0625 Le Bon’s five pillars are like metal pylons piercing the organic ground of the human mind.

And what a building LeBon’s pillars support.

Today’s post-truth edifice has experts on the many floors.  Experts in natural science are located on the ground floors.  Experts on social science are on the floors above the natural scientists.  Experts on the psychometric sciences occupy still higher floors, high enough to have their own elevator. In the penthouse, the one of scientism resides.  In order to get to the elevator to the penthouse, one has to change elevators at the highest floor of the psychometric sciences.

0626 Yes, the metaphor of modern construction portrays the five pillars that Le Bon reveals as foundational supports, driven like steel pylons through the organicity of our human minds, to the bedrock of a geological formation that we cannot see, because our own awareness covers that foundation, like soil covering bedrock.

0627  My God-given authority is challenged by the fact that what I think_2a and what I say_2a is pierced, and becomes the thing that gardeners will landscape, because the pillars supporting the edifice of empirio-normative stagecraft goes through our organic minds, with shafts of explicit abstractions that are as sturdy as concrete and steel.

Now, a compromised intellect_3a contextualizes what I think_2a and pillar-pierced will_1a undergirds what I am willing to say_2a.

0628 Can I assert that “my intellect_3a” and “my will_1a” constitute the normal context and potential on the scrappy player level?

Or, have interventions by empirio-normative judgments (SV_i) activated my intellect_3a and my will_1a (SI_i), again and again, in such a fashion that they are no longer “mine”, but “ours”.  It takes a village to raise a child.   It takes a laboratory to raise a compliant citizen-subject.

So now, my God-given intellect_3a and will_1a have been donated to the psychometric sciences_2b as subject matter to provide valuations_2b that can be used as opportunities_1c to conduct (using my taxpayer dollars) further empirio-normative interventions (SV_i).

0628 Slowly, what I think transfers “my” wisdom, universality and intelligibility to “our” authority, imagination and experience.  What I say transmogrifies into a product of social pressure, label-manipulation and pre-packaged imaginary scenarios, which are intelligible, only in the way that a lie that may get someone out of being accused of a crime is intelligible. 

0631 Here is a picture of the associations rendered above.

0631 One of today’s fashion statements is body-piercing and tattoos.  If body-piercing is an interventional sign-object(SO_i), then what, I ask, is the interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i)?

0632 Well, that question is very difficult, because I cannot see an interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i), even though evolution has prepared me to be aware of its presence_2c.

So, let me ask an easier question.

The interventional sign-relation couples perspective and content levels.

The specifying sign-relation couples content and situation levels.

0633 So, here is the question.

If body-piercing is a specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s), then what, I ask, is the specifying sign-object (SO_s)?

Yes, the specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s) is a content_a-level actuality₂.

And, the specifying sign-object (SOs) is a situation_b-level actuality₂.

0634 So, once again, what does body-piercing specify?

Well, I suppose it_2a says something like this, “The normal context of social pressure₃ brings the language of body-piercing₂ into relation with the possibility of my imagination₁.”

0635 What is someone who has body-piercings thinking?

The normal context of my own authority₃ brings the actuality of my imagination₂ into relation with possibilities inherent in the experience of being pierced and tattooed₁.

0636 So, take a look at the following content-level actuality_2a and ask, “What the hell is going on?”

0637 Do body-piercings and tattoos signal that the pierced and inked one is just a hunk of meat suspended on the five pillars of propaganda?

It sounds horrible to say it that way, but surrender can also be regarded as liberation.

Once I am liberated, then what I think can be objectified as what I say by way of body-piercing.

Is that not the nature of fashion?

Everyone wants to see and be seen.

0638 Fashion, the arts, the corporate media, and everything else American conduct stagecraft.  Stiles lists institutional bulwarks, basically floors of experts belonging to the tower of the one of scientism, in the following manner.

0639 Experts package the imagination.  Experts regulate the language.  Experts make sure that no-one who does not align with the scientismist one will ever be promoted.  Experts publish essays ridiculing perceived oppositions.  Professors demand that each student recite their lessons.  Experts plan and execute events that capture the awareness of scrappy players, especially the ones who have surrendered, as well as the ones who do not quite understand what they are becoming.  Scrappy players_2a are the ones who provide the data_1b for experts_3b to model_2b.

0640 Chapter seven discusses the systematic manipulation of the pillars of belief.

Stiles calls the process, “operation sheepskin”, in a tongue-in-cheek reference to various covert (yet, later disclosed) initiatives of the Agency of Centralized Intelligence.

As Stiles tells it, opportunistic manipulations of the pillars of belief are already ongoing at the end of the nineteenth century, as seen in the way that Southern Railroad covered the tracks of their systematic exploitations by paying for news stories that extolled their… um… reputation for honesty in commerce.  Yes, that’s the ticket.

The press is compliant, because the ticket is where the money is.  Plus, those who were systematically ripped off don’t have any money.  Funny how it works that way.  Heads I win. Tails you lose.

0641 Savvy observers in the late 1800s and early 1900s note the trend.  These observers codify the techniques of crowd manipulation.  The first step in crowd manipulation is to find a crowd.  The second step seems to be, “Start a rumor.”  Well, that sounds precisely the job for the newfangled newspapers printed on cheap paper.  There is always someone who is cooking the books who will offer an opportunity for someone to make dough by publishing a story with a hidden agenda_2c.

Of course, the reader who wants to be informed does not regard the hidden agenda.  The reader sees all the news that is fit to print.

0642 Here is a picture of the post-truth interscope for the early 1900s.  The details on the printed page are true, but the hidden agenda is not revealed.  Indeed, if material that is intentionally omitted becomes available, then it becomes clear that a planted story has been… um… cooked up.

But, that does not change the newspaper’s slogan, “News that you can trust!”

0643 Clearly, at this time, the press reports news that people are interested in.  After all, the main source of revenue for newspapers is subscriptions or people paying for a copy of the latest print.  For the most part, editors and writers do not promote values that contest the values of the paying customer.

But, the “culinary customer”, you know, the one with dough, (as well as, a taste for manipulation and propaganda) savors the occasional foray into stagecraft.  In stagecraft, the press reports an event that is designed to further a hidden agenda.  In order to do so, the content-level of the newspaper’s reason_3a,1a differs from the content-level reason_3a,1a of the scrappy player, in such a way that the player’s reason_3a,1a becomes a target for manipulation.

0644 Of course, if the crappy player replaces his own reason_3a,1a with the targeted reason_3a,1a provided by a press release, then what the crappy player thinks can be objectified as the media narrative that the crappy player recites.

May I call that replacement, “submission”?

Submission calls for recitation, while critical thinking calls for interpretation.

But, how can one interpret any newspaper report when information that does not conform to the media narrative is intentionally omitted?

That is what hidden agendas tend to do.

Hidden agendas hide information.

0654 One may wonder.

How far can this manipulation go?

That is the question that operation sheepskin intends to answer.

0655 Well, the Committee on Public Information provides an early assessment for operation sheepskin.

Here is a picture.

0656 How far can this manipulation go?

The manipulation can go as far as the one who cooks the books_3c needs.

Indeed, during the Second World War, The Second Battle of the Enlightenment Gods, the Hot War Among Fraternal Ideologies (1938-1945), the ones who cook the books_3c come one step closer to Fuller’s concept of the relativist one_3c, as the one outside of all jurisdictions.  Public-private partnerships enter the picture in significant ways.  Plus, these book-cooking collaborations_3c set the groundwork for the Third World War, The Third Battle of the Enlightenment Gods, the Cold War Among Materialist Ideologies (1945-1989).

0657 But, before I go to chapter eight, I want to linger in the claim that Stiles makes at the end of chapter seven.  Stiles connects the way that the five pillars work to the architecture of the human brain.  This connection provides an excuse for a review.

0659 How does Stiles explain this connection?

Here is a picture of the intensity of a stagecraft event with the corresponding emotional response.

This is a picture of stimulus (left column) and response (right column).

0660 How should I diagram this portrayal of cause and effect?

To start, the empirio-normative judgment_2c targets the reader’s intellect_3a and will_1a.

Thus, the cause is press reports overlaying the content level of the post-truth interscope.

The effect is how the reader’s intellect_3a and will_1a responds.

0661 The reported events and the media narrative_2a work coherently, because any reports that muddle the narrative are selectively omitted.  However, the naive reader does not know this.  The naive reader presumes that the events and narrative are true.  The post-truth reader does not make that assumption.  The post-truth reader knows that material most likely has been omitted, even by media outfits who proclaim themselves to be “trusted sources”.

0662 Nevertheless, the psychology of what I think comes into play, along with the derivative character of what I say.

Recall that the premodern scholastics develop the concepts that go into the postmodern scholastic interscope for how humans think.

Impressions_2a and feelings_2a occupy the content level.

Phantasms_2b and emotions_2b occupy the situation level.

Decisions_2c and judgments_2c occupy the perspective level.

All three levels contribute to what I think in the post-truth interscope.

0663 In the stimulus-response scenario, emotions_2b takes center stage for how humans think.

If Stiles is correct, the normal context of targeting the intellect_3a and the potential of targeting the will_1a aims to influence the actuality of emotions_2a in what the scrappy player thinks_2a.

0664 But, there is a trick to turning what I think into what I say.

I think my impression_2a, feelings_2a, notions_2b, emotions_2b and my judgment_2c.

I say my judgment_2c.  My judgment_2c is not the same as what I think.  My judgment_2c is an element of what I think .  What I think consists in the entire interscope.  My judgment_2c is the element that ends up getting turned into spoken words.

0665 My judgment_2c is a triadic relation consisting of three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.  When each element is assigned to one of Peirce’s categories, the judgment is actionable.  An actionable judgment unfolds into a nested form according to the assigned categories.

0666 Everyone has spontaneous impressions_2a and feelings_2a that seem more actual than the situating perception_2b, except for two types of people: experts and those who have submitted to operation sheepskin’s targeting of normal context_3a (of “our” intellect_3a) and potential (of “our” will_1a).

0667 When an operation-sheepskin affiliated event is staged, the event is crafted as to produce sensations_2a and perceptions_2b that cohere with the media report and narrative.  The interscope for how humans think has already been mapped out, intentionally (for the event) and without apparent intention (for the hidden agenda), by the perspective-level actuality_2c of the post-truth interscope.

0668 What the media says about a staged event inscribes a judgment_2c that is subtly different from human judgments.

Here is a picture.

How I make sense targets the intellect_3a of the scrappy player.  What I sense targets the will_1a.

0669 Take a long look at my judgment_2c and the targeting judgment_2c and see whether you can locate a subtle difference.

Now consider the following.

0670 For my judgment_2c, what ought to be, the intelligibility of my perceptions, is assigned to the category of firstness, the realm of possibility, for right reason.  No one person ever knows whether one’s perceptions are correct.  My notions_2band my emotions_2b constitute the location where my fallibility plays out.  My judgment (relation, thirdness) offers something universal (what is, secondness) and the potential of something intelligible (what ought to be, firstness).

For the targeting judgment_2c, what ought to be, the media narrative, is assigned to the category of secondness, the realm of actuality, for sinister reason.  The impact of an interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) depends on how believable the sign-object appears to be (SO_i), otherwise the targeting interventional sign-interpretant (SI_i) will not engage.  The media offers something intelligible (what ought to be, secondness) that is supposed to overwhelm my own phantasm and emotions (what ought to be, firstness) is the same way that actuality triumphs over possibility.

0671 What does this imply?

The scrappy player accepts his own fallibility.

Those who engage in propaganda cannot admit their fallibility.

Perhaps, this is a first approximation for how the pillars of the infrastructure of belief penetrate the scrappy player’s mind.

0672 Chapter eight brings the stagecraft of “operation sheepskin” into the construction of pseudo-reality, called “operation spider’s web”.

Stiles outlines the intertwining of hidden agendas in this, the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods (1989-present).

The hidden agendas formerly disguised themselves as “capitalist” and “socialist”.

Now, capitalism and socialism intersect in a mysterious single actuality, labeled, “value_2b” in the post-truth interscope.  They do so because both fields of expertise have taken on the style of empirio-schematics, thereby constituting the psychometric sciences.  Journalism, advertising, human resources, communications, organizational analysis, criminal justice, education, counseling and social work are among the current labels for psychometric disciplines.  Each “science” takes on the style of the natural sciences.

0673 The empirio-normative judgment_2c is executed by the One Relativist Who Rules Them All_3c, whenever the opportunity arises_1c.  The empirio-normative judgment_2c acts as though the positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the universality of phenomena of ‘what people say’_2a (nevermind the noumenon; what is, firstness) into relation with intelligibility of psychometric valuations_2b (what ought to be, secondness). 

0674 I must not forget that an interventionist event_2c (SV_i) activates what I think_2a (SO_i) and what I think_2a corresponds to the scholastic interscope for how humans think.

The following figure compares elements occurring in the scholastic interscope for how humans think to corresponding elements from the empirio-normative judgment_2c for the post-truth interscope, as they would be expressed during an event staged in operation sheepskin.

Here are targets within what I think.

0675 Secondness for the empirio-normative judgment targets the level of secondness in what I think.

Firstness for the empirio-normative judgment targets the level of firstness in what I think.

Here, the subscripts “a” and “b” refer to the levels of firstness (content) and secondness (situation).

0676 Secondness, the realm of actuality, emerges from and situates firstness, the realm of possibility.  Secondness tends to solidify one possibility among a suite of possible options.  Perceptions may reinforce sensations.  Perceptions may also overwhelm impressions and feelings.

Firstness, the realm of possibility, may support or undermine secondness, the realm of actuality.  If firstness narrows into only one possibility, then the corresponding actuality in secondness appears inevitable.  If firstness offers an alternate possibility, then the corresponding actuality in secondness becomes questionable, if not impossible.

0677 The media narrative (in the above figure) associates to secondness, the realm of actuality, for the empirio-normative judgment_2c, while my phantasms and my emotions associate to secondness alone (an actuality₂ on the situation_b level) for what I think.  The media narrative presents itself as real, as if the pseudo-reality is intelligible, rather than a confabulation that favors the one who has paid for the narrative_3c.  In contrast, my notions and my emotions are fallible, when it comes to my judgment in what I think.

So, my perceptions_2b in what I think hold the character of realness, rather than intelligibility.  Intelligibility is assessed with judgment_2c.

In contrast, media narratives posit intelligibility, as well as realness, thus bypassing the scrappy player’s perceptions_2b.  My judgment_2c goes into what I say.  What I say becomes phenomena for the psychometric sciences.

Media reports of staged events associate to firstness, the realm of possibility, while my sensations associate to secondness and firstness (an actuality₂ on the content_a level) for what I think.  Media reports tend to undermine my own impressions and feelings by offering a manufactured incident for my reactive body and sensate soul to respond to.  I read the news item.  I am not witnessing the event.  My impressions and feelings might be totally different if I am in the midst of the action.  The media report is potentially universal.

0678 Overall, the elements within the overlay (SO_i) spawned by the interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) target elements of within the actuality of judgment_2c assigned to the same category.  This influences what I say, and has already been mentioned in points 0668-0670.

Here is a picture comparing secondness and firstness for my judgment_2c in what I think with the corresponding categories in the empirio-normative judgment_2c in the post-truth condition.

0679 If I multiply this targeting across a host of oligarch-supported agencies and institutions, message-produces and message-spreaders, wizards and mouthpieces, then the difficulties of the scrappy player appear formidable.

No wonder elites have taken to openly ridicule the “deplorables”.

0680 However, there is one more comparison that must be made.

One comes from judgement_2c in the interscope for what I think.

One comes from the empirio-normative judgment_2c for the post-truth condition.

Here is a question.

What constitutes “success”?

0681 All spontaneous traditions associate “success” with “getting ahead”, that is, personal prosperity.  The more religious the tradition, the more “getting ahead” takes on a relational aspect.  The logical extreme, found in all religious traditions of the Axial Age, is the beatific vision, consisting of sensing (content-level actuality) and perceiving (situation-level actuality) the One Who Brings All Into Relation (perspective-level actuality).  Here, the One is a triadic relation, where the Universality of What Cannot Be Sensed (the what is of purely relational being) and the Intelligibility of What Cannot Be Perceived (the what ought to be of purely relational being) come into um… Pure Relation (the third element of a purely relation being).

The beatific vision defines “success_2c“.

All material achievement_2a pales in comparison.

0682 But, the Cold War Among Materialist Ideologies takes its toll.

Almost every scrappy player today thinks that “success_2a” means “material wealth and security”.

And, that reflects how successful operation spider’s web has been.

0683 Why?

This is precisely what the expert level promises for the crappy-level player.

And, it is not true.

Why?

The meaning of “success” is not what it seems to be.

0684 For the one of scientism_3c, “success_2c” is the execution of an empirio-normative judgment_2c, according to a particular opportunity_1c that arises from expert assessments_2b.

Yes, the game is rigged.

0685 Operation spider web is a network of operation sheepskins, sometimes working coherently, sometimes not.  Each person who serves as the one of scientism_3c must work in concert or in competition with other ones of scientism_3c.  But, each person serving as the one of scientism_3c is a relativist one_3c, who is theoretically outside of all jurisdictions, included the jurisdictions of other scientismist ones_3c.

At some point, it seems that the elites may begin fighting one another.

0686 Imagine living as a sheep among sheep, and oddly, the “leader” sheep want the herd to go in different directions, as if they no longer define the same reality, and their relationships are about to… oh, look… they are biting one another, viciously, like wolves.  Oh no!  They are wolves!  Run for your lives!

But wait.  The wolves stopped fighting with one another.  The wolves are starting to cooperate.  Oh, this is worse.

Run for your lives!

0687 Now, replace the word, “bite”, with “speaking to”.

And, replace the word, “cooperate”, with “enter into communion with one another”.

The wolves come into communion with the one idea to rule them all.

0688 Let me look at the comparison between the relation within the interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) for the post-truth condition and the relation in the judgment_2c that is on the perspective level of the scholastic interscope for how humans think.

0689 The wisdom of the Axial Age religions, as well as other now ancient traditions, provides intelligence to our perceptions and universality to our sensations.  Ancient wisdom trains us.  It calls us into communion.

The wisdom of the hidden agenda, the normative judgement_2c of the post-truth interscope, pretends to provide intelligibility and universality.  Media narratives are formulated to dominate our intelligibility.  Media reports are packaged to be so sensational as to undermine the commonality of our impressions and feelings.  This is only possible in the arena of pseudo-reality, where the reader does not directly experience the news that is being reported.

0690 Chapter nine is titled, “War of Words”.

Already, throughout my comments concerning the post-truth interscope, different definitions of “success” comes to the fore.  Scrappy players_3a,1a see “success_2a” as “getting ahead_2a“.  The one of scientism_3c sees “success” as “an exercise of the empirio-normative judgment_2c“.  Every execution of the empirio-normative judgment_2c brings an interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) to bear upon the scrappy player level (SO_i and SI_i).

Indeed, spoken words are like bombs, raining down on unsuspecting citizens.

Or, should I say, “…reigning down…”?

0691 Consider how the knowledge necessary for getting ahead_2a appears, depending on the role that one considers.

0692 Neither the capitalism of the American alliance nor the communism of the Soviet alliance stand as victors in the Third Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: The Cold War Among Materialist Ideologies (1945-1989).  The victor is science.  During the Cold War, so-called capitalist America becomes more and more socialist.  By the time the Cold War ends, an administrative state composed of experts in capitalism and in socialism are on their way to characterize the direction, reality, definition and scope of the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: Empirio-normative domination of subject populations.  Experts on finance capitalism_3b and experts on nanny socialism_3b produce increasingly insane valuations_2b, that are then imposed upon the populace through propaganda and coercion.

0693 The war of words is real and dangerous.  Consider the demeaning labels that credentialed experts apply to crappy players who ignore the importance of experts in the post-truth interscope.

0694 Group-defining terminology condoned by the federal government puts the force of law behind words that end up creating the society that the federal government strives to overcome.  

For example, in America, “whites” are not a homogeneous ethnic identity, even though socialist experts model them as such.  “Blacks” have a historical identity that “whites” do not, but “blacks” who benefit from federal promotions (at the expense of so-called “whites”) tend not to have this historical identity.  Rather than descendants of slaves, they are from say, Jamaica.

The scholar, Thomas Sowell, studies the ironies of government “solutions” (empirio-normative judgments_2c) applied to group differences.  Any of Thomas Sowell’s books serves as a insight-filled introduction to the ways that experts situate scrappy players.

0695 I recap.

Here are two key word comparisons between the scrappy player_a and the expert_b in regards to the post-truth condition.

0696 “Success” and “value” are crucial terms.

But, since they are spoken words, they are actualities₂ within the normal context of definition₃ that arise from the potential of meaning, presence and message₁.  The nature of spoken words is one of the central concerns of Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Clearly the scrappy player and the expert imbue the same two words with very different meanings, presences and messages.  The words sound exactly the same.  Each word may be spoken as if they have the same meaning, presence and message.  But, the potentials are not the same.  The technical definition of words like “success” and “value” benefits the expert and confounds the scrappy player.

Propaganda constitutes a war of words.

0697 Here a picture of the interscope of the post-truth condition.

0698 On the scrappy player level, the normal context of the intellect_3a brings the dyad, what I think [cannot be objectified as] what I say_2a, into relation with the potential of the will_1a.  The question has been raised.  Whose reason_3a,1a is involved in any application of the post-truth interscope?

On the expert level, disciplinary-language based expertise_3b brings the actuality of psychometric models of value_2b into relation with the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’_1b.

On the relativist one level, the normal context of the one of scientism_3c brings the actuality of an empirio-normative judgment_2c into relation with a perspective-level opportunity_1c to contextualize value_2b.

0699 Here is an example of an application.

An assistant professor_3b writes a grant_2b, proposing research that will validate a particular valuation_2b composed of financial transactions_2H that will satisfy certain organizational objectives_2V.  This grant has the opportunity_1c to occupy what ought to be for an empirio-normative judgment_2c because it is apparently intelligible (after all, the grant is written by an expert).

0700 But, why would a federal agency_3c fund the grant?

Perhaps, they_3c have a hidden agenda_1c to promote the universality of the particular political topic_2c.  They want people to encounter the topic_2a.  Plus, the research_2b does not directly reveal the hidden agenda_2c of promoting a topic that favors certain financial transactions_2H and objects^org_2V.  If the research_2b promotes the certification of more experts_3b that will write more grants_1c in this particular academic field, then why not? The agency_3c wants the grant_2c to operate as an interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) that will impact the way people reason_3a,1a and influence what they think_2a and what they are willing to say_2a.  What the granting agency_3c wants_1c serves as what is for the empirio-normative judgment_2c.  The relation then becomes rewarding a grant using taxpayer’s money.

0701 Success_2c is defined as a federal agency funding the proposed grant (that is, the execution of an empirio-normative judgment).

0702 For the scrappy player, formalized knowledge_1b includes the why and how of performing specialized and productive tasks.  The psychometric expert_3b, in contrast, regards formalized knowledge_1b, as the observation and measurement_1b of social phenomena_2a, in regards to a very narrow spectrum of opinion.

Narrow spectrum?

Yes, in the instance of the funded grant, what people say_2a becomes phenomena_2a when it pertains to what would correspond to the sign-object (SO_i) and sign-interpretant (SI_i) of an interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) impacting and influencing the scrappy player level.

0703 On the scrappy player level, what the player regards as “my” intellect_3a brings the actuality of what I think [and] what I am willing to say_2a into relation with the possibilities inherent in “my” will_1a.  In the post-truth interscope, “reason_3a,1a” is characterized as “the intellect_3a contextualizing the will_1a“.  “My” becomes “ours”.

0704 Plus, as depicted above, an SV_i can impose an SO_i and impact a person’s SI_i, simply by staging an event_2a (here, a questionnaire_2a) that produces the possibility of ‘something’ happening_1a in the normal context of what is happening_3a(corresponding to the content level of the scholastic interscope of how humans think).

0705 This leads to a question that is the topic of chapter ten.

0706 Chapter ten is titled, “Planet Vulnerable”.

In this chapter, Stiles confronts success_2c for the one of scientism_3c in the Fourth Battle of The Enlightenment Gods: Empirio-Normative Domination of Citizen-Subject Populations.

I suppose that spoken words are supposed to convey reality and bring us into a common understanding.  In our post-truth condition, the spoken words that the media utter convey a pseudo-reality (a web of narratives) that brings us into communion whether we like it or not (especially after media reports accompanying the narrative are shown to omit crucial truths).

0707 Currently, American media likes to label this communion as “our democracy”.

I guess that the administrative state is too embarrassed to call it “our tyranny”.

Labeling is crucial.

I love Stiles quotes, posted in the margins as addenda. Here is my restatement of one quote.

“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see that our tyranny is ‘our democracy’ and that our success_2c is their success_2a.”

0708 Planet Vulnerable makes me think about both history and logic. 

Why are scrappy players slowly becoming more and more vulnerable?

0709 One answer starts with a question, asking “What is the content-level actuality_2a?”, and ends with the question, wondering, “What about domination?”.

Steve Fuller looks back to the start of the modern era, when mechanical philosophers completely confused theologians, by introducing a concept that seems like Aristotle’s matter and form, but really is not.  The concept is “phenomena” defined as “the observable and measurable aspects of a thing”.  It raises a question, asking, “What is a thing?”

Here is how the question breaks.  Theologians are reduced to the scrappy player level.  Mechanical philosophers are elevated to the expert level.

0710 To start, for the natural philosopher (typically, a theologian of sorts), a thing is a hylomorphe composed of two real elements, matter and form.  Matter accounts for presence and addresses questions like, “What is it made of?”.  Formaccounts for shape and function and addresses questions like, “What is it supposed to do?”

In terms of Peirce’s three categories, hylomorphic structures should belong to secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  The contiguities in the above figure are placed in brackets.  Experts trained in Aristotle may shudder when reading the label that I put into brackets.  All I am doing is adding one more technical definition to the term, “substance”.

“Substance” is “the contiguity between matter and form”.

0711 Next, for the mechanical philosopher, the expert, a thing is also a dyad.  A noumenon (the thing itself) [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena (its observable and measurable facets).  There is good reason why Kant insisted on the importance of the noumenon, the thing itself. Observations and measurements of phenomena may go bonkers.  So, there must be a noumenon as a reality check.

0712 For example, on a summer day, I measure the rise in ambient air temperature from six to nine o’clock in the morning.  Then, I graph the data and model the data with a linear extrapolation.  I then predict that, by ten o’clock at night, the ambient air temperature will be greater than the boiling point of water, and we are all going to die!

Of course, my model does not account for the noumenon, the cyclical nature of the day, when the sun warms the earth in proportion to its location in the heavens, and then sets, and does not warm the earth until the following morning.

0713 The empirio-schematic judgment is a triadic relation, where disciplinary language (relation) brings observations and measurements of phenomena (what is) into relation with mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be).  Notice that the word, “noumenon”, does not appear in the empirio-schematic judgment.  Since the noumenon is a whole, it cannot be directly measured.  But, its phenomena can.  That is why scientists fixate on phenomena and ignore their noumenon.

Fixation and ignorance are threads woven into the fabric of The Age of Ideas.  Experts fixate on phenomena.  Experts ignore the noumenon.  In the process, scientist cultivate material and efficient causes that are divorced from final and formal causes.  They neglect final and formal causes.

0714 What does this discussion imply?

I suppose it means that the previous figure needs to be adjusted.

0715 Oh, that leads to more difficulties.

Aristotle’s foundational hylomorphe, matter [substance] form, corresponds to the noumenon, the thing itself, that scientists ignore.  Indeed, when a scientist becomes a triumphalist, he wants to replace the noumenon with his mathematical or mechanical model.  Then, the model (substituting for the noumenon) [can be objectified by] its phenomena.

0716 If the scrappy player level is occupied by theologians and natural philosophers, then what the scrappy player thinksand what the scrappy player says cannot be objectified as phenomena, that is observable and measurable facets of the thing itself.

How so?

For the most part, scrappy players say what they think.

Both thinking and talking represent the noumenon (but may, on occasion, concern phenomena, its observable and measurable facets).

So, what I think is like matter and what I say is like form. Matter [substance] form associates to a noumenon, a thing itself.

0717 This is confusing.

I thought that what I think corresponds to a noumenon and what I say corresponds to its phenomena.

It does for the psychometric sciences_3b.

What I think [cannot be objectified as] what I say is a construct that is imposed by the post-truth condition itself.  This actuality_2a occurs when reason_3a,1a is defined as the intellect_3a contextualizing the will_1a.  When reason_3a,1a is so defined, then expertise_3b can virtually situate it_3a,1a.

0718 So, maybe, I need to change the picture once again, where the person on the crappy player level becomes a thing(that can be studied by the psychometric sciences).

Ah, that is better.

0719 What I think corresponds to the first abstraction in natural philosophy according to Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.  A psychometric scientist cannot observe or measure this noumenon.

0720 What I say corresponds to a philosophical discussion concerning material, efficient, formal and final causalities.

Since a psychometric scientist_3b can observe and measure the phenomena of what I say_2a, then what I say concerning the subject of investigation_2a may go into the corresponding model of value_2b.  The scientist must be selective about what is observed and measured_1b.  The scientist must discriminate in so far as the phenomena_2a must apply to what the scientist intends to model_2b.  Aristotle’s four causes are acknowledged only in so far as a scientific model (with no metaphysics) can explain their content and import.

0721 What can go wrong?  What is missing?

0722  What the scientist misses is that speaking in the way of natural philosophy turns out to be crucial for thinking.  The typical person talks about material, efficient, formal and final causes.  The scientist labors to account for such talk with truncated material and efficient causes (that is, material and efficient causes shorn of any metaphysical attributes).

0723 For example, the Torches of Freedom campaign is designed to induce women to start smoking (hidden agenda).  Several gals step out of the crowd during the Easter parade and light up cigarettes in front of photographers, who happen to be there to capture the moment in pictures. What a newsworthy event!  Matter touches base with the presence of a cigarette.  Form associates to what the cigarette is supposed to do.

The scrappy player may talk about a variety of causes.  Where does she get that cigarette (material)?  How is she at the Easter parade (efficient)?  Why is she here at the Easter parade instead of hotel that allows smoking (final)?  I did not think that a cultivated person would light up a cigarette in this type of crowd.  It’s like drinking in public (formal).

0724 These typical comments_2a may be sampled_1b and analyzed_2b in order to produce a valuation_2b that a cigarette company_3c might pay for.  The truncated material cause_2b is that this woman can afford to do whatever she wants to do.  The truncated efficient cause_2b is that smoking is liberation.  These causes explain the Easter parade event, splashed across newspapers the next day.

Plus, these causes are more real than anything that the scrappy player can infer from reports and narratives.  After all, no one reveals the truth.  The Easter parade event is staged.

0725 Yes, it seems that the experts in psychometrics are missing something about how speaking is tied to thinking.  What does the elucidation of Aristotle’s four causes do?  Talk about Aristotle’s four causes places a thing or event₂, an actuality₂, manifesting as matter [substance] form₂, into a category-based nested form.

0726 Understanding consists in a completed category-based nested form.

This point is foundational in Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024), by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Parts of this work are available in Razie Mah’s blog for April through June, 2024.

0727 So, what does this imply?

It implies that the scrappy player_a is open to understanding and that the expert_b is not.

The scrappy player’s understanding opens a cognitive space to immaterial causalities (formal and final).

Expert modeling constricts its cognitive space to material and physical causalities (material and efficient, divorced from formal and final).

If I associate immaterial causalities with the spiritual world and material causalities with the um… material world, then I arrive at an adjustment of the ongoing sequence of figures.

This adjustment keys into a figure in chapter 10 of Stiles’s book.

0728 This figure is not a precise reproduction.  However, it is suggestive.

The scrappy player_a may be a theologian, a natural philosopher, or someone trying to figure out what on earth is going on.  The scrappy player is interested in understanding.  Understanding entails all four of Aristotle’s causes.  So, it seems like the scrappy player wants to know the big picture, as well as the details.  Big picture items, such as final and formal causes, informs the scrappy player of directions and designs.

The expert cannot be a theologian or a natural philosopher, because the psychometric sciences are devoted to figuring out valuation in a world bounded by the intersection of capitalism and socialism.  Capitalism and socialism are all about our material world.  Both “-ism” claims to be fact-based, data-driven and scientific.

0729 The scrappy player_a and the expert_b levels are fundamentally disjointed.  The spiritual world cannot be objectified as the material world.

This is not the same as a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.

Or is it?

0730 The uncertainty is telling because the expert claims to know what the scrappy player does not know.

So I ask, “If the scrappy player knows what the expert knows, then would the scrappy player be an expert?”

No, because the expert follows the positivist intellect’s rule that metaphysics is not allowed.  And, that is not the same as being trained in the performance of specialized tasks, which is what the scrappy player calls, “expertise”.

0731 Final causes (intentions) and formal causes (designs) are metaphysical.  So, the expert concentrates on the material world and is happy explaining how what people say about final and formal causation is scientifically accounted for by truncated material and efficient causes.  “Truncated” means “divorced from final and formal causalities”.

0732 Meanwhile, the scrappy player wants to “get ahead” by becoming an expert in performing material and instrumental tasks, so he enters the realm of expertise by taking courses and getting credentialed.  But, that is not what expert_b level is all about.  The expert_b level is devoted to producing models of observations and measurements of what people say in order to ascertain a mysterious, yet materialist, value_2b, standing at the intersection of capitalism and socialism.

0733 What is even more confusing is that the valuations_2b produced by postmodern expertise_3b have material and instrumental ends_1c that offer opportunities_1c for the one of scientism_3c to make an empirio-normative judgment_2c, which often enough, is an operation sheepskin type of event_2c.

In other words, the empirio-normative judgment_2c is actionable.  The judgment unfolds into a nested form and constitutes an event that engages what people think_2a and what people say_2a.  And off we go again.

0734 Sign-relations, like category-based nested forms, are necessarily metaphysical, as well as physical.  The interventional sign-relation that is triggered with the execution of an empirio-normative judgment plays a significant role in the operation of the post-truth interscope.  For example, it explains why events (SO_i), scripted by operation sheepskin to engage our reason_3a,1a (SI_i), seem to involve a hidden agenda (SV_i).

0735 Indeed, the scrappy player_3a,1a (SI_i) tunes into the interventional sign-relation when he realizes that everything that the corporate media is talking about (SO_i) seems to have a hidden agenda (SV_i).

Of course, the trick is that any hidden agenda (SV_i) only manifests as an interventional sign-object (SO_i).  The interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) cannot be witnessed  So, the feeling that there is a hidden agenda (what I think_2a) cannot be objectified by what people are talking about (what I say_2a) for more than one reason.  One is the dyadic structure of Kant’s slogan.  Two is the nature of the interventional sign-relation, which is not apparent to experts_3b.  Three is the distinction between noumenon and phenomena replaying itself as a distinction between the content and perspective levels of the post-truth interscope.

In sum, the scrappy player_3a,1a associates to a noumenon and the one of scientism_3c is inextricably dependent on materialist analysis_2b of phenomena_1b by the psychometric sciences_3b.

0736 So here is a picture of the final adjustment for a segment that starts on point 0708 and applies to chapter ten, titled “Planet Vulnerable”.