Category Archives: Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in

Human psychology evolved under in the social milieu of constrained complexity. Currently, humans live in unconstrained complexity. What has this done to our minds? These topics are addressed in various parts of An Archaeology of the Fall, particularly in chapters 8C and 11B.

02/28/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 AA

[In our current Lebenswelt, all word reference is socially constructed.

This poses a hidden weakness for people who think they are rational, sensible, practical, pragmatic, and so on. These are the people who think that they are right because they make sense.

What is their weakness?

Their stance does not allow them to see below their feet.

They cannot see (or even admit) that they stand on a social construction.

These are the useful idiots of every revolution.]

02/21/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 W

Summary of text [comment] page 80

[Our current Lebenswelt exhibits a wide variety of symbolic orders.

We might distinguish them as ‘specialized languages that make sense of the world’ (sensible construction) in contrast to ‘specialized languages that inspire us to social construction’. This dichotomy matches the distinction between naturalism and theism.

This is a false dichotomy.

Why?

The ‘languages that make sense of the world’ are no longer obviously referential.

Why?

Just try to image a thing using purely spoken words.

Try to point to a thing with spoken words.

Tell me how your spoken words index your body.

Compare spoken words to pantomime and manual-brachial gestures. Hand-talk words were iconic and indexal. They were intuitively referential. That is not the case for spoken words. Even the most familiar speech-alone words do not intuitively image or point to their referent. Instead, reference is projected into word-sounds.

In our current Lebenswelt, meaning, presence and message are projected into our speech-alone words.]

02/20/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 V

[In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, our ancestors exhibited constrained complexity.

So, what can we (humans) conclude about our evolved nature:

We innately expect words to be referential, facilitating seeking pleasure, avoiding pain and safely ignoring the rest.

We innately hold a self-centerness and a selfishness that expects to be contradicted by a (nonsensical) tradition within constrained complexity.

We innately expect sensible construction to be contradicted by social construction.

Social construction builds networks of cooperation based on objects that are ‘references constructed on references’.

We innately expect to conduct sensible construction on the basis of a reference, that cannot be fully talked about, generated by social construction.]

02/15/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 S

Summary of text [comment] page 80

[The primary symbolic order, the one that made intuitive and natural sense, was the first to evolve. Reference is intended to make sense. By ‘sense’, I mean ‘different from nonsense’.

In the first symbolic order, the selfishness and self-centeredness of humans reflected a primal innocence. Just like all other animals, we expect our word-gestures to make sense, so we can seek pleasure, avoid pain, and know what to safely ignore.

This primary symbolic order serves ‘sensible construction’.]

02/14/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 R

Summary of text [comment] page 80

[In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, our hand talk was both referential and symbolic. Referential iconic and indexal sign-qualities belonged to the perspective level. The symbolic sign-qualities belonged to the content and situation levels.

Grammar was powered by the symbolic operations. It allowed two symbolic orders.

One made intuitive and sensual sense.

The other did not make intuitive and sensual sense.]

02/13/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 Q

[In our current Lebenswelt, an adult encounters a diversity of symbolic orders unmoored from a clear sense of reference.

This poses a question:

What if we were adults in a world with a clear sense of reference?

What if we were adults who never saw a symbolic order that differed from our band’s symbolic order?

Would we be like children, as innocent as Adam and Eve?

Would our minds operate smoothly according to evolution’s manual?]

02/9/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 O

Summary of text [comment] page 80

[When religious institutions look at the person, they see a person who needs to be repaired. Two normal contexts and two potentials intersect in a single actor.

When religions interpellate the actor, they provide a symbolic order (or specialized language) through which the person may construct “himself”. This construction may build character (as in a suprasovereign religion) or impose organization (as in a infrasovereign religion).

Either way, conversion reduces contradictions between human thought and action.]

02/8/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 N

Summary of text [comment] page 80

[Freud’s model describes the human psyche in a fashion that matches an intersection.

What does this imply?

Maybe, once upon a time, the id, superego and ego worked like a functioning engine. The ego was the perspective that brought the situation-based superego (conforming to social rules and traditions) into relation with the possibility of the id (expressing the desires of the individual).

Now, we are broken. We do not operate according to our evolutionary manual. Our evolutionary trajectory has been derailed.]