0097 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, our ancestors adapt to the niche of triadic relations.

What are the sources of these signs and mediations?

One source is nature.  Nature broadcasts significations.

Another source, working in tandem with nature, are intentional manual-brachial gestures (which I call, “hand talk”).

Another source is our behavior, which signifies our commitments_1c.  Prelapsarian commitments_2c cannot be broken down into beliefs, intentions, practices and so on.  They are holistically conceived and experienced, just like nature’s signs and hand talk.

0098 Finally, there is another source, which is not a source, but built into our (human) adaptation to triadic relations, especially signs.  Whenever someone reads signs, there is always the presumption of ‘someone’ who generates sign-vehicles.  This ‘someone’ is obvious for hand talk, less obvious for committed behaviors (because the ‘someone’ is actually an actionable judgment) and obscure for natural signs.

0099 Well, maybe an interlude is called for.

Two interscopes are in play.  In the last section, I start with divine suprasubjectivity and end with human subjectivity.  One interscope swerves into another.

0100 Once again, here is the working interscope for divine suprasubjectivity.

0101 Clearly, I use the theology of Thomas Aquinas in a manner that does not appear um… theological. Nor is it scientific.  It is both.  It is neither.

I know intellectuals.  Surely, they desire to attach the proper label to whatever goes on.  To name it is to know it, as they say.  Once the intellectual grasps the desired label, then no more mental labor is required.

So, here is a word for you: “The approach is noumenal.”

0102 Science studies phenomena.  Scholastics contemplate noumena.

The two are related in the style of Peirce’s secondness.  They are two contiguous real elements.

A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.

The contiguity is [cannot be objectified as].   A noumenon cannot be turned into its suite of phenomenal objects, such as size, color, shape, properties, motions, responses to stimuli and so forth.  Nor can a suite of phenomenal objects be translated into their noumenon.

0103 Maybe, this boils down to word-play.

What other options do I have besides the term, “object”?

How about “subject”?

A noumenon may be considered the subject of an inquiry.

Its phenomena are objects for scientific investigation.

But, what is the subject?

Human subjectivity?  Divine suprasubjectivity?

0104 For the content-level of human subjectivity, the subject is active body [substantiates] sensate soul_2a.  The discipline of cognitive psychology investigates phenomena related to this noumenon.  Psychologists apply stimuli and observe bodily responses. The stimuli correspond to ‘something’_1a in the normal context of what is happening_3a.  Cognitive psychologists correlate their technical observations to self-reports of sensations and feelings_2a.

Human subjectivity cannot be not objectified by the phenomena studied by cognitive psychology.

But, don’t tell the cognitive psychologists.

Then, evolutionary psychologists propose how the correlations observed by cognitive psychologists might serve as hominin adaptations to a Pleistocene environment.  Presumably, natural selection solves problems in the environment of evolutionary adaptation.  Since these problems can be inferred from archaeological data, they may be considered phenomena.  So proposed hominin adaptations are models, accounting for what cognitive psychologists observe, in terms of Neodarwinian evolutionary theory.

0105 Divine suprasubjectivity cannot be objectified by the phenomena studied by evolutionary psychology.

But, don’t tell the evolutionary psychologists.

0106 In short, the study of phenomena associated to the content-levels of human subjectivity and divine suprasubjectivitybelongs to cognitive and evolutionary psychology, respectively.  Plus, these content-level actualities_2a cannot be objectified as the phenomena that these two sciences study.  They_1a must be identified as noumena.

But, don’t tell this to the scientists.

They cannot see that empirio-schematics of their disciplines somehow resonate with the two noumenal content-levels, but do not compose them.

0107 The situation level of divine suprasubjectivity presents a worse conundrum for science.  The revelation in the Genesis Creation Story presents a normal context_3b and potential_1b for a phantasm_2b.

Phantasms_2b are associated with opinion.  Opinion, in Greek, “doxa“, is precisely what ancient philosophers try to transcend.   Socrates does such a good job of dispatching doxa that he ends up wildly popular among the Athenian youth.  Socrates uses the symbolizing power of speech-alone words with such a flair that every opinion flounders in its own contradictions.

Why do they flounder?

Spoken words generate their referents, rather than the other way around.  Once one begins to critically examine the referent of any spoken word, the magical spell is broken and the word, ideal, slogan, curse, omen, promise and rhetorical position falls into contradiction.  A (mind-independent) referent does not define the spoken word.  Instead, a word is only as good as the symbolic order that it belongs to.

This is the condition of our current Lebenswelt.

0108 This is not the condition of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Hand talk words are icons and indexes.  They are symbols, too, because they are linguistic.  But, they are effective because they image and indicate their referents.  There are no contradictions within hominin word-gestures, because the referent defines the word, not the other way around.

With hand talk, gesture-words_2a are encountered in the same way as nature’s signfications_2a.  Sensations and feelings_2aalign.  Then, when a phantasm_2b virtually situates sensations and feelings_2a, it_2b seems to be true_1c, rather than an opinion_1c.  Plus, that truth_2b is tested in the crucible of a commitment_2c, an actionable judgment.

0109 Currently, is there a science that corresponds to the noumenon that is presented in the situation level of divine suprasubjectivity?  Or… human subjectivity?

Sociology?  Anthropology?  Cultural studies?

Shall I mention that the turtle has stopped moving and may be decomposing?

Here, it becomes apparent that the stimuli imposed by cognitive psychology mimics nature’s significations and hand talk.  The quizzical implication is that these signs are generated by a suprasensible being.

The corresponding sensations and feelings_2a should be adaptive.

Then, the imagination_1b attempts to situate these sensations and feelings_2a, in the normal context of what does this mean to me_3b.

0110 Does cognitive psychology apply?

Can cognitive psychology manipulate a situation well enough as to observe reproducible phantasms?

Or, do experimental psychologists only succeed in producing, in human subjects, the phantasms that they expect to see?

If this is the case, then do they act in the place of the hypothetical suprasensible being, mentioned above?

Hmmm.

Or, do they illuminate innate operations of the imagination_1b in response to particular sensations and feelings_2a in conditions_3a,1a mimicking the environment of evolutionary adaptation?

However one answers these questions, those productions, actions and illuminations highlight the revelatory nature of the situation level of divine suprasubjectivity.

0111 The situation level of divine suprasubjectivity poses an amazing challenge for Sociology, Anthropology and Cultural Studies.

I observe the turtle.  It seems dead.  I can conduct an experiment.  I can place it in a body of water, like the pond outside.

The normal context of the Creation Story_3b and the potential that is creation_1b appear as primary causation to a secondary causation that changes dramatically when humans pass from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.  Phantasms_2b in our current Lebenswelt are not the same as those in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0112 Why?

Our current phantasms_2b are not virtually contextualized by original justice_2c.

The phantasms_2b of the prelapsarian Adam, as well as those who live in the world of hand-speech talk, are.

These phantasms express the same hylomorphe, perceptive soul [informs] reactive body_2b.

0113 Surely, phantasms_2b have facets that can be observed and measured.  These noumena should have corresponding phenomena.  Is there an academic discipline that observes and measures these phenomena, builds models and discusses the topic in its own specialized language?

Personally, I do not think that any social science that adheres to the Positivist’s judgment satisfies this expectation.

0114 Here, I close the interlude with a sigh.

Aquinas and Peirce defy the rules of the positivist intellect and offer unexpected insights into who we are.

What is the potential₁ of a turtle₂?

It depends on the normal context₃.

0115 What is the structure of a sign?

A sign is a triadic relation, where a sign-vehicle stands for a sign-object in regards to a sign-interpretant.

0116 How does this correspond to Peirce’s categories?

As a first approximation, Peirce assigns the sign-vehicle to firstness, the sign-object to secondness, and the sign-interpretant to thirdness.

That is a good start.

0117 How do the elements of sign correspond to the category-based nested form?

First, both the sign-vehicle and the sign-object are actual₂.

This implies that the sign-relation entangles two category-based nested forms.

Peirce’s first two assignments suggests that the two nested forms are separated by one level.  One expects that the sign-vehicle is on level n and the sign-object is on level n+1.  There is one exception.  If n=3 then n+1=1, rather than 4.

Peirce’s third assignment suggests that the sign-interpretant belongs to categories that are different than the sign-vehicle and the sign object.  Both the sign-vehicle and the sign-object are actual₂.  They both belong to secondness.  This leaves the sign-interpretant encompassing both thirdness and firstness.

Consequently, the sign-interpretant corresponds to the remaining categories on level n+1.  The sign-interpretant consists of the normal context_n+1 and the potential_n+1 for the actuality_n+1 corresponding to the sign-object.

0118 Here is a diagram of the general pattern.

0119 I intend to apply this pattern to the interscope of human subjectivity.

However, I cannot start with human subjectivity.  I must start with southern apes walking in mixed forest and grasslands in Africa over two million years ago.  The australopithecines walk.  Their feet are enslaved and their hands are freed.  They are about to be drawn into the niche of triadic relations.

Why?

They can address one another with manual-brachial gestures.  They pantomime.  In doing so, they image and point to natural things and events.  Their gestures are not words, yet.  However, they join in nature’s broadcast of signs.

0120 Nature’s significations decide what is happening.  So, I call them “interventional signs”.  Nature intervenes.  Nature’s significations draw our attention.

0121 The process proceeds as follows.

First, things and events themselves_2c (SV_i, sign-vehicle) stand for sensations and feelings_2a (SO_i, sign-object) in the normal context of what is happening_3a (SI_i, sign-interpretant).  

Second, these events and things_2c (SV_i) have consequences.  Consequences mean ‘something’_1a (SI_i).  Roughly, ‘something’ corresponds to the meaning of a conjunction of sign-vehicle and sign-object.

0122 In sum, nature’s broadcasts_2c (SV_i) intervene to produce a particular state of active body [substance] sensate soul_2a(SO_i) that is bound by the normal context of what is happening_3a and the possibility of ‘meaning’_1a (SI_i).

0123 Here is a diagram of the interventional sign.

0124 What is included in nature’s broadcast?

Nature’s significations are included, first and foremost.

Body habitus of fellow walking southern apes, now clearly visualized because of posture, is a natural sign.  Apes track one another in team activities.

Manual-brachial gestures are natural significations because they picture and point to their referents.  The referent defines the gesture, not the other way around.  Even when manual-brachial gestures become routinized and increasingly distinct from one another, this principle holds.  Manual-brachial word-gestures are icons and indexes.

0125 Also, natural significations raise the question, “Who am I paying attention to?”

The southern apes do not know how to answer that question.  Early Homo cannot fathom a guess.  If nature is saying something, then who is talking?

Natural significations prepare our ancestors for sensible and social construction.  Events are full of signs.  Sometimes, a sign may be sensibly interpreted with a specifying sign-relation.  Sometimes, the signs demand social construction.  For example, there are a multitude of clues for when a flood is coming.

0126 What do our early ancestors know?

They can approach, avoid or safely ignore.  They can regard the habitus of other members of the team for clues as how to respond.  They can look to others for declarations of intent. They may conclude that the source of a natural sign has its own intentions.

Our ancestors also know that they must work together, in teams, in order to get enough food for every circle of family and friends to survive.  Michael Tomasello calls the strategy, “obligatory collaborative foraging”.  I call it teamwork.

0127 What does this imply about the evolution of the hominin’s active body [substance] sensate soul?

Our lineage adapts to nature’s significations (now broadly defined).  Our sensations (active body) and feelings (sensate soul) are attuned to natural signs.  In particular, we innately anticipate that our manual-brachial word-gestures are natural signs. Why?  Manual-brachial word-gestures are icons and indexes, just like the signs of nature.

0128 What else is implied?

On a deeper plane, natural signification is true, as opposed to false, and honest, as opposed to deceptive.  Even camouflage, designed to deceive, does so plainly.  A natural sign may fool the observer. But, it does so honestly.  Our ancestors learn this lesson early.  We have a sixth sense for danger, in this regard.  Our suspicions are aroused when ‘something’ does not seem quite right, especially in regards to significations.  I call that living world of significations, “Lebenswelt”.

0129 What about the evolution of religion?

The evolution of spiritual traditions is discussed in the chapter on meaning in How To Define the Word “Religion”.  It is also mentioned in The Human Niche, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Language evolves in the specialized hand-talk of team activities.  Language does not become its own specialized activity until the domestication of fire.  As fire is domesticated, opportunities for conversation arise.  Action-oriented specialized languages contribute to a general hand-talk language, complete with grammar.  Once grammar is habituated, then nonsensical statements can be constructed.

0130 A nonsensical statement in hand talk is a natural sign, because hand talk expresses icons and indexes.  At the same time, a modern anthropologist would call a nonsensical hand-talk sentence “symbolic”.

Why?

Not unlike the spookier instances of natural signs, nonsensical statements cannot be sensibly interpreted.  Social construction is required.  Social constructions create novel cognitive spaces, new niches for hominins to adapt to.

0131 Nonsensical “religious” hand-talk statements_2c (SV_i) trigger sensations and feelings_2a (SO_i) in the normal context of what is happening_3a (SI_i), coherent with ‘something that defies sensible construction’_1a (SI_i).  This ‘something’_1a may be a socially constructed meaning that cannot be explicitly pictured and pointed to with hand talk.

Yet, it (SI_i) can be consistently evoked with a sign-vehicle (SV_i).

0132 Does the interventional sign touch base with preternatural awareness?

If it does, then Aquinas’s formulation of original justice is relevant.

0133 The specifying sign begins where the interventional sign leaves off.

0134 A sensation_2a (SV_s, sign-vehicle) stands for a phantasm_2b (SO_s, sign-object) in regards to the potential of situating content_1b (SI_s, sign-interpretant) in the normal context of what this means to me_3b (SI_s, sign-interpretant).

0135 As discussed in Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings, as well as in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”, scholastics describe this situation-content mixing sign as specificative extrinsic formal causality.

Why?

I suppose that the sensation_2a (SV_s) appears to specify the phantasm_2b (SO_s), not from within the phantasm, but from the outside (extrinsic).  The conjuring of the phantasm_2b (SO) is formalized by a normal context_3b and its potential_1b (SI_s).  So, the single effect of the sign-object embodies two qualifications to its causality, an extrinsic and specifying sign-vehicleand a specifying and formal sign-interpretant.

0136 What about original justice?

Interventional and specifying signs are honed in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  They provide a conduit from nature’s broadcasts_2c to human phantasms_2b.  The interventional sign associates to preternatural awareness.  The specifying sign associates to grace.  After all, grace involves an openness to sign-relations.

Plus, I suppose that grace is active when hominins collaborate in teams.  Grace inspires the team to be productive.  Grace allows everyone on the team to have fun.  This grace is not adorned with the adjective, “sanctifying”, even though the prelapsarian Adam is apparently blessed with sanctifying grace.

0137 No, this use of the term, “grace”, recalls a use that precedes modernism.

Grace inflows nature.

I suspect that Henri de Lubac is correct in assessing that the prescholastic use of the term, “grace”, as a real element that flows into real nature, fades during the latter part of the Latin Age.

Typically, we now think of “grace” in terms of a normal context or a potential.  As normal context₃, the qualifier, “sanctifying” seems to apply.  As potential, the qualifier, “inspirational”, for some, and “bogus”, for others, might work.

0138 Yes, according to Houck, even 13th century Thomas Aquinas wrestles with the question of whether prelapsarian Adam is endowed with preternatural awareness or blessed with sanctifying grace.  The contiguity between the terms, “grace” and “nature”, already sublimates from the solidity of secondness.  A civilizational intellect declares, “Supernature and nature are distinct.“  This claim separates grace and nature.  This claim dominates the relation between grace and nature.

0139 What does this imply?

This relation of separation is one element in a judgment.  Plus, this element associates to secondness.

Nature goes with what is.  Grace associates to what ought to be.

Now, I start to see why the word “sanctifying” qualifies “grace”.  Sanctifying grace belongs to thirdness.

0140 The only category left is firstness.  Nature belongs to firstness.  Why?  Nature is contingent.

Here is a picture, following the template of original justice_2c.

0141 This judgment lasts for centuries.

The mechanical philosophers of the early 17^th century broadcast this judgment in their writings_3a,1a.  Galileo famously states that there are two books, the book of revelation and the book of nature.

0142 If I unfold this judgment into its category-based nested form, I get the following:

The normal context of sanctifying grace₃ brings the actuality of the distinction between the book of nature and the book of revelation₂ into relation with the potential of creation (that is, nature)₁.

Many scholastics of the late Latin Age would agree with this statement.

0143 Then, during the next three centuries, Galileo’s fig leaf gets torn to shreds.

Science marches during the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Now, in 2020, Daniel W. Houck publishes a book entitled, Aquinas, Original Sin and The Challenge of Evolution.

The power of science and technology imbues nature with thirdness.  Indeed, the rule of the positivist intellect within the Positivist’s judgment states, “Metaphysics is not allowed.”

0144 Nature becomes like a normal context.  Modernism inquires about nature excludes the divine.

What happens to grace?

Grace is whatever makes the universality of scientific discoveries intelligible… er… palatable.  How does one swallow science?  Some people can swallow science.  They fashion their own styles of grace, signaling the virtues of standing with science.  Some people refuse to give up on the primacy of sanctifying grace.  Society divides into two groups.  Those who abide by sanctifying grace and those who fashion their own, sanctimonious grace.

0145 Here is the modern judgment, dethroning sanctifying grace.  Note how the assignment of categories has changed.

0146 If I unfold this judgment into a category-based nested form, I obtain:

The normal context of nature, as revealed by science₃, brings the actuality of the distinction between the book of nature and the book of revelation₂ into relation with the potential of grace, fashioned in my own image₁.

This is a judgment that the academics of modernism would agree with.

0147 Over the course of eight centuries, a separation between nature and supernature is broadcast to our sensations_2a and re-constituted in our phantasms_2b.  The distinction between nature and supernature is an actuality that tears the curtain of Western civilization and exposes a cruel division.

Which is the boss, sanctifying grace or inevitable nature?

Those who raise the banner of sanctifying grace are called “ignorant”.

Those who gather under the banner of inevitable nature are called “educated”.

Hmmm, I wonder where this is trending?

0148 This digression offers a clue as to the nature of our current Lebenswelt.  The grace that inflows nature does not suffer elevation to thirdness or diminution to firstness.  This grace is neither sanctifying nor sanctimonious.  Rather, it belongs to secondness.  Secondness is the realm of actuality.  The grace of original justice finds its home in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0149 Is there another way to say this?

There is no distinction between nature and supernature.

Say what?

This is unfathomable.  Even Aristotle distinguishes physics from metaphysics.

0150 Yet, I can visualize grace, as a real element in contiguity with another real element, nature, by dissolving the separation between nature and supernature that is held dear by our current civilization.

Once we insist that nature and supernature are not only distinct, but independent, the judgment precipitates as a hypothetical actuality.

What ought to be [contiguity] what is.

0151 What word should I use to label the contiguity?

How about “inflows”?

All we have to do is let go of our intellectual fixation.

0152 In our postmodern civilization, the actuality, grace [inflows] nature, is hypothetical.

What is a hypothetical?

Hypo- means “under”.  -Thetical indicates “a placement or a proposition”.  So, a hypothesis underlies a thesis.

0153 What is that thesis?  What is that placement?  What is that proposition?

Ah, it must be a phantasm_2b.

0154 Grace [inflows] nature stands below the thesis, placement and proposition inherent to the phantasm_2b.

0155 Here is a picture of how grace applies to the sign-object of the specifying sign in human subjectivity.

0156 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, grace [inflows] nature is a foundation for perceptive soul [informs] reactive body_2b.

In the normal context of natural selection₃, we adapt₂ into the niche of triadic relations₁.

0157 There are three actualities implicated in interventional and specifying signs.

Nature’s broadcasts_2c are sign-vehicles for interventional signs (SV_i).

Sensations and feelings_2a are sign-objects for interventional signs (SO_i) and sign-vehicles for specifying signs (SV_s).  The content-level actuality_2a evolves to capture nature’s significations through the active body and sensate soul.  Capturerequires preternatural awareness.

Phantasms_2b are sign-objects for specifying signs (SO_s).  Phantasms_2b consist of guesses, notions and propositions that virtually situate sensations and feelings_2a.  The reactive body_2b is trained by a perceptive soul_2b under the operations of both grace and nature.  The hylomorphic structure of the phantasm_2b parallels the actuality of grace [inflows] nature.

0158 These three actualities may be arranged into one interscope as interventional and specifying signs.

Behold, the interscope for human subjectivity as a sensorium of transcendence.

See Eric Voegelin’s book, The New Science of Politics, for that exoteric reference.

This diagram corresponds to signification in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Clearly, there is a missing sign.  The exemplar sign binds the situation and perspective levels.  The exemplar sign-relation co-evolves with interventional and specifying sign-relations.  Yet, it is not required in this discussion of the hylomorphic realness of grace [inflows] nature.

0159 Now, I want to add two small, but insightful, substitutions.

On the content-level of this one interscope, I replace the normal context of what is happening_3a with the more evocative, mirror of the world_3a.  I replace the potential of ‘something’_1a with the possibility of ‘something in the mirror’_1a.

0160 These substitutions bring our current Lebenswelt into the picture.

Here is the interscope where we are once removed from nature.

How so?

Well, using speech-alone talk, I can label “nature” and “grace”.

With hand-talk and hand-speech talk, I cannot label “nature” and “grace”.  What is there to picture or point to?

However, I can evoke the innate sensibilities underlying the labels with counter-intuitive hand-talk statements such as [image TREE] [circle point to all gathered][point to BREATHING].

Today, I can label this counter-intuitive statement, “the tree of life”.

The tree of life stands in the mirror of the world.

0161 As noted earlier, one more sign in required to completely engage all the elements.

I did not want to mention the exemplar sign-relation because… well… its sign-object (SO_e) over-writes the sign-vehicle of the interventional sign (SV_i). 

Does that mean that the perspective-level actuality_2c (SV_i) must be over-written when switching to a complete interscope of human subjectivity? 

The initiating sign-vehicle of the interscope for divine subjectivity, nature broadcasts signification_2c (SV_i), denoted by explicit abstraction and labeled original justice_2c, ends up unfolded as commitment_2c (SO_e) in the interscope of human subjectivity.

0162 As already discussed, original justice_2c cannot be pictured or pointed to using hand or hand-speech talk.

Original justice_2c can be labeled by speech-alone talk.

Plus, it can be attributed to the divine will_3c operating on the potential of the divine presence_1c.

Or maybe, it is the other way around, the divine presence_3c operates on the potential of the divine will_1c.

In original justice_2c, a holistic intellect (relation) brings sensations and feelings (what is) into relation with a phantasm (what ought to be).

0163 This judgment_2c is the actuality that is destroyed in the myth of Adam’s rebellion

0164 Does original justice_2c for human subjectivity correspond to original justice_2c in divine suprasubjectivity?

Like ice and steam are solid and vaporized water?

0165 This is the nested form of that judgment.

This nested form is a perspective-level actuality_2c that belongs to human subjectivity.

Does this line of thought cohere to the hylomorphe, grace [inflows] nature?

Then, what is to replace grace once original justice_2c is destroyed in the myth of Eve’s rebellion?

0166 Here is the interscope for human subjectivity in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0167 Two signs are fully developed.  One sign is intimated.  All three signs are in play in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Interventional and specifying signs are plain to see.  The third sign, the exemplar sign, is not visible.  Instead, the sign object (SO_e), commitment_2c, is implicated.  This sign-object (SO_e) arrives by way of implicit abstraction.  This sign-object (SO_e) cannot be pictured or pointed to.  Neither can its sign-vehicle (SV_e), the phantasm_2b.

0168 Is the exemplar sign outside of language… er… talk?

Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.  Hand talk cannot picture or point to either phantasms_2b or commitments_2c.

So, the implicit abstractions of the exemplar sign are built into our bodies and minds.

0169 The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.

The evolution of talk is discussed in The Human Niche.  Religious implications are presented in the chapter on meaning in How To Define the Word “Religion”.  The socio-mechanics are presented in Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett, and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big.  The psychological-dynamics are discussed in Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) The Prehistory of the Mind.

0170 In a nutshell, hand talk starts as pantomime for the australopithecines and ends up as hand-speech talk for Homo sapiens.  Hand talk is linguistic within each traditional team activity before it becomes an activity in itself due to the domestication of fire.  Then, conversation and religion co-evolve, facilitating larger and larger groups.  Vocalization or “singing” is used for social synchronization in seasonal, annual and occasional gatherings of increasingly larger groups. Synchronization is crucial for these time-constrained gatherings.  The vocal tract comes under voluntary neural control.  Then, the voice is exapted for talk with the appearance of our own species.

Hand-speech talk is practiced through the Paleolithic, then into the Epipaleolithic and Neolithic.

Hand-speech talking cultures occupy all habitable continents when the first singularity occurs.

0171 The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk for a very specific reason.  Due to the rising oceans, the dry land of the Persian Gulf inundates, pushing two unrelated hand-speech cultures, one land-loving and one coast-loving, into proximity.  The two cultures fuse in such a way that both languages contribute to a pidgin, which then turns into a linguistic creole.  The process may have been as rapid as two generations.

The hand-component of each hand-speech talking culture does not make it through this process.  The Sumerian language, unrelated to any other family of languages, is the first instance of speech-alone talk.

0172 The appearance of the Ubaid is historic.

I dub the official start of the Ubaid: 0 Ubaid Zero Prime.  0 U0′.  “Zero Uh-Oh Prime”.  The current year is 7821 U0′.  In order to convert from AD to U0′, subtract 5800.  The subtracted number may change, 5800 is a first approximation.

At 0 U0′, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only culture practicing speech-alone talk.  All other cultures practice hand-speech talk.  This marks the start of the first singularity.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

0173 The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk are very different than hand-speech talk.  Hand-speech talk is composed of icons and indexes (even though, linguistically, it operates as a symbolic order).  Speech-alone talk is not composed of icons and indexes, so the operations of its symbolic order comes to the fore.

0174 Language consists of two related systems of differences, parole (gesture) and langue (the mental activity generated in response to the gesture).  Typically, parole_2a gets decoded into langue_2a on the content level of active body [substantiates] sensate soul_2a.

0175 For hand- and hand-speech talk, the relation between word and referent is motivated.  Parole arrives like a sign-vehicle of the interventional sign (SV_i).  So, the sign-object of sensations and feelings_2a (SO_i) accompanies a sign-interpretant where ‘something’_1a is happening_3a.  Ontologically, the referent precedes the gesture-word.

For speech-alone talk, the relation between word and referent is arbitrary.  Speech-alone sign-vehicles are not broadcast by nature.  Ontologically, the referent follows the spoken word.

0176 Then, what is the contemporary source_2c of the sign-vehicle for the interventional sign for speech-alone talk?

Uh-oh.

We are in trouble.

Just who or what drives signification_2c in our current Lebenswelt?

Oh, let me google that.

0177 In chapter 5, Daniel Houck reviews how several modern theologians approach the topic of original sin.

He wonders (more or less), “How can the concept of a historical Fall be compatible with evolutionary theory of the twentieth century?”

The first singularity answers this question.  Human evolution comes with a twist.  The first singularity potentiates history.

As soon as the Ubaid appears in the archaeological record, this culture manifests the potential of unconstrained complexity.  Hand-talk facilitates implicit abstraction.  Implicit abstraction constrains social complexity.  Speech-alone talk allows explicit abstraction.  Explicit abstraction opens the door to unconstrained social complexity.

0179 Here is a picture of the timeline for southern Mesopotamia.

0180 What about the other hand-speech talking cultures?

What do the cultures adjacent to the Ubaid witness?

They see a culture increasing in wealth and power.  They also see a people who do not talk with their hands.

In terms of natural signification, the lack of hand talk cannot be ignored.  Does their lack of hand talk account for their obvious success?

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

0181 Dismissing one’s hand talk does not come lightly.  Timeless traditions are passed on with hand talk.

Ah, but hand talk words already have equivalent speech words.  So, maybe the loss of hand talk does not appear significant.

Perhaps, one can translate certain manual-brachial word-gestures into speech-alone talk.

0182 But, a silence is missing.  Commitment_2c is silent.  It_2c signifies through the person’s actions.

Surely, hand-speech talking shamans sense the implications.  They fight against adopting the ways of the neighboring Ubaid.  Little do they realize, they are only postponing the inevitable.  No one can stop the march of increasing labor and social specialization.  The Ubaid sends missionaries, traders and warriors.  They say, “Look at our wealth and power.”

0183 Exposure to speech-alone talk spreads along paths of down-the-line trading, westwards, toward Egypt and the Aegean, eastwards into the valleys of the Zagros Mountains and on to the hills surrounding the Indus River Valley, and northwards, to the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.

In far northern Mesopotamia, a tribe adopts the new way of talking.  That tribe migrates over the Caucasus mountains and onto the steppes of Russia.  Then, it transforms into diverse roving chiefdom-based cultures, all speaking the same language.  Then, these cultures migrate, west into Europe and southwards into Iran and India, spreading Indo-European languages through elite dominance.

0184 Speech-alone talk spreads to the corners of the world.

In the process, what happens to original justice_2c?

I read the stories that begin at Genesis 2:4.

Do these tell me ‘something’ about the emergence of unconstrained social complexity during the Ubaid (and Uruk) archaeological periods of southern Mesopotamia?

0185 The substitution of speech-alone talk for hand-speech talk is so simple to achieve. Then, what the culture then achieves seems amazing (at least compared to constrained social complexity).  And yet, ‘something’ is lost.  Houck’s packaging of Aquinas’s position holds.  Evil is a privation of a good.  Original sin is the privation of original justice.

0186 Original justice does not simply disappear.

It is rejected, just like the shamans who stood in the path of um… “progress”.

0187 Original justice_2c, commitment_2c, true and honest word-gestures_2c and openness to the One-Who-Signifies_2cmanifest only when we cannot pick their inherent triadicity apart.  A triadic relation is composed of three elements.  One stands in thirdness.  One secures secondness.  The other appears in firstness.  The triadic relation cannot be pictured or pointed to in hand-speech talk.  Each element maintains its integrity within the whole.

Speech-alone talk is purely symbolic.  It can symbolize the relation.  It can attach a label to each element.  Spoken words do not respect wholeness.  Spoken words can privilege parts over the whole.

0188 In modern and postmodern times, a major philosophical problem concerns how parts constitute a whole.  Most everything can be taken apart.  When that thing is alive, such disassembly proves fatal.  At some point, the scientist no longer works with a living creature, but a dead one.  Wholeness is lost.

0189 Death is the loss of the wholeness of life.

Evil is the privation of good.

0190 No wonder original sin and original death are mentioned, by Saint Paul, in a single sentence.  As soon as we speak of what puts human subjectivity into perspective_2c, we cannot help labeling the term.  We are soon dissecting it_2c.  Wholeness is lost.  Sin takes the scalpel.  Death is the consequence.

0191 The semiotics of hand-speech talk images and indicates a whole.  Sometimes, a feature of the whole inspires the word-gesture.  The part represents the whole.

The semiotics of speech alone talk allows explicit abstraction of the parts from the whole.  Sometimes, the whole is composed of its parts.  Is the whole nothing more than the sum of its parts?

0192 I can go farther and say, along with most modernists, “The thing itself, the noumenon, cannot be objectified as its observable and measurable facets, its phenomena.”

And, some triumphalist scientist will chuckle and reply, “No, we build our models based on observations and measurements of phenomena, and these models are more illuminating than their respective noumena.”

0193 In terms of semiotics, speech-alone talk is radically different from hand-speech talk.

In terms of evolution, our current Lebenswelt is radically different from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

In terms of sociology, unconstrained social complexity is radically different from constrained social complexity.

0194 I have drawn the circle.  Now, I find one point and proceed along a tangent.

What is a commitment_2c?

A commitment_2c derives from a judgment_2c.

A judgment is a triadic relation, composed of three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.

Here is a picture.

Uh oh.  What happened to intelligibility and universality?

Forget that!  This judgment is not holistic.  It is whatever I say it is.

0195 And, here is what I say.

A commitment consists of a nested form derived from the triadic structure of judgment, where the intellect (relation) brings together phantasms (what ought to be) and sensations (what is).

0196 From the point of view of a holistic intellect, hand talk cannot picture or point to any of these elements, much less the relation as a whole.  Hand talk can image and indicate sensations (such as warm or cold) and phantasms (such as symptoms of emotions).  But, hand talk cannot convey how sensations and phantasms pass into the intellect as what is and what ought to be.  Hand talk cannot discuss the intellect.

Commitment_2c must be lived.

0197 From the point of view of my fallen intellect, speech-alone talk can not only label the relation, it can also independently symbolize all three elements.  Once one element is named, then that element is different from another element, and the distinction may stand in the foreground.  The remaining element tends to fade into the background and be ignored.  As a result, the coherence of commitment_2c is lost.

Commitment_2c becomes subjectively incoherent.

But, don’t blame me.  I am only a messenger.

0198 Consider a pagan religion that preaches that gods are everywhere and in all things.  Someone labels this religion, “pantheism”.  What is the label hiding?

What is everywhere and in all things?

Signification_2c.

Signfication_2c produces sensations and feelings_2a.

What virtually situates these sensations and feelings_2a?

The phantasm_2b that gods are everywhere and in all.

But, what is the commitment_2c that this phantasm_2b inspires?

I wonder.  Show me a sign.