0185 Here is a picture for the entanglements in visual art, based on the interscope for speech-alone talk.

0186 The subject of the painting_2am as matter transforms into what the artist is thinking_2am.

The painting_2af as form shape shifts into what the artist is trying to say_2af.

The Renaissance style_3b of paintings as decorative_2bm shifts to what?… a modern style_3b setting aside of architectural space for a painting as an adornment_2bm?

After all, that is what experts do.  They plan_2bm that a painting_2af should go into this particular location_2bm.  The space_2bm substantiates the artifact_2bf that validates the term, “art installation_2af“.

0187 What does the viewer see?

I already discussed that in point 0174.

0188 Finally, beholding_2bf entangles an aesthetic weighing_2cm (“Yes, it looks like a bowl of fruit. The resemblance is amazing.”)… I meant to say… an aesthetic validation_2cm (“Surely, whatever the artist is trying to say_2af, the painting must be a work of art_2bm, because it is located on the wall in a space reserved for artistic display_2cm.”).

0189 In honor of what the author is trying to portray, while looking through the frosted lens of modernism and using the hazy vocabulary of the social sciences, I suggest that the above two images of the confoundings in the interscopes of hand-speech talk and speech-alone talk be copied and used as keys for appreciating the collection on display in any museum of contemporary art.

0190 That brings me to chapter five (C5), concerning the writerly attitude.

There is a straightforward view (S2C5, “Speech and Writing, The Simple View”) that writing simply records spoken words.  Whatever one can say… (shaking my head “no”)… can be put into the written word.

0191 Why is this not the case?

If hand-speech is included in the basket labeled “spoken words”, then the spoken-work basket is 300,000 years old.  In contrast, writing has been around for 5,000 or so years.

0192 Of course, to be fair, speech-alone talk is only 6,800 years old, more or less.

So, writing is a creature of speech-alone talk.

0193 However, writing starts in a way that calls to mind ways of hand-speech talk in a world of speech-alone talk.  The first writing consists in ideograms (or conventional shapes) that are geared, not to adorn the things that they refer to, but to list them in some sort of economic and political transaction.  For example, the temple sends four jars of wine to the widow of the former shaman.

Yeah, that is the one who refused to become a temple priest.

0194 The ideogram_2af should be like a painting that renders its subject as present.  However, since itemizing an economic shipment_2am is not an aesthetic process_2cm, the icon_2af gets further and further simplified because it_2af entangles the matter of organizing consensus_2bm for things to be sent or received_2am.

Here is a diagram.

0195 In short, writing_2af is invented to achieve consensus_2bf in (what moderns will eventually label) “economic transactions_2cf“, within, say, 2,000 years after the nominal starting point of the first singularity.  When I look back from the present to the state of civilization 6,800 years ago, I have to proclaim, “My God!”  That is a long time.  A lot of crazy developments can pass, like water under a bridge, in six and four-fifths millennia.

0196 Among those developments is the idea that spoken words can be things to send and receive_2am.  The ruler of Kish sends a missive to the ruler of Lagash, saying, “Greetings and solicitations, that canal that your are building is on land that belongs to Kish.”  To which, the ruler of Lagash writes back, “Kish, my ass.”

0197 A remarkable entanglement happens when spoken words are sent and received as things.  Ideograms not only represent the idea of the thing that they supposedly picture, they also represent the sound of the word that proclaims the thing.  The latter style_3b is called “the rebus principle”.  The ambiguity of ideograms creates great confusion among archaeologists who translate cuneiform tablets unearthed from the long-neglected ruins of royal libraries.  Does this particular stylized impression represent the meaning of a spoken word or the sound of that word as a component of another word?

0198 Here is a diagram of the invention of the type of writing that westerners (the rebus peoples) are familiar with.

This diagram also applies to the type of writing that easterners (the ideogram and rebus peoples) are familiar with.

0199 Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) is a German philosopher (at University of Jena) who thinks about these topics.  He comes up with the term, Begriffsschriff (“concept script”), for a purely ideographic script, perhaps without imagining that one could never write the word, “concept script” using ideograms.  Nevertheless, one can imagine the possibility, therefore the technical term, “concept script” has a reference, even though it does not make sense, because one cannot ideate a “concept script” while talking in ideograms.

0200 To me, the preceding paragraph makes the rebus principle all the more attractive, as an avenue to a doctrine that can achieve even grander vistas of confoundings.

0201 Why did we (humans), at some point in our civilizational development, come to apply ideograms as symbols for the sounds of speech?   Why did civilized people start to follow the rebus principle?

For westerners, the result is called, “the alphabet”, which only tells us the first two letters of the Greek syllabary.  Greek writing is invented a little after 800 B.C. (or 6,000 U0′, Ubaid Zero Prime, nominally marking the start of the first singularity).  Not much later, Homer writes the Iliad and the Odyssey based on the oral traditions of Greek bards.  As it turns out, the stories tell of events during the Bronze Age, long after the Iron Age was in full gear. 

0202 Today, our speech is conditioned by writing.  We are convinced that our writing records our spoken words.  Unfortunately, spoken words cannot be spell checked.  Fortunately, written words can.

0203 The alphabet strangely re-enacts language, defined as two arbitrarily related systems of differences (by Ferdinand de Saussure (1859-1913), whose lifespan overlaps that of Gottlob Frege and Charles S. Peirce).  The alphabet (like parole) and the spoken word (now, like langue) are each systems of differences.  That is to say, they are finite symbolic orders.  There are rules (symbolic operations) that motivate the relation.  The rebus principle turns each letter of the alphabet into an index of a word-sound.

0204 After centuries, the old index has become a little sloppy.  The letter “c” sounds like a “k” (as in “cryptocurrency”) or an “s” (as in “civility”) and then appears in lots of odd combinations (as in “chicken” and “discipline”).  But, I am not complaining.  All that I am saying is that the use of an alphabet_2af entangles a consensus on spelling_2bm, as an organizing principle_2bm.

0205 The content-level confounding resolves into a situation-level dyad, where the spelling consensus_2bm substantiates written words_2bf as virtually (in virtue, rather than in simulation) situating spoken words_2af.

This is not an easy requirement, explaining why grammar schools have changed their collective name to “elementary schools”.  Spelling is to writing as grammar is to speaking.  But, the amount of effort that it takes to technically validate both grammar and spelling is just too much for unionized labor to do as a work requirement, especially when negotiating with compromised politicians is so much easier.

0206 There are many “entanglements”, broadly painted, between speech and writing, and the author briefly considers the writerly attitude (S5C5), before arriving at a surprising conclusion.  Art is a condition for language (S6C5).

0207 This examiner wishes to unveil an alternative, by looking back at the interscope for speech-alone talk and making a comparison to the prior figure.

Here is the interscope for speech-alone talk.

0208  If what I think_2am corresponds to spoken words (that I send or receive)_2am and if what I say_2af compares to the alphabetic rendering of the spoken word that I think_2af, then a consensus on spelling_2bm dovetails into an organizing principle_2bm.

0209 A consensus on spelling_2bm as matter substantiates the form of written words_2bf.

An organizing principle_2bm as matter substantiates the form of an artifact_2bf.

0210 If these two situation-level actualities_2a correspond, then it seems to me that, technically, a written word_2bf could be regarded as an artifact_2bf that serves as a reference to the spoken word that I put into script_2af.

0211 What a predicament.

The written word_2bf may serve as an artifact_2bf that validates its content-level spoken form_2af.

0212 Part One introduces the author’s broad concept of “entanglement”.

This examiner offers a narrow definition.  An entanglement occurs in confoundings, where one form is related with two matters, one originating and one entangled.

0213 Part Two introduces the concept of “aesthetics”.

The author places “aesthetic phenomena” as (second-order) art looping down to alter (first-order) habits and technologies.

To me, this portrays the second confounding (on the situation level) influencing a first confounding (on the content level).

0214 This examiner proposes that the author, as if peering through a translucent surface, intimates that two interscopes are entangled.  These two interscopes portray elements from hand-speech talk and speech-alone talk.  These two elements represent the Lebenswelt that we evolved in and our current Lebenswelt.

0215 In both interscopes, a participant cannot see the confoundings and operates as if the entanglements have been resolved. 

The author uses the term, “aesthetic blind”, in word-play on “aesthetic bind”.

0216 For example, aesthetic blind dwells beneath the points 0089 through 0098.

The argument in this segment goes from the thing itself, the little noumenon, to a big noumenon, to an even bigger big noumenon.

Twice, a confounding, in an aesthetic blind, resolves after much… shall I say?… wandering around. 

Often enough, if one sees the little noumenon, then one does not need to realize the big noumenon.  That goes again for the confounding that leads to the bigger big noumenon.

0217 To recall, here is a picture of Aristotle’s hylomorphe_2a in the normal context of structure_3a, emerging from the potential of ‘the disposition of things to manifest as matter and form’_1a.

0218 The form_2af in the little noumenon entangles all sorts of matter.  For example, the originating matter of a pendulum clock consists of all sorts of pieces, gears and what not, that assemble with high-precision.  However, there is ‘something’ that a pendulum clock, even when correctly assembled in its functional form_2af, does not contain within itself.  Plus, that thing makes the clock work.

Can you guess what that ‘something’ is?

0219 If I wrote a technical paper on a pendulum clock, then I would describe the actuality of {gears and cogs and so forth_2am [substantiating] a pendulum clock_2af} in the normal context of a machine_3a operating on the potential of ‘measuring time’_1a.

My technical paper would satisfy the Positivist’s judgment, in so far as the little noumenon_1a is taken for granted.  I observe and measure the phenomena_1a of a pendulum clock, then use the disciplinary language of physics_2a to construct a model_2a of the little thing_1a based on those observations and measurements_2a.  I exercise a positivist intellect_3a, which insists that Aristotle’s formal and final causalities only get lip service.  Here, my lip service_3a says, “The pendulum clock_2a has the potential to ‘measure time’_1a.

0220 Of course, I could be wrong in my lip service_3a.

How so?

Consider the way that the content-level confounding resolves in the general case.

0221 If matter_2am consists of all sorts of gears and cogs_2am and if form_2af is the composition of that matter into a functioning pendulum clock_2af, then the thing_2a has the structure of a machine_3a operating according to the potential of ‘what?’_1a.

Is that an awkward way to fashion a question or what?

0222 Obviously, the entangled principle of unity emerges from and situates the potential of ‘measuring time’_1b.  So, the potential_1a that supports the pendulum clock must be ‘something else’.

0223 Here is a plausible solution for the big noumenon, which resolves the content-level confounding.

0224 Of course, this big noumenon is obvious.

It was not obvious at first.

The trick is that all pendulum clocks rely on gravity, yet gravity is not one of the gears and cogs, nor is gravity the entangled principle of unity.

Gravity_1a is the content-level potential_1a.

0225 This is how I see the second section of chapter six (S2C6).

Our inability to see the obvious, until the obvious is pointed out, is called the “aesthetic blind”.

0226 When the Mariusz Tabaczek O.P. published an article in the journal, Vetera Novis Augere (A Resource for Traditional Thomists in the Current Context II: Philosophical Themes and Historical Research, 2025, pages 343-382), titled “Contemporary and Classical Versions of Hylomorphism: A Critical Evaluation”, he did not imagine that an egghead steeped in the semiotics of Charles Peirce would craft a response and post it as a draft on his… whatever.

0227 This response turns out to be an exercise in, what Dr. Noe calls, “aesthetic work”.

0228 This egghead’s exercise builds a big noumenon from the little noumenon.  In the process, this eggspert offers an alternative to the little noumenon of natural science.

0229 In the following figure, the little noumenon, the thing itself according to natural science, stands within the box with purple dashed lines, and the big noumenon, the noumenon that may be constructed by reviewing philosophical publications concerning Aristotle’s hylomorphe, stands with the box with green dashed lines.

0230 In order to pass from the little noumenon to the big noumenon, the inquirer must pass through a content-level confounding.

In this instance, the inquirer is simultaneously an artist and a philosopher, because the diagrams contain elements that picture and point to a referent, a langue, corresponding to what the philosopher is thinking_2am.

0231 The trick is that the only way to achieve the big noumenon is to realize that a principle of unity is the matter that the form_2af entangles.

Another trick is to figure out what form_2bf that matter_2bm, resolved to the situation-level of sensible construction, substantiates.

0232 The later sections of chapter six, including the third (S3C6, “Art and the Staging of the World’s Obscurity”, the fourth (S4C6, “The Artwork Gets in the Way”) and the fifth (S5C6, “Achieving the Object”) discusses the big noumenon as what is already right in front of you.  It would be obvious if someone points it out.

0233 Indeed, when I look at a pendulum clock_2af, I see a little noumenon, a machine_3a with gears and cogs and a pendulum_2am that exploits the potential of ‘gravity’_1a.  The attitude is scientific, including the technical work where I might have to kill the clock in order to dissect it.

0234 If I killed the clock in order more clearly build a mechanical model of its material and efficient causalities, then I would eliminate the ability for the social scientist to investigate the bigger noumenon.  When a social scientist looks at a little noumenon, the bigger noumenon comes into view, due to all the aesthetic work already done by social scientists, including Dr. Noe, whose exposition of entanglement discusses phenomena associated with the big thing itself, a confounding that has resolved into a sensible construction.

0235 What does a social scientist see?

The normal context of my clock_3b brings the dyadic actuality of {the principle of keeping time_2bm [substantiates] my schedule_2bf} into relation with the potential of ‘measuring time’_1b.

Plus, the potential of ‘measuring time’_1b situates the form of the pendulum clock_2af.

The normal context of a machine_3a that operates on the potential of gravity_1a gets bracketed out.

0236 These are not easy abductions to perform, because the situation-level form_2bf of embodiment entangles matter.  Plus, that matter may end up in a perspective-level thing_2c.

0237 If that is not enough, then in section six of chapter six (S6C6,”Playing Philosophy”) the author argues that philosophy and art are two different types in a common genus.  That genus has the potential to ‘reorganize practice’_1c.

What does that imply?

0238 One implication is that philosophy and art answer a call that is not addressed by identity_3b and structure_3a.  Identity_3b and structure_3a are relevant to social science and natural philosophy, whose subject matter are the big and the little noumenon, respectively.

0239 Chapter seven is titled, “Fragile Bodies”.  Section one (S1C7, “Here We Are in Team Colors”) opens with the contrast between the Frenchman, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and the Italian, Giambattista Vico (1668-1744).  Descartes’ masterwork, Discourse on Method, is published in 1637, followed by Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641.  Vico’s masterwork, The First New Science, is published in 1725. 

0240 Perhaps, the distinction resides in the lifespan rather than the nationality.  Descartes is regarded as one of the mechanical philosophers who founded the natural sciences… er… the Positivist’s judgment.  Vico tends to be ignored, for no other reason than he is… you know… a citizen of a nation populated with highly voluble and passionate folk who love their shopworn rituals.

0241 However, there is an interesting thread running through the author’s discussion.  What is the thread?  It is not that Descartes is wrong about the mind and body as a little noumenon, where the mind_2am is like matter and the body is like form_2af.  Certainly, the human can be regarded, by natural science, as a thing_2a.  Rather, it is that the form_2af of the human, however one regards the matter, is entangled in a principle of unity_2bm, that is artistically on display in sports, where one team wears its uniform and the opposing team wears another uniform_2bf.

0242 When I pull on that thread, I come up with the following figure.

0243 To me, it looks like Descartes, an early mechanical philosopher, focuses on the little noumenon.

My guess is that Vico prefigures the social sciences, by illuminating the big noumenon.

0244 My guess in indirectly confirmed by Dr. Noe’s discussion in section two of chapter seven  (S2C7, “A Fragile, Dense, Intersubjective Skein”).

0245 Concerning the terms, “fragile, dense and skein”, even if Descartes is off target in relegating the mind and the body into different real elements (perhaps, mind as matter and body as form is too facile a comparison), he anticipates Peirce’s definition of secondness as a dyadic structure.  Plus, that dyadic actuality_2a emerges from the potential of ‘a disposition to think and act’_1a in the normal context of a machine-like structure_3a.

Are humans machines?

An affirmation seems to be Descartes (mistaken) structure_3a.

0246 Concerning the term, “intersubjective”, Vico is on target by talking about a new science (of humans), where the noumenon is not a mere thing_2a, but the thing_2a confounded with situation-level matter_2bm.

In this examination, and maybe generally, this situation-level matter is a principle of unity_2bm and accounts for why the content-level is not enough.  For phenomenology, the content-level is so “not enough” that it is entirely bracketed out, leaving the new science to investigate a sensible construction as the noumenon.  A sensible construction is the situation-level virtually emerging from (and situating) the content level.  The big noumenon is a sensible construction.

0247 Now, I get into controversial terminology.

The content-level is subjective. The subject is the little noumenon_2a.  Subjectivity is assumed by a new science of the big noumenon.

The situation-level is objective.  The little noumenon_2a is an object once it is virtually situated by the actuality_2b of the big noumenon.

0248 If Vico strictly followed Descartes’ content-level parsing, he might have arrived at oddly familiar terminology portraying the situation-level actuality_2a as an “extended mind_2bm” that substantiates an “extended body_2bf“.  The principle of collaboration_2bm (an extended mind_2bm) says, “Everyone on the team wears the same uniform_2bf.” (an extended body), in the normal context of advertising the identity of our social circle_3b operating on the potential ‘power of the team’_1b.

0249 Where does the term, “intersubjective” apply?

Situation-level matter_2am objectifies the subjective form_2a of each person on the team.

Situation-level form_2bf is intersubjective, in so far as the situation-level normal context of identity_3b advertises – what Vico, mimicking Descartes – might have labeled “the intersubjective objectivity” of an extended being_2b.

0250 Chapter eight (C8, “Existential Style”) builds on chapter four (C4, “Styles of seeing”).

What do I think?

Consider the situation-level form of embodiment_2bf, artistically manifested as a team uniform.  If the originating situational matter is a principle of unity_2bm, then what is the matter that gets entangled, leading to a perspective-level actuality_2c?

0251 What do I see?

I see two labels (T and U).

0252 First (T), I see the adjective, “existential”.  Whatever this matter is, it must be “existential”.

But, existence is not the same as essence.  The Latin term, “esse“, labels matter that is substantiating a form.  I anglicize the term to “esse_ce”.  Esse_ce is {matter [substantiating]}.  Essence is {[substantiated] form}.

“Existential” (corresponding to existence⁰) labels matter that does not necessarily substantiate – or – matter that is necessary for substantiating. One term applies to two circumstances.

The matching labels for essence are “destitution” and “constitution”.  “Destitution” (corresponding to form⁰) labels a form that exists without originating matter.  “Constitution” denotes a form that is substantiated by productive originating matter.

0253 Here is a picture, found in Part 2 of Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024), by Razie Mah (points 0545-0643).

0254 I suspect that “existential” (S) refers to perspective-level matter_2cm that will substantiate a form_2cf that is “constituted”, rather than matter_2cm that does not substantiate a form_2cf (“destituted”).

0255 Second (U), I see the noun “style”.

To me, title of section three (S3C8, “Identity is Style”) applies to the normal context of identity_3b.  If sensible construction is all there is, then identity_3b works as the situation-level normal context.

For example, sport uniforms_2bf are contextualized by the identity_3b of the team.  However, the embodiment of team uniforms_2bf is contextualized by style_3b at the moment when one’s point of view shifts from sensible to social construction, because sport uniforms entangle the matter of process.  Process_2cm then serves as perspective-level matter_2cm.

0256 Here is a picture of the situation-level confounding, in general.

0257 Here is the picture that comes with the example of team uniforms.

0258 Note how the situation-level confounding yields existential matter.  When resolved, this existential matter_2cm substantiates a constitution_2cf, in the same way that final attributes contribute to formal causes.  Intentions (final causes) support processes_2cm that substantiate constitutions_2cf (formal causes) designed to institute processes_2cm.

Contrary to the author, who appears to envision a modern perspective-level normal context_3c of progress_3c and the potential of ‘contextualizing style’_1b as unveiling the architecture of old habits in order to build a new and improved architecture_1b, I sense that there is something significantly adaptive… as in an adaptation to the human niche… below the surface of his discussion.

0259 Where is this line of argument going?

Clearly, it is headed for a bigger big noumenon.

0260 Chapter nine (C9, “Toward an Aesthetics for the Entanglement”) starts with the bigger big noumenon.

0261 The little noumenon, in the purple box, is what the natural sciences investigate.

The big noumenon, in the green box, is subject matter for social sciences.

The bigger big noumenon, in the red box, draws the reader towards an aesthetics of entanglement.

0262 Section one (S1C9, “Uncovering the Questions”) asks, “What do you see now?”

I see a three-level interscope swimming below the surface of Dr. Noe’s liquid prose.

I see, on the content level, that the normal context of structure_3a brings the dyadic actuality of a thing_2a into relation with the potential of ‘the thing’s dispositions’_1a.

On the situation level, the normal context of style_3b brings the dyad, {a principle of unity_2bm [substantiates] an embodiment_2bf}, in relation to the potential of ‘the situational thing’s powers’_1b.

On the perspective level, a big-picture normal context_3c brings the dyadic actuality_2c, {a process_2cm [substantiates] a constitution of ‘something’_2cf}, into relation with the potential of ‘contextualizing style’_1c.

0263 Now, I go down the columns.  Each column is a virtual nested form in a particular category.

For the category of thirdness, a perspective level normal context_3c virtually brings the actuality of style_3b into relation with the potential of ‘structure_3a‘.

In the category of secondness, a perspective-level thing_2c (process_2cm [substantiates] constitution_2cf) virtually brings a situation-level thing_2b (principle of unity_2bm [substantiates] an embodiment_2bf) into relation with the potential of a content-level thing (matter_2am [substantiates] form_2af).

In the category of firstness, a perspective-level ‘contextualizing style’_1b virtually brings situation-level ‘power’_1b into relation with the possibility of ‘dispositions’_1a.

0264 How do I label the perspective-level normal context_3c?

According to the author, the first vision that I should see entails a reorientation_3c of my experience_3b of what is happening_3a.

To me, the reorientation_3c matches the perspective-level normal context_3c in so far as confoundings make us who we are_3c.  My experience_3b goes with identity_3b and style_3b in so far as I experience_3b an embodiment_2bf of a principle of unity_2bm.

Finally, ‘what is happening’_3a associates to structure_3a because a thing_2a emerges from (and situates) the potential of ‘something happening’_1a.

0265 The author goes on to say that the perspective-level normal context_3c makes us into a creation_2c made by us, because what is revealed as intersubjective (objective situation-based and subjective content-level things) is put into perspective by a suprasubjective process_2cm (as matter) and constitution_2cf (as form).

0266 In order to further appreciate the labels, subjective, objective, intersubjective and suprasubjective, please regard Razie Mah’s blog for October, 2023), titled Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) Semiotic Animal, as well as the following figure.

0267 In section four of chapter eight (S4C8, “Afterthoughts on Artificial Intelligence”), the author discusses the possibility that machines will be artificially intelligent.  He parodies the possibility by claiming that humans are artificially intelligent.

Is this a language game?

Does the above diagram of the Noe three-level interscope portray an artifice of intelligence or should I say, “an artifact”?

0268 Is the above figure an artifact that validates the label “the bigger big noumenon”?

If so, then this book tracks the journey of Dr. Noe, who starts as a natural scientist (interested in the purple little noumenon), develops into a social scientist (curious about the green big noumenon), and then steps into a new field of inquiry that he wants to call “aesthetics” (delineating the red bigger big noumenon).

0269 Questions are raised in section one of chapter 9 (S1C9).  Then, the remaining sections develop the conceptual apparatus of aesthetic inquiry.  Aesthetic inquiry brings to consciousness the confoundings that are resolved in Noe’s three-level interscope.

0270 Here is a picture portraying the two confoundings.

Notice how I have changed the labels of the different levels.

Natural science studies the little noumenon.

Social science considers the big noumenon.

Aesthetic inquiry wrestles with the bigger big noumenon.

0271 Chapter ten (C10, “Reorienting Ourselves”) offers a few techniques for aesthetic labor.

0272 First, in order to appreciate an entanglement, one must intellectually block out (or “bracket” or epoche) the originating matter.  Practically, that means putting on blinders that block out natural science for social scientists, and then, social science for aesthetic inquiry.  This is covered in section one (S1C9, “Husserl’s Bracketing”).

0273 Second, if Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) is on target, then in art, nothing is hidden.  So, aesthetic inquiry_3c reorganizes what one pays attention to.  For example, once someone else points out a particular aspect of a portrait painting, then one pays attention to that aspect in an insistent way.  Artists and philosophers do this all the time, which upsets a lot of people, especially those who did not make the observation first.

In other words, artistic and philosophical comments may cause something to seem more… what?… suprasubjectively real.  That goes with process_2cm.  The process_2cm does not care that so-and-so cannot take credit.  But, professors of art and philosophy do care.  When a student says, “Hey, I don’t know my way about this topic.  I am lost.”, these instructors have syllabi ready-at-hand.  Plus, their artifacts_2bf are very well… um… “constituted_2cm“.

0274 “Documented_2cm“?  “Certified_2cm“? “Well respected_2cm“?  “In good taste_2cm“?  “Highly regarded_2cm“?  “Credible_2cm“?

0275 Chapter ten concludes by proposing that philosophy_1c, like art_1c, is creative work.

Is it the same creative work performed by Eve, in regards to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

This question is not raised in Part III.

Part III is scripted as an afterthought, or perhaps as a launching point for the next literary exposition.

0276 What do I mean with that aside?

Among other questions, our current Lebenswelt asks whether the artifact_2bf that virtually situates a label_2af  credibly embodies_2bf “what I think_2am“, in the normal context of structure_3a operating on the potential of ‘my dispositions’_1a.

Is the big noumenon grounded on my dispositional will to knowledge_1a (like Eve) or my dispositional regard for truth_1a or the good_1a (not so much like Eve)?

What an interesting question.

Unfortunately, it must be put aside.

See Razie Mah’s three-part e-book, Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition.

Also, see Part III of the text under examination.

0277 I wonder whether the author knows the character of his audience?

Are they scientists, or what?

Let me start with the scientists.

0278 Here is a sensible construction that composes one of the steps on the way to triumphalist science.

0279 What do I (the scientist) experience_3b?

The little noumenon_1a, the thing itself, belongs to the realm of possibility.

Do I experience technical words and data_2af as a content-level form entangling a model_2bm as a principle of unity?

0280 What else?

The big noumenon, the sensible construction itself, says, “I do not need to be put into perspective by philosophy and art_1c, because once my model_2bm serves as situation-level matter_2bm then the form_2bf is what the noumenon should be_2bf.”

0281 Is this the topic of chapter eleven, (C11, “The Seepage Problem”)?

Is triumphalist science closed to aesthetic inquiry_3c?

Is the perspective-level reality_2c closed… or “hidden”… to prying eyes?

Is this the problematic Age of Seep?

0282 Let me close my eyes and seep.

I recall the high-pressure machinations required in order to stuff the triadic empirio-schematic inquiry into a dyadic actuality (points 0049-0058).  Did the applied pressure cause a leak?

0283 Does the following content-level confounding make sense?

0284 Okay, a content-level reified empirio-schematic judgment_2a entangles a principle of unity.

A scientist should be comfortable with that confounding.

0285 What about someone who is not a scientist?

As noted before, the first step in natural philosophy is to regard the noumenon, a thing itself, in terms of matter and form.

0286 If a noumenon₂ is {matter_2m [substantiates] form_2f}, then what if the form_2f entangles mathematics and mechanics as matter?

Then the originating matter_2m (of the noumenon₂) cannot be what scientists insist it must be… that is… mathematical and mechanical.

0287 It is as if the form_2f of the noumenon₂ (for the layman) belongs to a nested form residing one level lower than the content level (for the scientist).

0288 Am starting to feel a “reorientation” coming on?

0289 If a reorientation places the noumenon₂ in the realm of actuality (rather than the realm of possibility), then the entangled matter of mathematics and mechanics may end up as matter_2am on one level_a higher than a noumenal basement level_z.

0290 The reorientation offers a confounding, that is consonant with what a layperson thinks about the scientific method.  The noumenon is real and consists of matter and form, as expected from Aristotle’s hylomorphe.  The form has facets that can be regarded in terms of mathematics and mechanics.

0291 When this confounding resolves, then the content-level of natural science moves to the situation level of an alternate (“reoriented”) interscope.

0292 I am not going to change the subscripts, because that would ruin the weirdness of the ongoing conclusion.

However, I will note that a similar shift in levels occurs within Lacanian psychoanalysis as discussed in Razie Mah’s e-book, Comments on Jacques Lacan’s (1960) Discourse to Catholics.

0293 For the layman’s reoriented interscope, the following nested form resides on (what appears to be) the situation level.

A positivist intellect_3a brings the dyadic actuality_2a, {mathematics and mechanics as matter_2am [substantiates] disciplinary language and data as form_2af}, into relation with the potential of ‘phenomena’_1a.

For the triumphalist scientist’s two-level interscope, the above nested form stands on the content level.

0294 This crooked line of development produces the following re-oriented three-level interscope.

0295 So, what am I saying?

When a scientist considers a thing_2a, the scientist views the form_2af as if mathematics and mechanics_2am apply.

When a non-scientist regards a thing_2z, the natural philosopher views the thing_2z just as Aristotle does, as the dyad, {matter_2zm [substantiates] form_2zf}.

0296 I know this sounds shifty.

0297 Does the shifty reorientation infer that the regular person, following the intuition of Aristotle, ends up “entangling” scientific sensible construction with aesthetic work?

Does the layman confound the positivist intellect_3a (for the reorientation) with disciplinary language_3b (for the scientist) with what I experience_3b (for the general interscope) and style_3b (instead of aesthetic or technical work_3b)?

0298 Dr. Noe exits the laboratory and enters the real world, filled with regular people.

Now, I find out that his argument leads to a re-orientation that supports the claim that common folk cannot distinguish scientific work from aesthetic work.

0299 It makes me wonder whether things themselves belong to the dyadic realm of actuality₂ or the monadic world of possibility₁.

0300 Section one of chapter twelve (S1C12, “Creatures of Our Own Creation” (S1) in “Nature After Art” (C12)), starts with a discussion of “binocular-rivalry” and “aspect-shifting”.  Usually, one regards an ambiguous form as composed on one matter (rabbit) or another (duck).  But, there is the third frame where one is aware that both matters, one originating and one entangled, are in play.  Confoundings can be dangerous.  Confoundings resolve in many ways.

0301 The author is a modernist, who does not have a technical definition where “entanglement” is integral to a “confounding”.  Nonetheless, Dr. Noe’s vision is worthy of “engagement”, because he is on target with the idea that the normal context of what makes us who we are_3c operates on the potential of ‘art and philosophy’_1c.

0302 He proposes that art and philosophy_1c may support a reorientation_2c, where new processes_2cm and constitutions_2cf are socially constructed. 

0303 However, he does not grasp that the aesthetic work of art and philosophy_1c may enrich and add value to established processes_2cm and constitutions_2cf (R, see points 0157-0160).

He only grasps that the aesthetic work of art and philosophy_1c can resist established principles_2bm and embodiments_2bf (S).

0304 Finally, lest I forget stating the obvious, bad art and bad philosophy_1b may destroy established processes_2cm and constitutions_2cf without any awareness that these things_2c offer solutions to the question, “What makes us who we are?_3c“.

0305 Come on, are we really “creatures of our own creation”?

I am reminded of the title of a modernist book by classicist and archaeologist, V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957), Man Makes Himself.  The book came out in the fate-filled year of 1936.

0305 One day, there will be is nothing more “historical” than “dialectical materialism”.

That day has not yet arrived.

How so?

0306 Consider the following permutation of the reoriented interscope of the layman in a world permeated by science.   The noumenon_1a, which was placed by the Positivist’s judgment into the realm of possibility, shifts to base actuality_2z.

Figure 64

0307 The unfolded Positivist’s judgment, with its actuality_2a reified from a triad into a dyad, occupies the layman’s situation level.  The subscripts are a little confusing, as they should be for a reorientation.

The resolved basement-level confounding entails the noumenon’s form_2zf [entangling] mathematics and mechanisms as matter_2am.

What does that confounding imply?

0308 The above interscope, inspired by Dr. Noe’s path from the laboratory to the world outside the laboratory, surely adds value to the author’s book, because it shows how this work comports with the author’s 2009 book, titled, Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain And Other Lessons From The Biology of Consciousness.

Indeed, we can even add another subtitle: Despite what you think about these sciences.

0309 What does the noumenon_2z say?

Does the scientist experience_3a matters of mathematics and mechanics_2am substantiating forms of disciplinary language and data_2af emerging from the potential of phenomena_1a?

Does the regular person experience scientific technical work_3b as matters of organizing principles_2bm manufacturing the forms of scientific reports_2bf (disciplinary language and data) as emerging from ‘the power of spoken language to assign referents’_1b?

0015 A “confounding” is a thing where originating matter substantiates a form and the form entangles another matter.  Confoundings are inherently unstable.  Confoundings often represent opportunity or danger.  In the latter case, entanglement can lead to entrapment.

0016 Confoundings tend to resolve in one way or another.  This examination will present two resolutions.  The confounding pictured above resolves when the entangled matter enters the adjacent-higher categorical level.  In this case, the entangled matter on the content level rightfully belongs as matter on the situation level.

In other words, in the above figures, the content-level entangled matter properly belongs to the situation level.  Perhaps, that fact explains (or resolves) the entanglement in the first place.

0017 Here is a picture of the resolutions for the prior confoundings.

0018 The above figure needs a few notes.

0019 First, the subscripts indicate that these variations on Aristotle’s hylomorphe are actualities (2) on the content (a) and situation (b) levels.

Second, the entanglement no longer appears.  However, it still operates because the situation level virtually emerges from and situates the content level.

Third, another term for the situation-level actuality_2bf is “embodiment”.  Embodiment_2bf may be an activity or a result of an activity. 

0020 Fourth, the title of chapter 1 of this book adds another note.  What does “thinking about things differently, from things to flows” imply?  To me, the title implies that the content-level substance concerns “thingness” and the situation level associates to “flowness”.  When these implications are accounted for, here is the resolution, once again.

0021 Hodder wants the inquirer to think about “things” in terms of “flows”.  These flows consist of activities that build, maintain, and eventually discard the thing.

Clearly, the “thing” that Hodder discusses is an artifact.  Consider the pun, “An artifact is a fact of art.”  Thingness is the substance for facts.  Flowness is the substance for art.