01/9/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 9 of 12)

0102 Here is where I left off in the last blog.

0103 Another author with the name of Jones, describes the act of persuasion as applying a category of the mind.

To start, there is the mind-independent reality of a situation (A).

For Schwab, this mind-independent reality includes thousands of people working independently, as well as collaboratively, in cutting edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, robotics, material science, genetic research, biochemistry, biology and so on. All these technologies will contribute to shaping the future in ways that those who seek control cannot control. Those who seek control envision chaos.

0104 So, B, a mind-dependent being, is formulated. As per the rules of the Greimas square, B contrasts with A and sets the stage for a creative leap to an apparently mind-dependent being, C.

For Schwab, this mind-dependent being (B) is a plan for shaping the future, courtesy of the World Economic Forum, composed (according to Jones) by those who seek control (or their representatives and lackeys, who are compromised and therefore easily… um… directed.)

0105 The mind-dependent being (B) represents the mind, in the term, category of the mind.

How so?

Well, the mind (B) engages what it^B thinks belongs to the outside world (A), that is, mind-independent being, as if it^A (A) is a mind-dependent being (C).

For example, if I find a slab of marble (A), and I figure that I can carve a statue of ‘something’ (B), I begin chiseling (C) this mind-independent being (A) according to my vision (B). This artisanal example is not only a creative act, but it exhibits the purely relational character of an act of persuasion.

0106 As the slab of marble is fashioned (C) it speaks against the ‘something’ that I figure I can carve (B). Plus, it^Ccomplements the integrity of the originating thing (A).

For Schwab, the fashioning of the fourth industrial revolution (including the covid-19 business) (B) is precisely an artistic effort (C), similar to a sculptor working on stone. However, as Jones rightly notes, the metaphorical slab of stone is composed of humans, who can be as dumb as bricks, but nevertheless bear the image of their Creator.

Who is the creator here, God or the sculptor of the Great Reset?

Illusions (C) can be confounding. To the mind, a mind-independent being takes on the character of mind-dependence.

0107 Next comes a delusion (D), a mind-dependent being that is categorized as mind-independent.

Ah, is D the category-aspect of the term, “category of the mind”?

Yes, the other Jones is onto ‘something’.

If D goes with “category” and B associates to “of the mind”, then the other Jones’s term, “category of the mind”, labels how D complements B, contrasts with C, and speaks against A.

0108 A delusion (D), appearing to be mind-independent, applies a category of the mind onto the originally mind-independent topic (A).

For the first example of an act of persuasion discussed in these blogs, the apparently mind-independent being is the second amendment of the Constitution (D). This category of the mind is superimposed, by corporate media, upon heinous crimes (A).

0109 The delusion (D) expresses a mind-independent being that speaks against the originating mind-independent being(A).

Thus, the delusion (D) imposes a category of the mind onto the originating focus (A). It is as if the second amendment(an apparently mind-independent being) opens the door to heinous crimes (as mind-independent beings) and is therefore complicit. If this statement makes sense, then pause and savor the delusion (D) as an act of persuasion, leading to the imposition of a category of the mind upon mind-independent being.

0110 Both D and B precipitate, or “co-create”, the category of the mind.

The delusion (D) complements the mind-dependent being (B) and, often enough, serves as a mental impression of the originating mind-independent being (A). B is the mind in a category of the mind. D is the category.

Who is the other Jones?

Think E. Michael.

0111 For Schwab, the delusion (D) comes with the label, “stakeholder capitalism”. Stakeholder capitalism is like a statue, a mind-independent being, chiseled out of social upheaval during the fourth industrial revolution. There are three stakeholders: progress, people and planet. All three are reified into mind-independent beings that somehow put capital, the undead blood flowing through the living arteries and veins of the global economy, into perspective.

Once the work of the Great Reset (C) is complete, stakeholder capitalism (D) will have replaced the second amendment (D) as the mind-independent being (D) imposed on all sorts of encounters with reality (A).

Schwab’s act of persuasion will become fiat accompli.

0112 Here is a diagram of the Greimas square derived from the titles of Klaus Schwab’s five books.

01/6/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 10 of 12)

0113 From the very start, the intrepid Alex Jones intuitively anticipates the purely relational structure that defines Klaus Schwab’s act of persuasion. After bringing these associations to consciousness, I want to futz.

Here is how I associate Jones’s summary of Schwab’s approach to the Greimas square.

0114 To me, Jones’s selection of terms reproduces what Schwab sees in his mirror. Schwab’s mirror tells Klaus what is happening, just as it would tell any sorcerer. As Jones dismantles Schwab’s argument, Klaus’s mirror remains unsullied.

0115 So, here is where I want to futz (that is, to suggest a small adjustment).

Typically, people futz because they think that they are smarter than they actually are.

Perhaps, my futz reflects the same underlying condition.

Here are alternate terms to “problem, reaction and solution”. They express the same character, but with a different flavor.

0116 Surely, this Greimas square portrays the persuasive act in Schwab’s five books.

Plus, this Greimas square reflects in Schwab’s mirror.

0117 What does that imply?

A robust argument needs to be made that Schwab’s act of persuasion is not the only response to the vision in Klaus’s mirror.

Perhaps, God has a different plan.

01/5/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 11 of 12)

0118 This examination adds value to Jones’s eye-opening book, without replacing the work itself. The book is a great read. Plus, it rests on the surface of an alternative to what the sorcerer sees in the mirror. Below that surface, a Great Awakening flows.

A Great Awakening (C)?

What (A) is happening?

God has a plan (B)?

Is revelation (C) the antidote to illusion (C)?

Does faith seeking understanding (D) challenge delusion (D)?

0119 Is the unfolding of our current theodrama an act of persuasion?

What an odd question.

Have we seen this theodrama before?

0120 Exactly how ancient is the Greimas square’s update of a medieval scholastic debate?

Is it as old as the stories of Adam and Eve?

0121 How could it be?

Here is another way to picture the updated scholastic Greimas square.

0122 Now, I associate elements in the Biblical story of the Fall to this relational structure.

A is the tree at the center of the garden. This tree is a mind-independent being.

In the October 2022 blog, Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin?”, this examiner suggests that the tree of life in the garden of Eden is already a mind-dependent being that is regarded as mind-independent. If so, then the Greimas square already operates before Eve takes interest in the singular tree. Remember, D can replace A. Remember that John Milton’s masterpiece, Paradise Lost, begins with Lucifer’s rebellion.

B is the spoken name that God gives to the tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil comes with a command, “Do not eat, lest you die.”

In C, Eve reacts to the name. The serpent assists Eve in regarding the mind-independent being in the center of the garden(A) as a mind-dependent being (C). The fruit appeals to the eyes, may be good to the taste, and is desired to make one wise. The serpent pushes the envelope of an illusion (C).

D follows. Eve is deluded into turning the illusion (C) into a mind-independent being (D). When she eats the fruit, she violates the command accompanying the naming of the tree. The mind-initiated violation is a mind-independent being. All humanity is plunged into a primal state of delusion, where we habitually and blindly project categories of the mindonto mind-independent reality. We frame. We name. We entertain illusion. We create delusions. Then, we regard our delusions (D) as mind-independent beings (A).

0123 Here is a picture of the fall of Eve.

01/4/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 12 of 12)

0124 Does the bombastic, entertaining, yet earnest Alex Jones speak fiction to fact? Or fact to fiction? Or both? Or neither?

0125 This look at his most recent book suggests that the terms, “fact” and “fiction”, are inadequate. Terms that are much older, yet still explicit abstractions, are preferable.

To me, the Latin terms, “ens reale” (mind-independent being) and “ens rationis” (mind dependent being), apply.

0126 I will not be the first to falsely accuse Alex Jones of being what he is not, when I say that Jones works in the vineyards of scholastic thought. He intuitively senses and exposes illusion and delusion. Plus, he strives to identify a nomenclature to describe how Klaus Schwab casts his sorcerer’s spell in an act of persuasion, just like that serpent in the third chapter of Genesis.

The scholastic world of the high middle ages (roughly 1100 to 1600 AD) rocks with controversies concerning how to distinguish (and perhaps, separate) ens reale and ens rationis. The schoolmen struggle against manipulative influences that bring these two types together, alchemically mixing them, in order to precipitate novel (mind-dependent) mind-independent beings (D). D can become the next A. Such is the nature of original sin.

0127 The Greimas square is an act of persuasion that does not fit what anyone currently imagines is an act of persuasion. Yet, Alex Jones smells it. He sniffs out a rhetorical pattern that seems credible, yet defies practical reason. This is his charism.

0128 A little philosophy goes a long way.

Indeed, this look at The Great Reset may seem to be a revelation.

Not unlike Jones’s book.

12/30/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) A Course on How To Define the Word “Religion” (Part 1 of 24)

0001 Many home and private schoolers face a difficulty.

They want to teach their children and students about God and nature.

At the same time, they want their children and students to pass standardized tests constructed by government agencies that declare themselves to be “not religious”.

Can a “not religious” sovereign establish a religion?

I like to call this apparent anomaly, “Big Government (il)Liberalism”.

Other names also apply.

0002 Indeed, parents and teachers suspect that the standards… or perhaps, the norms… of these godless educational… er, indoctrinating agencies do not allow a type of thinking that has been common to Christian civilization since its inception. This type of thinking is both analytic and synthetic and is promulgated by the schoolmen (or “scholastics”) of the so-called “Middle Ages”.

As it turns out, scholastic debates concerning mind-independent and mind-dependent reality end up with a definition of sign-relation that incorporates modern science, while at the same time transcending it.

Of course, the mechanical philosophers of the 1600s don’t know this. Modern scientists try to model observations and measurements of phenomena, using their highly specialized disciplinary languages. These models break down into two elements: cause and effect.

But, material and physical cause and effect cannot describe the causality inherent in sign relations.

0003 Surely, there are three elements to all existence.

Charles Peirce (1839-1914 AD) reads Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), a Baroque Scholastic, and comes up with the idea that there are three categories. Firstness has one element. Secondness (which includes mechanical science) has two elements. Thirdness has three. These three categories describe the causality inherent in a sign relation.

These three categories are also the foundation for the category-based nested form.

0004 So, what does this mean to parents and teachers?

None of the government agencies, who declare themselves to be “scientific”, can define the sign as a triadic relation.

So, perhaps that is a good place to start.

0005 Semiotics encompasses the natural sciences, not the other way around.

Teaching your students the analytic and synthetic practices of the category-based nested form and semiotics will prepare them for technology, engineering and mathematics. Science typifies secondness. And, secondness stands between thirdness and firstness.

Say what?

Take a look at the following figure. Even without familiarity with Peirce’s categories, the diagram tells a story concerning the relevance of triadic relations₁ in regards to inquiry₃ and science₂. Understanding is not the same as scientific determination.

0006 What about the social sciences?

I wonder, can modern social scientists observe and measure social phenomena?

Can they model observations of religious behavior, when they describe themselves as “not religious”?

If everyone can be religious and if social scientists choose not to be religious in order to build models of their observations of those who are, then isn’t there some sort of contradiction?

Or, is that the nature of specialization?

Speaking of specialization, sociologists do not study psychology. Psychologists do not study sociology. Plus, sociology and psychology ignore biology. All these disciplines are alchemically sealed within their own academic echo-chambers. They cannot hear one another.

Say what?

0007 The category-based nested form is a triadic relation, that is both synthetic and analytic. It is useful for reading texts. It is a powerful tool for picturing the purely relational characteristics of psychology, sociology, cognition and evolution.

A Course on How to Define the Word “Religion” offers a unique path into topics covered by the so-called “social sciences”, without the blinders of BG(il)L.

Please consider this course when developing a curriculum for your children and your students.

12/29/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) Course on How To Define the Word “Religion” (Part 2 of 24)

0008 A Course on How To Define The Word “Religion” may be found at smashwords and other e-book vendors. Use the search terms: Razie Mah, series, course, how to define the word “religion”.

The course consists of ten primers, followed by the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

The primers and the masterwork are punctuated, not by page numbers, but by points. A one-hour class may cover around forty points. That is a little slower than one per minute. If you conduct a class, record the number of points covered per session and report to raziemah@reagan.com.

0009 The first five primers are listed below.

0010 These five primers introduce the category-based nested form, the two-level and three-level interscope, and topics covered by psychology and economics.

0011 The second five primers are listed below.

0012 These five primers introduce tiers, institutions, politics and religion.

The range of applications for the category-based nested form is remarkable.

0013 These ten primers open the door to the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

This masterwork is one of three, covering the entire human evolutionary record.

0014 The method of instruction is to read and discuss. Some points will pass rapidly. Other points will evoke discussion. Don’t worry about timelines. The love of wisdom walks at her own tempo.

0015 The following blogs dwell on each of the ten primers.

12/28/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form (Part 3 of 24)

0015 The category-based nested form comes first.

Some educators say that evolution should be a key concept in teaching sociology, psychology, and other social sciences.

Yet, the modern social sciences simply take the biological sciences for granted, then mimic the empirio-schematics of the natural sciences. Disciplinary languages bring mathematical and mechanical models into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena.

The modern social sciences ignore human evolution and the mysterious character of the biological sciences.

The modern social sciences embrace empirio-schematics.

0016 Razie Mah proposes that human evolution has three aspects. He writes three masterworks, one for each aspect, as depicted in the following figure.

0017 The third work, How To Define the Word “Religion” covers the character of our current Lebenswelt. Speech-alone talk is one of the defining features of our current Lebenswelt. The spoken word may be pictured as a category-based nested form.

Here is a diagram.

0018 How To Define the Word “Religion” relies on the truly postmodern philosophy of Charles S. Peirce. The word, “postmodern”, is a site of contention, because many modern intellectuals label themselves with the term. What a fashionable attribute. No one wants to be called, “modern”. “Postmodern” is in vogue.

Yet, these self-identified “postmoderns” cannot identify Peirce’s three categories, nor how they fit together. The category of firstness is the realm of possibility. The category of secondness is the realm of actuality. The category of thirdness is the realm of signs, mediations, judgments and normal contexts.

Instead, postmodern academics propose only two categories: their good and political fellow travelers and their evil and despised detractors.

Just kidding.

0019 Peirce’s categories permit the construction of the category-based nested form.

Here is a picture.

0020 Ten primers prepare the student for How To Define the Word “Religion”.

The first is A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.

0021 The student?

This course is suitable for freshmen of all stripes, whether in middle school, high school or college.

0022 How so?

Freshmen enter introductory courses.

Freshmen need intellectual tools.

The intellectual tools introduced in these primers are relevant to understanding all three aspects of human evolution: the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt.

12/27/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form (Part 4 of 24)

0023 Peirce’s categories label the number of elements. Thirdness has three elements. Secondness has two. Firstness has one.

0024 The three elements of thirdness are relation, actuality and potential. Each category is represented in thirdness. Thirdness exhibits the logics of exclusion, alignment and complement.

0025 The two elements of secondness are contiguous. One real element is contiguous with another real element. For nomenclature, I place the contiguity in brackets: one real element [contiguity] other real element. The contiguity has the character of substance, causality, embodiment, information and so forth. Secondness exhibits the logics of contradiction and noncontradiction.

0026 The one element of firstness can be really goofy. Imagine two frames. In one frame, the canvas is covered with the color gray. The other frame holds a painting of a park in Paris in the middle of summer. Both images belong to firstness.

Here is another way to imagine firstness. Picture a coin. One item has two faces. One can only observe one face at a time. Firstness exhibits logics that are inclusive and allow contradictions.

0027 Here is a picture of the nested form. The categories serve as subscripts.

0028 So, what do the covers for the primers, as well as the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, portray?

Here is the pattern.

0029 Now, back to education.

I appeal to homeschoolers and private schools.

0030 How does one teach the ten primers as well as the masterwork?

The method is easy. Read and discuss. The text is marked with points. Step by step, both instructor and student can walk together and examine each point. Both will learn along the way.

Timing?

Each point takes one to three minutes.

An assessment of class time may be found in day 23 of this blog.

0031 The advantage?

Right now, so-called “public” schools teach the scientific facts of human evolution, according to a Darwinian picture of descent with modification. But, imagine that the facts constitute an actuality₂ that will enter into a category-based nested form.

The following nested form results.

Indoctrination asks the student to recite the facts of human evolution₂.

Education asks the student to consider the normal context₃ and assess the potential₁ underlying the facts₂.

Facts are not the same as understanding.

12/26/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (Part 5 of 24)

0033 The second primer covers sensible and social construction.

This primer is a little loopy, because, when sensible construction fails, social construction begins and when social construction ends, sensible construction begins once again.

0034 I proceed by way of example.

Today, in 2022 AD, all books on human evolution weave the fossil record into a seamless garment, starting around two million years ago and ending with paleolithic hunter-gathers.

A sequence of figures depict the actuality₂ of descent with modification₃.

0035 Descent with modification_3a is situated by evolutionary science_3b.

Here is a picture of a sensible construction.

0036 Clearly, a situation-level nested form emerges from (and situates) a content-level nested form.

Sensible construction is composed of content and situation levels, in a two-level relational structure.

12/23/22

Looking at Razie Mah’s (2014) A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (Part 6 of 24)

0037 What happens next?

Of course, some clever comedian adds more figures to the picture of human evolution painted by descent with modification.

The additional features raise a question.

0038 Comedians love to upset the narrative.

Clearly, the fat guy with a beer_2a cannot be explained by evolutionary science_3b with material and physical models_2bbased on natural selection and genetics_1b.

Neither can the hunch-back at the computer.

Sensible construction fails.

0039 When sensible construction fails, social construction begins.

A social construction appears within a nested form on the perspective level of a three-level interscope. A three-level interscope is a nested form composed of nested forms.

0040 Well, of course, the guy with the beer does not descend with modification from the guy with a spear. The two guys occupy different living worlds (or, in German, Lebenswelts). The guy with a beer belongs to our current Lebenswelt. The guy with the spear belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Does this sound vaguely familiar?

Recall that actuality₂ represents a dyad composed of two contiguous real elements. Actuality₂ looks like this:

one real element [contiguity] other real element

Correspondingly the perspective-level actuality looks like this:

the Lebenswelt that we evolved in [first singularity] our current Lebenswelt_2c

0041 Notice that elements of the perspective level are really empty slots.

0042 What is the potential_1c?

A perspective-level potential_1c virtually brings the potential of natural selection and genetics_1b into relation with the potential of both archaeology and history_1a.

The potential_1c is triadic relations. Triadic relations include signs, mediations, judgments, normal contexts and category-based nested forms. The human niche is the potential of triadic relations_1c.

0043 What is the normal context_3c?

The normal context_3c is not clear. Whatever it_3c is, it_3c puts evolutionary science_3b into perspective, even as evolutionary science_3b emerges from and situates the potential of Darwin’s foundational principle of descent with modification_3a.

I do not think that the perspective-level normal context_3c rules out theology.

If I look back at the original comedy, where the guy with a spear “evolves” into the guy with a beer, I see an intimation of a theocomedy, the humorous counterpoint to our great theodrama.

Human evolution comes with a twist.

0044 Here is a picture of the beginning of a new age of sensible construction.

An Archaeology of the Fall

A Horror Story by Razie Mah