12/27/23

Looking at Joseph Farrell’s Book (2020) “The Tower of Babel Moment” (Part 7 of 10)

0075 Farrell concludes chapter four with speculative fireworks, launched from the platform of Leibniz’s characteristica universalis and the Nimrod-administration’s topogram that converts Sumerian to Akkadian and back again. Content-level actualities_2a generate a normal context_3a and potential_1a that allow people_1a… well, at least the representatives_2c of the people_1a… or better, the people_2c who claim to represent the people_1a… to challenge God_3c or at least, achieve ends_3c that are hidden beneath a blanket of official propaganda_2c.

0076 The popular Cabbala represents a translation stone_2a, of sorts.

Jacob Boehme’s occult references to an Adamic language_3a, a Natursprache_3a, intimates the hidden potential of everyone working from the same playbook_1a… er… illusion_3a.

Illusion? Delusion?

0077 Here I must pause to plug the examination that marks the start of 2023, just as this review ends the year. In January of this year, Razie Mah opens with Looking a Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset”. The theatrical Alex Jones labors to reveal illusions and delusions. That is his mission and his gift. In the analysis, two words are defined.

An illusion is a mind-independent reality that is regarded as mind-dependent. The psychometric translator stone is a mind-independent reality that is regarded as a sign that there is a common language, hence, a common people (that is, a mind-dependent being).

A delusion is a mind-dependent reality that is regarded as mind-independent. On the perspective level for the construction of the tower, the mind-dependent reality of alchemical knowledge_1c supports a mind-independent manipulation of celestial beings_3c.

0078 How does one discern all this?

The predicate is in the subject.

Here is a picture.

0079 Farrell turns the metaphor of the topogram inside out.

Surely, the radiation of languages from an original proto-Indo-European people is documented by writing.

What about a radiation of almost all the spoken languages of the world from a single population, say 250,000 years ago?

This radiation cannot be documented by writing.

What about petroglyphs?

Does the commonality of petrographic symbols validate the impression of a continuity that stretches from the start of our species to the Tower of Babel Moment that precedes the Tower of Babel Story in Genesis 11?

0080 Farrell suggests that we may turn to the last Renaissance man… or maybe, the first figure of the western enlightenment… for further insight into the principle of indiscernibles.

12/27/23

Looking at Joseph Farrell’s Book (2020) “The Tower of Babel Moment” (Part 8 of 10)

0081 Before I go there, I want to pause and gaze back to the beginning of Farrell’s journey: the eleventh chapter of Genesis.

Here is a numerological picture for the number eleven.

0082 Yes, this sounds goofy, but in terms of English puns, “eleven” sounds like “leaven”. Leaven makes bread dough rise. It is yeasty. It is like something that grows in something else and ferments it. So, chapter 11 is the yeast in the bread dough… of what?

If man does not live on bread alone…(see point 0041).

Then, what about base ten?

Base ten calls to mind two hands, working together, so maybe, chapter eleven leavens chapter one.

0083 In chapter one, God creates our world, step by step, in what looks to be a sequential evolutionary process.

In chapter eleven, Nimrod’s administrators create a tower, step by step, by commanding bricks to be made according to strict technical specifications. The bricks must be burnt thoroughly. The administrators are able to accomplish this goal because their immigrant slave labor think that they are of one people with the elite. Why? The translator stone tells them so.

One must never underestimate the power of people to do what they evolved to do or to be what they evolved to be. We evolved to recognize that one language means one people. And what does one people do? They work together.

So, of course, immigrant slave labor will work as if they are “stakeholders”. They think that they are. Fools.

The administrators are not the God of all creation.

Instead they are at war with God.

0084 Okay, let me try that again.

Base ten calls to mind two hands, working together. So, maybe, chapter eleven leavens the stories of Adam and Eve.

On one hand, the story of Adam and Eve is not the subject of Farrell’s discourse. However, it serves as a predicate to the Tower of Babel story as subject. How so? According to Saint Augustine, Adam and Eve stand at the origin of our kind. Each one of us descends, through begatting (and don’t tell me that the Genesis writers are unfamiliar with that term) from Adam and Eve. The idea is implied in the letters of Saint Paul.

Unfortunately, modern genetics disproves Augustine’s thesis. If a species starts with the union of one pair, scientists expect a genetic bottleneck. Geneticists do not observe a bottleneck for the start of the species, Homo sapiens.

0085 Does that leave us empty handed?

No, the Fall of Adam and Eve essentially corresponds to a Tower of Babel Moment. Adam and Eve are on one hand. The Tower of Babel is on the other.

Theological nomenclature supports the suggestion. Chapter one of Genesis is typically referred to as “the Creation Story”. Chapter 2.4 through 11 are typically labeled, “the Primeval History”. So, the stories of Adam and Eve and the story of the Tower of Babel bookend the Primeval History.

So much for two sequential ones in base ten.

0086 What about base two?

Let me start with the social construction of the Tower of Bab-ilim.

Now, let me consider that numerology business in terms of (1) presence and (0) negation.

Okay, now I consider the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality for social construction of the Tower of Bab-ilim.

The negation within the number eleven corresponds to the perspective-level actuality_2c.

Isn’t that a coincidence?

0087 Now, I replace the potential_1c underlying that negation_2c with divine intervention.

0088 That does the trick. Eleven goes to zero. The blame game begins.

Some think that numerology can substantiate any claim.

For proof, one need look no further.

0089 But wait!

I have another association for base two.

This associate recapitulates base 10, which presents the stories of Adam and Eve as 1 and the Tower of Babel story as 10.

Here, the beginning of the Primeval History is 2⁰ and the end is 2² and the middle is 2¹.

Here is the association.

0090 In this, the Tower of Babel_2c represents the culmination of what the serpent in the Garden of Eden tells Eve during the drama of temptation_2a. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil_2a is the predicate. The Tower of Babel_2c is the subject.

Does that suggest that the translation stone_2a, the thing that turns Sumerian and Akkadian into a common language, is a fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

Does the seed of the fruit that Adam and Eve ate germinate and grow into theTower of Bab-ilim_2c?

Does the seed of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil predicate the subject of all social manifestations of evil dangerous enough to challenge God?

0091 Has numerometrics isolated a new, postmodern, philosopher’s stone?

Numbers can tell me anything.

12/26/23

Looking at Joseph Farrell’s Book (2020) “The Tower of Babel Moment” (Part 9 of 10)

0092 At the start of chapter five, Farrell appeals to his regular readers. Recall, The Gaza Death Star Deployed (2003) presents a hypothesis that the Great Pyramids of Egypt stand for a weapon of mass destruction.

0093 Well, it sure worked on the people on the plain of Shinar.

They got it in their heads that, because they practiced a common language, they could beat the Great Pyramid in terms of scale and psychometric capability.

Then, God destroyed them.

0094 What type of weapon is this?

The question sets the last Renaissance intellectual, a Jesuit, Fr. Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680 AD) into cognitive motion. Farrell dwells on Kircher’s engravings, which are at once informative (for commoners) and fantastic (for fellow elites).

0095 What does Kircher say about the Tower of Babel?

Well, first, Kircher does not have nice things to say about Nimrod. I will only mention that Nimrod worships fire, which should have inspired those industrious, illusion-enthralled, immigrant laborers on the plain of Shiner to be more studious in thoroughly burning their bricks.

That is not all.

I ask, “What does fire leave?”

Ashes.

0096 Second, Kircher draws a taciturn association between Nimrod and Saturn. Both are lords. Both are titans. Plus, Nimrod’s administrators construct a tower that incinerates the entire civilization. Only ashes remain. Smoldering, vengeful, nasty ashes. Sounds like Saturn to me.

0097 Third, the scale of the project renders it… unlikely… at best. In order to reach the firmament, roughly corresponding to the the orbit of the moon, five million laborers adding a mile to the top of the tower per week would not even come close to the moon, even after 400 years of work.

0098 Fourth, there are other options. What if the tower is the platform for some sort of weapon. One could place a giant lens (or a parabolic mirror) on top and smoke enemies from a great distance, using the focused rays of the sun.

In recounting this, Farrell reminds the reader of the importance of optics. Optics are foundational to the psychometric sciences. So is scale. So is time.

That brings me back to Saturn, the Titan once named Kronos. Kronos is the titan who ate his own children. Kronos is time itself. His wife, tiring of his ploy, offers a stone for one of them. Kronos swallows the stone whole. Then, his wife hides the infant, who grows into who else?… Zeus.

0099 The word, “Chronos”, needs rehabilitation. Modern psychometrics have dealt with worse. Today, human resources use software named, “Chronos”, in order to keep track of time for employees.

0100 In chapter six, Farrell celebrates the wormhole, the spiral staircase, drilling into the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of the natural and the social sciences. Farrell asks the reader to take a look. Why? Farrell wants the reader to explore, if not further tunnel into, the modern gate of the gods, the postmodern psychometric sciences.

0101 I once called them “interventional sciences”.

Then, the term, “advocacy sciences” seemed to fit.

Now, the qualifier, “psychometrics”, captures my imagination.

0102 Farrell offers a few suggestions before closing.

But, I cling to the lessons that Farrell offers.

0103 First, Farrell emphasizes the relatedness between Greenberg and Ruhlen’s linguistic families and the genetics of populations that speak the same language. The association between spoken languages and genetic groups is undeniable and supports the hypothesis that the vocal track is exapted for speech by a small population at the origination of our own species, Homo sapiens.

According to Razie Mah (in The Human Niche), speech is added to hand talk at the start of our species. Humans practice hand-speech talk for over 200,000 years. But now, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk. So, there is a transition. Mah calls it, “the first singularity”. The transition is dramatized in An Archaeology of the Fall. The transition is stated plainly in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace. Both are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

This examination further suggests that Greenberg-Ruhlen’s association is ingrained in humans, so that the impression of a common language will trigger the perception of one people.

0104 The coincidence between linguistic family and genetic heritage poses a problem for an obvious (or “exoteric”) reading of the Tower of Babel Moment. When isolated, both language and genetics naturally diverge. So, a Tower of Babel Moment is not required to explain the diversity of languages to the modern mind.

0105 Second, the scientific notion of the co-evolution of diverse languages and populations suggests the potential of a translator that renders any one spoken language into any other.

Indeed, if an expectation of the co-evolution of languages and populations is built into the human phenotype, as an adaptation, then this nascent awareness would be a good target for a society-wide illusion.

Third, the disruption of that illusion (and the delusions built upon that illusion) entails widespread societal… confusion.

Such is the subtle (or “esoteric”) reading of the Tower of Babel Moment.

0106 To conclude, I would like to associate Abram to the fall of Ur III. Why? The demise of Ur III marks the end of Sumerian as a spoken language. Sumerian continues as a written language for centuries longer.

As a spoken language, Sumerian dies. Akkadian remains.

The language is confounded for the Sumerians, not the Akkadians. The Tower of Babel is a story coming from an “insider” who now finds himself an “outsider”.

0107 Also, consider the societal fallout.

The Tower of Bab-ilim turns out to be a disaster.

Who gets the blame?

The last Sumerian families are finally ousted from their positions of institutional authority, to be replaced by the entitled children of the Nimrod-affiliated administrators (yes, the ones who cannot tell a thoroughly burnt brick form any other brick). The purge will not be contained by any authority, because the purge covers the stupidity and incompetence and hubris of those in charge of the the tower’s construction.

0108 On that note, Haran dies before his father, Terah, in the land of his birth, Ur of the Chaldeans (Gen. 11:28). So, Terah leaves with Abram and Sarai, along with Lot, the son of Haran, and settles in the land of Canaan (Gen 11:31). But, there is no respite from the intrigue emanating from home, so Abram goes on, according to Genesis, and the Stories of the Patriarchs commence.

And what happens to Genesis?The stories from Adam and Eve to the Tower of Babel, become fairy tales that Sarah tells her children.

See Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in late January 2022.

12/26/23

Looking at Joseph Farrell’s Book (2020) “The Tower of Babel Moment” (Part 10 of 10)

0109 Farrell dares to worm a way into the fruit of the knowledge of the natural and the social sciences.

What does this examiner see?

Welcome to the postmodern version of the Tower of Babel.

0110 There is a new science in town. It is the science of psychometrics.

If the natural sciences stand for “science” for commoners, and if the social sciences constitute “science” for the technocrats running the modern administrative state, then the psychometric sciences define “science” for the movers and shakers constructing the modern Tower of Bab-ilim on the banks of the river, Potomac. Turn on corporate television. It is your gate to the gods.

0111 I leave to the reader, the exercise of transmuting the following figure with the social construction of the postmodern west in mind.

0111 With this transmutation, the spiral of Farrell’s speculation becomes a vision to behold. How does one worm into the fruit of the contemporary tree of knowledge, with all of its exoteric and esoteric dispositions and powers? One proceeds just as Farrell does, with an open heart and and an imaginative mind, in the conviction that, in the end, God reveals all truth.

0112 My thanks to Joseph Farrell for publishing such a wonderful and provocative book, with arguments worthy of the procrustean bed of the three-level interscope.

12/23/23

Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria To Bach and Back” (Part 1 of 20)

0001 Let me start with an admission. In this particular examination, I am not myself. I am someone who I am not. I own a dog named, “Daisy”.

The book before me is by Daniel C. Dennett and is titled, “From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds”. The book is published by W.W. Norton (New York, London). The book wrestles with issues both philosophical and scientific. How does our world come to be? How do we come to be?

Who are we? We are people with minds. Minds intelligently design artifacts using tools of production and tools of the intellect. The first tools are handy. The second are… well… not exactly the same as “handy”.

0002 The hand grasps a tool then uses it to manipulate things. The word, “prehensile” applies. Our hands are full of prehensions. We are aware of the heft and feel of material instruments.

The mind grasps an intellectual tool with its… um… brain. Is there such a word as “comprehensile”? How about the term, “comprehension”? Once we become competent using an intellectual tool, we comprehend. We become familiar with its heft and feel.

0003 The hand is unlike the appendages of other mammals.

For example, cats and dogs only have feet. The cat uses its front feet as “paws”, in a manner similar to the way humans use their hands. Not really, because the cat’s paws cannot hold anything. The cat cannot pick up a tool. May I say that the cat’s front paws are part of the feline toolkit? Evolution builds tools right into the cat’s body. Most mammals are fashioned this way. Tools are part of their bodies.

0004 The mind serves as a metaphorical appendage, because it grasps ‘something’, and in doing so, may manipulate it. The dog, whose practical toolkit includes feet and a formidable mouth, has an advantage over the cat, in this respect. The dog’s mind grasps ‘something’ and, in doing so, manipulates humans into serving as the leader of its pack.

To me, the dog is testimony to the inhospitality of wolf “culture”, in general, and the inadequacy of wolf “leadership”, in particular. Wolf pack-leaders often behave like aristocrats, always expecting deferential treatment. They are often filled with paranoia and treachery. Yet, their followers know that they need a leader. Otherwise, there is no pack. Without the pack, there is only death.

0005 Surely, a reasonable human would serve as a more hospitable leader, especially since humans know how to get food in surprising ways. Humans give dogs food. Until, of course, starvation fills the land.

12/22/23

Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria To Bach and Back” (Part 2 of 20)

0006 Unlike the cat, the dog has a tool of the intellect, whose application is so relevant that it fashions the ways that the species adapts into its niche. This raises the question, “What is a niche?”

0007 First, an aside. The interscope for the Darwinian paradigm is developed in Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome and is represented in other e-books and blogs by Razie Mah. The two-level interscope is presented in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0008 Second, an answer to the question.

A niche is the (situation-level) potential_1b of a (content-level) actuality that is independent of the adapting species_2a. As such, the niche_1b underlies the actuality of adaptation_2b in the normal context of natural selection_3b. Here is a picture.

0009 On the situation level, the normal context of natural selection_3b brings the actuality of an adaptation_2b into relation with its niche_1b, which is the potential_1b of an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.

As mentioned earlier, the dog has a tool of the intellect and this tool must be an adaptation_2b. What is the dog’s niche_1b? It must be us, humans, of course. We are the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a. When we look at the dog’s adaptations_2b from our point of view, we call the result, “domestication”. The dog finds a pack in the human household.

0010 Of course, the dog’s domestication is a recent process.

How did it happen?

Certain wolves, empowered by humans, learn to identify the human as a candidate for a pack leader. Surely, humans are more… um… humane, depending on how one defines the word, “humane”. When a dog is treated like a member of the family, more or less, its descent from wolves serves it well, since a wolf knows that it belongs to a pack. A lone wolf is unlikely to survive on its own. Dogs know this and therefore, accept the leash.

0011 I wonder whether Dennett would call the dog’s affection for its new-found pack leader “an evolved user illusion”. Whatever label one wants to apply, the dog’s affection serves as a conviction, or rather, a judgment. A judgment is a triadic relation with three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be. A relation (in the dog’s being) brings what is(a human, especially when it provides food and family) into relation to what ought to be (a pack leader for the domesticate).

The dog signifies its joy, as well as its distress, through its tail.

What a tale the dog’s tail tells!

0012 No matter what the content-level normal context_3a or potential_1a, the dog’s tail specifies its consciousness of whether its gambit_2b is working.

But, with that said, I seem to have entered a different paradigm. This paradigm belongs to old-fashioned Latin schoolmen, called “scholastics”, who prospered between say, 800 to 1700 AD, from the very end of the Roman empire to the start of the modern era.

0013 If I say that the canine’s tail tells me something about what is going on in the dog’s mind, irrespective of what is happening_3a and the potential of ‘something’ happening’_1a, then I may conclude whether the dog is happy or not_2b, by situating a dog’s tail action_1b in the normal context of what it means to me_3b.

The specifying sign is a triadic relation where a sign-vehicle (SV) stands for a sign-object (SO) in regards to a sign-interpretant (SI).

My dog’s tail action_2a (SV_s) is the sign-vehicle for a specificative sign-relation.

The happiness or unhappiness of my dog_2b is the sign-object (SO_s).

What it means to me_3b and the potential of ‘situating content_1b is the specifying sign’s interpretant (SI_s).

If my dog wags its tail (SV_s), then I know that my dog is happy (SO_s).

If my dog tucks its tail between its back legs (SV_s), then I know that my dog is not happy (SO_s).

0014 I wonder whether one dog notices the tail-action of other dogs. After all, for all dogs, only content and situation levels matter. So, I suppose that they do. The tail-wagging and tail-tucking business may have been enhanced because humans are receptive to such signals.

0015 Would Dennett call a dog’s tail action a “meme”?

I suspect that he would.

0016 Meanwhile, premodern scholastics call the above two-level interscope, “specificative extrinsic formal causality”. I call it “a specifying sign”.

Tail-action_2a is the sign-vehicle (SV_s). My dog’s apparent attitude_2b is the sign-object (SO_s). The normal context of what it means to me_3b, operating on the potential of ‘situating content’_1b is the sign-interpretant (SI_s). The subscript stands for “specifying”.

The sign-relation is discussed in detail in Razie Mah’s blog for November 2023, Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) Semiotic Animal, as well as A Primer on Natural Signs and related e-articles available for sale at smashwords and other e-book venues.

12/21/23

Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria To Bach and Back” (Part 3 of 20)

0017 Evolution is the path that leads the reader from the earliest form of life, bacteria, to one of the West’s best musical designers, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Is that what Dennett claims?

If so, then the preceding blog offers an interesting comparison.

I wonder, can the specifying sign serve as an analogy for Darwin’s paradigm?

What about the other way around?

0018 Here is picture of the two-level interscope for the Darwinian paradigm.

Here is a picture of the two-level interscope containing the specificative sign of a dog’s tail action.

0019 Darwin’s paradigm and the specifying sign have a similar category-based structure.

So, may they serve as analogies for one another?

0020 If Darwin’s paradigm serves as a metaphor for the specifying sign, then my dog’s tail action_2a is like an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a. My dog’s tail action_2a harbors a potential that may be exploited or avoided_1b. Of course, the word, “niche”, seems a little awkward in this instance. A clever fellow, named Gibson, comes up with a good substitute. Gibson labels the potential with the term, “affordance_1b“.

The dog’s tail_2a provides an advantage to the human, that is, an “affordance_1b“. The dog’s tail might also offer a disadvantage, which is also an “affordance”. Gibson’s term is ambiguous in this regard. Nevertheless, “affordance_1b” suggests that the adapting species exploits the opportunity or avoids the danger.

0021 So, what on earth is the adapting species in this example?

It must belong to me, since my situation-level normal context, what the dog’s tail means to me_3b, is like an episode of natural selection_3b.

Dennett raises a very interesting option. Maybe, evolution is going on in my head.

Maybe, the neural networks in my head are products of Darwin’s paradigm working on neural synapses.

According to Darwin, natural selection_3b is a mindless proclivity to survive (or not survive) in the face of an affordance. For neurons, “survival” concerns participation in a neural network that serves to exploit or avoid an affordance.

For example, neurons in the cerebellum coordinate signals for fine-tuned motions. They are in business as long as the appendage or musculature that they are involved with is present and working. Neurons in the neocortex tend to be more enterprising. These cells are busy creating new synapses with other neurons. They network, so to speak. They fish for business… er… affordances. The selection process is guided by… shall I say… the best of all possible affordances_1b: an answer_2b to the question of what the dog’s tail action_2a means to me_3b.

Yes, I want to be Candide, in this regard.

0022 This leaves the specifying sign-object_2b (SO_s) as analogous to an adaptation_2b.

Isn’t that curious?

If Darwin’s paradigm serves as a metaphor for the specifying sign, then the inquirer may visualize a hypothesis concerning how the brain operates. The actuality independent of the adapting species_2a is my dog’s tail action. The adaptation_2b is a circuit built from synapses (along with their entrepreneurial neurons) that somehow conveys the mental perception that my dog is either happy or upset_2b.

This particular instance of natural selection is a variation of Darwin’s paradigm, because synapses are entities that either survive or don’t survive and neocortical neurons are long-lived prospectors that make (or cut loose) synapses in order to stay in business. The synapses are selected for or against. The neurons breed synapses. The neurons select for synapses that participate in sign-processing networks.

0023 Here is a revised picture for a dog’s tail as a specifying sign.

0024 Perhaps, the analogy works, but the adapting species_3b is not so clear. Is it the synapse, the neuron or the local network? Or maybe, it is all three, with the synapse similar to a member of a species, the neuron similar to a breeder of the species, and local networks serving as a motivation for why a neuron breeds synapses.

Plus, what is the affordance_1b in this instance?

0025 On top of that, what about memes?

My dog’s tail action may be labeled a “meme“.

Dennett associates memes to affordances. And here, one affordance is clear. The meme survives because it satisfies a particular specifying sign. Perhaps, all that a researcher needs to do is look for specifying signs that have survived for a long time in order to formulate hypotheses on the ways that memes survive.

Does that sound like circular logic?

0026 To me, here is one affordance_1b. If a dog’s tail-action is an index of its attitude, then that is an advantage to me, because it makes my dog’s behavior comprehensible.

With this adaptation_2b at hand, er… in mind, Daisy, my dog, becomes reasonable, as long as she stays on her leash.

12/20/23

Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria To Bach and Back” (Part 4 of 20)

0027 What about the other way around?

What if the specifying sign-relation is analogous to Darwin’s paradigm?

Well, let me just transfer the sign-labels from one to the other.

0028 Gibson’s term, “affordance”_1b, replaces “niche”_1b, as the potential of the specifying actuality_2a.

To me, “affordance”_1b suggests an immediate potential, which I associate to a proximate niche. An affordance is like money in one’s pocket. That is always good and should be sought after. An affordance is like owing someone who wants to be paid. That is always bad and should be avoided.

0029 So, what are biologists doing when they “reverse engineer” an apparent adaptation in order to explain it?

They start with something like a specifying sign-object_2b and end up with something like a specifying sign-vehicle_2a. They reverse engineer something that is analogous to a specifying sign. A specifying sign-interpretant (natural selection_3band affordance_1b) designs a sign-object (an adaptation_2b) in regards to a sign-vehicle (an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a).

The result?

An actuality independent of the adapting species_2a (SV_s) stands for an adaptation_2b (SO_s) in regards to natural selection_3b operating on an afforance_1b (SI_s).

0030 If Darwin’s paradigm is like a specifying sign, then biologists work from something like a sign-object towards something like a sign-vehicle.

0031 The term, “design”, is a point of contention.

Replace the word, “adaptation_2b” with the term, “designed product_2b“.

For an engineer, the normal context is design_3b. Aristotle’s causes are material, instrumental, final and formal. Design is a formal cause. Note how all four of Aristotle’s causes come into play in the following figure.

For a biologist, the normal context is natural selection_3b, the actuality is an adaptation_2b and the potential is labeled “niche”_1b.

For a philosopher or an engineer, the normal context is design_3b, the actuality is a developed product_2b, and the potential is labeled “afforadance”_1b.

0032 In the final chapter of Dennett’s book, the author asks the question, “When will experts start using natural selection_3b as one of their tools for designing_3b in their various enterprises?”

What a wonderful question.

I think the answer has something to do with arrangements for payment_1b.

Exactly who are engineers working for?

God or mammon?

12/19/23

Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria To Bach and Back” (Part 5 of 20)

0033 Where does this notion of specificative extrinsic formal causality come from?

Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings is a good place to start.

The specifying sign is embedded in a formula for sensible construction, arrived at by Latin schoolmen during the later Middle Ages.

Obviously, the scholastics did not know that. The discovery of the triadic nature of the sign-relation comes towards the end of centuries of philosophical inquiry and debate (say nothing of political intrigue), during a period labeled, “Baroque scholasticism”. Baroque scholars witness the end of the Latin Age at the same time that mechanical philosophers usher in the beginning of the Age of Ideas (that is, the modern period). This terminology comes from John Deely (1942-2017 AD) and appears in his massive tome, The Four Ages (2001). The four ages are the Greek Age, the Latin Age, the Age of Ideasand the forthcoming Age of Triadic Relations.

0034 The category-based nested form comes in handy when portraying sensible construction. Here is a picture for how humans think.

0035 There are several items to note.

First, the actualities are Latin terms. “Species” (say it with an Italian accent, with lots of cheese) means “type of”. “Impressa” means impression or sensation or feeling. “Expressa” means perception or phantasm or emotional reaction.

Second, the situation level emerges from (and virtually situates) the content level. The vertical elements are nested. Species expressa_2b virtually situates species impressa_1a. The qualifier, “virtual”, means “in virtue”, for the mind, and “in simulation”, for the brain.

Third, Aristotle’s four causes allow me to appreciate normal context₃ and potential₁. The four causes allow me to comprehend an actuality₂. Material, instrumental, final and formal causes elucidate a category-based form that incorporates the actuality at hand.

0036 Say what?

At the start of chapter three in Dennett’s book, titled “On the Origins of Reasons”, the author lists Aristotle’s four causes. Two of the four causes are familiar to scientists. These are the material and efficient (or instrumental) causes. The other two causes are ruled out by the positivist intellect. These are formal and final causes. Today, formal and final causalities are not regarded as “scientific” at all.

0037 What does this imply?

Without all of Aristotle’s four causes, only actualities are relevant. The normal contexts and potentials cannot be considered, much less appreciated. A species impressa_2a and a species expressa_2b constitute a manifest image of sensible construction. The following figure is the corresponding scientific image.

0038 Well, there goes the whole discussion on how Darwin’s paradigm and the specifying sign may be analogies of one another.

Indeed, there goes the specifying sign, along with comprehension.

0039 The scientific picture only allows for material and instrumental causation.

Yet, we cannot comprehend any actuality without final and formal causation.

What can we do if we cannot comprehend?

We can assess competence.

0040 We can measure phenomena of perceptions in response to particular sensations.

How does a human brain come to recognize that the dog is happy because it wags its tail?

Can I fashion a mechanical or mathematical model, using a disciplinary language, describing neurons selecting for synapses which either exploit or avoid an affordance?

How does one build a model on observations and measurements of species impressa_1b and species expressa_2b?

One scientific model would be like a giant betting parlor filled with neocortical neurons, where each successful bet raises the stakes. A perception, a species expressa_2b, is like a winner_2b, in this regard. A phantasm_2b depends on the survival and demise of synapses, so the qualia of the species impressa_2a (those impressions, sensations and feelings) constitute the “winnings’ that perception_2b rakes in (and must use to bet again).

0041 In many respects, the survival and demise of synapses_1b corresponds to what psychologists might call “priming” or “training”. Neurons perform natural selection_3b on synapses_2b. The result is not comprehension. The result is competence.

My brain’s reading of my dog’s attitude_2b, my species expressa_2b, turns into an example of competence, stimulated by observations of my dog’s tail_2a. My brain is competent at conjuring a phantasm_2b that seems, upon subsequent reflection, to be perfectly sensible.

0042 My brain’s competence even extends to Daisy’s reaction to the neighbor’s cat.

Here is a diagram.

0043 At this juncture, I feel that I am on the verge of slipping from my brain to my mind.

Oh, I meant to say, “the user-illusion of my brain”.

0044 The first aspect of the slippage goes with chapter eight, titled “Brains Made of Brains”, more or less applying the Darwinian paradigm as a metaphor for the specifying sign. Neurons_3b selectively breed synapses_1b in order to participate in adaptive neural networks_2b.

0046 The second part of the slippage starts with chapter three, titled “The Origin of Reason”, and concerns the fact that, on the occasion of my reactionary dog encountering the neighbor’s revolutionary cat, the process of natural selection_3b of neural synapses_3b, provides me with a phantasm_2b, a manifest image_2b, a species expressa_2b, that avoids the affordance_1bimplied by my dog’s tail action_2a. I pull Daisy back on her leash in order to prevent her from engaging in an impetuous action.

Yes, my brain provides its user with an illusion. The phantasm_2b that occupies my mind is a solution to a challenge similar to the Turing test. The Turning test asks a question, “Can a human observer distinguish whether an action or behavior is in virtue or in simulation?” If the answer is no, then the action passes the test. My phantasm_2b is a human thought that passes Turing’s test. It has the virtue of being human. But, that does not mean that I created my phantasm.

0047 No, a specific application of the Darwinian paradigm “designed” my phantasm_2b.

I do not comprehend how I obtain the phantasm_2b in my mind, because it has been designed without a designer. It has been conjured by an evolutionary process.

Even more, the phantasm in my mind swarms with formal and final causalities, which cannot be recognized by a positivist intellect, er, I mean to say… a scientist.

The positivist intellect has a rule.

Metaphysics is not permitted.

12/18/23

Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria To Bach and Back” (Part 6 of 20)

0048 In science, metaphysics is not allowed.

Yet, Aristotle’s four causes allow comprehension, because they step out of the physics of material and instrumental causalities, even as they include them. Comprehension wraps actuality₂ with a normal context₃ and a potential₁. The resulting category-based nested form entangles actuality, even as it transcends actuality.

Are triadic relations real?

Are they real enough to provide the ultimate human niche?

0049 Surely, the similarity between the relational structure of Darwin’s paradigm and the specifying sign is unsettling. Dennett writes this similarity out of his many scenarios. Why? The similarity stinks of metaphysics.

0050 Say what?

The absence and the presence of metaphysics is on display when comparing the content-level of the Darwinian paradigmand the content level of the human mind, as depicted by those medieval Aristotelian scholastics.

0051 For the Darwinian paradigm, metaphysics is not allowed.

There is no content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a.

Biologists do not worry about comprehending the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a. All they worry about is the potential of the actuality_2a in defining a niche_1b.

0052 For the scholastic picture of the way humans think, metaphysics is allowed.

Why?

Signs cannot be understood without metaphysics (that is, final and formal causation).

The species impressa_2a is the sign-vehicle of the specifying sign (SV_s), regardless of what is happening_3a and the potential of ‘something happening’_1a. Yet, the specifying sign-vehicle_2a becomes affordance-rich when the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a are available. The normal context_3a associates to formal causation. The potential_1aassociates to final causation. Without a content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a, situating an impression_1b becomes difficult and prone to error. The impression_2a becomes less comprehensible.

0053 When I take my dog on a walk and the beast suddenly puts her tail between her legs (SV_s) , I know that she is upset (SO_s). That is the specifying sign-relation in action.

When she does so when encountering the neighbor’s cat, I see the cat as well. The cat triggers a species impressa_2a. She has prehensile paws that may claw my dog’s nose.

In this instance, what is going on in my brain is more like the selective breeding of synapses, because the actuality independent of the adapting synapses_2a… er… the species impressa_2a presents within a non-empty normal context_3a and potential_1a.

0054 On other occasions, I do not know what is happening_3a nor what possibilities are raised_1a when her tail goes between her hind legs_2a.

In these instances, what is going on in my brain is more like a wide-open exercise in synaptic selection. No phantasm seems adaptive until an affordance becomes obvious.

0055 My conclusion?

A species impressa_2a, an impression_2a, a sensation_2a or a feeling_2a marks a human encounter with a thing or event.

If the content-level species impressa_2a is embedded in the normal context of what is happening_3a and the potential of ‘something’ happening_1a, then the affordance_1b is obvious and neuron-facilitated synapse selection_3b produces a familiar species expressa_2a through a Darwinian process similar to selective breeding_1b. Selective breeding of synapses_1bcorresponds to rote learning. That is, competence without comprehension.

If the content-level species impressa_2a does not occur in the normal context of what is happening_3a and if the potential of ‘something’ happening_1a is not apparent, then affordance_1b is not obvious and neuron-facilitated synapse selection_3b will not produce a stable species expressa_2b unless an affordance_1b becomes obvious or another process (besides sensible construction) is initiated at a level higher than the situation level.

0056 I know what is happening_3a when Daisy encounters the neighbor’s cat on our morning walk. I worry that the cat’s fast moving paws may make mince-meat out of my dog’s precious snout. So, I pull on the leash, in order to avoid confrontation. That is my example of the selective-breeding of neural synapses.

At the same time, I wonder about other options. Such wondering introduces an affordance that is not so obvious. Consequently, I have the user-experience of a phantasm_2b that is odd and constantly in need of revision. Do I call this option, “incompetence without comprehension”? Or “temptation without a devil”?