0183 If human culture is to be modeled as the replicative success of memes, then what would empirio-schematic researchentail?
Well, if the term, “meme”, labels a cultural adaptation2b, in the normal context of cultural selection3b operating on various affordances1b, then the actuality independent of the adapting species2a must relate to the scholastic interscope of how humans think2a.
Indeed, I may highlight one particular element in the scholastic interscope2a, the species impressa2a, as the premier feature of the actuality independent of the adapting species2a.
0184 But, didn’t I offer the above content-level actuality2a as a technical definition for the term, “meme”?
So, how can the term, “meme”, also stand for a situationb-level actuality2 in the normal context of cultural selection3b?
If that is not confusing enough, consider that the content-level actuality2a also belongs to the manifest image (which is described by all three actualities of the scholastic interscope).
Plus, we are conscious of a manifest image, not its scientific image.
0185 Consciousness is the user-illusion of competition among neurons for active synapses3b. Synaptic networks form and are maintained in response to memes. The qualia that we feel are most likely memes, sign-objects of interventional signs substantiating sign-vehicles of specifying signs.
Consequently, another term for [substance] is [implicit abstraction]. The sign-objects of interventional signs (SOi) are like matter. The sign-vehicles of specifying signs (SVs) are like form.
So, a meme may be denoted as SOi [implicit abstraction] SVs.
0186 Another word for [substance] might be, “projection”.
In projection, the situation-level potential1b projects continuity into the content-level contiguity.
For example, there is no motion in cinema. There is only a rapid sequence of images cast upon a screen. The user illusion projects (or implicitly abstracts) smooth motion in time. This is only possible if the situation allows it.
Similarly, there is no sweetness to the fact that the neighbor’s cat is dead. There is only a corpse in the refrigerator and Daisy’s querying gaze, asking, “When are you going to give the dead cat back to me?”
So, the term, “meme”, also labels a neural network2b, in the normal context of neural selection3b operating on the potential of creating and destroying synapses1b, in the process of situating a species impressa2a.
But, once again, didn’t I offer the above content-level actuality2a as a technical definition for the term, “meme”?
Yes, but neural networks are clearly implicated, since they constitute the adaptation2b, and the adaptation is um… what?… a meme?
0187 If that is not enough, the designs of the most intelligent human designer cannot be compared to the adaptivity that arises from a variation of Darwinian natural selection operating on units of culture, in all their varieties. Why? There is always a cultural… er… cognitive space that even the most neurotic and attentive-to-detail engineer cannot plan for.
Consequently, cultural selection3b yields memes that survive and flourish on their own and some of these memes are so strange and resilient that they appear miraculous, even to the positivist intellect. Therefore, they must be ruled out as “not scientific”.
0188 Here is one confounded empirio-schematic judgment characterizing this discussion.
0189 In Dennett’s version of the evolution of our minds,consciousness and user-end illusion coincide. There is no example greater than the musical memes concocted by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Tunes are memes.
0190 Words are memes.
When it comes to spoken words, sometimes the less said, the better. Fewer words allow the user to engage neurons with less forward guidance. Clues to the content-level normal context3a and potential1a are not present to guide the evolution of an adaptive perception2b.
So, when I go to the neighbor, to present the dead cat, and to confess Daisy’s guilt, I only say, “I took Daisy off her leash this morning and she got away and killed your cat. Here it is. If you want me to bury it, then I will. If you want me to buy you a new cat, I will.”
0191 Then she starts to cry and says, “It’s not my cat. It’s my mother’s.”
Her mother died around five years ago.
The man who I thought was her husband? That is her brother. Her brother and her lived with mother until her death. Mother would not let her children go. She would not let anything go. She was a maven of the world and her concerns were with the world. She was an activist who took her children to demonstrations in order to signal that she, above all, cared for the children. Her last request to her daughter? Take care of the cat.
0192 My neighbor continued her tale.
The old house was too full of mother’s memes… er… memories of her mother. So, she and her brother agreed to sell the old house and to move somewhere new. They bought the house next door to mine.
Soon, her brother realizes that this is his opportunity to construct a life of his own. That is why he comes by with less and less frequency. The verge is overgrown. Her brother is engaged to be married. He has made a down-payment on a house in a different neighborhood.
0193 No, that is not her cat. It is her mother’s. I can go and bury it. She does not want another.
After a pause, I say, “This Sunday, do you mind coming to church with me? Service is at nine o’clock. I can come by at eight-thirty.”
0194 The words that I speak are memes, units of culture, pieces of semantic information, offering something that makes a difference, a novel affordance, a clue to what is happening3a and a new sense that something can happen1a. The reason that these memes are present, at this moment, is not because the words want to replicate, but because I want the words to bear a meaning, a presence and a message.
0195 Just as a biologist reflects upon an adaptation2b, according to a normal context3b and potential1b, in order to become aware of the actuality independent of the adapting species2a, my neighbor will reflect on the phantasm2b that adapts to this moment and provides an illusion3b of consciousness1b. The entire scholastic interscope2a comes alive. What is happening3a? What does it mean to me3b? Does this make sense3c?
0196 Razie Mah offers three masterworks on human evolution.
The Human Niche concerns the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
An Archaeology of the Fall dramatizes the first singularity, the transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.
How To Define The Word “Religion” concerns our current Lebenswelt.
These works sustain this examination of Dennett’s book.
0197 In these blogs, the term, “meme”, is technically defined using the scholastic interscope for how humans think. This interscope is also in play in Razie Mah’s blog for October 2023, Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”. A “meme” corresponds to a species impressa2a with a hylomorphic structure whereby the sign-object of an interventional sign substantiates a sign-vehicle for a specificative sign.
0198 According to Dennett, a spoken word is a good example of a meme.
Notably, our current Lebenswelt must face the question, asking, “What is the nature of spoken words?”
Why?
Spoken words facilitate explicit abstraction, while hand-talk words allow only implicit abstraction. We innately expect that spoken words image and point to their referents. But, they do not. Symbols are natural signs whose sign-objects are defined by convention, habit, law, tradition and so on. Yet, no hand-talk language has words that can picture or indicate these terms. “Convention”, “habit”, “law” and “tradition” label explicit abstractions that cannot be articulated using hand talk. They may exist, but cannot be named, while using hand talk.
0199 Recall that actualities2 are encountered.
Such actualities2 are understood by ascertaining an appropriate normal context3 and potential1.
0200 How To Define The Word “Religion” applies these lessons to a familiar and contentious term. This examination of Dennett’s book applies these lessons to the word, “meme”.
Here is a picture.
0201 The message? The meme exemplifies cultural evolution.
The presence? The meme embodies neural selection.
The meaning? A scientific image of the word, “meme”, should overlay what is going on in my mind, that is, the manifest image. My consciousness is an user-end illusion produced by the message and the presenceof cultural and neural selection.
0202 My thanks to the author. This well-documented work conveys that impression that inquiry into memes may account for the evolution of the human mind. Whether this impression is productive or unproductive depends on how one defines the word, “meme”.
In the Fall of 2021, the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly publishes three essays on phenomenology. Each author asks, “Why does phenomenology exclude other philosophical traditions, such as Thomism, when they share similar concerns?” The essays are not only remarkable for what they say, they are also remarkable for what they do not say. None mention natural science.
Of course, this lacunae demands exploration. Edmund Husserl (1856-1938 AD) lives in the heyday of modern science. He calls for a “return to the noumenon”. He names his method, “phenomenological reduction”. So, phenomenology concerns the noumenon and its phenomena.
The series on empirio-schematics serves as a resource. The noumenon and its phenomena appear in the Positivist’s judgment, initially derived in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.
Contributions to this series are listed below, in order of production. Most are available at smashwords and other electronic book vendors. Those that appear on the blog at www.raziemah.com are noted, along with dates.
Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions” (e-article, note on blog September 2021)
Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean-Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” (e-article, note on blog October 2021
Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenology” (e-article, note on blog October 2021)
Comments on Jack Reynolds’ Book (2018) “Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science”. (e-article, note on blog March 2022)
Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (blog only, www.raziemah.com, April 2022)
0001 The book under examination is published by T&T Clark in New York, London and Dublin, carries an ISBN number: 978-0-5677-0635-5, and presents the full title of The Origin of Humanity and Evolution: Science and Scripture in Conversation.
This examination considers the book from the point of view of Razie Mah’s three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define The Word “Religion”, corresponding to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt, respectively.
Needless to say, in this volume, Andrew Ter Ern Loke is not aware of the scientific proposals offered by Razie Mah’s masterworks. His goal is to formulate a point of view whereby the role of Adam and Eve in Augustine’s Christian tradition does not contradict the modern view of human evolution, which is surpassed by Razie Mah’s corrective.
The goal of this examination is to show that Loke intimates the proposed scientific corrective, even though he is unaware of its existence.
0002 According to the back cover, in 2022, Andrew Ter Ern Loke is an associate professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. In the acknowledgements, the author thanks scientists, philosophers, a historian of science, biblical scholars and theologians for helpful discussions. Among the list is William Lane Craig, whose recent book, The Historical Adam, is reviewed in November 2022 in Razie Mah’s blog.
Loke’s book is dedicated to a computational biologist, Joshua Swamidass, who proposes a technical solution that permits all humans to descend from one male, named “Adam”, and that one “Adam” corresponds to the one mentioned in Genesis 2.4 on.
0003 Technical solution?
There are two stories of human origins in the formerly Christian West, the Christian ones are found in Genesis and the modern Western ones concern the scientific disciplines of natural history, genetics and archaeology. So the question arises, asking, “How do these match?”
They would match if “Adam” is the first human. After all, the name, “adamah”, is ambiguous, referring to humankind, the male of the species, as well as one apparently ill-fated fellow once living on an island, in a special place called, “Eden”, near the confluence of four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates.
0004 Unfortunately, the scientific discipline of genetics rules out that option. Adam and Eve are not the first pair of humans. Contemporary human population genetics shows no sharp bottleneck that would correspond to a single pair as the first humans (as proposed by Saint Augustine, over 1600 years ago, during the twilight of the Roman Empire). This lack of correspondence opens the opportunity for other technical solutions, such as the genealogical approach by Joshua Swamidass and the approach formulated in Loke’s book. Neither Swamidass nor Loke propose that Adam and Eve are the first humans. Loke designates Adam as “God’s Image Bearer” and works from there.
0005 Here is a different way to look at the issue.
Imagine a map of the Nile, running up through Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. Now, pick up a mental pencil and relabel parts of the great river.
0006 The first chapter of Genesis is the upper reaches of the southern Nile, with the great lake, named “Victoria” (to those who speak English). Genesis 2.4-10 is like the lower reaches of the northern Nile, ending in the magnificent delta. The Mediterranean is where history begins.
Imagine that there is a great waterfall between the upper and lower reaches, instead of a series of impassable rapids. Upland from the waterfall is the time of De Nile. Downland from the waterfall is the time of DeNial. The waterfall is the first singularity.
A traveler, starting at the falls, can theoretically walk in both directions, along De Nile or along DeNial. But, there is the challenge of the descent and the ascent. Looking from the top of the falls, one cannot see the bottom. Looking from the bottom of the falls, one cannot see the top. However, at either location, the traveler knows that there must be a bottom and there must be a top.
Well, the traveler does not really know for certain.
The traveler only looks down from the top or up from the bottom and makes a guess about the other realm.
0006 As if to repeat the pattern, Loke’s book takes a turn near the middle of the text, in section five of chapter five, carrying the title, “The Image of God”.
Loke writes that Adam and Eve, labeled by God as “Image Bearers of God”, are the first human beings. This does not require them to be the first anatomically modern humans or the genetic founders of all humans. Rather, the key issue is how humans are defined.
0007 It is sort of like that imaginary waterfall.
If one stands upstream, which is highland and south, human beings are defined by the scientific scenario summarized in section 5.1.
If one stands downstream, which is lowland and north, various philosophers and religious traditions offer opinions as to what humans are. Loke mentions Plato, Aristotle, Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism, Marxism, existentialism, sociobiology and contemporary philosophy. Each has a unique definition of “the human”.
The waterfall is neither upstream nor downstream. The waterfall is contiguous with both.
How does this division within continuity work?
0008 The Greimas square may assist. The Greimas square is a purely relational structure that is useful for discerning a constellation of meanings that surround a particular spoken term.
A century ago, the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure proposed that spoken language consists in two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole (French for “talk”) and langue (French for “language”). One system is external. Parolecan be scientifically observed and measured. Langue is internal, only certain changes in physiological conditions can be observed and measured.
0009 So, the question arises, “How does one define any particular spoken phrase or word?”
That is the subject of Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0010 Happily, for this examination, there is method that respects the purely relational configuration posed by Saussure.
That method is the Greimas square.
0011 Here is a picture.
Figure 01
0012 The focal term goes with A.
The first contrast of A that comes to mind enters B.
Then, a term that contradicts B goes into C. The term, “contradicts”, may be transliterated into “speaks against”. So, C speaks against B. Then, one finds that C complements A.
Finally, a contrast that comes to mind with C goes into D. Then, one should find that D speaks against A and complements B.
0013 The Greimas square is a probe of the terms that are adjacent to (or metaphorically “near”) a focal term (A).
0014 The following figure applies to Loke’s discussion of Adam and Eve as the first “Image Bearers of God”.
Figure 02
0015 We are the descendants of Adam (A), so we are heir to his title, “Image Bearer of God”.
But, there is a problem. Adam falls. So do we.
In contrast, many philosophies and traditions define who we are (B) without regard to God’s original appellation.
Speaking against the philosophers and traditionalists, Adam is the first holding the title (C), which will be passed on to the rest of humanity by means that are not genetic. So, despite all other opinion, Adam is… er, at least… was… until, you know, the unfortunate incident… the first bearer of this title. I suppose he never lost the title…
…he just made a bad decision that doomed all of subsequent humanity.
In contrast, the Biblical use of adam (technically, “adamah”) is a pun which means “earth man” or “humanity” (D).
This raises the question as to whether adam as humanity (D) contradicts (A) humans labeled as the Image Bearers of Godand complements (B) “humans” defined by philosophers and other religious traditions.
I suppose that one could argue for “yes”, as well as “no”.
0016 As it turns out, the metaphor of a map of the Nile River, altered by a number 2 pencil, also fits into a Greimas square.
0018 In chapter three, Loke discusses the time spans of creation. The universe is around 14Byr (billions of years old). The Earth is 4.5Byr. If the solar system rotates around the galactic center every 250 million years, then the solar system has completed only 18 orbits of the galactic center. The solar system is 18 galactic years old.
Does that seem old?
0019 Could there be an eyewitness to the evolutionary construction of our home, the Earth?
Plus, why would an eyewitness portray the vision as a sequence of seven days?
The answer to the second question is straightforward. The Creation Story, the first chapter of Genesis, is used to establish the sabbath as the day of the Lord. Work six days and rest, along with God, on the seventh. If someone loses count, watch the phases of the moon. The heavens keep track of time. Time passes on Earth, as it does in heaven.
0020 The Creation Story takes us far upstream the river of time, to long before De Nile. Loke quotes Saint Augustine, asking what kind of days are these. They defy our sensibilities and challenge our imagination. The Young Earth Creations reply, saying, “These are literal days, with evening and morning.”
So, they could belong to a visionary.
0021 To me, the first chapter of Genesis belongs to our current Lebenswelt, yet looks past its beginning (which I call, “the first singularity”) into the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. It is a recital, in speech-alone talk, describing a sequence of… can I say?.. developments that could not be witnessed by a person, except as a series of visions.
Here is a Greimas square where the Creation Story is the focus of attention.
Figure 04
The final term, D, contrasts with C, speaks against A and complements B.
D contrasts with C because it is like a formal cause compared to C as a final cause.
D speaks against A in that the story does not proclaim itself to be a vision. How can it be a vision if the Genesis text does not say that it is a vision? Well, some Biblical scholars say that the Creation Story is something like a vision. It is the construction of the Temple of the Heavens and the Earth.
Finally, D complements B, because the first chapter of Genesis is one of the oldest written origin stories known to scholars. In fact, archaeologists conclude that the literary style of the Creation Story is very much in tune with other written religious proclamations of the ancient Near East. The first chapter of Genesis may be older than writing.
0022 And, that brings me back to the term, “Lebenswelt”.
The animal version of this word is “Umwelt”, technically defined as the world of significance for any particular animal. The dog’s Umwelt is full of aromas. The bat’s Umwelt is full of acoustic echoes. The eagle’s Umwelt includes tiny clues to the motion of animals through grass. The human’s Umwelt includes all of nature, plus ourselves. As soon as hominins start walking on two feet, their hands are free to gesture to one another. So begins the evolution of our Lebenswelt, our world of significance. Our Lebenswelt includes both nature and culture. The German word, “Lebenswelt”, transliterates into “living world”.
0023 According to Razie Mah’s masterwork, The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the human niche consists of the potential of triadic relations. Signs are triadic relations. So are category-based nested forms. Consequently, our Lebenswelt is perfused with signs and category-based nested forms (which can be proto-semiotic). Sign-processing is one of the key hominin adaptations.
0024 So, a question arises, “Is the first chapter of Genesis a sign of the evolutionary record?”
Loke does not address this question.Nevertheless it bears on his discussion on the time spans of geological and biological evolution in contrast to the days of creation.
0025 Is Genesis 1 a sign of the evolutionary record?
If it is, then it is a sign composed of signs.
In other words, the answer is not straightforward.
0026 Charles Peirce (1839-1914 AD), the founder of postmodern semiotics, defined a sign as a triadic relation. A sign-relation consists of a sign-vehicle, a sign-object and a sign-interpretant.
Here is a picture of the sign-relation.
Figure 05
An encountered thing (sign-vehicle) stands for the hylomorphe, matter [substantiates] form (sign-object) in regards to Aristotle’s natural philosophy (sign-interpretant).
On the surface, the sign-vehicle associates to Peirce’s category of firstness, which contains only one element (however complex that element may be). For example, an image or a person belongs to the category of firstness (there is only one of them) and may serve as a sign-vehicle. Firstness is the realm of possibility.
On the surface, the sign-object associates to Peirce’s category of secondness, which contains two contiguous real elements. Perhaps the most famous example is Aristotle’s hylomorphe. Matter and form are two real contiguous elements. According to my nomenclature, the contiguity is placed in brackets. In the previous figure, I use the term, “substance”, to label the contiguity between matter and form. Secondness is the realm of actuality.
On the surface, the sign-interpretant associates to Peirce’s category of thirdness, which contains three elements, one belonging to each category. Thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness. Thirdness is the realm of signs, normal contexts, mediations, judgments and so on.
0027 So, why the qualifier, “on the surface”?
Take a look at the sign-vehicle. Obviously, the sign-vehicle should belong to firstness, because it makes the sign-relation possible. At the same time, the sign-vehicle is an encountered thing. So, it must belong to the realm of actuality. The sign-vehicle must be so actual as to trigger the operation of a sign-interpretant. For example, a silver coin (sign-vehicle) stands for the metal silver [substantiating] a round imprinted form (sign-object) in regards to an Aristotelian view of money (sign-interpretant). Come to think of it, the sign object also belongs to the realm of actuality.
0028 Why is the triadic structure of the sign-relation important?
Both Genesis One and the evolutionary record are actual. Yet, on the surface, the Creation Story associates to firstness and the scientific evolutionary record associates to secondness. So, the former should be taken as a sign-vehicle and the latter should be regarded as a sign-object.
What do these associations imply?
Genesis One is a sign of the evolutionary record.
So, in a day-age association, the day corresponds to a passage in the Genesis text and the age corresponds to a period in the evolutionary record. The day is the sign-vehicle and the age is the sign-object. The sign-interpretant will rely on a sign-typology based on natural signs.
0028 To start, here are the day-age associations for days one through three.
Figure 06
0029 Here are the day-age associations for days four through six.
Figure 07
0030 Here are the verse-age associations for the creation of humans in the image of God.
Figure 08
0031 The first chapter of Genesis concludes with a sign of the Developed Neolithic, setting the stage for a second creation of humans, starting with Genesis 2.4.
0032 The Genesis day is the sign-vehicle. The corresponding scientific epoch is the sign-object.
What about the sign-interpretant?
Peirce identifies three types of natural sign, based on the categorical qualities of the sign-object.
For an icon, the sign-object carries the categorical qualities of firstness. So, I read a Genesis verse as a picture of the corresponding epoch.
For an index, the sign-object carries the categorical qualities of secondness. So, I read a Genesis verse as something that points to a characteristic of the corresponding epoch, especially in regards to what the visionary must be wondering about the ongoing revelation. An index points to the location of the witness. The Genesis statements about morning and evening are indexes.
For a symbol, the sign-object carries the categorical qualities of thirdness. So, I read a Genesis verse in terms of convention. The declaration at the end of most days, where God declares the day, “good”, associates with symbols.
0033 Here is a list of the three types of natural sign.
Figure 09
0034 For example, in day four, the text points to a visionary, located on the surface of the Earth, looking up, and witnessing the haze of the atmosphere of the early Earth clear away as the atmosphere increases in oxygen content.
Here is a picture of the associations, based on sign-typology as the sign-interpretant.
Figure 10
0035 In sum, in day four, the stars, planets, moon and sun become visible.
0036 Of course, none of this sign business shows up in Loke’s chapter three, concerning the time span of creation, or chapter four, concerning the process of evolutionary creationism.
Nonetheless, the sign business is relevant because we are moving upstream from the falls along the metaphorical Nile. Yes, this is the one on the map that we altered with a pencil.
0037 We regard the seven days of creation (A), while looking though abstractions that are typical of our current Lebenswelt (B). In doing so, we cross a epistemological boundary between scripture and science (C), which must imply that a conversation may take place. But, can a conversation proceed if one of the conversants says that each Genesis day is literally true and is composed of what we current label a “day”? Yes, if the Creation Story is a sequence of visions (D).
0038 Here is a picture of the corresponding Greimas square.
Figure 11
0039 The focus is the first Genesis Creation Story (A, sign-vehicle).
The contrast is the idea that each day keys into Peirce’s typology of natural signs (B, sign-interpretant).
The actual correspondences (C) speak against the idea (B), just as any application of an idea speaks against the idea. Since when are ideas perfectly applied?
0040 For example, the end ofday three associates with the earliest photosynthetic life, which looks like slime. Yes, mats of green or red or purple slime, bearing according to their slimes. So, the visionary must be a little perplexed.
In day three, the Genesis text breaks the previous pattern, by mentioning two creations in one day. The associations are to the formation of the earliest continents and to the earliest appearance of life on Earth, which includes photosynthetic bacteria, which form colorful mats on most anything wet. In fact, the slime looks like anything but fruit trees bearing fruit and plants bearing seed. These bacteria do not have chloroplasts, the photosynthetic organelle in almost all multicellular plants. They are the precursors to chloroplasts.
0041 Consequently, the application of the idea of sign typology requires some interpretive flexibility.
Figure 12
0042 But, that does not mean that the interpretant of sign-typology does not work. Rather, the idea seems even more promising, because the vision (D) is necessarily mind-boggling.
0043 Consider three titles.
The Creation Story and Evolution
Genesis One As A Sign of the Evolutionary Record
The Creation of Man and Human Evolution
These titles are over twenty years old.
Yet, they are as fresh as the dawn of a new Age of Understanding.
0044 In chapter one, Loke describes three types of concordism.
Type A seeks to describe scientific information from scriptural passages.
Type B seeks to interpret scriptural texts in light of modern science.
Type C affirms that the Bible should be interpreted according to proper hermeneutical principles, such as taking into consideration its Near Eastern context, including Near Eastern literary genres.
0045 Clearly, the proposition that the first chapter of Genesis is a sign of the evolutionary record dovetails into all three, except for one caveat. Replace the word, “science’, with the word, “semiotics”.
0046 Type A’ seeks to describe semiotic information from scriptural passages.
What semiotic information?
When reading a passage from any particular day in the Creation Story, ask first, “Is this an icon.”. Can the evolutionary record be seen as an image of this verse? If not an icon, ask second, “Is this an index?” Does this verse point to either the corresponding evolutionary era, or to the location of the visionary, or to what the visionary must wondering. If not an index, ask third, “Is this a symbol?”
0047 Here is an example.
Figure 13
Day two associates to the formation of the Earth and Moon. During the formation of the solar system, the Earth forms as a super-hot little planet sweeping in debris within its orbit around the early Sun. From the point of view of someone on the surface of the nascent planet, the firmament appears as “the waters above” separate from “the waters below”. At the time, both the Moon and the Earth, are molten. The molten above separates from the molten below.
The separation is an icon. It is also an index, once God names one of the waters. God calls the firmament, “heaven”. The name serves as an index, but also as a symbol of what this means to the visionary.
So, I wonder, “Why this particular semiotic information? Why does Peirce’s typology of natural signs allow me to appreciate the sign-vehicles of the Genesis texts as sign-objects in the evolutionary record?“
Could it be that sign-processing is particularly relevant to how humans came to be?
Is sign-processing a human adaptation?
Are sign-interpretants built into our bodies and souls?
0048 Type B’ seeks to interpret scriptural texts in light of modern semiotics.
Can the associations in Type A’ be called an interpretation of scripture?
Or, do the associations in Type A’ call for an interpretation.
What do these types of semiotic information imply?
0049 Perhaps, Genesis One embodies more than an ancient Near Eastern depiction of the formation of God’s tent of the heavens and the earth. It also serves as a lock, whose key is a principle that constitutes an adaptation into the human niche. Sign-processing flows out of the headwaters of De Nile and carves the landscape above the treacherous falls.
0050 Type C’ is the same as type C. The hermeneutics of the book of Genesis must take into account the genres of ancient Near East literature. However, we must keep in mind that, even in the time of Moses, this literature is ancient. By the time the so-called “redactor” starts weaving the various stories in Genesis into a (more or less) coherent frame, the oral traditions are so old that no one is aware that the Near East is littered with these odd little hills, containing the burnt remains of royal libraries, where clay cuneiform tablets have been fired into bricks.
0051 Thank God that these civilizations slavishly follow the writing techniques of their forefathers, the Sumerians, who carve out cuneiform wedges from wet clay tablets. Whenever an ancient royal library burns, the clay tablets convert into brick tablets, capable of retaining their integrity while buried for thousands of years.
Archaeologists rejoice. A handful of recovered cuneiform tablets convey a message that not Moses, nor Saint Paul, nor Saint Augustine, nor Saint Thomas know. Genesis One is a sign of one of the most ancient civilizations on Earth.
Genesis One can only be viewed as a sign of the evolutionary record in light of Peirce’s typology of natural signs.
Genesis One is also a sign of the oldest civilization of the ancient Near East.
0053 During most of the Bible’s theodrama, no one apparently knows this.
The stories of the Old Testament are remembered and retold by itinerate bards, as well as by temple priests. The prophetic stories are collected, redacted, written, promulgated, misinterpreted and then fulfilled in the death and resurrection of one of those itinerate preachers, who started out as a carpenter.
The Bible, the union of the Old and New Testaments, promises the salvation of all who are baptized in the water of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, that miraculous former carpenter, serves as the New Adam.
During this entire time, the so-called “literature of the ancient Near East” is the Father’s secret. Yes, everyone knows that the Near East is ancient. But, no one remembers that these ancient civilizations have voices of their own. No one knows about the cuneiform tablets buried in those dusty tells. The West recovers fragments. Revealing fragments.
0054 Why does God empower a secularizing West, still animated by Christian curiosity, to recover some of this long-buried literature?
Why does God reveal this secret in the middle of the modern Age of Ideas?
May I call the revelation, “a divine accommodation”?
0055 The title of chapter two of Loke’s book is “Divine Accommodation and Its Implications for Biblical Anthropology”.
0056 What is the concept of divine accommodation?
The scriptures work according to a human mode of understanding, following appearances in the common manner, and taking into account the human point of view during particular historical moments. Divine accommodation is relevant even when the historical moment passes and fades from memory. After all, what does our modern Age of Ideas have in common with the ancient Near East?
The theologian and biologist Denis Lamoureux responds to the challenge of divine accommodation by separating the messages of the Old Testament from the presences of premodern prescientific ancient Near Eastern conceptual frameworks. For example, ancient Near Easterners regarded the heavens and the earth as surfaces. Here is the inspiration for the medieval alchemist’s vision of a mundane and a celestial earth. What happens above, happens below. One system dwells between two surfaces.
0057 The god of the storm rules between the mundane and the celestial earths. What better way to portray the tempestuous nature of human affairs, in our current Lebenswelt, against the eternal rhythms of earth and sky?
0058 But, can we, mere mortals, extract message from presence without distorting meaning?
Lamoureux’s project poses a paradox. It holds the message of the Book of Genesis in high regard. It aims to disregard the… um… presence of the world in which the book is told. The messengers of Genesis live in the cultural world of the ancient Near East. The dramas of the Old Testament take place on the stage of a grand theater that we, moderns, now realize has a life of its own. Yes, the life of the ancient Near East permeates a document that comes from God and thus, cannot error.
0059 Perhaps, there is another way to understand…
What if even the apparent errors manifest divine intent?
After all, most of the apparent scientific errors reflect the premodern cognitive frameworks of the ancient Near East.
0060 What if the truthfulness of scripture is not restricted to literal words on physical pages. It makes me wonder. What is “truth”? Where did I hear that question before? Is truth the opposite of false? Or, is true the opposite of deception? Is truth correct and honest? If so, then how can truth survive even one civilizational turning? A civilizational turning? Yes, a civilizational turning occurs when a civilization realizes that everything it knows is wrong.
The book of Genesis tells of many civilizational turnings. The stories of Adam and Eve correspond to one. Perhaps, the stories of Cain and Abel correspond to another. The civilizational turning between Cain and Lamech is as clear as day. Lamech turns God’s protection of Cain completely around. Biblical turnings occur within the civilizational turnings of larger Near Eastern societies. The Genesis genealogies are lists that keep track of names, despite civilizational changes. No doubt, on the celestial earth, a story attends each name.
0061 If the history of the USA is any indicator, a civilizational turning occurs every orbit of the protoplanet Pluto, around 248 years. The American revolution starts in 1776 AD. America grows into a nation, then an empire, and then the empire collapses in 2024. The stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Lamech may correspond to three Plutonic orbits.
Three fairy tales for three Plutonic orbits.
0062 One can say that the fact that the Bible is written in the literary genres of the ancient Near East is divine accommodation.
One can also say that Biblical inerrancy proclaims that the apparently erroneous “sciences” of the ancient Near East are part of the revelation. The presence of the ancient Near East cannot be separated from the message of divine revelation.
0063 This implies that there is a hylomorphic aspect to Biblical revelation.
What is a hylomorphe?
A hylomorphism consists of two contiguous real elements. Aristotle’s hylomorphe has two real elements, matter and form. For nomenclature, I place the contiguity in brackets. I suspect that a familiar term fits as a label for the contiguity,producing the hylomorphe, matter [substance] form.
0064 Similarly, Biblical inerrancy and divine accommodation are two real elements. These two elements stamp a common metal.
