11/5/24

Looking at Daniel Houck’s Book (2020) “Aquinas, Original Sin and the Challenge of Evolution” (Part 23 of 23)

0236 Augustine’s mechanism captures the essence of the first singularity. It does not capture the esse_ce. Augustine treats the Garden of Eden as if it is a real story. Instead, the fairy tales of Adam and Eve point to the first singularity.

Similar mythologies from the ancient Near East, revealed during the past three centuries from archaeological excavations, give the same impression. Humans do not have a deep past. Humans are recently manufactured by differentiated gods, who arise out of a foggy, undifferentiated nowhere.

0237 These ancient writings are not known during the Latin Age, so the scholastics do not contest Augustine’s mechanism. Yet, they find that the mechanism is not sufficient, because of those damned dead infants. How can infants express concupiscence?

The concern is both mechanistic and conditional. It can be portrayed as a dyad in the realm of actuality. This actuality corresponds to original sin₂.

0238 How to describe the contiguity?

Houck lists three scenarios that gain prominence during the Latin Age: disease theory, a legal connection, and a realist view.

These three approaches tie into the above actuality.

0239 Augustine’s conflation of concupiscence and procreation provides a disease mechanism for how Adam’s rebellion infects us.

The legal framework corresponds to God’s Will, which is contained in the command, not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The status of humanity changes from blessed to cursed. A change in legal status puts Augustine’s conflation into context₃.

The realist view is that humans lost something with Adam’s rebellion. The Story of the Fall indicates that humans lost access to the tree of life. A better way to put it is: The tree of life is no longer a possibility₁. The Garden of Eden is no longer possible. So, God is no longer present as He once was.

0240 In sum, the scholastics, following Aristotle’s four causes, place Augustine’s mechanism into a complete category-based nested form.

0241 Perhaps, the reader can predict my next move.

I wonder, “Can this nested form go into the perspective level of divine suprasubjectivity?”

Or, does it correspond to what Christian doctrine projects into perspective-level elements?

Here is how the perspective level changes.

Note how the normal context_3c and potential_1c have changed character, they are now qualified.

Note how the judgment of original justice_2c (belonging to thirdness) changes into a mechanistic dyad_2c (belonging to secondness).

What are the implications?

0242 A change in perspective for God passes into a change of perspective for humans.

Our commitment_2c does not make sense without God’s orientation (grace).

0243 Adam disobeying God’s command changes our legal status_3c.

The ejection of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden changes God’s Presence_1c from open to hidden.

And worse, a mechanism connects Adam’s rebellion to our own lives_2c. Augustine’s hybridization of concupiscence and procreation is one mechanism that captures crucial features of the contiguity. However, modern evolutionary science argues for its implausibility. Adam and Eve are not the first human beings. Therefore, they are not the parents of all humans today.

0244 Is there a mechanism that will meet the qualifications of cause-and-effect and offer us (in our current Lebenswelt) a glimpse into who we evolved to be?

Augustine’s mechanism coheres to a literal interpretation of the Story of the Fall. Consequently, the mechanism is not independent of the biblical text.

The mechanism of the first singularity coheres with an interpretation of the Story of the Fall that is appropriate for the genre. The stories of Adam and Eve are fairy tales. Fairy tales are stories that are told to children. Often, they are preserved with remarkable precision over hundreds (and for these stories, thousands) of years. They may point to some primal event. That event cannot be reconstructed from the fairy tale itself. That event must be postulated independently of the fairy tale.

The hypothesis of the first singularity fits the criteria of (1) cause-and-effect and (2) a connection to the Genesis text. But, it does not allow us to appreciate how the twist in human evolution touches base with the doctrine of original sin.

0245 This is why Aquinas’s postulation of original justice_2c is so crucial.

Original justice_2c pertains to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Original sin_2c pertains to our current Lebenswelt.

Original sin_2c is the privation of original justice_2c.

Speech-alone talk is the privation of the hand-component of hand-speech talk.

Speech-alone talk attaches labels to the elements within the perspective-level actuality_2c.

Why stop there?

Spoken words can label every element on the perspective level, as well as the situation level, as well as the content level.

This is not possible in iconic and indexal hand-speech talk.

0246 The Story of the Fall tells a tale, rich in details that call to mind the first singularity.

With the assistance of the serpent, Eve attaches spoken labels to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then, her spoken words generate the reality of Adam’s rebellion.

0247 Thousands of years later, scholastics refine the Story of the Fall into a perspective-level category-based nested form for original sin.

They know nothing about the content level, as it currently is configured by modern science.

They know that the content level pertains to crucial questions, “Where does the world come from? Where do we humans come from?”

They know that the situation-level addresses the question, “What went wrong?”

They figure that we cannot return to the Garden of Eden. We cannot go back to the original justice_2c, enjoyed by Adam before his rebellion.

This explains why revelation is necessary.

0248 Jesus Christ fills the emptiness inherent to original sin. No one, not even infants, can avoid that emptiness. Original sin is the privation of original justice.

From this, Latin-Age scholastics cobble together a normal context_3c and a potential_1c for the mechanism connecting Adam’s rebellion to our current lives_2c.

0249 Speech-alone talk facilitates the scholastic’s exercise in exemplar extrinsic formal causality. Speech-alone talk permits the articulation of exemplar signs.

The sign-vehicle (SV_e) consists of phantasms that arise from the recitation of the Story of the Fall_2b.

The sign-object (SO_e) is the perspective-level actuality_2c.

The sign-interpretant (SI_e) is as shown below.

0250 In this exemplar sign, Augustine’s version of original sin_2c initially stands where original justice_2c used to be. Original sin_2c overwrites original justice_2c. This is what spoken words do. Our verbal rhetoric can never recapture the wholeness of the commitment_2c that we evolved to sense and feel_2a. But, it sure can trigger our longing for that wholeness.

Yet, Augustine’s vision captures an essential feature of our own lives_2c. We are fallen.

0251 Similarly, the proposed confluence of Adam’s rebellion and a change in Lebenswelt may occupy the contiguity in the dyad where original justice_2c used to be. Again, this proposal somehow distorts the judgment. But, it does so in a way that scientists cannot dismiss out of hand. The hypothesis of the first singularity is not the second doctrine of original sin. However, it offers a mechanism that reflects quite nicely in the mirror of theology.

See Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues (also appearing in Razie Mah’s blog from April through June 2024).

0252 Not unlike Augustine’s first version of original sin, the first singularity offers a suite of insights that are difficult to ignore. First, it is mechanistic in the way that science is mechanistic. Second, it challenges current paradigms on human evolution, but not the data that support them. Neodarwinism has not come to grips with the possibility that the human niche is not material. Modern evolutionary science has yet to entertain the idea that human evolution comes with a twist. Plus, the twist is metaphysical.

And, what better place to look for the metaphysical tools to construct the second doctrine of original sin, than those formulated by Thomas Aquinas and re-formulated by Charles Peirce, who is about to be baptized in the same way that Aquinas baptized Aristotle and Averroes?

0253 So, I conclude my comments on Daniel Houck’s Book (2020) Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution. My thanks to the author and apologies for wandering far and wide.

0254 And, what about the turtle?

When I place the apparently dead turtle into the pond. Its head and feet poke out from under the shell. It swims away. The pond is its Umwelt.

We (humans) are not so fortunate. We can never return to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. Nor can we create our own utopia. The most we can hope for is some miraculous redemption of our current Lebenswelt. This is precisely what God delivers.

10/31/24

Looking at N. J. Enfield’s Book (2022) “Language vs. Reality” (Part 1 of 23)

0841 This is an encore performance to the sequence of blogs on the post-truth condition.

As such, this examination wraps up Part Two of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Take a gander at the full title of Enfield’s text, Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good For Lawyers and Bad For Scientists.

Surely, that sounds like a book that belongs to a set of books on the post-truth condition.

So, the numbers continue to build from the last examination.

0842 The book is published by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The author is a professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney and the Director of the Sydney Centre for Language Research.

0843 The title of the book is a play on John B. Carroll’s (editor) collection of essays by Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941 AD), published in 1956 under the title, Language, Thought and Reality.

To me, this implies that “thought” has transubstantiated into “versus”. The substance of the word has changed, so to speak. The word, “versus”, derives from the same root as the word, “adversary”. So, if “thought” once used to nominally stand between “language” and “reality”, then today, “thought” is confounded with “adversary”, and that might serve as a hint concerning the nature of our adversity.

Perhaps, this is not the only notable feature of the title.

Then again, a book titled, Language, Adversary and Reality, might not fly off the shelves in feel-good book-outlets. It is not as if, next to the Self-Help section, there is a Come To Grips With Your Doom section.

So, expect me to play with the title throughout this examination.

0844 Another notable feature of this book, at least to me, is that the author is not acquainted with Razie Mah’s re-articulation of human evolution, in three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues). The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. Plus, the evolution of talk comes with the twist, humorously called, “the first singularity”.

So, Enfield’s work serves as a marker for the twilight of the Age of Ideas and the dawning of the Age of Triadic Relations.

0845 Okay, let me dwell on the idea that the evolution of language is not the same as the evolution of talk.

Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues, and also, for the most part, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog for January, February and March, 2024) divides the evolution of talk in the following manner.

0846 The first period starts with the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineage (7 million of years ago) and ends with the bipedalism of the so-called “southern apes” (around 3.5 to 4 million years ago).

In the second period, australopithecines adapt to mixed forest and savannah by adopting the strategy of obligate collaborative foraging. Eventually, Homo erectus figures out the controlled use of fire, leading to the domestication of fire, starting (perhaps) around 800 thousand years ago.

The third period, lasts from the domestication of fire to the earliest appearance of anatomically modern humans. During this period, hand talk becomes fully linguistic, religion evolves as an adaptation to large social circles (of 150 individuals and more) and hominins use the voice for synchronization during seasonal mega-band and occasional tribal gatherings. Then, sexual selection does the rest and the voice comes under voluntary neural control.

0847 The fourth period starts when the voice, now under voluntary control, joins hand-talk, resulting in a dual-mode way of talking, hand-speech talk. Hand talk retains the iconicity and indexality that grounds reference in things that can be pictured or pointed to. But, speech adds a symbolic adornment, which starts as a sing-along and ends up taking a life of its own. Four centuries ago, the North American Plains Indians and the Australian aborigines still practiced hand-speech talk, with full fledged sign and verbal languages. Now, their hand-speech talk is all but dead.

0848 That death, along with the demise of all hand-speech talking languages, comes (and came) due to exposure to speech-alone talk, which has significantly different semiotic qualities than hand-talk and hand-speech talk. Hand-talk is iconic and indexal. The referent precedes the gestural word. Speech-alone talk is purely symbolic. The spoken word labels ‘something’, and sometimes that ‘something’ cannot be imaged or indicated.

Well, it must be real because speech-alone talk provides a label for an explicit abstraction!

0849 Here is a picture of the transition labeled, “the first singularity”.

0850 Consider the words, “language”, “adversary” and “reality”. Each word is a label for ‘something’ that cannot be pictured or pointed to. These words do not exist in hand-talk or hand-speech talk, because the referent cannot be imaged or indicated using a manual-brachial gesture. What does this imply? Does a referent exist because a label has been attached to it? Or, does an explicit abstraction properly label referents that exist irrespective of the spoken word? This type of question is addressed in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

Fortunately, the author of the book under examination is unaware of the first singularity and the difficulties that a change in the way that humans talk poses. Human evolution comes with a twist.

0851 So why examine this work?

Well, I expect to see the evolution of talk manifesting in this book, even though the author is not aware of Razie Mah’s academic labors.

Surely, Enfield’s work details recent scientific research in linguistics and cognitive psychology, in an attempt to provide the reader with a coherent view of how language is good for lying lawyers and bad for honest scientists.

What will this examination reveal?

10/5/24

Looking at N. J. Enfield’s Book (2022) “Language vs. Reality” (Part 23 of 23)

1060 Chapter eleven completes Part III. This chapter concerns sense making.

How am I to make sense of the inverted interscope that arrives after the story of Adam and Eve enters into Enfield’s science-inspired interscope?

1061 How do I capture the Gestalt shift in speech-alone talk?

For Enfield’s scientific frame, the perspective-level contiguity is [translates into].

For the inverted frame, the perspective-level contiguity is [transubstantiates into].

Does this suffice?

The Gestalt switches from one to the other interscope.

1062 What else?

The change of Gestalts reconfigures the title.

1063 What Enfield cannot say is this.

Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

In 2022, he simply is not aware of the hypothesis of the first singularity.

1064 What Enfield cannot say may be formulated in terms of science, as an evolutionarily recent cultural transition from hand-speech talk to speech-alone talk, starting with the emergence of the Ubaid culture of southern Mesopotamia, nominally 7824 years ago.

One day, science may present how hand and hand-speech talk potentiates constrained social complexity and speech-alone talk potentiates unconstrained social complexity.

Science may investigate how hand and hand-speech talk facilitates implicit abstraction and how speech-alone talk has a unique ability to label anything, even referents that cannot be pictured or pointed to, even referents that are quite fantastic and alluring and that exist only in the realm of possibility.

1065 Perhaps, explicit abstraction is more cunning than any animal that the Lord God creates.

Like sin, it couches at our door. It is our job to tame it.

1066 In conclusion, Enfield’s well-written book testifies to what he is not aware of.

The background Gestalt of his scientific discourse is a story, and this story steps forward in this examination of Part III, entitled “Reality Made By Language”. But, the inversion does not manifest a full Gestalt shift, because that is precisely what Enfield wants to avoid. He wants to remain a scientist, speaking the disciplinary languages of linguistics and cognitive psychology, as if they could warn us about the near impossibility of practicing Wittgenstein’s rule, because our kind evolves the trait of ‘agreeability’_1a, so that our ‘imaginations’_1b may align in the virtual normal context of ‘coordination’_1c.

1067 Enfield’s interscope is beautiful to behold.

His interscope appears in the mirror of science. I say this while casting a glance at Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues. Portions appear in Razie Mah’s blogs for April through June, 2024. When a theologian looks at Enfield’s interscope, shimmering in the mirror of science, he responds with a theological question, asking, “What is this image revealing?”

The answer cries out for a Gestalt inversion.

One Gestalt hinges on the contiguity, “translates”.

The other Gestalt hinges on the contiguity, “transubstantiates”.

1068 The invert interscope is a wonder to behold.

Saint Thomas Aquinas might chuckle. Aquinas coined the word, “transubstantiates”.

Note how a physical reality, as simple as water, poured over the head of a baby or a child or a repenting adult,transubstantiates into the social reality of washing away the stain of original sin_2c. Water is more than physical reality. Washing the stain of original sin is more than social reality.

1069 This is what the theologian projects into the mirror of theology, standing in the jurisdiction of science, as he contemplates the implications of what Enfield has written.

1070 In the sacrament of baptism, everyone in the ritual co-ordinates, in one particular recitation, starting with an answer to the question, “Do you reject Satan?”

Lucifer is an angel of light. Everything that Lucifer says tells more about Lucifer than the referent that Lucifer’s words conjure. Indeed, the referent that Lucifer’s words conjure is a lie. Just look at the seven of cups in a deck of illustrated Tarot cards and tell me that Lucifer’s words do not conjure this image in the mind of poor, unsuspecting Eve, who, after all, is only trying to be agreeable.

1071 Perhaps, this examination is an invitation for Dr. Enfield and other linguists and cognitive psychologists, to realize that their science has isolated us in rigid containers of empirio-schematic thought. We are creatures who evolved to live as images of God, not as subjects for the psychometric sciences.

Do not let your scientific commitments get in the way of an origin story of the ancient Near East_2a, rising through the observable and measurable use of spoken words_2b, and blossoming into a sacrament instituted during the most amazing revelation coming from the promised land_2c.

When John the Baptist pours the waters of the Jordan over the head of Jesus, the heavens rejoice.

Here is what we evolved to be, standing at the confluence of language and reality.

1072 John Deely, the author of Four Ages of Understanding (2001), offers a label for this new world view. Welcome to the Age of Triadic Relations.

1073 My thanks to Dr. N. J. Enfield for his book, written at the cusp (yet without awareness that there is a cusp) of a new age of understanding.

09/4/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 23 of 23)

0749 What about domination?

Chapters eleven and twelve conclude the book with suggestions for how to proceed, now that Stiles’s own manuscript testifies to the necessity for operation spider web to engage in as many operation sheepskins as possible. The scrappy players are becoming aware that what they regard as reason_3a,1a is actually an interventional sign-interpretant (SI_i) declaring that an operation sheepskin_2c executed by the scientismist one_3c (SV_i) stands for what people are thinking [and] what people are saying_2a (SO_i). Experts_3b cannot reduce this awareness to capitalist and socialist ideations_2b and remain intelligible.

More research is required.

One of the operation sheepskins has got to dominate the scrappy players that deny the post-truth interscope.

0750 The scrappy player needs only to watch corporate broadcast media for the latest operation.

The money and power required to sustain operation spider web is enormous.

After the system_3c burns through its cash, then it_3c will ask the oligarchs and the federal government to appropriate more funds for their private-public partnerships.

The laboratory of expertise strives for an effective formulation.

Will they configure a final solution?

0751 Meanwhile, scrappy players_a are coming to terms with the nature of domination by the ones of scientism_3c.

The scientismist one’s_3c interventional sign-objects_2a (SO_i) trigger the scrappy player to imagine_2a a perspective-level interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i), a hidden agenda_2c, that can only be recognized when the intellect_3a contextualizes a potential greater than the will_1a (SI_i).

In order to do so, the scrappy player must recognize that what he has been thinking_2a and what he has been expected to say_2a are no longer intellectually_3a satisfying.

Something greater than “our” intellect_3a is required.

Then, what the scrappy player discovers_2a is that humans are adapted to recognize interventional sign-relations.

The ones of scientism_3c use that adaptation against the scrappy players_2a.

The ones of scientism_3c dominate by pretending to be the divine source of interventional sign-vehicles (SV_i).

They do so by limiting reason_3a,1ato the intellect_3a contextualizing the will_1a, as if the will_1a does not seek perfection (completion) in transcendentals, such a truth.

Yes, they are using a human adaptation against us. But, they are triggering the adaptation as well.

0752 Hence, there is a practical conundrum facing the scrappy player.

To speak of a hidden agenda_2a is counterproductive, because to posit that events_2a are scripted by operation-sheepskin empirio-normative judgments_2c is to talk in terms of formal and final causalities, which are the very statements-phenomena_2a that cannot regarded as worthy of observation and measurement by psychometric experts_3c. Psychometric experts_3b base their models_2b on truncated material and efficient causalities (shorn of formal and final causation).

Speech about hidden agendas_2a cannot be regarded as phenomena_2a worth attending to.

Therefore, it must be ignored.

0753 The impasse is palpable, because (look at the third row).

0754 The crisis is about to begin.

0755 My thanks to Michelle Stiles for daring to publish a manuscript worthy of examination in regards to the post-truth condition.

07/31/24

Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition” (Part 1 of 26)

0023 The full title of the book before me is A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition: The Name of the Game (Anthem Press: London and New York). The book seems brief, but it packs a lot of material in sixteen short chapters… well… technically, an introduction, fourteen chapters and a conclusion.

0024 Professor Steve Fuller introduces the topic with the headline, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Post-Truth Condition”. The headline is a tongue in cheek reference to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 intellectually pleasing masterpiece, “Dr. Strangelove”.

Yet, one has only to trace Kubrick’s career trajectory to envision a conclusion beyond worry and love. Kubrick dies in 1999 after wrapping up a homage to the will, titled “Eyes Wide Shut”.

0025 What matters is not whether something is true or false.

What matters is how something is decided.

The first statement concerns the intellect. The second statement concerns the will.

0026 So, how is a matter to be decided?

Shall we call upon the experts?

Consider the issues of anxiety and affection. An expert may reduce diverse and unsettling experiences to phenomena that can be observed and measured. Then, the expert may build a model, using a specialized disciplinary language. Next, with that model in hand, the expert will consider avenues to control the phenomena.

0027 For example, in a casual academic encounter at a university, I meet a needy and uncertain scholar who constantly nags her compatriot and (most likely) lover about the importance of managing her anxiety. Of course, the university setting is full of people making odd demands, so I think nothing of it. Later, I find out that her “husband” is a pharmaceutical salesman.

Indeed, she learned how to stop worrying about her field of inquiry and to love her husband with his briefcase full of Valium samples.

0028 So, is there a problem?

Fuller suggests that the “distance” between the layperson and the expert shrinks, because a layperson can become acquainted with the disciplinary language of any field of expertise well enough as to ask apparently intelligent questions. Yes, a question may be posed to the pharmaceutical salesman that goes like this, “I can see that your lover is addicted to Valium. Could you tell me exactly the mechanism for how this drug operates on the love-centers of the brain?”

To which the expert in marketing scoffs, “The human brain has frontal, parietal and occipital lobes. The human brain has a cerebellum. These anatomical structures perform various specialized neurological functions. Okay? The human brain does not have a ‘love-center’. What an ignorant question.”

0029 Indeed, the salesman goes on to testify before a legislative committee on the need to monitor and reduce the amount of medical disinformation on the internet. When laypeople read books on the neurological underpinnings of sexual attraction and drug addiction, they think that they’ve learned something. They think that they can ask revealing questions. So, they stupidly ask about “cerebral love centers”.

A law must be passed to deter this conduct.

0030 What does Fuller predict?

Just as during the Reformation, when Bibles printed in the layperson’s language opened the opportunity for any layperson to interpret sacred text, the current internet allows anyone who can read to become familiar with the language of any specialized discipline. Then, that layperson may publish a podcast that asks… um… revealing questions about what experts are supposed to know best.

The cost of entry into the market is astonishing low. So, many experts argue that it is the responsibility of the state to increase that cost through regulation and censorship.

07/3/24

Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition” (Part 26 of 26)

0238 Original sin?

0239 Francis Bacon (1561-1626 AD) lives at the start of the current Age of Ideas. He is a lawyer. He accepts that lying is part of everyday life, especially in the courtroom. He discovers that inquisitional modes of investigation force people to report in public what privately they do not hold. In short, the inquisitorial mode of testing and observing and measuring produces what I call “phenomena”. Courtroom phenomena do not reveal what a subject “privately” thinks. Courtroom phenomena reveal what the subject is openly willing to disclose under inquisition.

What I privately think associates to the noumenon.

What I am willing to say associates to phenomena.

0240 What does this imply?

Just as a triumphalist scientist wants to replace the noumenon with a mathematical or mechanical model, the scientismist one wants to replace what I privately think with what the Positivist’s judgment ought to be, that is, an empirio-normative narrative.

0241 Okay, then does that mean, once I am properly credentialed, that I have bought into a lie?

Yes and no.

Yes, phenomena cannot objectify their noumenon. If I do not testify to what I think, then I must be lying. So, the very idea of phenomena entails, not necessarily a falsehood, but a deception.

No, phenomena can objectify a model substituting for the noumenon. If I have successfully substituted an empirio-normative narrative for what I think, then I am always engaging in deception, even to myself. Either that, or I am always telling the “truth” (that is, the narrative) that can be objectified as what I say.

Did I write that correctly?

0242 The Christian doctrine of Original Sin derives from a mythic account of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are fashioned by God in a paradise near the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They disobey God’s command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Okay, let me tweak the tree’s label to “the fruit of the tree of formalized knowledge_1b“. Mythically, this tree occupies the center of the Edenic garden.

The problem is not disobedience, per se, but a capitulation to a post-truth condition imposed by… what else?… a speaking snake. Serpents must speak, because they cannot talk with their hands.

0243 Needless to say, the serpent has a variety of narratives to offer. The fruit will allow Eve to own its beauty (the capitalist model of value_2b) as well as make her wise (the socialist model of value_2b). Eve sees an opportunity_1c. She makes an actionable judgment_2c. And, the relativist one_3c notches up two successes_2c, since Adam is along for the ride.

So, the Fall in the Garden of Eden has a lot to do with disobedience (to God, but obedience to the serpent) and lying (to oneself by adopting the narrative of the serpent as one’s own).

0244 Saint Augustine associates the Fall to a permanent weakness called “concupiscence”, which transliterates to “con (with) cupi (Cupid) scence (the state of being)”. The state of being with Cupid is a little more entertaining than the state of being scammed by a speaking snake. But, the post-truth condition for each is pretty much the same.

0245 Why?

The foundational potential of the post-truth condition is the will_1a.

By definition, the foundational potential of the prior condition is the truth_1a.

0246 What does this imply?

Well, if Adam and Eve associate to the start of our current Lebenswelt, as proposed in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace (as well as An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), then the prior truth condition must associate to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. Consequently, Adam and Eve may be historical, in so far as they are fairy tale figures associated with the start of the Ubaid archaeological period of southern Mesopotamia. The Ubaid marks the start of history (that is, our current Lebenswelt).

0247 Of course, Saint Augustine does not know this. So, he proposes that all humanity shares in the original sin of Adam and Eve through direct descent. All humans are subject to original sin_2c because Adam and Eve are the first parents.

This turns out to be a scientific proposal. All humans are related to an original pair of humans. This hypothesis is debunked by modern genetics. There is no genetic bottleneck, as would be expected for a single-pair founding our species.

0248 So, Fuller points to a post-Augustine interpretation of our current Lebenswelt as a breeding ground for the post-truth condition. We are expected, by our inquisitors, to say only what we are publicly willing to disclose, as if that is what we are thinking. Whenever we live up to that expectation, we deceive ourselves. At the same time, we notch up successes_2c for the relativist one_3c.

On top of that, our hard-won academic credentials encourage us to utter statements based on the latest empirio-normative narratives_2c, as if they_2c are what we are thinking_2a.

0249 Razie Mah heartily agrees. See his blog post for January 2, 2024.

0250 Perhaps, among other things, original sin involves defying the God of Creation by publicly mouthing the normative narratives of lesser deities, relativist ones_3c, who put both the human intellect_3a and will_1a into perspective.

The sacrament of baptism plays a role in washing away that original sin, in so far as it introduces the infant to people who offer the story of the One True God, despite the fact that the story is unbelievable, according to all relativist one-heads.

0251 That said, Fuller’s genealogy of the post-truth condition points back to the very start of our current Lebenswelt.

Here is one vista that Fuller, as a guide to the post-truth condition, allows.

0252 Each person must decide which path to follow in the fourth Enlightenment Battle.

There are two paths.

One turns the person in to a certified mask that utters empirio-normative narratives.

One turns a person into a sign-tracker on a path that leads to a sign-vehicle that does not stand for what the empirio-normative judgment is telling me to think. This is the path of metalepsis. If Fuller is on target, the sign-tracker will discover an interventional sign-vehicle containing both a novel doctrine of original sin (for our current Lebenswelt) and a new appreciation of the human as an image of God (for the Lebenswelt that we evolved in).

In order to appreciate original justice, one must first respect original sin.

0253 Razie Mah offers three works that reconfigure the current empirio-schematic narrative of human evolution in a way that may assist sign-trackers. These works are titled, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion”. These works address the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt.

Indeed, these works begin where Fuller’s excellent guidebook concludes.

0254 My thanks to Steve Fuller for his daring, and brief, exposition of the contemporary post-truth condition.

06/29/24

Looking at Mariusz Tabaczek’s Book (2024) “Theistic Evolution” (Part 1 of 21)

0644 The full title of the book before me is Theistic Evolution: A Contemporary Aristotelian-Thomistic Perspective(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge: UK). The book arrives on my doorstep in October 2023. The copyright is dated 2024.

How time flies.

0645 This examination builds on previous blogs and commentaries.

Here is a picture.

0646 A quick glance backwards is appropriate.

Tabaczek’s story begins in the waning days of the Age of Ideas, when the Positivist’s judgment once thrived.

0647 The Positivist judgment holds two sources of illumination. Models are scientific. Noumena are the things themselves. Physics applies to models. Metaphysics applies to noumena. So, I ask, “Which one does the positivist intellect elevate over the other?”

The answer is obvious.

So, the first part of the story is that the positivist intellect dies, and lives on as a ghost (points 0001-0029).

0648 Tabaczek buries the positivist intellect and places the two sources of illumination against one another. It is as if they reflect one another.

But, the two sources also have their advocates.

In Emergence, Tabaczek argues that models of emergence require metaphysical styles of analysis.

In Divine Action and Emergence, he sets out to correct metaphysical emanations reflecting scientific models of emergence. It is as if these emanations are reflections of science in the mirror of theology. Intellectuals inspired by science want to see ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment in the mirror of theology. But, note the difference between the picture of the Positivist’s judgment and the two hylomorphes in Tabaczek’s mirror (points 0039-0061).

0649 Why do I mention this?

In the introduction of the book before me, Tabaczek discusses his motivations. He, as a agent of theology, wants to exploit an opportunity. That opportunity is already present in the correction that he makes to what an agent of science sees in the mirror of theology (pictured below).

0650 What an opportunity!

Tabaczek offers the hope of a multidimensional, open-minded, and comprehensive (say nothing of comprehensible) account of evolutionary theory.

How so?

The positivist intellect is dead. The positivist intellect ruled the Positivist’s judgment with the maxim, “Metaphysics is not allowed.”

0651 Now that the positivist intellect is dead, the two illuminations within the former Positivist’s judgment may transubstantiate into the realm of actuality and become two hylomorphes, standing like candles that reflect one another in Tabaczek’s mirror.

Tabaczek, as an agent of theology, witnesses how a scientist views himself in the mirror of theology. The scientist sees the model as more real than the noumenon (the thing itself, which cannot be objectified as its phenomena). Indeed, the scientist projects ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment into the mirror of theology.

0652 Tabaczek wants to project his philosophical construction of the noumenon (in concert with its dispositions and powers, as well as its matter and form) into the mirror of science.

But, I wonder whether any agent of science is willing to stop listening to the ghost of the positivist intellect long enough to discern what theologians project into the mirror of science.

0653 Yes, Tabaczek’s inquiry is all about optics.

0654 So, who are the players involved in the intellectual drama of Tabaczek’s mirror.

Tabaczek identifies three.

To me, there must be four.

0655 The first is the agent of science. The science^agentis the one that makes the models. Two types of science^agent stand out in the study of biological evolution: the natural historian and the geneticist.

0656 The second is the agent of theology. Tabaczek limits theology^agents to experts in Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.).

In a way, this self-imposed limit is a handicap, since Aristotle and Aquinas philosophize long before Darwin publishes On The Origin of Species (1859).

In another way, this self-imposed limit is a blessing, since it provides me with an occasion for examining his argument from the framework of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914). According to the semiotician and Thomist John Deely (1942-2017), Peirce is the first postmodern philosopher. Peirce is also a co-discoverer of the triadic nature of signs, along with the Baroque scholastic (that is Thomist) John Poinsot (1589-1644), otherwise known as John of Saint Thomas.

Peirce’s semiotics begins where Baroque scholasticism leaves off.

0657 The third is the image that the scientist projects into the mirror of theology. I label this image: theology^mirror, in contrast to science^agent. The theology^agent can see the image in theology^mirror, but is not the source of that image. I have already shown the initial image that the agent of science sees in the mirror of theology. I have also noted that Tabaczek aims to correct that projection.

0658 The fourth is the image that the theologian casts into the mirror of science. I label this image: science^mirror, in contrast to theology^agent. The science^agentcan see the image in science^mirror, but is not the source of that image. I have already indicated that the science^agent (more or less) does not care what is in science^mirror, because the ghost of the positivist intellect whispers in the ear of science^agent, “All that metaphysical stuff is completely unnecessary.”

06/6/24

Looking at Mariusz Tabaczek’s Book (2024) “Theistic Evolution” (Part 21 of 21)

0824 Even though the bill is paid, and the public curtain closes on this examination of Tabaczek’s book, the flavors of the dessert still linger.

The associations in chapter seven suggest a retrogression into the house of evolutionary creation.

At the same time, the associations intimate a moment when the author can go direct into the house of theistic evolution.

0825 How so?

Can a scientist observe and measure the actuality₂ within a category-based nested form?

Yes.

What about the normal context₃ and potential₁?

No, the scientist can only observe and measure phenomena associated with a category-based nested form. Phenomena go with the actuality₂. The noumenon associates to the normal context₃ and potential₁.

0826 Well, if that is the case, and if the Kantian slogan of the noumenon applies (that is, the noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena), then the normal context₃ and potential₁ [cannot be objectified by] the actuality₂.

But, this is what human constantly do. Humans understand actuality₂ in terms of its₂ normal context₃ and potential₁. So humans intuitively sense that the normal context₃ and potential₁ can be objectified by the corresponding actuality₂.

0827 Indeed, the fact that the four causes work together to elucidate a category-based nested form constitutes one reason why Aristotle’s four causes are superior to attributions to the four elements (earth, water, fire and air).

Aristotle’s four causes are built into human nature.

0827 So, let me re-imagine the dessert, even as I digest it.

To start, a theology^agent (B1) realizes that Aquinas’s use of primary, secondary and instrumental causation in evolutionary creation can be formulated in terms of a category-based nested form.

Next, the agent of theology (B1) begins to appreciate the reason why Aristotle’s four causes are so appealing. The four causes work together to elucidate all three elements of a category-based nested form. The category-based nested form is the first step in understanding.

Yes, the category-based nested form is a purely relational structure that is independent of the human mind.

But, it seems that the category-based nested form is embedded in the human body and brain.

0828 A question appears in the science^mirror (C2), asking, “Is our capacity to intuitively construct category-based nested forms adaptive? Is the human niche the potential of category-based nested forms, in particular, and triadic relations, in general?”

0829 An answer is already prepared for the slot for science^agent (A3).

Razie Mah’s e-book, The Human Niche, is available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

The claim?

The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.

0830 This is what theistic evolution can produce that evolutionary creation cannot.

In order to taste what Tabaczek’s meal (B1) does to the mirror^science (C2) consider two of Razie Mah’s blogs (A3), both of which claim that current modern evolutionary theory cannot tell us how humans evolved to recognize the noumenon, the thing itself, through implicit abstraction.

Current modern evolutionary theory cannot tell us where we came from.

Current modern evolutionary theory cannot tell us what we evolved to be.

Current modern evolutionary theory cannot tell us what went wrong.

0831 Here is a picture of one Greimas square for the optics of Tabaczek’s mirror.

0832 Oh, the two blogs?

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil”, appears in Razie Mah’s blog from Jan 13 through 31, 2022.

Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with Respect to Science”, appears from February 7 through 25, 2022.

With that said, I thank Dr. Mariusz Tabaczek O.P. for this wonderful banquet for thought.

But, my work is not done. I now retreat to Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) in order to examine chapter eight.

05/31/24

Looking at Mariusz Tabaczek’s Book (2021) “Divine Action and Emergence” (Part 1 of 22)

0155 I turn to the book that follows Emergence (2019).

The book before me is titled Divine Action and Emergence: An Alternative to Panentheism (2021, Notre Dame Press). The book divides into two parts. Part one concerns emergent phenomena (and looks back upon the previous book). Part two covers divine action in emergence.

But, is not there already a number of theories in our Age of Ideas concerning the topic of divine action in a world full of truncated material and efficient causalities?

0156 Oh, there is more than a number, which reminds me of the earnestness and ambition of Tabaczek’s graduate project.

Most graduate students, after being lured into an advanced program in science by the philosophical side of Tabaczek’s mirror, figure out that the noumenon, the thing itself, is an inaccessible reflection of the agent-side of science, the side where all the difficult and detail-oriented laboratory work gets done. That realization takes one or two years. Then, the rest of one’s graduate career consists of grinding out the data and wondering why doing science is not as fun as thinking about doing science.

In short, most graduate students in the natural sciences learn to live as agents on the science side of Tabaczek’s mirror.

0157 I suspect that the same process should have happened to Tabaczek, entering a graduate program in philosophy of science and getting introduced to diverse machinations of science-agent philosophers, explaining how the hylomorphe on the science side is reflected by the noumenon side of Tabaczek’s mirror as a sort of “cloud of unknowing”, that conforms to the ghost of the positivist intellect.

But, it does not.

0158 Perhaps, it is a miracle that those agents of science who supervise his doctoral studies do not sabotage and destroy this creature, who seems to absorb the soul-breaking literature, yet remains eerily constant in his vision.

Perhaps, Tabaczek holds the element of surprise because he stands in a tradition that loves science, yet despises the positivist’s intellect, which has one rule. Metaphysics is not allowed.

Most students coming out of the Christian tradition simply get confused and wander into specialized technical fields of either science or modern philosophy. Will they ever get the memo? The positivist intellect is dead.

05/6/24

Looking at Mariusz Tabaczek’s Book (2021) “Divine Action and Emergence” (Part 22 of 22)

0331 My sudden turn to semiotics does not occur in Tabaczek’s text.

Such is the examiner’s prerogative.

At this point, I stand at the threshold of section 1.3.4, almost precisely in the middle of the book.

My commentary on this book is significant.

Shall I review?

I represent the Positivist’s judgment as a content-level category-based form and discuss how it might be situated (points 0155 to 0184).

I suggest how reductionists can game emergent phenomena. Plus, I follow Tabaczek back to the four causes (points 0185 to 0239).

I present a specific example of an emergent phenomenon, building on the prior example of a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell. Then, I return to Deacon’s general formula for emergence (points 240 to 0276).

Finally, I examine Tabaczek’s “philosophical history of panentheism” up to the section on Hegel (points 0277 to 0330).

0332 These are notable achievements.

But, my commentary is not more significant than Tabaczek’s text.

At this point, it is if I look through Tabaczek’s text and see something moving, something that catches my eye. It is not for me to say whether it is an illusion or a registration. It is enough for me to articulate what I see.

0333 At this point, I draw the veil on Razie Mah’s blog for April and May of 2024 and enter the enclosure of Comments on Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024), available at smashwords and other e-book venues. Comments will cover the rest of Part Two of Divine Action and Emergence. June 2024 will look at the start of Tabaczek’s next book, Theistic Evolution and Comments will complete the examination.

My thanks to Mariusz Tabaczek for his intellectual quest.

0334 But, that is not to say that I abandon Tabaczek’s text.

No, my slide into sign-relations is part of the examiner’s response.

This occurs in Comments.

There is good reason to wonder whether the response is proportionate.

I let the reader decide.

An Archaeology of the Fall

A Horror Story by Razie Mah

Category Archives: Peirce and Aquinas