0900 Lotman and Uspenskij pursue independent approaches once this interventional sign-relation comes into play.  Lotman continues a scientific path and enters discussions on how semiological structuralist models_2c can overcome the distinction between synchrony and diachrony.  Uspenskij orients his path toward semiotics as an adjunct to the work that historians do.  Each historical text is about ‘something_1a‘ and all these ‘somethings_1a‘ have one feature in common: semiotics (or semiological structuralist models).

I suppose that both paths suggest that, if a history is to be about ‘anything’, that ‘that thing’ must take the form of a literary text_2bf.

Such a suggestion is very different than what some label, “historical determinism”.

0901 Juri Lotman argues against Soviet academic attempts at historical determinism in the late 1920s.

Historical determinism?

Material arrangements [substantiate] human conditions?

If history as form_2af entangles language as matter_2am arising from the potential of ‘meaning’_1a, then ‘meaning’ cannot be constrained to economics, sociology, communication systems, and other material-oriented disciplines that do not include linguistics (that is Saussure’s semiology_3a).

0902 Eventually, Lotman settles on Ilya Prigogine’s characterization of self-organizing systems, which achieve states that cannot be deduced from their initial conditions.

Yeah, I mean, like the growth of mushrooms or ideas or cities or civilizations.

Each dyadic aspect of such growth may be modeled deterministically.  The relationality among the dyadic actualitiescannot be deterministically modeled.  But, that does not mean that models of relationality are worthless.  Science does not end when each linear cause and effect₂ is contextualized by a normal context₃ and potentiated by multiple possibilities₁.  Or does it?

0903 Remember that Juri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij are scholars of Slavic literature and languages.  The Slavic narod is baptized into the Byzantine Orthodox tradition, which maintains an unbroken historic thread to both Jesus, and before him, Plato and Aristotle.  In the West, the thread to Aristotle is cut.  Aristotle’s philosophy is re-discovered when the Crusades (which sacked Constantinople) return home with Greek and Arabic translations of Aristotle.

So what does an unbroken chain of tradition from the present, through St. Cyril and St. Methodius, through Jesus, to Aristotle imply?

0904 Comments on Alexander Dugin’s Book (2012) The Fourth Political Theory offers an image.  This sequence of four elements corresponds to the four corners of a Greimas square.  The sequence can also be configured as labels for a periods of Russian history.

0905 The closest that the Slavs get to their ethnos is the migration of speech-alone talking tribes from northern Mesopotamia over the Caucasus mountains and onto the steppes, where they tame horses, make wheeled carts, build very large settlements, are ruled by their own chiefs, then eventually invade into the Indian and European subcontinents, spreading proto-Indo-European languages.

The next historical moment starts with the conversion of the Slavs to Orthodoxy by brothers Cyril (826-869 AD) and Methodius (815-885).  Plus, a (Scandanavian-originating? Slav-assimilating?) kingship starts with Oleg the Wise (879-912).  These traditional folk and clerics and kings may be called, “narod”, using Dugin’s terminology.

0906 Remember Machiavelli (1469-1527)?

Well, Ivan the Great (1440-1505) unites the principalities around Moscow, centralizes the Russian state, and fashions the title, “tsar” (which harkens back to the Roman title, “Caesar”).  He champions the idea that Moscow is the third Rome.

Constantinople falls to the Ottomans in 1453, ending the Byzantine polity.

In 1452, Johannes Gutenberg prints 180 copies of the Bible using a mechanical press.

Sailing from Spain, Columbus discovers a new continent to the west of Europe that is not India in 1492.

0907 All this happens before the Luther posts his 95 theses on the church doors in Wittgenstein (1517), inadvertently launching the so-called “Reformation”.  Inadvertently?  Luther’s arguments are available to all literate folk because of the new-fangled printing press.  The Gutenbergs are not the only ones with a movable-type printing press.

Was Martin Luther (1483-1546) a political theorist?

John Calvin (1509-1564)?

0908 It seems that, currently, most moderns regard them as theologians.

But, if history is a species of semiotics, then I suspect that they may also be political theorists, because theoretical political models_2c (SV_i) can stand for the dyad_2a, {church and salvation history as form_2af [entangles] the language of reform_2am} (SO_i) in regards to a school that is focused on the semiotics of plain reading_3a operating on potential ‘meanings of institutional decadence and renewal’_1a (SI_i).

0909 Say what?

How about the following interventional sign-relation?

0910 Surely, this is not a model_2c of prayer, sacraments and mystical union with the Son of the Father_2c.

Political theorists love to point out hypocrisy.  All they do is criticize.  At least, that is what the bishops of Christendom say when they hear news of Martin Luther’s critical theory.

0911 So, what am I saying?

Do the sixteenth-century reformers engage the same relational structure that this examination of the publications of Tartu-Moscow School brings to consciousness?

How weird is that?

0912 Is this a case of historical determinism?

Or do the fundament and the derivative interscopes serve as semiotic templates?

According to the author, Juri Lotman argues against sociological or economic determinism.  He adopts Ilya Prigogine’s ideas about self-organization, such as the “explosion” that occurs when a seed germinates, a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, a flock of geese begin their migration, as well all sorts of spontaneous moments.  That includes political and religious movements in civilization.

0913 What does Lotman intuitively sense from all his inquireies into the literature produced by Russian civilization?

Somehow, an explosion occurs when a text as form_2af entangles semiotic meaning as matter_2am.

Indeed, semiological and structural matters in the mother-tongue and literary style_2bm substantiate a literary text_2bfthat is modeled_2c according to a disciplinary langauge_3c operating on the potential of ‘observing related and relevant phenomena’_1c.

0914 And, in German history, Martin Luther is exemplar in this regard.

The matter of the people’s ability to read the Bible in their own tongue_2bm substantiates the 95 theses_2bf  that are modeled_2c as a declarations that identify the contradictions in scholastic interpretations_3c and the hypocrisy of the Church_1c.  Surely, the clerics debate in Latin and not in common vernacular.  The little (and now, literate) people want to hear what they are saying.

The 95 theses_2af  entangles the language of reform_2am, in the normal context of a literate people being able to read a translated Bible_3a operating on the potential of ‘decadence and renewal of the Church’_1a.

0915 Here is a picture of the resulting content-level of the derivative interscope.

The astute reader may wonder, “What is the literary text_2af?  Luther’s theses?  The Bible in Latin?  The Bible in vernacular?  Church and salvation history?”

0916 May I say that, in the above actuality_2a, a model_2c stands for the thing itself_2a, the noumenon of a historical moment or movement?

Also, may I say that, in the above figure, the actuality of church and salvation history as form_2af has emerged from the matter of history as a literary text_2bm and now entangles the matter of a novel language of reform_2am?

How confounding.

0917 Plus, what about Aristotle’s four causalities?

Material causes comport with economic (the lowered cost of printing due to the innovation of the Gutenberg press) and sociological (the outrageous selling of ‘indulgences’ in order for aristocrats to purchase absolution for their excessive conduct and their excessive wealth) causations.

But, these are like soil analysis to a plant biologist.  They are conditions, more than formal causes.

0918 The formal cause is the germination of the seed of general literacy_3a (also made possible by the printing press, but also by the success of priests in spreading the gospel) in the soil of a rigid aristocracy and clergy who are the only ones who used to be able to read_2a.  Oh, the newly self-minted bourgeoisie probably play an important role in that germination, because they hatch all sorts of plans to reform everything that the aristocracy and the clergy use for self-promotion.

0919 The final cause harmonizes (3) the idea that the Bible is open to a plain reading_3a, (2) an impasse in church and salvation history_2af, where illiterate folk are excluded from theological debates but are expected to purchase theologically-suspect indulgences and to pay the costs of building a more magnificent cathedral than a neighboring diocese_2am, and (1) the potential of ‘renewal after demanding an end to the decadence’_1a.

0920 The efficient cause brings the language of reform_2am into relation with the potential… the hope… of an end to decadence and the birth of a renewal_1a.

The results are explosive.

The Reformation produces a civilizational blow-out that lasts all the way to the present day.

0921 The author provides two case studies.  I will cover the first, concerning the history of science.

Vladimir Vernadskij (1863-1945), a Russian-Ukrainian geochemist, formulates a law that living matter will occupy every niche that is available, whether environmentally (geologically) or ecologically (biologically).  Plus, that occupation may create novel environmental and ecological possibilities.  He called the propensity, “the pressure of life”.

0922 How about an example?

0923 The early Earth’s atmosphere is composed of hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen.

The atmosphere is translucent, because ultraviolet radiation from the sun is absorbed by hydrocarbons, producing colored complex molecules that give the atmosphere the appearance of a global smog.

0924 Prokaryotes conduct photosynthesis and find ways to live in almost any area wet enough to support its life-forms.  Photosynthesis uses the energy of light to build carbon-based biomolecules and simply releases oxygen gas as a waste-product.  Over time, the accumulating atmospheric oxygen reacts with the hydrocarbon gases, reacts with the soluble iron in the oceans (precipitating the huge iron-band formations), and so on.  Later, in the Precambrian, oxygen-dependent eukaryotic cells appear.  Eukaryotic cells build into the multi-cellular organisms of the Cambrian Era.

The atmosphere is now transparent.

0925 The law of “life pressure” is like an observation, or rather, an understanding.

0926 How does understanding work?

First, one encounters an actuality₂.

Then, one finds an appropriate normal context₃ and potential₁.

0927 In other words, understanding associates to a category-based nested form where all the slots are filled in, in a manner that comports with Aristotle’s four causes.

0928 Here is a picture of Vernadskij’s formulation.

0929 The normal context of Vernadskij’s observations of geology and chemistry_3a brings the dyadic actuality of {natural history of life as form_2af [entangles] a language of aspiration as matter_2am} into relation with the potential of ‘the meaning of what life is doing, trying to occupy every available niche through adaptation’_1a.

0930 Vernadskij’s law_2am does not arise from a mathematical or mechanical model, based on truncated material and efficient causation (that is, material without formal and efficient without final causes).

Plus, the natural history of life forms_2bf is very much like a literary text_2bf put into perspective by semiological_3astructuralist_3b models_2c.

0931 According to the interventional sign relation, a biological parallel to a semiological_3a structuralist model_3a (SV_i) stands for the literary text_2af (again, the natural history of life forms_2af), along with its entangled language_2am (SO_i) in regards to Vernadskij’s geochemical positivist intellect_3a operating on the potential of ‘meaning’_1a (SI_i).  The meaning_1aof what Vernadskij observes_3a supports the aspirational term, “life pressure”_2am.

0932 The author reports that, in the early 1960s, Vyacheslav Ivanov (1929-2017), a philologist and one of the members of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiology, is the first to situate the language of life-pressure_2am in terms of the potential of ‘presence’_1b within the normal context of cultural relevance_3b.

0933 Say what?

The presence of an (entangled) language of meaning_1b undergirds the dyadic actuality of {cognition as matter_2bm[substantiating] social interactions as form_2bf} in the normal context of cultural processes_3b.

Here is a picture of a general version of the derivative or “ego” interscope.

0934 Here is the history.

Lotman, following Ivanov’s intuition, grasps Vernadskij’s language of “life pressure_2am” as a metaphor for the way that the intellect of the Tartu-Moscow School_3a operates on the potential of meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c.  Then, he finds himself situating the metaphor_2am with the presence of meaning_1b, cognition_2am, and social interactions_2af, under the umbrella of cultural studies_3b.

0012 Let me begin with the formal cause, along with a substitution.

“Integration_3a” substitutes for “the human niche_3a“.

0013 Section 1 is titled, “Providing context”.

Doesn’t that sound like the old Aristotelian term, “formal causation”?

0014 The author starts by bellyaching about the divisions within anthropology.  Methodological and theoretical tool-kits (efficient causes) are in abundance, testifying to the lack of a consistent normal context₃… er… integration₃.

Indeed, the very term, “ethnography”, does not denote “logos” or “understanding”.  “Ethno-” means people.  “-Graphy” means “writing” or “mapping”.

Ethnographic accounts by Westerners attempt to write out (or map out) the cognitive spaces held in common by the encountered group (or “people”).

0015 But, is a group the same as “people” (or “ethno-“)?

Well, the salient group turns out to be a community.  Typically, an ethnographer lives (or works) in a community.  The encountered group (or “people”) is a community (numbering around 150).

0016 As it turns out, the community (150) is relevant to human evolution.  British evolutionary psychologist, Robin Dunbar, concludes that there is a consistent ratio between brain volume and group size (with caveats).  The human brain size corresponds to a group size of 150, matching size of a community (150).

See Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues, part of the series, A Course on the Human Niche).

0017 Happily, the fact that the community (150) coincides with the group size expected for the volume of the human brain produces an efficient cause that appears to be consistent with the normal context of integration₃.

0018 Unhappily, as soon as anyone talks to an ethnographer, then the normal context₃ and potential₁ appear to be highly unlikely.  

Yeah, integration₃ is not a plausible normal context.

The potential of ‘evolutionary science’₁ at least has the size of community correct.

So, maybe I can shift to a plausible efficient cause and the formal cause will make itself clear.

Okay, the ethnographer is trained to encounter a community and to map the cognition within the community (without losing one’s identity as an anthropologist).

0019 This training suggests that the proper normal context₃ is community₃.

Here is a picture with a plausible efficient cause and a reasonable formal cause.

The normal context of community₃ brings the actuality of ethnography₂ into relation with the potential of ‘communal cognitive spaces’₁.

0020 There goes the normal contexts of integration₃ and the human niche₃.

Well, maybe, they don’t go away entirely.

0021 The normal context of community₃ allows the inquirer to acknowledge the dyadic nature of ethnography.  Ethnography is a discipline, an art, just like any style of writing.

0022 But first, a little trip down memory lane is advantageous.

If I translate the name, “ethnos”, I get “people”.

0023 Notably, in Comments on Alexander Dugin’s Book (2012) The Fourth Political Theory (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the word “ethnos” takes on a very specific connotation.  

The short story is told on the days of February 1 and 2, 2023, in Razie Mah’s blog.  Razie Mah looks at on particular chapter of Michael Millerman’s book (2022) Inside “Putin’s Brain”: The Political Philosophy of Alexander Dugin. Mah utilizes the Greimas square.

0024 The Greimas square is a semiotic tool that is most useful in ascertaining where a focal word stands within a system of differences.  Yes, spoken words (parole) constitutes one system of differences.  The other system of differences is… um… “langue” (which is “language” in French).  According to Saussure, spoken language consists of two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole and langue.

So, the focal word will be “people”.

0025 The Greimas square operates on four rules, each corresponds to a corner of the square.

A is the focal word.

B contrasts with the focal word (A).

C stands against the contrast (B) and complements the focal word (A).

D contrasts with the first contradiction (C), stands against the focal word (A) and complements the contrast (B).

0026 For Dugan, a political theoretician in our current times, the focal word (A) is “people”.  There is the famous line in the American Declaration of Independence, starting “We, the People…”.   That is a good way to imagine the starting point.  What on earth is “people”?

Well, there’s lots of political theories that characterize the people.  For example, there is capitalism, socialism, communism… and all sorts of other “-isms”.  These contrast with (A).  They are intellectual constructions that, according to Dugin, have failed.

0027 What stands against political theories (“-isms”) defining “what people are” and “what they ought to be”? 

Dugin uses a Russian term, “narod”, meaning “traditional folk”.  Traditional folk are pre-political.  They intuitively know that they belong together, because they share common cognitive spaces.  Narod folk may be specialized, but they are not so specialized that one “specialty” gets so alienated (like modern political theorists) as to imagine that they can intellectually articulate the esse_ce and the essence of a narod.

0028 How is that for a sentence?

No narod (C) would ever talk like that.  Only an person with academic credentials (B) would dare to talk like that.

Somehow, the political theorist (B), using speech-alone, talks a pre-political narod (C) into differentiating into a politically defined people.

The narod practices speech-alone talk.  They think that speech is for sensible construction.  Even their social constructions are regarded as sensible.  At least, social constructions seem that way.

Political theorists enter the historical scene only when a narod’s sensible constructions, which are often built on social constructions, start to fail.  One expects this type of failure when technical innovation occurs, increasing the number of specializations, and questioning the old ways of doing things.

0029 So, if Dugin is on target, “ethnography” should be renamed “narodgraphy”, which is a very awkward term and easily ridiculed (“near-odd-graphy”).

0030 But, the question that Dugin raises cannot be so easily dismissed, because the term, “ethnos”, contrasts with “narod” in a most interesting way, as seen in the following figure.

0031 For Dugin, traditional societies (the people that an ethnographer studies) are narod.  Plus, each pre-political narod, somehow, perhaps by historical annealing, emerges from… what?… a pre-pre-political?… no, it is deeper than that… may I say?… an upwelling in social belonging, social circles swirling within social circles, that touches base with the evolved character of human nature.

Dugin emphasizes this.  The narod emerges from the ethnos.  The narod cannot return to its ethnos.

0032 In short, the narod belongs to our current Lebenswelt.

The ethnos belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

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

0033 Therefore, the integration between evolutionary science and anthropology that Fuentes aims for may not (technically) be possible, because the ethnographer (or narodgrapher) can only map the cognitive spaces of a “narod”, not an “ethnos”.  The narod cannot return to its ethnos.  At the same time, ethnography is possible because both the ethnographer and the narod (the subject of the research) belong to our current Lebenswelt.

0034 Of course, Dugin’s terminological twist both reveals and conceals.

The narod reveals what the ethnos becomes, once it enters our current Lebenswelt.

In this manner, the narod conceals the ethnos.

0035 Here is the crux.  Evolutionary theory is required grasp the esse_ce (esse, being substantiating) and the essence (substantiated form) of the ethnos.  Why?  How else does one intellectually transit from our current Lebenswelt to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

So, the author’s objective remains viable. F urther reflection is warranted.

Here is the current anthropological practice as it now stands, using Dugin’s terminology.

0036 I now attend to the actuality₂.

Peirce’s category of secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  Aristotle’s hylomorphe is exemplar.  The two real elements are matter and form.  The contiguity, placed in brackets for clear notation, takes the label of “substance”.

Yes, this is one more technical definition to add to the label, “substance”.

“Substance” is the contiguity between matter and form (in the format of Peirce’s secondness).

Here is a picture.

0037 The two real elements of ethnography are the ethnographer (as matter) and maps of narodal cognitive spaces (as form).  They arise from the potential of narodal spaces₁.  

Here, the term, “narodal”, substitutes for “communal”.  Narodal is communal in our current Lebenswelt.

The normal context₃ is community₃.  According to Robin Dunbar, brain size corresponds to group size in mammals (with lots of caveats).  Current human brain size matches a community of 150 individuals.  Our very distant ancestors have brain sizes that go with bands of 50 individuals.

0038 The contiguity is [records].

Here is where the graphing plays out.

0039 The comparison is evocative.

The ethnographer serves as matter, a metaphorical tabula rasa, emptying himself (or herself) in order to encounter the applied relational structures that constitute the narodal cognitive space.  Surely, it is not easy to separate the person from the relational structure.  Kinship serves as an obvious example.  The kinship relational structure is accompanied by cognitive impressions that may be difficult to process, unless one has methodically eliminated the biases of one’s own civilization.

0040 The manner for such kenosis is highly idiosyncratic, perhaps accounting for why the author calls for a re-integration of diverse methodological and theoretical tool-kits used to train ethnographers.

The practical and ideological methods of various anthropological thought-leaders (denkfurhers) have one feature in common.  They are indifferent, if not hostile, to evolutionary approaches.  A glance at the previous two figures helps to explain why.  Impressions of communal spaces must be received by a blank-slate capable of receiving impressions that are integral to a map of narodal cognition.  The ethnographer offers that “blank slate”.

0041 The discipline of anthropology learns from its mistakes.

One of the most profound errors in ethnography is committed by one if its founders, Franz Boaz (1858-1942).  Boaz primes the narodgraphic expectations of students, by situating ethnography within a typology of primitive cultures.

0042 A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) should assist in appreciating the following two-level interscope.

0043 On the content level, the normal context of community (narod)_3a brings the actuality of the dyad, {ethnographer [records] cognitive map}_2a into relation with the possibility of ‘narodal cognitive spaces’_1a.  

On the situation level, the normal context of typology_3b brings the actuality of a theory on classification of primitive societies_2b into relation with the potential of ‘situating ethnographic content’_1b.

0044 One of Boaz’s students, Margaret Mead (1901-1978), goes off to a narod in the eastern Pacific and records precisely what is expected from the type of society predicted by theory.  How convenient.

Surely, the above sensible construction yields an intriguing, rather than an integrating, anthropology.  Mead’s ethnographic account turns out to be a best seller.  What better way for the modern consumer to get a taste of the forbidden fruit of anthropological… um… “knowledge”.  Ethnography offers a map of… you know… sexual liberation in paradise.

0045 What does this imply?

The author is onto something crucial by suggesting that biological… er… evolutionary theories be used to either situateor put into perspective ethnographic data.

0062 In section two, the author launches into an apparently independent complaint, besides the complaint that ethnographers are trained to be professionals, rather than evolutionary scientists.  This second complaint concerns Neodarwinism.  As it is currently conceived, the doctrine that explains natural history is incapable of… um… putting ethnography_2b into perspective.

0063 How does this complaint play out in terms of the prior two-level interscope?

There is a perspective level that contextualizes the situation-level of ethnography_2b.

I suspect that the perspective level will be filled in by Neodarwinism.

However, the current formulation of the “darwinism” of Neodarwinism is inadequate for framing the perspective level in the above figure.

Is this where novel theories, such as “niche construction”, enter the picture?

0064 Prior to the year, 2000 A.D., most evolutionary theorists frame adaptations as individual traits that are capable of exploiting a niche.

The question arises, “What is a niche?“

0065 One answer appears in Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome,which is now serialized in Razie Mah’s blog for November 2025.

A “niche_1b” is the potential_1b of an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.

An “adaptation_2b” emerges from (and situates) that potential_1b.

0066 Here is a picture of the resulting two-level interscope.

On the situation level, the normal context of natural selection_3b bring the actuality of an adaptation_2b into relation with a niche_1b, defined as the potential_1b of an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.

0067 This formulation provides a theoretical framework for assessing fitness-based heuristics_1b to a given social, ecological or environmental opportunity or constraint_2a.  Note how the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1aare not required.

0068 For example, the so-called “Cambrian Explosion” in diversity (and size) of multicellular eukaryotic animal life occurs precisely after the Earth’s atmosphere has been enriched with oxygen, a waste product of prokaryotic photosynthetic activity.  The rising atmospheric levels of oxygen is the actuality independent of the many forms of life.  Prosperous forms have one thing in common.  They have mitochondria, cellular organelles adapted to an oxygen-rich environment.

0069 Okay, what about niche construction?

With many species, the presence of the species alters the actuality independent of the adapting species.  This is now labeled, “niche construction”.  “Niche construction” is the label that sustains the idea of a novel evolutionary synthesis.

0070 So, what is the foundation of so-called “niche construction”?

Given the above figure, the answer is obvious.  The adaptation of the species_2b alters the previously ignored (or assumed) content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a.

0071 Here is a picture.

0072 On the content level, a normal context_3a (that can be altered by the adapting species_2b) brings an actuality (apparently independent of the adapting species)_2a into relation with the possibility of ‘an alteration in the actuality’_1a.

0073 On the situation level, the normal context of natural selection_3b brings the actuality of an adaptation_2b into relation to the species’ niche_1b.

0074 What about genetics?

In section three, genetics enters the author’s picture of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.

It enters as a confounder.

0075 A confounder?

Consider the following two-level interscope.  It looks almost identical to the two-level interscope for natural history.

0076 The normal context of body development_3b brings the actuality of a phenotype_2b into relation with its genotype_1b, where the genotype expresses the potential_1b of an individual’s DNA_2a.

The question is, “Can the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a somehow influence the DNA_2a or the way that the DNA is read_1b?”

The answer is, “Yes, through natural selection_3b.”

The influence is not direct.  It is intersectional.

0077 For example, let me hypothesize that children are able to drink their mother’s milk because they produce an enzyme, called “lactase”, that is able to digest lactose, one of the sugars in mother’s milk.  As the child is weaned, the need to produce this enzyme diminishes and by adulthood, the adult cannot digest lactose, because milk is not part of the diet.

0078 So, with the above figure in mind, the phenotype changes from childhood to adulthood.  This makes perfect sense, because adults are quite different than children.

0079 Now, let me go back to the natural history version of the two-level interscopes and consider what happens when cows enter into the human household.  At first, humans protect cows and then later, humans feed cows.  That sounds like a good deal.  In effect, humans are treating cows like other humans.

0080 Cows adapt by losing their fear of humans_2b.  One would not think that this is an adaptation_2b, but it is.  Plus, other adaptations take place.  Female cows produce more milk_2b.  They do so with consistency.  The bulls, on the other hand, get culled.  So, the bull that does not ask to be culled is more likely to survive.

Here is a picture.

0081 From the humans’ point of view, humans adapt by retaining lactase production into adulthood_2b.

0082 Each adaptations entails an alteration of the phenotype, by way of intersection.

Consequently, genetics is a confounder in many discussions on niche construction.

For humans, the two-level interscope for body development_3b changes over generations to produce a phenotype of adult lactose tolerance_2b through slight changes in the way DNA_2a is read_1b.

However, changes in the genotype_1b account for the change in phenotype_2b, not the adaptation_2b.

DNA already codes for the enzyme lactase.  However, the expression of the code is regulated by proteins that lock onto the DNA.  The particular protein that locks onto the lactase site on the DNA has a range of behaviors, so selection can occur on the basis of the production of lactase into adulthood.  The adaptation_2b entails a change in phenotype_2b.  The phenoype_2b emerges from and situates the genotype_1b, that is the potential_1b of DNA_2a.  In this instance, the DNA_2a(which varies among individuals) does not need to significantly change, only the genotype_1b does.

0083 Unfortunately, biologists confound adaptation_2b and phenotype_2b even though each situation-level actuality_2b has its own normal context_3b and potential_1b.

At the same time, confusion is expected, since adaptation_2b and phenotype_2b constitute a single entity, the species.

0084 Descent with modification is the name of the evolutionary game, according to Darwin.

Darwin assumes some process of inheritance that yields variety in each generation.  This is accomplished by mixing chromosomes from the male and the female in sexual reproduction.  So, variation is assured with descent.  Every member of a species has a different phenotype (and sometimes, those differences cannot be easily observed).

Modification comes by way of natural selection.  Adaptations are modifications that increase reproductive success (what used to be called “fitness”).  Reproductive success is the likelihood of one’s descendants surviving to… um… reproduce.  

0085 The confusion?

A phenotype_2b is not the same as an adaptation_2b.  However, they both refer to same entity: a species.  A “species” is a Latin term that can mean an individual, a kind, or a type.  So, “species” can denote an individual, a species or a genus.

0086 Here is a picture of this double referral.  The structure is called an “intersection”.

Two category-based nested forms intersect.

0087 An adaptation_2H refers to a species₂ within the normal context of natural selection_3H operating on a niche_2H.  Note how the actuality independent of the adapting species gets shoved under the rug.

A phenotype_2V refers to a species₂ within the normal context of body development_3V operating on a genotype_1V.  Here, DNA gets pulled offstage.

0088 Here is the confusion.

If one proceeds with an explanation in natural history, such as the theory of niche construction, the horizontal axis is active.  Nevertheless, the horizontal axis intersects the vertical axis.   So, research into a genetic explanation is called for in each instance of adaptation into a constructed niche.

0089 For example, for the co-evolution of cows and humans.  Cows adapt to human sociality (by becoming domesticated).  Humans adapt to cow milk as food, even in adulthood (by becoming lactose-tolerant).  Adaptation_2Hintersects with phenotype_2V.  So an inquiry into body development_3V and genotype_1V is demanded for a full explanation of both cow and human adaptations.  However, body development_3V is not a cause for adaptations_2H, natural selection_3H is.

0090 To me, natural history and genetic explanations are often confused, so much so that the author claims that human activity affects genetic and other biological patterns.  Plus, natural selection can influence developmental outcomes, which in turn feed back into human activities.

0091 To me, the process of ‘niche construction’ is intelligible, not because the extended evolutionary synthesis permits natural history to intersect with genetics, but because niche construction extends the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a by introducing an adaptation-induced normal context_3a and potential_1a.

Yes, an induced normal context_3a and potential_1a can change the character of the actuality_2a that is theoretically independent of the adapting species.

0092 In the case of the cow_2a, the animal_2a becomes domesticated.

In the case of the human_2a, the human_2a becomes entangled.

In 2012, Ian Hodder writes a book titled Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things(Wiley and Blackwell, Oxford).

0093 To me, the author avoids the entanglement aspect, even though it awaits the unsuspecting anthropologist.

Furthermore, the author of the article under examination suggests that the niche-construction approach, for humans, may illuminate cultural complexity.

0094 Section four is titled, “‘Cultural Complexity’ and the Human Niche Approach”.

To recall, the author begins with three complaints.

One concerns the fact that anthropologists who train ethnographers tend to ignore (or are hostile to) evolutionary theory.

Two concerns the fact that evolutionary theorists have not formulated a schema that an ethnologist would be interested in.

0095 In response to one, this examiner derives a two-level interscope where an ethnographer_2b virtually situates persons in community_2a.

0096 In response to two, this examiner develops a two-level interscope for how niche construction works. 

0097 The question arises, “How do these two two-level interscopes relate to one another?”

My initial view is that they are incommensurate.  Communty_3b compares to natural selection_3b?  That is nonsense.

But then, I look at the potentials.  The possibility of ‘cognitive spaces’_1b compares well to “constructed” niche_1b.

Also, {the person as matter [substantiating] the narod space as form}_2a could be an adequate description for an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a (at least, as far as academic anthropologists are concerned).

0098 Perhaps, one or the other two-level interscope may be tweaked, so the narod subject belongs to the content leveland anthropology belongs to the situation level.

0099 Does this resolve anything?

For niche construction, the adaptation within a species_2b introduces a normal context_3a and potential_1a to the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.  This may substantially change the actuality_2a.  For beavers, a fast moving stream_2a becomes a glen_2a in the normal context of a dam_3a operating on the potential of blocking the flow of water_1a.

For the recording of communal… er… narodal cognitive spaces_2b, the work of the enthnographer_2b does not introduce a normal context_3a and potential_1a to the dyad, {persons as matter [substance] narod as form}_2a.  Unless of course, something goes horribly wrong.

0100 Instead, the subject community_3a and its potential of communal living_1a serve as the normal context_3a and the potential_1a for the narod_2a.  In other words, at first sight, the narod_2a is an actuality independent of the enthnographer_2ain the same fashion as the darwinian schema.  Also, the narod’s normal context_3a and potential_1a are taken for granted.

0101 So, is the subject narod_2a comparable to cows_2a who can be milked for their cognitive spaces_1b?

If so then the following implications apply.

In the case of the subject society_2a, the narod_2a becomes domesticated.

In the case of the ethnographer_2a, the discipline of anthropology_2a becomes entangled.

0102 The implications for both anthropology and human evolutionary theory are profound.  Here is a comparison, pertinent to our current Lebenswelt, that may be in operation in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0103 For our current Lebenswelt, we can look for parallels in history.  What historical figures are like ethnographers.  The Christian missionary comes to mind.  So does Louis Althusser’s concept of “interpellation”.  Oh, lest I forget, what about the ten oxherding pictures in Zen?

For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, I recall Dugin’s Greimas square, now relabeled for one of the key distinctions between who we are and who we evolved to be.

0104 The narod, the traditional society in our current Lebenswelt, is the subject of ethnographic inquiry.  That traditional society may arise spontaneously within a people (as expected for civic society) or may come out of the mists of time.  Either way, civilized people do not have an incentive to rope them in, so they maintain their traditional pre-political ways.  The narod is the raw material that gets fashioned, through institutions and their theological and political theories, into a people.

0105 The ethnographer comes from the people.  Each people, including those belonging to the discipline of anthropology, contrasts with the various political theories that interpellate and organize them.

0106 It makes me wonder, “What motivates ethnographic research?”

The narod may have labor and social specializations, but that is nothing compared to a people.  Theological and political unity permit incredible specializations.  These are the sources of wealth (labor) and power (social), which is the subject of inquiry in Looking at Slavoj Zizek’s Book (2024) “Christian Atheism”, serialized in Razie Mah’s blog for August 2025.

0107 But, what about the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

Isn’t that where the adaptation that supports domestication and entanglement evolves?

Oh yes, according to Alexander Dugin, the ethnos is what the narod can never return to.