Tag Archives: Charles Peirce

04/8/25

Looking at Victoria Alexander’s Chapter (2024) “…The Emergence of Subjective Meaning” (Part 5 of 5)

0735 How is biology… er… NeoDarwinism… incomprehensible?

0736 First of all, neodarwinism is an intersection.  An intersection contains contradictions that cannot be resolved.  That is why intersections are mysteries.  Philosophers can elucidate the contradictions, but they can never resolve them without cognitively reconfiguring the single actuality.

0737 For example, there are two major branches of evolutionary science.  For the most part, natural historians ignore the vertical axis and geneticists ignore the horizontal axis.  Everyone else ends up confusing niche1H and genotype1V as if these potentials1b situate “equivalent” actualities2a.

0738 The mystery within neodarwinism may be of interest to those concerned about mysteries.

After all, the Positivist’s judgment does not anticipate anything like this.  How can terms for two radically different models for the origins of species simply be clapped together?  I suppose that speech-alone talk can label anything, even mysteries… even, “neodarwinism”.

Well, “neo” is not exactly “genetic”.

Genodarwinism?

Perhaps, “neodarwinism” should be called out for what it is.

0739 Another reason why neodarwinism is incomprehensible is because the (hidden) content-level actualities2a do not have normal contexts3a and potentials1a.  They are the foundations2a of situation-level potentials1b that support situation-level normal contexts3b (natural selection3b and body development3b).  Does ecology and environment (as actualities independent of the adapting species)2a have anything to do with DNA2a (as the template for reproduction and cellular organization)?

I think not.

0740 So, how does one make biology… er, the evolution of subjective meaning on Earth… comprehensible?

This is the question that the author wrestles with.

The answer is in the title.  It must have something to do with the operations of self-reinforcing cycles.  How does biological meaning evolve?

Occasionally, mistakes do not act as impediments, but serve as empedoclements.

0741 Plus, the answer may have something to do with Peirce’s natural signs and how brainless creatures behave according to what we expect in terms of these natural signs.  When the behavior of brainless creatures is regarded through the lens of Peirce’s natural-sign typology, directionality and originality are obvious.  These obvious concepts must be indispensable for an explanation of the evolution of subjective meaning within biological entities.

0742 Neodarwinism will not do (S, T, U).

That much is for sure.

The role of Peirce’s natural signs (V) is a guess.

Or, should I say, “an intelligent guess”?

0751 For me, one of the pleasures of examining these chapters comes from the fact that the authors do not have a diagram of the S&T noumenal overlay before them, but they write like they are fishing around for the diagram.

In this case, the author does not catch, but almost hooks, a much bigger fish than neodarwinism.  Indeed, directionality (the horizontal axis) and originality (the vertical axis) are built into the diagram of the semiotic agent as a mystery, in the style of neodarwinism.

0752 Remember, the author discusses non-human, or rather, brainless organisms and ends up with an alluring line for appreciating the evolution of meaning in the universe.

My thanks to the author for the fishing expedition.  What a wonderful cast.

04/7/25

Looking at Hongbing Yu’s Chapter (2024) “…Danger Modeling…” (Part 1 of 7)

0753 The text before me is chapter seventeen of Pathways (2024, see point 0474 for details. pages 363-375).  This chapter concludes Part III, titled, “Meanings in Organism Behavior and Cognition”.  The related title in Semiotic Agency (2021, see point 0473) is “Nonhuman Agency”.  The author works at Toronto Metropolitan University, in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures.

The full title of chapter seventeen is “The Peculiar Case of Danger Modeling: Meaning Generation in Three Dimensions”.

0754 Of course, danger offers great examples for semiotics.  The abstract says as much.  In 2022, Marcel Danesi publishes a book on the topic, titled Warning Signs: The Semiotics of Danger.

For example, when a dog growls at me2a, that serves as a sign-vehicle (SVs) that is interpreted by my self-governance3bcontextualizing the potentials of various courses of action1b (SIs) in order to construct information2b (SOs).

0755 Here is a picture, using the S&T noumenal overlay.

0756 Yes, semiotic agency looks like a noumenon that exhibits observable and measurable facets (phenomena) that may be used to construct models of [self-governance3b operating on potential courses of action1b (SIs)] and[sentience3c((1c)) (SIe)].

Does the reader notice my sleight of hand in the preceding statement?

I substitute “sentience” for “salience” in SIe.

0757 The substitution is justified because information2b (SOs [&] SVe) says, “Danger is present.”

The “danger” goes with SOs.  Its “presence” is what I am sentient of (SVe).

The exemplar sign-relation goes like this.  The danger2b (SVe) that I am sentient of3c,1c (SIe) stands for something that I can avoid or safely ignore2c (SOe).

0758 So, what is the problem?

The author does not have the Sharov and Tonnessen noumenal overlay, which is foundational for the Positivist’s judgment, when it comes to biosemiotics.

Consequently, the author proposes that Thomas Sebeok’s concept of modeling may be used as a productive approach.  After all, modeling offers a highly integrative framework for meaning generation.

0759 Shall we see?

If highly integrative frameworks for meaning (that is, Sebeok’s models) are um… “natural”… for humans, then they should support implicit abstractions, characteristic of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Implicit abstractions are holistic.

0760 But, there is a problem.

We no longer live in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  The Lebenswelt that we evolved in practices hand- and hand-speech talk, which is holistic and relies on Peirce’s natural sign-relations of icon and index.  Of course, symbols operate in the background, allowing hand talk to become linguistic.

0761 Our current Lebenswelt practices speech-alone talk.

0762 How is this relevant to the current discussion?

With speech-alone talk, different aspects of a holistic implicit abstraction can be explicitly labeled.

The author identifies three dimensions to Sebeok’s models (as highly integrative frameworks of meaning): existential, representational and interpretational.

0763 These three dimensions are explicit abstractions.  They label “dimensions” of a model that frames message{SVs}2a and integrates presence {SOs [&] SVe}2b into meaning {SOe}2c.

In short, these dimensions bring this examiner right back to semiotic agency.

0764 Say what?

These dimensions bring this examiner right back to specifying and exemplar sign-relations.

So, the direction that this examiner will take, with plenty of creativity (hence, mistakes), calls to mind the S&T noumenal overlay, as the purely relational structure that all biological entities and processes have in common, including the case of me, surprising an unfamiliar dog, who is snarfing something already dead, found in a pile of autumn leaves.  The incident occurs on my morning walk with Daisy (who is taken by surprise herself, along with me).

04/1/25

Looking at Hongbing Yu’s Chapter (2024) “…Danger Modeling…” (Part 7 of 7)

0819 In the interventional sign-relation, the agent3 and final causality1 are exposed in the same way that a helium balloon, suddenly rising above a carnival crowd, says, “Someone just let go of their balloon (SOe).” 

Semiotic agency reaches a terminus (SOe).  That terminus is contiguous with an interventional sign-vehicle (SVi).  The contiguity is [meaning, mn].  The balloon rises from a perspective-level actuality2c (SVi) into the mundane atmosphere of a content-level actuality2a (SOi) in the normal context of say, what is happening3a operating on the potential of ‘something’ happening1a (SIi).

The rising balloon2a sends a message [mg] that says, “Now that I’ve caught your attention3a((1a)), I will serve as the next real initiating (semiotic) event2a (SVs).”

0820 Here is a picture.

0821 The interventional sign relation occupies the existential dimension.

The existential dimension seems so much more dangerous than the other two.

0822 The representative and interpretive dimensions belong to semiotic agency.

0823 I suppose I may say that – if I must choose the second most dangerous dimension – the interpretative dimensioncomes next.

Why?

If I have poor information2b (SVe) and have an unworthy goal (SOe), then {SOe [meaning] (SVi)}2c may yield an intervention that misses the mark.

I suppose I am trying to say, “If the interpretative dimension is wayward, then the existential dimension becomes more dangerous.”

0824 Section 17.5 concludes the article by dwelling on the three dimensions and their roles in modeling danger.

0825 However, the existential dimension contains a hidden and disturbing discovery.  The existential dimension is outside of semiotic agency.  The existential dimension contains the interventional sign-relation.  The existential dimension may reveal the agent3 and the final causality1 that make semiotic agency2 an actuality2.

0826 Here is a picture of how semiotic agency (containing the representative and interpretive dimensions) entangles the interventional sign-relation (constituting the existential dimension).

0827 I thank the author for this wonderful chapter, fully titled “The Peculiar Case of Danger Modeling: Meaning-Generation in Three Dimensions”, marking the conclusion of Part III of Pathways, titled “Meanings in Organism Behavior and Cognition”.

This chapter marks the end of this examination of the biosemiotics of nonhuman agency and opens a portal to an examination of human agency.

0828 Biosemiotics is more than semiotic agency.  Biosemiotics includes the interventional sign-relation.  Sharov and Tonnessen’s noumenal overlay, more creative and productive than any noumenal overlay that biology has seen so far, now entangles an existential dimension.

03/31/25

Looking at Robert Prinz’s Chapter (2024) “Meaning Relies on Codes But Depends on Agents” (Part 1 of 5)

0395 The text before me is chapter eleven in Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (2024, edited by Alexei Sharov and George E. Mikhailovsky, pages 245-264).  The author hails from Rechenkraft.net e.V., a non-profit association located in Marburg, Germany.  Rechenkraft translates in English as “computing power”.  The author and editors have permission to use and reprint this commentary.

0396 From prior examinations, I propose that Alexei Sharov’s and Morten Tonnessen’s 2021 book, Semiotic Agency, formulates a noumenal overlay for the diverse field of biosemiotics.  All manifestations of semiotic agency are unique.  Each is a subject of inquiry on its own.  Yet, they have one relational structure in common.  

0397 Furthermore, from prior examinations, Deacon and Tabaczek’s interscope of emergence also associates to the S&T noumenal overlay.  Here is a picture of the resulting dyad within a dyad.

0398 In many respects, the chapter under examination consists of a review of the work of Italian biosemiotician, Marcello Barbieri (b. 1940), who has extensively theorized on organic codes.  An organic code is an arbitrary mapping between two independent worlds (A and B) by a set of adaptor molecules.

0399 I can associate the body of this definition to a hylomorphe.  The two real elements are A and B.  The contiguity is a map.  The set of adaptors must be associated with the map.

0400 Does this association key into the S&T noumenal overlay?

Here is a picture.

0401 Indeed, the S&T noumenal overlay offers an alternate way to appreciate Barbieri’s definition of organic code.  Mapping requires two styles of adaptor.  The first (SIs) concerns ways to specify how the two worlds are capable of mapping onto one another.  The second (SIe) locks onto one particular option within this specified capability.

0402 For example, a key (SVs, A) must appropriately move all the tumblers in a lock (SIs), producing that highly uncertain moment when the lock is no longer locked, but is not yet open (SOs).

But, the bolt once held in place by the tumblers (SVe) must glide out (SIs) in order to open (SOe) the lock (SVe, B).

03/26/25

Looking at Robert Prinz’s Chapter (2024) “Meaning Relies on Codes But Depends on Agents” (Part 5 of 5)

0431 In contrast to the capitalization of the term, “code”, if I go back, say 10,000 years before this time, before the potentiation of civilization, then I would find that the word, “code”, could not be uttered in hand-speech talk.

In human evolution, language evolves in the milieu of hand-talk.  Speech is added to hand-talk, as an adornment, at the start of our species, Homo sapiens.

See Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) as well as the masterwork, The Human Niche (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  Portions of the former may be found in Razie Mah’s blog for January through March, 2024.  

0432 Hand-talk words picture and point to their referents.  Consequently, the problem of definition is resolved before it can even be raised.  The referent exists before the gestural word.  Otherwise, what would the gestural word image or indicate?

Nevertheless, hand talk fits into code biology.

0433 The agent cannot be ignored.

For hand and hand-speech talk, the agent belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  The linguistic manual-brachial word gesture2a (SVs) stands for the referent that it images or points to2b (SOs) in regards to a specifying code3bperformed by a specific region of the hominin brain1b (SIs).

The hominin agent does not have to ask, “What is happening?”, because ‘something’ is always happening.  All the hominin needs to do is implicit abstraction.  Because hand-talk words are images or indications, then implicit abstraction is called for.  “Decoding” enters the picture when the word-gestures are sufficiently different as to be rapidly interpreted on the grounds that they are easy to recognize.

Yes, meaning relies on codes, but agents cannot be ignored.

03/25/25

Looking at Abir Igamberdiev’s Chapter (2024) “Evolutionary Growth of Meanings…” (Part 1 of 4)

0434 The text before me is chapter twelve in Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (2024, edited by Alexei Sharov and George E. Mikhailovsky, pages 265-278).  The full title is “Evolutionary Growth of Meanings in the Relational Universe of Intercommunicating Agents”.  The author is a biologist at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, at St. John’s.

0435 The introduction places the term, “agent”, on stage.

How does one know whether “an agent” is an agent?

Well, the agent should be obvious.  An agent is physical.  An agent is the repository of – what Aristotle calls – “final causality”.  Final causality associates to another metaphysics-laden term, “teleology”.

What is the meaning of this term, “repository”.

0436 I only ask this because the thing that we encounter in science associates to what is for the Positivist’s judgment.  Sharov and Tonnessen’s noumenal overlay pertains to what is, and it describes semiotic agency.  Semiotic agency (as the noumenon) gives rise to phenomena that are observed and measured by biologists, then the resulting models are attributed, not to agency2 itself, but to the agent3 and the agent’s intentions1 (that is, final causalities).

0437 “Repository” plays out as a category-based nested form.

The normal context of an agent3 brings the actuality of semiotic agency2 into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘final causality’1.

The agent3 puts semiotic agency2 into context.  Semiotic agency2 emerges from (and situates) the potential of ‘teleology’1.

These basics are found in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0438 The image of “the agent” as “an obvious repository of final causality” treats the category-based nested form diagrammed above as a thing.

The author presents the image without hesitation, as if that is what human naturally do.  Humans not only treat a thing as a thing, but we also treat a corresponding category-based nested form as a thing.  Not the same “thing”, but still, a thing.

We observe semiotic agency2.  We visualize the agent3 as a physical repository of final causality1.

0439 What does this imply?

Consider the title of the chapter, Evolutionary Growth of Meanings in the Relational Universe of Intercommunicating Agents.

Where do I slip the category-based nested form into this title?

Do category-based nested forms slide into the author’s designation of “relational universe”?

If so, then the substitution brings this examiner face to face with where the author seems to be going, the recovery of Aristotle’s causalities within the milieu of biosemiotics.

0440 If that is the case, let me present a more hylomorphic version of the category-based nested form.

0441 Notice that actuality2 corresponds to Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  In the figure, the contiguity is placed in brackets for the purposes of notation.

For example, for Aristotle, when I encounter a thing, the two real elements that come to mind are matter and form.  Matter is necessary for presence.  Form is necessary for shape.  What is the contiguity between matter and form?  Here, I snatch a term that has been much abused, because it has been so difficult to grasp.  The term is “substance”.  I now assign a very specific, technical definition to the term in hand.  “Substance” is the contiguity between matter and form.

0442 Aristotle’s hylomorphe is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness.

Thus, the recovery of Aristotle’s terminology in the biosemiotic milieu begins.

0443 Abir Igamberdiev is not the only one to imagine a recovery of Aristotle’s causality in light of the postmodern compromise of the positivist intellect.

Mariusz Tabaczek pursues a recovery in the field of emergence.  Emergence endeavors to account for the constellation of higher-order noumena that could not be predicted on the basis of lower-level noumena.  Like biosemiotics, the goal is understanding, rather than prediction and control.

See Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Much of this commentary may be found in Razie Mah’s blog for March, April and May 2024.  Tabaczek’s work is discussed in this examination in points 0276 to 0300.

03/21/25

Looking at Abir Igamberdiev’s Chapter (2024) “Evolutionary Growth of Meanings…” (Part 4 of 4)

0460 Section 12.3 covers meaningful information in autopoetic systems.

“Auto” means “self”.  “Poetic” means “powered”.

0461 To start, the universe is full of spontaneous processes that may be modeled by truncated material and efficient causes.  Entropy increases.  Agency does not need to be present.

Autopoetic systems are not really self-powered.  Instead, they entangle a spontaneous process (where entropy increases) in a triadic relation, so that, as movement towards thermodynamic equilibrium proceeds, some of the free energy is diverted to the maintenance and construction of an “autopoetic” being.  This is the nature of emergence.  Emergence associates to life.

0462 Igamberdiev notices that biological dynamics include both low-energy and high-energy processes separated by an epistemic cut.  The epistemic cut becomes obvious when visualizing the way that formal and final causes envelope material and efficient causes.  Formal and final causes associate to “low-energy”.  Material and efficient causes go with “higher-energy”.

In the above figure.  Low-energy describes the ontolon (in purple).  Higher-energy describes the vortices (in green).

0463 Now, it seems that the low-energy and the high-energy dynamics must work in tandem.  For example, models of self governance and potential courses of action and of salience should capture basic structural interactions between a living organism and its environment.  Jacob von Uexkull (1864-1944 AD) coins the term, “Functionkreis”.  Functionkreis may be regarded as systems of reflexive loops (vortexes) generating a network of biological codes(ontolons).

0464 Codes?

Yes, the concept of codes is already discussed in points 0409 through 0433.

0465 The high-energy, hard work of Functionkreis is investigated in biological laboratories throughout the world.  What are the truncated material and efficient causalities that go into… say… whether a mitochondria is operating properly or malfunctioning?  Laboratory scientists aim for mechanistic answers, but the terminology that frames their research questions betray the biosemiotic reality that they cannot allow to infect their methodologies.

The low-energy, epistemologically relevant work of codes is investigated by biosemiotics, as shown in the following figure.

0466 In section 12.4, Igamberdiev introduces the term, “codepoesis”.

Codepoesis contrasts with autopoesis.

“Codepoesis” labels an intrinsic property of biological entities, where the holistic living system maps out onto a finite set of constituent… um… semiotic agents.  Yes, the organism maps (through codepoesis) onto its organs and systems as semiotic agents.  Then, organs and systems as semiotic agents map onto tissues and anatomical arrangements.

0467 The list continues downwards towards physical poesis.

Upwards, the list ends with a holistic terminus that exhibits the rewards of codepoesis, but itself is not so bound by a superior level of code.  In autopoesis, the “soul” is the kinetic perfection (substitute the word, “completion”, for “perfection”) of the body and the body is the holistic terminus of codepoesis.  The levels of codepoesis may also be called “subagencies”. 

0468 In section 12.5, Igamberdiev adds one more level of poesis.  The autopoesis of the individual human occurs within a super-organism that has its own autonomy.

0469 Here, at the end of Part II of Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (2024, edited by Alexei Sharov and George E. Mikhailovsky, pages 187-278), the value of the category-based nested form comes to the fore as a style of semiotic inquiry within the category of sociopoesis.

Igamberdiev lays out a hierarchy as well as a frame for that hierarchy.

Sharov and Tonnessen’s semiotic agency captures what is common in all biological processes.

Sharov and Tonnessen propose their noumenal overlay within the hierarchy of sociopoesis.

So, Abir Igamberdiev seems to get the last word.

0470 This concludes my examination of Part II of Pathways, containing chapters nine through twelve titled and “Meanings in the Evolution of Life”.  My thanks to each author and the editors for publishing these challenging essays.

03/20/25

Examining Biosemiotics At This Juncture (A Look Back and Forward) (Part 1 of 2)

0471 I have, under examination, two texts that bring the inquirer to the door of a truly postmodern discipline of biosemiotics.  Biosemiotics adheres to the relational structure of the Positivist’s judgment, but with a caveat.  Metaphysics is allowed.  The positivist intellect must accept metaphysics in order to understand semiotic agency2, in the normal context of an agent3 operating on the potential of final causality1.  Final causality is necessarily metaphysical.

0472 Here is a picture of the category-based nested form for semiotic agency2 as an actuality2 that requires understanding3((1)).

0473 The first book is Semiotic Agency: Science Beyond Mechanism, by biosemioticians Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen.  The book is published in 2021 by Springer (Switzerland) and logs in at volume 25 of Springer’s Series in Biosemiotics.  Series editors are Kalevi Kull, Alexei Sharov, Claude Emmeche and Donald Favareau.  These authors and editors have Razie Mah’s permission for use of the continuing disquisition, with attribution of said blogger.

0474 The second book is Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe, edited by Alexei Sharov and George Mikhailovsky.  Each chapter has its own author(s).  The book is published in 2024 by Scrivener Press (Beverly, MA) and logs in as volume 1 in Scrivener’s Series on Astrobiology Perspectives on Life in the Universe.  Series editors are Martin Scrivener and Phillip Carmical.  Chapter authors and book editors have Razie Mah’s permission for use of the continuing disquisition, with attribution of said blogger.

0475 Now, I look back.

The examination starts by examining Parts I and III of Semiotic Agency.  This covers historical development and theory of the discipline of biosemiotics.  The discussion covers points 0001 to 0270 and will be packaged under the title Biosemiotics As Noumenon 1: Semiotic Agency.  The package, by Razie Mah, should be available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

The examination continues by looking at the end of Part II of Semiotic Agency (chapter 5) along with Part II of Pathways(chapters 9-12).  The discussion covers points 0271 to 0470 and will be packaged under the title Biosemiotics as Noumenon 2: Origins of Life.

0476 Here is a picture looking back.

03/18/25

Looking at Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen’s Chapter (2021) “Composite Agency” (Part 1 of 5)

478 The text before me is chapter 10 of Semiotic Agency (2021).  Details on the text may be found on point 0473.  Chapter 10 covers pages 291-312.

0479 The authors’ claim?

A multiplicity of subagents is a typical feature of agency and is necessary for a higher-level agent’s reliable self-construction, robustness and adaptability.

Subagents are semi-autonomous.  The co-exist in partially cooperative and partially antagonistic manners.  In many cases, semiogenesis occurs when one subagent provides the scaffolding that facilitates, represses or redirects the development of another subagent.

0480 Subagents characterize anatomy and physiology in animals.

Animals are subject to natural selection.

Plus, some parasites play the game of subagency very well.

0481 So, let me start with the Sharov and Tonnessen noumenal overlay.

0482 Obviously, subagents are employed in the specifying and exemplar sign-interpretants.

0483 The authors’ first example is a single-celled paramecium.  The length of the cell in 300 micrometers.  Is that one third of a millimeter?  Subagents include a macronucleus, micronucleus, pellicle, gullet, food vacuoles, anal pore and so forth.  None of the subagents are truly self-governing.  Each plays a role in various courses of action, depending on what the paramecium is going to do (SOe).

Here are my associations for a paramecium’s semiotic agency.

0484 If this is the noumenon, then what are the phenomena?

In order to find out, I take the paramecium into my laboratory (actually, it’s an academic biology lab) and vary its environmental conditions (SVs).  The paramecium is a holobiont (a whole, living organism).  At any given moment, it acts as an agent3, whose main motivation seems to be ‘staying alive’1.

That is where semiotic agency2 comes in.

Some conditions produce responses (SOe) that indicate that the paramecium responds to something in its environment (SOs and SVe).  Sign-vehicles and sign-objects give rise to phenomena.  Indeed, these sign-elements are objectified by my observations and measurements of those phenomena.

0485 But, what about the paramecium as an agent?

Here is a picture.

03/13/25

Looking at Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen’s Chapter (2021) “Composite Agency” (Part 5 of 5)

0525 That brings me to empedoclements.

Recall, an empedoclement (a noun derived from the name of the Neoplatonic philosopher, Empedocles) is the inverse of an impediment (see points 0329 through 0341).  In this case, almost all institutional and personal interactions at the water fountain impede my boss (the macronucleus) from establishing a feedback to me (the contractile vacuole) that might mitigate my impulse to stir things up.

0526 For my reading of Empedocles, the SIs is strife.  The SIe is love.

In strife, form (SVs) attracts matter, {SOs [salience] SOe}.

Okay, technically, matter is really {(SOs [&] SVe)2b [salience3c((1c))] (SOe)2c}.

The form2a of what is happening3a operating on the potential of ‘something’ happening1a appeals to matter2b[]2c, and that matter2b[]2c itself is a thing, coupling the situation and perspective levels, as matter2b and form2c.

The appeal comes in [strife].  The coupling, the empedoclement as thing, comes with [love].

0527 Obviously, my boss (the macronucleus) has greater wisdom than me (the contractile vacuole).

He has to wait, for the moment when preparation meets opportunity, to establish a feedback loop where my humor, instead of causing trouble, can improve morale.

0528 Yes, evolution is all about empedoclements, which are impossible to predict in advance.

Only in hindsight, does an empedoclement become clear.

0529 In section 10.4, the authors discuss many examples.

In each step of the progression of evolution on Earth, the emergent holobiont is more stunning to behold.  At each step, the holobiont seems to have more and more of an identity.  At the same time, the holobiont appears more susceptible to subagent malfunctions.

0530 With this in mind, I assess my own self-affirmation and self-awareness as the human version of contractile vacuole.

On one hand, I like to have fun.

On the other hand, I better mind my boss.