02/18/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 2 of 11)

0967 Since the word, “chronotope” and “isotope” both contain “tope”, I use the latter as an analogy for the former.

The analogy is admittedly, odd.

0968 Here is a comparison of the two entangled things.  For chemistry, an isotopic thing (the nucleus, at least) gets entangled in the matter of radioactive instability.  For the medieval scholastics, a mind-independent being ends up entangled with mind-dependent matter.

0969 Now, how do these two confoundings resolve?

They can resolve in favor of the originating matter, resulting in a stable isotope for chemistry and an objective mind-independent being for scholastic discourse.

They can resolve in favor of the entangled matter, resulting in a new element produced by radioactive decay and a subjective mind-dependent being, apparently useless for scholastic discourse.  Radioactivity and opinion?  Yeah, both may be damaging.

0970 Here is a picture of the example.

0971 Confoundings are dangerous.

Whenever I see one, I say, “Watch out!”

0972 The adjusted title of the article under examination is “Semiotics of Cultural History: An Inquiry into the Chronotope”.

So, I step onto a path of analogy and example, by offering my first comparison.

0973 What is “cultural history”?

It is a historical thing.

While the literary construction of the thing suggests that history may be the form and culture may serve as matter, the realness of the historical thing runs in the opposite direction.  History pours into culture, like bronze pours into an empty plaster shell in the lost wax technique.  Culture, as form, recalls history, as matter.  So, “history” should serve as the matter and “culture” should label the form of “the historical thing”.

0974 At this point, the historical thing might be regarded by a scientist as a noumenon that exhibits a variety of phenomena that can be observed and measured.  Then, the observations and measurements may be modeled according to ways that material arrangements substantiate human conditions, using the disciplinary languages of Keynesianism or Marxism or whatever.

0975 The next step on the path of analogy and example, introduces semiotics as entangled matter.

Then, the confounding resolves in favor of the entangled matter.

0976 So, let me walk through this figure using the example.

History corresponds to mind-independence as matter.  I suppose this implies that history may be regarded as a sequence of real events.  So, these events substantiate a real form.

Culture corresponds to “ens reale” as form.  Ens reale transliterates into real being.  Doesn’t everyone regard culture as a real being?  Well, I suppose that those who don’t are either sociopaths or insane or both.  If culture is not a real being,then what is?

Semiotics, or sign-systems studies, is analogous to mind-dependent matter that gets entangled with the form of the historical thing.

0977 The resolution in favor of the entanglement acts like radioactive decay that changes the elemental thing and like {mind-dependent matter [substantiating] ens rationis}.

0978 In other words, as soon as semiotics gets entangled with the historical thing, the historical thing is no longer the same

0979 Ah, I may now cross out the historical thing and insert Torop’s term, “cultural history”.

02/17/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 3 of 11)

0980 The semiotics of culture has the potential of offering explanations that are not available to historiography.  

At the same time, historiography records (literally, “graphs”) those explanations.

0981 For a relatively recent example, at the start of the Third Battle among the Enlightenment Gods (1945-1989 AD), the contesting ideologies of capitalism and communism directly appeal to mass audiences.  Their representatives aim to capture hearts and minds.  By the end of the Cold War Among Materialist Ideologies (1945-1989), both capitalists and communists cloak their discourses in scientific professionalism.  Experts rely on (apparently) precise technical vocabularies.  Experts offer normative valuations that demand sovereign implementation.

0982 In terms of semiotics, the sign-system changes from presenting arguments that appeal to the hearts and minds of the masses to providing normative valuations to an administrative state.  Rhetoric transmogrifies into scientific demeanor.  Experts know best.

0983 In terms of historiography, events speak for themselves.  The so-called “Iron-Curtain” rises as soon as the so-called Second World War (1937-1945) ends in the defeat of “fascist powers”.  Soon, walls are built between “capitalist societies” and “communist societies”.  The walls are supplemented by nuclear weapons.  Consequently, warfare between the contending ideologically driven polities is narrowed to proxy-warfare.  In America, these proxy wars occur in Berlin, Korea, Vietnam, and so on.  Spy-craft conducts subterfuge.  Self-identifying “Americans” tell a frightened public that “We are fighting communism.”

 0984 In 1963, an American president dies from subterfuge from his own “side”.

In 1968, Soviet tanks crush a rebellious “Prague spring”.

Clearly, both incidents are signs that historiography cannot “graph” without changing the cultural coordinates.

Both incidents indicate that the capitalist and the communist ideologies no longer appeal to the masses.

The ideologues will now turn to expertise, in the style of science.

0985 The end of The Third Battle Among Enlightenment Gods (1945-1989) marks the opening of the fourth: Empirio-normative Domination of Subject Populations (1989-present), as elaborated in Razie Mah’s three-part e-book, Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0986 Well, perhaps I have provided more than an example.

0987 Shall I skip to the beginning, and provide a complement to Torop’s narrative?

The First Battle of the Enlightenment Gods, the Tragic War Among Naive Mercantilists (1914-1918), ends with the Russian Revolution, and Russian’s sovereign power falls into the hands of communist ideologues.  Who paid for those ideologues?

Perhaps, the mercantilists were not naive.  At the same time, they might not have heard about Husserl’s phenomenology, Freud’s psychoanalysis, the semiology of Ferdinand de Saussure and the semiotics of Charles Peirce, bubbling up in intellectual circles.  All these new schools move the Zeitgeist closer to science, or to something that appears in the guise of science.  After all, when discourse sounds scientific, then it must be scientific.  Isn’t that so?

0988 Karl Marx, riffing from Hegel’s spiritual phenomenology to materialist economics, formulates one of the most resilient models to appear in the guise of science.  The model is really a thing, because it2a mimics the first step in natural philosophy: the recognition of matter and form as two contiguous real elements.  A thing is {matter [contiguity] form}.

Not unsurprisingly, this turns out to be how Charles Peirce characterizes the category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  Secondness is the realm of actuality.

0989 Here is a picture of Marx’s thing.

0990 Well, the Soviet shakers-and-movers, celebrating their acquisition of sovereign power, intend to implement a turn towards science for all institutions within the regime.  Why?  Because Marx’s thing dictates that… if one changes material arrangements, then one changes human conditions.

What better way to alter material arrangements than through scientific formulations?

0991 So, what is a professor in Slavic languages and literature to do?

Well, at first, German formalism offers an opportunity to reduce literary texts to their underlying rhetorical tropes.  But, once such a reduction is performed, the professor can only offer a list of tropes.  Tropes are not very convincing material arrangements.  But, over time, they may ripen into chronotropes, which I have mistakenly mixed up with Bakhtin’s “chronotope”.

0992 Somewhat embarrassed at this, I ask myself, “What would be Bakhtin’s chronotope for this narrative?”

I suppose that it retains its “tope” over time, but changes is “chrono” with time.

Perhaps, the term is similar to the German word, “Zeitgeist”.  The spirit remains the same, but its manifestation depends on the times.

0993 Here, the “tope” or the “geist” is the 20th century’s mounting confidence that all reality will come under the domain of science.  Using Peirce’s… or is it Marx’s terminology, thirdness and firstness will fail based on their own internal contradictions.  Does that mean that the “chrono” and the “Zeit” will change with material arrangements and human conditions?  If so, then only secondness, the realm of actuality, the Marxist thing, is credible.

I conclude that the relevant “chronotope” may be the purely dyadic structure of Marx’s thing.

0994 However, for professors in Slavic languages and literature, Saussure’s discovery that spoken language consists of two arbitrarily related systems of differences offers a parallel to Marx’s thing that is more suitable for their subject matter.  So, these thought leaders argue that Saussure’s thing is… well… a good substitute for Marx’s.

0995 Here is a picture.

Mental operations as matter correspond to langue.

Spoken words as form correspond to parole.

02/16/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 4 of 11)

0996 Let me offer a simplification.

Here is a picture of the resolution of history substantiating culture and culture entangling semiotics as a century-long chronotope.

0997 The story starts with the Russian Revolution at the end of the first World War.

Saussure’s thing is a viable alternate to Marx’s thing soon after the end of the second World War.

The first manifestation of the Tartu-Moscow School becomes a star in the constellation of Russian Theory during the third World War.  The fundament interscope is constructed.

The production of the derivative interscope and the formulation of Lotman’s thing occurs in the waning years of the third and the early years of the fourth Battle Among The Enlightenment Gods.

0998 Here is a date for orientation.

In 1973, Juri Lotman and others publish Theses on the Semiotic Study of Culture (as Applied to Slavic Texts).

The literary text is incorporated into a science-oriented model.

0999 To start, Saussure’s dyadic actuality2a is placed in the proper normal context3a and potential1a.

Here is a picture.

1000 Many features of Formalism may be repurposed to explain how spoken words as things2a emerge from (and situate) the potential of ‘signified [and] signifier’1a within the normal context of Saussure’s semiology3a.

1001 In short, the content-level encompasses topics familiar to linguists and scholars in rhetoric.

1002 Next, Saussure’s thing on the content level is situated by a literature-loving thing on the situation level.

1003 Culture enters the picture here as the milieu in which language2bm substantiates a work of art2bf.

Culture also enters the picture in the guise of influence3b(1b)), corresponding to the normal contexts3 and potentials1 of both the contenta and situationb levels.  Here, artistic expressions are situated by genre, style and so forth.

1004 For example, from the situation-level point of view, the parole2af of dance consists of movements that constitute artistic expression2af.   A dancer trips over something on the floor.  That is not part of the parole2af of the dance3a, because it2am has no corresponding langue2am.

During a performance2bf, dancers adhere to certain laws of choreography1b that vary according to the dance genre3b.  Tap dancers make lots of noise.  Ballet dancers do not.

1005 Each language2a must be performed2bm.

1006 The language2a supporting the performance2bm is universal.

For example, a dance where the dancers merely wriggle in place looks like the visual equivalent of babbling.  Similarly, a dance where the dancers merely perform acrobatic feats does not demonstrate… well… artistic effort.  Also, a dancer wrapped up in linen as to appear as a round ball can only be said to be on a roll.  So, there must be something universal to the language2a that corresponds to what the author calls “subtextual meaning”.

1007 The performance2bm should be intelligible.  For dance, the coordination of bodies moving in unison offers a feeling of intelligibility.  Often, cinematic approaches to dance cut away before movements are complete, often in unintelligible manners.  Also, dance is rarely composed for cinema, even though cinema offers unique points of view, unavailable to stage.

1008 So, what am I saying?

What am I asking?

Will a model2c put all this into perspective?

Does a model2c bring the intelligibility of the performance of a particular work2b into relation with the universality of the “words” of its language2a?

Well, a model2c can do this, only when the model2c is not mathematical or mechanical.

1009 What if the perspective-level follows the appearance of the empirio-schematic judgment, where the normal context of a disciplinary language3c brings the actuality of a mathematical and mechanical model2c into relation with the potential of ‘observations and measurements of phenomena’1c?

1010 Here is a picture for how that perspective-level category-based nested form may appear.

1012 The normal context of a language that allows formal and final causes3c brings the actuality of a semiological2astructuralist2b model2c into relation with the possibilities inherent in the observations and measurements of artistic phenomena1c.

02/14/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 5 of 11)

1013 Well, that is close enough to science that a scholar schooled in Slavic languages and literature gets.

I call the resulting interscope, “fundament”, because it takes the inquirer from the mother tongue2a through the composition of the text2b, to a model2c that is based on the nature of signs3a and on the way that any particular genre, style, fashion, and artistic expression constitutes a system3b bound by rules1b.  The fundament applies to a wide range of “languages” in so far as a specific style of artistic expression displays distinct elements, or forms2b(2a), that correspond to mental thoughts2a and linguistic matter2b.

1014 Here is a picture of the fundament interscope.

1015 Perhaps, most striking is the Aristotelian character of the fundament.  The content-level hylomorphe2a is universal.  The situation-level hylomorphe2b should be intelligible.  The perspective-level model2c is a relation that brings the intelligibility of the situation-level hylomorphe2b into relation with the universality of the content-level hylomorphe2a.

The fundament seems to be an exercise in aesthetics as much as modern science.

Juri Lotman labels it, “Russian theory”.

1016 Is it any coincidence that Russian Theory spontaneously constellates at the same time as Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology?  Both strive to assess what the noumenon must be, given the phenomena of matter and form.

1017 Phenomenology re-articulates technical achievements (such as a particular style of architecture) as social things, arriving at noumena whose phenomena engage the social sciences.

See the e-book course, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Also see the three part e-work, Biosemiotics as Noumenon.

1018 Russian theory re-articulates literary achievements (as well, all the modern arts) in Slavic civilization as… um… semiological and structural judgments2c, lingering like Byzantine shadows of Aristotle in the Marxist-illuminated hallways of Moscow and Tartu Universities.

1019 Indeed, the fundament is so… um… profound that Marx’s thing gets entangled in semiotics as matter.

1020 How confounding.

The dangers of this confounding are palpable in the interview with Vyacheslav Ivanov, appearing in Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova (eds.), Sphere of Understanding: Tartu Dialogues with Semioticians (2025, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, pages 47-68).

1021 One can only admire Lotman’s bravado when it comes to the bureaucratic morons, who are both culturally Slavs (having an intuitive Orthodox appreciation of entanglement) and indoctrinated not be be Slavs (by the Marxist insistence that Christian superstition is scientific nonsense) and are therefore already conflicted.

Sometimes, morons can advance science by simply not resolving their conflictions.

1022 But, that is another story.

1023 Here, on page 321 of the text under examination, Torop shifts into the technical details of a literary order.  He offers a table, listing levels for intratextual and extratextual relations.  Intratextual relations concern the text itself.  Extratextual relations concerns what type of text it is.

1024 The actualities of the fundament interscope compare well with Torop’s intratextual relations.

1025 On the content level of word and meaning, Saussure’s dyadic actuality compares to subtextual and lingual meanings.  In short, an author must craft thoughts2am into words2af.

1026 On the situation level of the structure of the textual material, the dyad of {language as matter2bm [substantiates] the literary text as form2bf} compares to what Torop calls “the structure of material (dominant element or level)”.

1027 What does the term in parentheses imply?

Does “the dominant element or level” represent the normal context of structure (or sign-system)3b operating on the potential laws of the system1b?

For example, a text on history may be an epic tale, a historical analysis or a fairy tale.  Each manifests a different structure3b and lawfulness1b.

1028 On the perspective level of poetics, a semiological structuralist model2c compares to textual specificity.  To me, both actualities contain some sort of judgment.

For example, let me propose a thesis in the humanities that consists of concatenating plagiarized passages from various experts on a particular topic.  When the submission is debated by the student’s faculty committee, they may consider the fact that the passages were chosen by the student may represent a unique intellectual advancement offered by the student.  In comparison to the visual arts, the submitted text is a collage.

The problem is obvious.  A submission on say, a Slavic work of literature, cannot be labeled a “thesis” when it is really the textual equivalent to a collage.

1029 So, Torop’s label of “poetics” for the perspective level conveys a certain irony.

02/13/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 6 of 11)

1030 When the lazy faculty members vote to award the degree on the basis of this “literary collage”, and after the funds for the college’s endowment are released by a nervous, yet protective donor, a rumor goes out that the nature of the academic thesis in languages and literature has changed.  “Literary collages” are now accepted as original academic work.

1031 Spoken words can be so slippery.

So, actions speak louder than words.

1032 Of course, in order to justify the move, one of those lazy faculty members may be induced to write a defense, in which a semiological structuralist model2c is constructed in order to portray the student’s submission as a literary text2afthat emerges from the potential of ‘the meaning of an intellectual accomplishment’1a in the normal context of… well… a positivist intellect that is more compromised than that of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics3a.

1033 Here is a picture of the perspective-level of the fundament interscope and the content-level of a derivative interscope, which is not under the umbrella of Russian Theory for this example, because the entire exercise is a scam.

1034 The semiological structuralist model2c of perspective-level of the fundament interscope stands for the literary text2af on the content-level of the derivative interscope in regards to a modern intellect3a operating on the potential of ‘positivist meaning’1a.

1035 According to Peirce, a sign-vehicle (SV) stands for a sign-object (SO) in regards to a sign-interpretant (SI).  The above diagram expresses what I call “the interventional sign-relation”, as described in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in October, 2023.

In this case, the guilty faculty member’s semiological structuralist model2c of the “collage thesis2bf (SVi) stands for literary text as form2af (SOi) in regards to the academic institution’s positivist intellect3a (which is not TMS, for sure) operating on the potential of ‘an acceptable intellectual accomplishment, worthy of an advanced degree’1a (SIi).

1036 Recall that the semiological structuralist model2c brings the intelligibility of the literary text2b into relation with the universality of language2a.

So, a semiological structuralist model2c that that brings the intelligibility of a concatenation of plagiarized texts2b into relation with the universality of the language of the visual arts2a (SVi) stands for the way that {this literary text as a form2af [entangles] the language of meaning as matter2am} (SOi) in the normal context of an obviously compromised academic stance3a operating on the potential that ‘a literary study may be compared to a visual collage’1a (SIi).

1037 Enough of this.

I’m sure the reader has a good idea that this academy engages in sophistry.

Can one build a sensible interscope on an exercise of sophistry?

Well, one can try.

Here is the general sensible construction that anyone with integrity would produce.

1038 I leave it to the reader to produce the sensible construction specific to the scam.

1039 Why?

I am plunging headlong into displaying the derivative interscope, which emerges from and situates the fundament interscope.

Here is a picture.

1040 On the content level, a positivist intellect comparable to that of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, in its 1960s-1980s hey-day3a, brings the actuality of the dyad of {the fundamentally modeled literary text as form2af[entangles] a discursive and derivative language as matter2am} into the relation with the potential of ‘meaning’1a.

Here, the potential1a does not refer to subtextuality, but to “functionality”, in the broadest sense of the word.  ‘Meaning’ is not “functional” unless it satisfies the formal requirements of its design3a and the intentions of its final causality3a.

1041 On the situation level, the normal context of cultural studies concerning the reception of the work3b brings the actuality of the dyad, {cognition as matter2bm [substantiates] social interaction as form2bf}, into relation with the potential1b of ‘a presence’ that situates the matter of language2am.

1042 Returning to the scam, in the next academic year, the department of languages and literature receives many applications by students eager to explore the opportunities offered for constructing a thesis based on plagiarized material cut and pasted into a “literary collage”.

1043 The problem arises when this new style of thesis is compared to theses from other academic institutions.

I suppose this problem figures in the general perspective-level category-based nested form in the above figure.

Perhaps, this is why the perspective level is left empty.

02/12/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 7 of 11)

1044 The derivative interscope compares to the table on extratextual relations in Figure 1 on page 321.  The title of Figure 1 is “The construction of text”.

1045 Here is a table comparing the virtual nested form in actuality for the derivative interscope with Torop’s extratextual relations.

While the fundament interscope addresses the text itself.  The derivative interscope assesses the text in relation to other texts.  Such an assessment characterizes extratextual relations for the work.

1046 Are the correspondences sufficient to conclude that this examination’s fundament and derivative interscopes and Torop’s intratextual and extratextual relations are similar… if not identical?

If the answer is “yes”, then this examiner has a clue to the nature of the missing perspective-level actuality2c.  The perspective-level actuality2c assesses how a particular text relates to other texts, and in doing so, weighs the intelligibility of the reception of the work2b against the universality of its functional meaning2a.

1047 An affirmative answer also brings this examiner to the topic of Bakhtin’s chronotopes.

Figure 2 on page 322 of Torop’s essay presents what may be Bakhtin’s chronotopical system.

In fact, the table in Figure 2 is assembled from a short piece, “Forms of time and of the chronotope in the novel”, written around 1937-1938, along with “concluding remarks” added in 1973.  Plus, there are entries in various notebooks, scribbles on papers that were preserved, and so on, adding clarity… and weirdness… to a distinction between architectonic time (corresponding to the chronotope) and the time when the story or artwork is composed (and, presumably, the author and the author’s cultural scope are alive).

1048 For example, consider a sci-fi author completing a story about “life in the future”, the day before the world ends.  The chronotope must be life in the future.  The time when the story is composed corresponds to the day before an asteroid hits the Earth.

Oh, this is the twist.

The author belongs to a rare breed of dinosaur living 65 million years ago.

The translation occurs when an AI program trained to scan fossilized dinosaur nests suddenly recognizes patterns within the nesting material that correspond… through comparison with patterns in other… what?.. ancient Mesopotamian glyphs, allowing for some sort of translation.

1049 So, what is the title of this unbelievable literary text?

“Actuality to be determined2c“.

1050 Am I saying that Bakhtin’s chronoscope is the actuality to be determined2c?

Am I saying that the actuality to be determined2c is more than intertextual specificity?

It2c is the time envisioned in a story written the moment before the author, and the author’s cultural scope, vanish into the past.

1051 So, what is this moment in the present, where the past recedes and the future awaits the text itself?

It must be the moment when langue2am [substantiates] parole2af.

1052 Just as there is a time-piece within a radioactive atom that determines when the unstable isotope decays into another element, there is a time piece within every author and cultural scope.  That time-piece determines when the time of composition and the chronotope separate into the author and the text.

1053 An academic can study the author and the text in order to produce, using the fundament interscope, a semiologiccal2a structural2b model2c.  This model2c, when regarded as the noumenon of the text2af, may entangle key elements within the chronotopical system, as shown in the following figure.

1054 But, there is a problem.

The closer that the semiotician swerves into Bakhtin’s chronotopical system, the more and more the semiological structuralist model2c looks… well… irrelevant. 

Look at the poetics level.

Surely, a semiological structural model2c is bland and uninteresting compared to topographic, psychological and metaphysical realities.

No?

1055 Okay, there is another problem.

It is not at all obvious that my one-to-one association with each of Bakhtin’s triads corresponds to content-, situation- and perspective-level actualities.

The chronotope does not seem to match the fundament and derivative interscopes, at least not directly.

Plus, Torop loves Bakhtin as much as he does Lotman and Uspenskij.

The essay makes that obvious.

1056 On top of that, the article itself swerves from the TMS school (olive color) to Bakhtin (orange color) and back (to olive color).

Here is a picture with color-coded section headings.

1057 So, the author goes from the TMS school to Bakhtin and back again.

What does this imply?

The swerve into Bakhtin must be crucial.

02/11/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 8 of 11)

1058 Now, about that rumor about AI discovering glyphic writing while examining fossilized dinosaur nests which were dated to 65Myr (millions of years ago), right before the asteroid impact that ended the Epoch of Weird Multicellular Animals (600-65Myr).

1059 The university involved in the incident apologized.

Apparently, over the Easter holidays, the Anthropology Department wheeled the new AI computer in use by the Archaeology Department, which had been examining photos of fossilized dinosaur nests for patterns, to take a look very early pre-cuneiform tablets.  They trained the AI to recognize cuneiform, but when they applied the program to the early tablets, the AI said that this pattern showed that an egg lies here and that pattern is a dinosaur footprint, and so on.

Frustrated, the anthropology team returned the AI computer to the archaeologists, who were surprised when the AI started reporting, around Pentecost, that the nesting material contained intentionally written glyphs that could be interpreted.

1060 It is like the Greimas square.  Train a student on the Greimas square, then every spoken word becomes a focus for the technique.  It is quite remarkable.

I suppose that applies to myself, because it seems that all I see is the TMS fundament and derivative interscopes in every semiotic paper that I examine.

1061 So, maybe I should take a step back and draw a line between the virtual nested form in secondness for the fundament interscope and Torop’s table describing Bakhtin’s chronotopical system (Figure 2).

1062 Uh-oh.

Once I do this, I gestalt the following.

If “gestalt” is a verb, that is.

Reality expands into Peirce’s category of thirdness.

Time and space spins into Peirce’s secondness.

And, phonics associates to Peirce’s firstness.

1063 Surely, this diagram looks like it matches a comparison of the fundament and Torop’s Figure 2.

However, the levels look more and more suspicious.

Do they contain category-based nested forms?

1064 Consider the perspective or “reality” level.

Does a normal context of metaphysical reality3c bring the actuality of psychological reality2c into relation with the potential of ‘topographic reality’1c?

Surely, that looks well… may I use the word, “unrealistic”?

1065 So, what if I switch reality to correspond to three nested normal contexts?

Here is a picture.

1066 Now, that looks more realistic.

Overall, the normal context of reality3 brings the actuality of space and time2 into relation with the potential of ‘tone’1.

For three levels, reality3 is a normal context operating on the possibility of ‘tone’1, where ‘tone’ is most clearly expressed in terms of music-related explicit abstractions.  The label corresponding to ‘tone’1 changes from content, to situation and on to perspective.

1067 Yes, that seems more reasonable.

Here is the resulting interscope.

1068 On the content level, the normal context of topographic reality3a brings the actuality of concrete (or specific) time and space2a into relation with the potential of ‘homophony’1a.  Homophony is like a melody.

On the situation level, the normal context of psychological reality3b brings the actuality of subjective time and space2binto relation with the potential of ‘polyphony’1b.  Polyphony is like harmony and dissonance.  A melody is situated by harmony and dissonance.

On the perspective level, the normal context of metaphysical reality3c brings the actuality of mythological time and imaginary space2c into relation with the potential of ‘heterophony’1c.  Heterophony is like the visual appearance and acoustic character of the venue in which a musical or dance performance occurs.

1069 Now I ask, “Does the above figure look like a semiological3a structuralist3b model2c?”

02/10/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 9 of 11)

1070 Torop continues to recount the lessons that come from Bakhtin’s notes.

The next section is titled, “Semiotics of culture and chronotopicality”.

Not only does a chronotopical analysis distinguish three levels in every text, but, for literature, the three levels display narratives and performances.

Is this where semiotics enters into the picture?

1071 The author offers another table correlating levels of the text and the sphere of semiotization.

Here is a picture.

1072 The same principles apply as before.

Chronoscopy goes with Peirce’s category of thirdness.

Narrative and performance associates to secondness.

The world belongs to firstness.

1073 Similar to before, the above figure looks like a semiological3a model2c.

On the content level, a topographical homophonic normal context3a brings the actuality of story and events2a into relation with the potential of ‘an intertextual storyworld’1a.

On the situation level, a psychological polyphonic normal context3b brings the actualities of narration and performance2b into relation with the potential of ‘a multimodal, innerworld with self and others’1b.

On the perspective level, a metaphysical heterophonic normal context3c brings the actualities of verbal and pictorial descriptions2c into relation with the potential of ‘cohesive principles establishing a conceptual world’1c.

1074 Now I ask, “Do these arguments add up to a semiological3a structuralist3b model2c?”

1075 By the time that the author finishes this section, he has intimated that Bakhtin’s article and scribbles on the chronotope offers a semiological structuralist model composed of interscopes, rather than category-based nested forms.

Here are the virtual nested forms in the category of thirdness for each interscope.

02/9/26

Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics of Cultural History”  (Part 10 of 11)

1076 The author moves on to the topic of “cultural semiotics as semiotics of cultural history”.

I love topics like this.

They almost make my wordplay appear reasonable.

1077 According to Lotman, each generation has a language to describe yesterday.

1078 What does this imply?

Torop has a positivist language2af, historically developed within the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (on its preparation for a second iteration, this examiner hopes), for translating the somewhat disordered clues left by Bakhtin into a text, consisting of tables.  Each of these tables correspond to an interscope (Peircean constructions, which the author does not have at the time, but are implicit to the tables, themselves).

There are two tables. 

The one dealing with narrative and performance associates to the semiological level of the fundament interscope.

The one dealing with space and time associates to the structural level of the fundament interscope.

These tables correspond to the literary text2bf as form for the fundament interscope.

1079 In Torop’s language, langue as matter2am consists in what Bakhtin is thinking, and wondering about, in regards to the way that literature works.  This matter2am sort of emerges from a signfied1a in the normal context of Saussure’s semiology3a.   Parole as form2af consists in the article that Bakhtin writes and the pages of notes that survive concerning the nature of the “chronotope”.  Indeed, the spoken word, “chronotope2af” situates the signifier1a that Bakhtin imagines and Torop uses to tag the article and the pages of notes.

Bakhtin’s works correspond to langue2am and parole2af in the fundament interscope.

1080 These associations allow me to apply the fundament interscope, as a semiological structuralist model2c, to Torop’s tables2bf.

1081 To me, this application is appealing.

1082 I now move on to the rest of Lotman’s observation.

Each generation, in principle, does not have a language to describe tomorrow.

1083 How does this apply?

In 2017, Torop does not have Peirce’s construction of the interscope.

The basics are presented by Razie Mah’s e-books, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

1084 Despite this lack, Torop successfully communicates that Bakhtin’s parole2af of the “chronotope” serves as the language2bm that substantiates two tables2bf.  The universality of the “chronotope”2af and the intelligibility of Torop’s two tables2bf are weighed when one regards them as contributing to a semiological3a structuralist3b model2c.

1085 Here is corresponding interscope.

1086 The above interscope may be compared to the interscopes postulated by this examiner as characteristic of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

1087 But there is more.

01/31/26

Looking at Ekaterina Velmezova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (Part 1 of 19)

0377 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 404-448) by two well-regarded semioticians.  The full title is “Boris Uspenskij on history, linguistics and semiotics”.  Kalevi Kull conducts the interviews.  Ekaterina Velmezova performs translation.

The article consists of two sit-downs.  The first takes place at the end of a eighth session of the Tartu Summer School of Semiotics, in August 25, 2011.  The topic of the Summer School was Semiotic Modelling.  The second takes place at Uspenskij’s home in Rome on May 27, 2012.  The questions are based on his book, Ego Loquens: Language and the Communicative Space (2007).

0378 This examination seeks to appreciate how one of the leading figures of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, which flourished from the 1960s to the 1980s, weaves Saussure’s definition of spoken language as two arbitrarily related systems of differences, into a science-friendly inquiry into the literature of the Slavic civilization.

0379 Two arbitrarily related system of differences?

Parole (speech talk) also corresponds to the written word as well as symbolic artifacts.  Parole can be observed and measured.

Langue (the machinations that automatically decode and encode speech talk) cannot be directly observed in the same way as parole.  Yet, langue is there.  It must be.  Otherwise there is no way that someone can think before speaking, should that person choose to do so.

0380 Parole and langue are two contiguous real elements.  The continuity, if placed in brackets is [arbitrarily related].

This configuration satisfies the definition of Peirce’s category of secondness, where one real element [is contiguous with] another real element.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the two real elements are matter and form.  I label the contiguity, [substance] or [substantiates], but it also could be [entangles].  Substance is typical.  Entanglement is tricky.

0381 Here is a picture of the comparison between Aristotle’s hylomorphe and Saussure’s definition of language.

0382 Saussure’s definition of language appears to be scientific, because there is no substance.  That is, there is no metaphysical reason for why what we think comes to be associated to what we say.  So, the arbitrary relation is simply a conditioned response.  A conditioned response conforms to truncated material and efficient causalities.

Another term for “conditioned response”?

How about “code” and “decode”?

0383 Okay, if that is the case, then what?

What if what we think (langue) is like matter?  What if what we say (parole) is like form?

Then, the contiguity, [arbitrary relation], seems to say that we can attach any word to any thought, without structure.  So, something structural would need to situate the content of a spoken word, even if that structure is a habit or a convention.  Once that happens, then the hylomorphe, {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a, occupies the actuality2a on the content-level of a two-level interscope.  Language2bm is the situation-level matter that induces a constellation of the content-level hylomorphe.

0384 Okay, if language2b is (by Saussure’s definition) the dyad, {langue2am [arbitrary relation] parole2af}, then how can language2b situate itself2a?

This can only happen if language2b is already participating as a situation-level category-based nested form involved in the production of statements2b.

0385 Here is a picture.

0386 It is as if the content-level actuality2a is immediately situated by a demand to substantiate a statement, as if language2b is matter and a statement2b is form.

0387 But, obviously, there is more.

The content-level actuality2a is accompanied by a normal context3a and potential1a.

So is the situation level actuality2b.

0388 For the content level, the normal context of Saussure’s semiology3a brings the dyadic actuality of {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a into relation with the potential of ‘a signified and its signifier’1a.

0389 For the situation level, the normal context of a linguistic structure (or genre or system)3b brings the dyadic actuality of {language as matter [substantiates] statements as form}2b into relation with the potential of ‘the laws of the system’1b.