11/30/24

Looking at Daniel Houck’s Book (2020) “Aquinas, Original Sin and the Challenge of Evolution” (Part 1 of 23)

0001 Daniel W. Houck juggles five challenges in his attempt to recover Thomas Aquinas’s teachings on original sin.

0002 One, Aquinas does not challenge Augustine’s mechanism of original sin. Original sin descends through Adam to all humans through human reproduction. Augustine’s speculation is now on the chopping block, because modern biologists observe no large genetic bottleneck, as required by Augustine’s proposed scenario. Concupiscence may be undeniable. But, it does not plague humans due to descent from a single ancestral pair.

On one hand, original sin cannot be accounted for as a sexually transmitted disease.

On the other hand, sexually transmitted diseases can, in part, be accounted for by original sin.

0003 Two, original sin is inextricably tied to a difficult conversation about the fate of the souls of infants and fetuses, who tragically die. Where do the souls of aborted fetuses go? To the city dump?

0004 Three, the doctrine of original sin does not appear in Scripture. Instead, original sin comes from interpreting Scripture. It’s like the smell of the rotting food. If one reads Scripture and follows the unfolding theodrama with care, one cannot help but conclude with Paul, in his notorious Letter to the Romans, that Adam and Christ are linked. The Scriptures stink of original sin. Yet, the fragrance of redemption overcomes the sordid aromas. That is the Good News. Jesus is a breath of fresh air.

0005 Four, despite recent attempts to revive the theology of Thomas Aquinas, his account of original sin remains neglected. There is a reason. Thomas never locks onto a clear and concise reckoning. A hundred years ago, Aquinas’s thoughts on the matter are debated. Jean Baptiste Kors publishes an in-depth examination under the title, La Justice primitive et le peche originel d’apres S. Thomas (1922). Now, it is crickets.

0006 Five, Houck consigns even the crickets to silence, because the crickets never considered Neodarwinism and how it puts Augustine’s speculation on the chopping block. In light of the shimmering axe of negation poised above the City of God, much less the City of Man, the crickets may silently snicker at Houck’s promise to tie together Aquinas’s account of original justice with other areas of the great medieval theologian’s thought. Does a synthesis matter? After the blade of scientific expertise comes down on the idea that Adam and Eve are the first humans, will the executioner call out, “Next, original justice.”?

0006 Already modern theologians slink away from the historicity of the Fall.

Can they do without this non-scientific nonsense?

Houck does not think so. No responsible Christian theologian thinks so.

Houck must juggle these five juggernauts, as if each does not have a life of its own. What is the secret that brings them into obedient motion, where one goes up while another comes down?

It is not to be found in his book.

0007 It is to be found in the hypothesis of the first singularity.

The stories of Adam and Eve, along with all currently known written origin stories of the ancient Near East, point to a recent time-horizon, beyond which civilization cannot see.

They point to the first singularity.

They cannot see beyond this event.

The ancient myths say, “Humans are made right before civilization starts.”

Now, archaeologists testify to humans before the time horizon of the first singularity.

Humans walk the earth long before the dawn of history.

0008 Is Adam the first human, as suggested by Augustine, as well as by the Genesis text?

If Adam is not the first human, then who is Adam?

Adam must be a figure in a fairy tale. The fairy tale may be about an event, or something like an event, hidden in time. We (moderns) do not know much about what came before this event. We know more than nothing. Neolithic stone tools that tell us that, after 12,000 years ago, plants become very important as food. The remains of sedentary villages tell us that we learned to give plants as food to the animals.

The Neolithic marks the invention of agriculture.

The Developed Neolithic combines stockbreeding and agriculture.

0009 There is an intimation, in Genesis 1:26-30, of a humanity before Adam. If that is the case, then why does the Story of the Garden of Eden start with God creating Adam from dust and Eve from Adam’s rib?

Oh yeah, the story of the Garden of Eden is a fairy tale. And, a fairy tale may be about an event, or something like an event, hidden in time. At the start of this event, Adam busies himself with the garden and names the animals. He gets to contribute a rib to make Eve. He is innocent. So is Eve. Together, they portray everything that the hominins evolved to be.

In the garden, there is the tree of life. This tree is a metaphor for Thomas Aquinas’s notion of original justice. It is also a metaphor for the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

The tree of life is a metaphor for the Lebenswelt where humans are what they evolved to be.

0010 The noumenon of humans, like all animals, is hylomorphic.

The word, “hylomorphe”, combines two words, “hyle” (matter) and “morphe” (form). According to Comments on Daniel De Haan’s Essay (2018) “Hylomorphism and the New Mechanist Philosophy…”, Aristotle’s hylomorphe associates to Peirce’s category of secondness. Peirce’s secondness consists in two contiguous real elements. Here, the two real elements are matter and form. The contiguity? May I use the word, “substance”?

The contiguity is placed in brackets. Secondness is denoted by the subscript.

11/5/24

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

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

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

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

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

0238 How to describe the contiguity?

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

These three approaches tie into the above actuality.

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

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

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

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

0241 Perhaps, the reader can predict my next move.

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

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

Here is how the perspective level changes.

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

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

What are the implications?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original justice_2c pertains to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Original sin_2c pertains to our current Lebenswelt.

Original sin_2c is the privation of original justice_2c.

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

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

Why stop there?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This explains why revelation is necessary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0254 And, what about the turtle?

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

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

10/31/24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0851 So why examine this work?

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

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

What will this examination reveal?

10/5/24

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does this suffice?

The Gestalt switches from one to the other interscope.

1062 What else?

The change of Gestalts reconfigures the title.

1063 What Enfield cannot say is this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1067 Enfield’s interscope is beautiful to behold.

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

The answer cries out for a Gestalt inversion.

One Gestalt hinges on the contiguity, “translates”.

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

1068 The invert interscope is a wonder to behold.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

09/30/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 1 of 23)

0495 A note on blog protocol.

In the strange world of blogs, the most recent blog appears first, so the first blog in a sequence must be placed last in any given month, in order for the blogs to be read from top to bottom.

0496 A note on timing and points.

The blog for July 2024 examines a book by British sociologist, Steve Fuller. This examination introduces the interscope for the post-truth condition, along with its embedded interventional sign-relation.

The blog for August 2024 tests the relevance of the post-truth interscope, by applying the purely relational structure to a reading of a book by American entrepreneur and um… politician (?)… Vivek Ramaswamy. Battles among enlightenment gods shape modern history.

These constitute Part One of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Also, in August, the post-truth interscope is shown to be much older than one would suspect. The sophists of ancient Greece run the same game as the modern post-truth condition. That implies that the post-truth condition may trace to the beginning of our current Lebenswelt. A review of an essay by Josef Pieper is the second examination in Part Two.

Now, in September 2024, the post-truth interscope is applied to a book by a physical therapist with an excellent sense of what is happening, Michelle Stiles. Decode this book in order to find out the potential of ‘something’ happening. This review is the first examination in Part Two.

Finally, in October 2024, an encore. Looking at N. J. Enfield’s Book (2022) Language vs. Reality constitutes Part Three of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition.

0497 Here is a look at the examination of the post-truth condition and its relation to original sin.

0498 Let me sound my notes once again.

The end of Fuller’s book predicts what happens when a person in the thralls of an empirio-normative judgment_2c is sacrificed to an enlightenment deity, such as the one of scientism_3c. The scrappy player_3a discovers that the system’s definition of “success_2c“ is not what he calls “success_2a“. For the scientismist one_3c, “success_2c” is not the scrappy player’s “getting ahead_2a“. Rather, “success_2c” is an exercise of an empirio-normative judgment_2c.

0499 Here is a picture of the contemporary post-truth interscope.

0500 Vivek Ramaswamy’s book is a testimony to the character of expert-driven_3b psychometric values_2b as formalizations_1b that distort what people are willing to say_2a.

Oh… I did not mean to use the word, “distort”… I meant to use the word, “model”.

Psychometric studies_2b demonstrate that what people are willing to say_2a can be modeled according to postmodern formulations_2b that encourage_1c those who “trust the science”_3c to render an empirio-normative judgment_2c that stands for how what people think and what people say is hurtful and objectionable_2b, according to criteria_2b established by those_3brepresenting the most vulnerable in society_1b.

0501 What is a person who thinks that “success_2a” means “to get ahead by hard work and an attitude of cooperation_2a“supposed to do, when thwarted by the accusation_2b that such speech is euro-centric and ethno-supremacist? Keep working hard and acting agreeably? A panel of experts_3b will formalize_1b whatever this scrappy player says_2a and does_2ainto an accusation_2b that stands in the way of getting ahead.

The scrappy player is tempted to say, “Screw it. The empirio-normative judgment wins. I am outta here.”

0502 As soon as the scrappy player lays flat and looks up, the sky offers an opportunity, a screen to paint the One who Signifies, without Us Knowing Why.

This implicit abstraction is more primordial than anything that our current Lebenswelt can offer as a perspective_c-level reality₂. The originating source of the interventional sign-relation is a sign-vehicle (SV_i) that cannot be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled. How so? The interventional sign-vehicle_2c (SV_i) stands for what can be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled_2a, including the odors of frustration, failure and fear_2a (SO_i), according to an intellect that recognizes signs_3a contextualizing a will that appreciates a gift in what is being encountered_1a (SI_i).

This is the type of mental behavior that we (humans) evolved to perform. Humans recognize signs. Humans appreciate gifts. After all, both involve triadic relations. The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.

0503 The trick (SI_i) for the interventional sign-relation comes from the fact that we experience the sign-object (SO_i) and then must figure out the sign-vehicle (SV_i) . Our experiences of things in the world_2a (SO_i) testifies to an actuality in the mind of a perspective-level being_2c (SV_i).

0504 Fuller, at the end of his practical guide, contemplates the SO_i of himself [proposing] an account of how the post-truth condition comes to be_2a. Simultaneously, the One Who Signifies_3c weaves the notion of original sin_2c (SV_i) into Fuller’s narrative.

Original sin_2c (SV_i) stands for Fuller telling an origin story for the post-truth condition_2a (SO_i) in regards to an interpretant that is within, yet transcending, Fuller’s intellect_3a and will_1a (SI_i).

0505 Here is a picture of the interventional sign-relation residing within chapter fourteen of Fuller’s text, following Fuller’s definition of metalepsis.

0506 Does Fuller merely relate a historical account of how the post-truth condition comes to be?

Or, is he also is making a discovery?

Or, should I say… revealing an insight?

0507 On January 2, 2024, in his blog, Razie Mah proposes that the doctrine of original sin needs to be reformulated in light of a fact. The science of genetics disproves Saint Augustine’s claim that Adam’s transgression passes from Adam to all humans through direct descent, without modification. Genetics establishes, beyond doubt, that there is no bottleneck in human evolution that would correspond to an original human pair, unless that pair exists hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Consider Looking at William Lane Craig’s Book (2021) “In Quest of the Historical Adam” and Looking at Andrew Ter Ern Loke’s Book (2022) “The Origin of Humanity and Evolution”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in September, 2022, and November, 2023, respectively. These examinations show the futility of regarding Adam and Eve as the originators of our species, Homo sapiens.

0508 Mah’s proposal launches a strange and serious enterprise.

At this moment in history, psychometric experts_3b testify that their analysis_2b of what people say_2a shows no need for the doctrine of original sin, except for the problem that people do not understand how the system works_2c. “Religion”, once attributed to “Christian factions”, no longer has relevance compared to bureaucratic rationalizations_2b that narrow formal knowledge_1b into two tranches, one capitalist and one socialist, which combine into a mystery, an intersection, that is far more salient to modern society than so-called “religion”. Value_2b is a single actuality constituted by the actualities of financial transaction_2H and organizational objective_2V. Or, shall I say, money and politics?

0509 Some of the more intellectually inclined scrappy players go so far as to call America’s government-occupying secular bureaucracy a “religion”. And, it is. But, it is not “religion” defined as “a Christian faction”.

Yes, it depends on how one defines the word, “religion”.

0510 Sophistication aside, the one of scientism_3c, who rules this “system”, may well be a manifestation of… yes… original sin. How does one account for scientism_3c as a person writ large, possessing the minds of apparently regular people, as institutions writ small, turning them into advocates for the scientismist one_3c?

0511 Augustine focuses on disordered desires. Does a doctrine of disordered desires suffice to account for the disoriented minds that justify the deranged valuations_2b of psychometric experts_3b? Or, are disordered desires and disoriented minds both symptoms of an evolution-twisting cultural trajectory that is portrayed in the Genesis stories of Adam and Eve, all the way to the Tower of Babel? An affirmative answer to the second question opens the door to a second doctrine of original sin.

0512 If the early chapters of Genesis are fairy tales concerning the instigation of unconstrained social complexity during the Ubaid and the Uruk archaeological periods of southern Mesopotamia, and if the Ubaid culture of southern Mesopotamia is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk, at a time when all other cultures practice hand-speech talk,then theologians should weave the hypothesis of the first singularity into the fabric of a second doctrine of original sin.

0513 A second doctrine?

Yes, a second doctrine must account for Augustine’s first doctrine as a special application, in the same way that quantum mechanics accounts for Newtonian physics as a special application.

Inquiry into the post-truth condition may open the portal to a second doctrine of original sin.

So, I begin.

The book before me is by Michelle Stiles, the full title is One Idea to Rule Them All: Reverse Engineering American Propaganda. The book is copyrighted in 2022 and published by the author.

0514 The cover photo depicts a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Yes, experts_3b are human, just like scrappy players_3a.

So, they could be the wolves in sheep’s clothing.

It is the scientismist one_3c that I am not sure about.

09/4/24

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

0749 What about domination?

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

More research is required.

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

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

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

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

The laboratory of expertise strives for an effective formulation.

Will they configure a final solution?

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

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

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

Something greater than “our” intellect_3a is required.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Therefore, it must be ignored.

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

0754 The crisis is about to begin.

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

08/9/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 20 of 20)

0487 Here is a picture of the interscope for the post-truth condition.

0488 In the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: Empirio-Normative Domination of Citizen Populations (1989-present), the scientismist one_3c endeavors to first, bring a judgment_2c into relation with the potential of an opportunity_1c.

In this judgment, the disciplinary languages of the psychometric sciences (relation, thirdness) brings a normative narrative, expressing real intelligibility (what ought to be, secondness), into relation with something universal in what people say (what is, firstness).

Second, this judgment_2c may serve as an interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) triggering people’s reason_3a,1a (SI_i) and creating a dyad where what I think coincides with the broadcast normative narrative [and is objectified as] what I am willing to say (SO_i).

0489 Submission to the one of scientism takes the same character as when triumphalist science situates empirio-schematic research by placing a model over its noumenon, as discussed in Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) as well as Razie Mah’s blogs in April, May and June 2024.

Here is a comparison.

0490 The interscope for the post-truth condition allows the inquirer to step back from the conditions of submission, in order to explore the nature of the Woke World War. The actuality of the scrappy player, who is yet to submit, but cannot ignore the broadcasts, perfectly mimics a thing that is the ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment. That is to say, the scrappy player is the subject of a scientific inquiry and is trapped, like a rat, in the laboratory of the psychometric sciences.

Here is a comparison of the scrappy player’s actuality versus what is of the Positivist’s judgment.

0491 Standing against these two comparisons is a proposition that has been proclaimed by Christianity for centuries and has been rejected over and over again, because it forces the person to stand before God.

This actuality implies a fatal weakness of the post-truth condition.

Reason_3a,1a is more than the intellect_3a operating on the will_1a.

0492 Ramaswamy knows this.

He knows that the sociopaths who run woke corporations and non-governmental organizations know this. Reason is more than the intellect operating on the will. But, this is the post-truth condition that bigilibs have grown to love, for fun (virtue-signaling) and for profit (financial benefits accruing through sovereign-imposed organizational objectives).

Deception thrives in the post-truth condition.

0493 Woke, Inc. tells a story that runs deep.

The beginning writes the end.

0494 My thanks to Vivek Ramaswamy for his engaging text.

08/8/24

Looking at Josef Pieper’s Book (1974) “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” (Part 1 of 8)

0756 The essay is originally published in German by Kosef-Verlag, Munich. In 1988, the essay is translated by Lothar Krauth, in an edition by Schuabenverlag AG, Osterfindern bei Stuttgart. The essay before me is published in 1992 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco.

Why should I examine this essay?

Is the post-truth condition a manifestation of original sin?

0757 If the answer is “yes” to the latter question, then the answer to the former is partially unveiled.

Obviously, there is no direct path from the post-truth condition to a reincarnation of the doctrine of original sin, but both can enter the cognitive space carved out by Pieper’s title. The stories of Adam and Eve portray an abuse of language similar to the type that we see today.

0758 The post-truth interscope is formulated in Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “The Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition” and applied in Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.”.

The post-truth interscope has three levels.

Here is a picture.

0759 The content level is labeled “scrappy player”. This is a level of under contention. How so? The actuality does not look like the scrappy player’s own self-impression. Typically, people feel that what I think [accords with] what I say,rather than a dyad that has the characteristics of what is of the Positivist’s judgment. So, the content-level actuality for the post-truth condition comes across as weirdly familiar, yet unnatural. The same goes with the normal context_3a and potential_1a of reason_3a,1a. Reason_3a,1a is the intellect_3a contextualizing the will_1a. Plus, the interscope is not clear as to who engages reason_3a,1a. Is reason_3a,1a the sign-interpretant (SI_i) for the scientismist one_3c‘s sign-vehicle (SV_i)? Or is reason_3a,1a a feature of the scrappy player’s cognition? Or both?

0760 The situation level is labeled “expert”. Psychometric scientists_b situate what the scrappy player is willing to say_2aas phenomena that may be formalized as observations and measurements_1b. Also, psychometric experts_3b bring models of value_2b into relation with the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’_1b.

0761 The perspective level is labeled “relativist one”. This is a level that is difficult to grasp. The current relativist one_3cis called, “the one of scientism_3c“, because science has become the common style for expert_3b expressions of value_2b, where value_2b is the intersection of capitalist and socialist nested forms. So, the scientismist one_3c may be regarded as “the system” or “the style” (or even, “the hive”) for the current interscope of the post-truth condition.

Fuller notes that there is an absolute character to the relativist one_3c. In order to truly operate as a relativist, one must be outside of all relativized jurisdictions. That observation indicates that the relativist one_3c should occupy the perspective-level normal context of the post-truth interscope. Plus, that observation indicates that relativized jurisdictions should belong to the situation level. So, all sciences and experts_3b are relative from the point of view of the scientismist one_3c.

0762 So, let me make a prediction as to how Josef Pieper’s argument will play out.

08/1/24

Looking at Josef Pieper’s Book (1974) “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” (Part 8 of 8)

0826 Needless to say, the trader with refined reason_3c belongs to one of the finest families in Athens.

The ancients have a saying, “The best, corrupted, become the worst.”

Abuse of power goes hand in hand with abuse of language.

Abuse of language manifests in the realm of possibility₁.

Abuse of power develops in the realm of normal contexts₃.

0827 Here is a picture.

0828 The actualities₂ of the sophist interscope are topics of gossip and conversation.

0829 Does the sophist really believe what he says?

Is the idea that Athens should economically sanction Syracuse not the same as “war”?

Well, it is and it isn’t.

What is the definition of the word, “war”?

And finally, what about the enforcement of the sanctions?

Of course, Athenian troops can stop ships from Syracuse from docking, but is that enough?

I hear rumors that ships are now simply bypassing Athens and going to Thebes.

0830 In the forum, the bought-off… er… well-paid sophist hears what people are saying. He has a ready reply, “Thebes is causing a problem. We should think about going to war with Thebes. Not, this weak-kneed sanction business, but full-fledged conquest.”

0831 It’s like selling candy to a baby.

This is what Plato sees.

0832 What is there to stop the sophists_3b and their behind-the-scenes sponsors_3c?

If a reasonable person_3a,1a adopts the sophist terminology, then the reasonable person_3a,1a buys into the way that the sophist_3b has framed the citizen’s reality and understanding.

Consequently, even the reasonable person’s thoughts are tainted, because what he says (using a word whose meaning, presence and message has been tweaked by the sophist) cannot correspond to what he thinks (because he thinks in terms of the traditional meaning, presence and message of the spoken word).

0833 A citizen may ask, “Would sending a delegation to Thebes asking what is going on be a way to avoid war?”

The sophist replies, “No, Athena forbid! Sending a delegation would be an act of war. Obviously, the traders in Thebesalready are trying to take advantage of our conflict with Syracuse. We all know that ships from Syracuse are docking in Thebes. Sending a delegation would only tip them off, so they would attack us, with the assistance of Syracuse, before we can attack them.”

0834 The sophist interscope supports ruinous political decisions.

But, does the sweetness of refined reason_3c turn to bitterness?

Or does the fish rot from the head, down?

0835 The one who pays to support refined reason_3c no longer believes that refined reason_3c is right reason. Instead, it is a way to gain advantage_1c by promoting political decisions_2c that favor the elite, rather than all citizens. Without a doubt, the most advantageous political decision_2c is the one_2c where public citizens bear the risks and costs and private elites gain the benefits.

0836 Today, experts_2b call these arrangements, “public-private partnerships”. The arrangement sounds attractive, “the public” (that is, a government bureaucracy) works with “private” citizens (that is, very wealthy operators) in order to accomplish goals that neither can achieve alone, such as an active war with Thebes while engaging in sanctions with Syracuse.

Finally, the citizen becomes confused and starts saying what the sophist says as if it is his own thought. Sanctions are war. Diplomacy is war. Thebes and Syracuse must be defeated. No one quite knows why, because reason_3a,1a itself has fallen into sophistry_2b.

0837 Tyranny is near when reason_3a,1a falls into sophistry_2b, because a dictator and his allies may declare what one can say, as if that is the gateway to what one can think. Citizens who have fallen into sophistry have no defense and end up blaming those who speak against sophistry.

0838 Weirdly, this is the topic is covered from a completely different approach, in the ninth and tenth primers of the series, How To Define the Word “Religion” and Related Primers, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues. The titles are A Primer on Classical Political Philosophy and A Primer on Another Infrasovereign Religion.

0840 So, what was Plato’s problem?

We all know what happened to Socrates.

His admirers and compatriots, including Plato, were devastated.

Plato could only stop, and lay flat, and look into the empty sky.

And, an interventional sign-relation comes to be.

07/31/24

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

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

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

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

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

What matters is how something is decided.

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

0026 So, how is a matter to be decided?

Shall we call upon the experts?

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

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

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

0028 So, is there a problem?

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

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

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

A law must be passed to deter this conduct.

0030 What does Fuller predict?

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

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

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Category Archives: The science of Original Sin