is fecund with metaphysical signicance, applicable to mathematics and sciences that have yet to be developed, and one thing is certain, that time will tell. Works Cited Engstrom, Jack, Precursors to Laws of Form in C. S. Peirces Collected Papers Shin, Sun-Joo, The Iconic Logic of Peirces Graphs Spencer-Brown, George, Laws of Form Spencer-Brown, George, Only Two Can Play This Game