10/31/24

Looking at N. J. Enfield’s Book (2022) “Language vs. Reality” (Part 1 of 23)

0841 This is an encore performance to the sequence of blogs on the post-truth condition.

As such, this examination wraps up Part Two of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Take a gander at the full title of Enfield’s text, Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good For Lawyers and Bad For Scientists.

Surely, that sounds like a book that belongs to a set of books on the post-truth condition.

So, the numbers continue to build from the last examination.

0842 The book is published by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The author is a professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney and the Director of the Sydney Centre for Language Research.

0843 The title of the book is a play on John B. Carroll’s (editor) collection of essays by Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941 AD), published in 1956 under the title, Language, Thought and Reality.

To me, this implies that “thought” has transubstantiated into “versus”. The substance of the word has changed, so to speak. The word, “versus”, derives from the same root as the word, “adversary”. So, if “thought” once used to nominally stand between “language” and “reality”, then today, “thought” is confounded with “adversary”, and that might serve as a hint concerning the nature of our adversity.

Perhaps, this is not the only notable feature of the title.

Then again, a book titled, Language, Adversary and Reality, might not fly off the shelves in feel-good book-outlets. It is not as if, next to the Self-Help section, there is a Come To Grips With Your Doom section.

So, expect me to play with the title throughout this examination.

0844 Another notable feature of this book, at least to me, is that the author is not acquainted with Razie Mah’s re-articulation of human evolution, in three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues). The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. Plus, the evolution of talk comes with the twist, humorously called, “the first singularity”.

So, Enfield’s work serves as a marker for the twilight of the Age of Ideas and the dawning of the Age of Triadic Relations.

0845 Okay, let me dwell on the idea that the evolution of language is not the same as the evolution of talk.

Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues, and also, for the most part, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog for January, February and March, 2024) divides the evolution of talk in the following manner.

0846 The first period starts with the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineage (7 million of years ago) and ends with the bipedalism of the so-called “southern apes” (around 3.5 to 4 million years ago).

In the second period, australopithecines adapt to mixed forest and savannah by adopting the strategy of obligate collaborative foraging. Eventually, Homo erectus figures out the controlled use of fire, leading to the domestication of fire, starting (perhaps) around 800 thousand years ago.

The third period, lasts from the domestication of fire to the earliest appearance of anatomically modern humans. During this period, hand talk becomes fully linguistic, religion evolves as an adaptation to large social circles (of 150 individuals and more) and hominins use the voice for synchronization during seasonal mega-band and occasional tribal gatherings. Then, sexual selection does the rest and the voice comes under voluntary neural control.

0847 The fourth period starts when the voice, now under voluntary control, joins hand-talk, resulting in a dual-mode way of talking, hand-speech talk. Hand talk retains the iconicity and indexality that grounds reference in things that can be pictured or pointed to. But, speech adds a symbolic adornment, which starts as a sing-along and ends up taking a life of its own. Four centuries ago, the North American Plains Indians and the Australian aborigines still practiced hand-speech talk, with full fledged sign and verbal languages. Now, their hand-speech talk is all but dead.

0848 That death, along with the demise of all hand-speech talking languages, comes (and came) due to exposure to speech-alone talk, which has significantly different semiotic qualities than hand-talk and hand-speech talk. Hand-talk is iconic and indexal. The referent precedes the gestural word. Speech-alone talk is purely symbolic. The spoken word labels ‘something’, and sometimes that ‘something’ cannot be imaged or indicated.

Well, it must be real because speech-alone talk provides a label for an explicit abstraction!

0849 Here is a picture of the transition labeled, “the first singularity”.

0850 Consider the words, “language”, “adversary” and “reality”. Each word is a label for ‘something’ that cannot be pictured or pointed to. These words do not exist in hand-talk or hand-speech talk, because the referent cannot be imaged or indicated using a manual-brachial gesture. What does this imply? Does a referent exist because a label has been attached to it? Or, does an explicit abstraction properly label referents that exist irrespective of the spoken word? This type of question is addressed in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.

Fortunately, the author of the book under examination is unaware of the first singularity and the difficulties that a change in the way that humans talk poses. Human evolution comes with a twist.

0851 So why examine this work?

Well, I expect to see the evolution of talk manifesting in this book, even though the author is not aware of Razie Mah’s academic labors.

Surely, Enfield’s work details recent scientific research in linguistics and cognitive psychology, in an attempt to provide the reader with a coherent view of how language is good for lying lawyers and bad for honest scientists.

What will this examination reveal?

08/31/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 1 of 20)

0255 The full title of the book before me is Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam (Center Street Press: Nashville and New York). The book consists of an introduction, followed by fifteen chapters.

0256 Why am I numbering the start of this examination with the number that follows the end of Professor Steve Fuller’s 2020 book, A Player’s Guide to The Post-Truth Condition?

Well, I have a question.

Is Fuller on target?

0257 One way to address this question is an examination of an author who is a player in the current theo-political dramaof the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods (1989-present).

Vivek Ramaswamy offers a book that suits the purpose. Take a look at the table of contents. The title of the introductionis “The Woke-Industrial Complex”. The title of the final chapter is “Who are We?”

0258 Are “we” the ones who have substituted the broadcasts of the empirio-normative judgment for our own thoughts, so what we say can be objectified as phenomena for the psychometric sciences?

Or are “we” the ones who read the previous sentence and ask, “What the hell are you talking about?”

The choice is clear.

0259 We are in the fourth world war. I call it The Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: Empirio-Normative Domination in the Post-Truth Condition.

Here is a list of all four wars.

0260 Of course, those who are certified in modern history will classify this list as “revisionist”.

But, reflect on the titles of the introduction and chapter fifteen of Ramaswamy’s book and ask, “Just who is acting as a revisionist?”

Woke, Inc.?

Or, the confounded subject of domination.

0261 In the introduction, Ramaswamy claims that two characteristics define America as a nation.

The first is the American Dream, where “success” is regarded in terms of “getting ahead”. To many, “getting ahead” is associated with capitalism.

The second is the Latin slogan, e pluribus unum, out of many, one. Pluralism celebrates a variety of views and the challenges of convincing others of the relevance of one’s own view. We all have this in common. Everyone has an opinion. Ramaswamy associates this to democracy.

0262 Here are the associations.

0263 But, how do these slogans associate to the interscope for the post-truth condition?

Yes, I must go there.

The following interscope is typical for the many interscopes that appear in the examination of Fuller’s guide.

0264 For the content-level, the normal context of my intellect_3a brings the dyadic actuality of what I think [cannot be objectified as] what I am willing to say_2a into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘my will’_1a

What is the nature of this dyadic actuality_2a?

It has to do with science.

What I think is like a noumenon, a thing itself.

What I say is like its phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of a thing.

According to Kant’s slogan, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.

Therefore, what I think [cannot be objectified as] what I say.

0265 Kant’s slogan figures in what is in the Positivist’s judgment.

Here is a diagram.

0266 Clearly, the content-level actuality_2a corresponds to what is of the Positivist’s judgment.

If logical positivists had their way, they would dismiss the noumenon as a stumbling block for scientific inquiry into phenomena. This is precisely why Kant insists on the realness of the noumenon, in addition to its phenomena. Scientific models are not the same as the thing itself, even though triumphalist scientists would have models replace their noumena.

Nevertheless, for most sciences, the noumenon is merely a book-keeping entry corresponding to what is responsible for observable and measurable phenomena.

So, I repeat.

What I think is a book-keeping entry.

What I say corresponds to what the psychometric sciences observe and measure.

08/8/24

Looking at Josef Pieper’s Book (1974) “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” (Part 1 of 8)

0756 The essay is originally published in German by Kosef-Verlag, Munich. In 1988, the essay is translated by Lothar Krauth, in an edition by Schuabenverlag AG, Osterfindern bei Stuttgart. The essay before me is published in 1992 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco.

Why should I examine this essay?

Is the post-truth condition a manifestation of original sin?

0757 If the answer is “yes” to the latter question, then the answer to the former is partially unveiled.

Obviously, there is no direct path from the post-truth condition to a reincarnation of the doctrine of original sin, but both can enter the cognitive space carved out by Pieper’s title. The stories of Adam and Eve portray an abuse of language similar to the type that we see today.

0758 The post-truth interscope is formulated in Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “The Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition” and applied in Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.”.

The post-truth interscope has three levels.

Here is a picture.

0759 The content level is labeled “scrappy player”. This is a level of under contention. How so? The actuality does not look like the scrappy player’s own self-impression. Typically, people feel that what I think [accords with] what I say,rather than a dyad that has the characteristics of what is of the Positivist’s judgment. So, the content-level actuality for the post-truth condition comes across as weirdly familiar, yet unnatural. The same goes with the normal context_3a and potential_1a of reason_3a,1a. Reason_3a,1a is the intellect_3a contextualizing the will_1a. Plus, the interscope is not clear as to who engages reason_3a,1a. Is reason_3a,1a the sign-interpretant (SI_i) for the scientismist one_3c‘s sign-vehicle (SV_i)? Or is reason_3a,1a a feature of the scrappy player’s cognition? Or both?

0760 The situation level is labeled “expert”. Psychometric scientists_b situate what the scrappy player is willing to say_2aas phenomena that may be formalized as observations and measurements_1b. Also, psychometric experts_3b bring models of value_2b into relation with the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’_1b.

0761 The perspective level is labeled “relativist one”. This is a level that is difficult to grasp. The current relativist one_3cis called, “the one of scientism_3c“, because science has become the common style for expert_3b expressions of value_2b, where value_2b is the intersection of capitalist and socialist nested forms. So, the scientismist one_3c may be regarded as “the system” or “the style” (or even, “the hive”) for the current interscope of the post-truth condition.

Fuller notes that there is an absolute character to the relativist one_3c. In order to truly operate as a relativist, one must be outside of all relativized jurisdictions. That observation indicates that the relativist one_3c should occupy the perspective-level normal context of the post-truth interscope. Plus, that observation indicates that relativized jurisdictions should belong to the situation level. So, all sciences and experts_3b are relative from the point of view of the scientismist one_3c.

0762 So, let me make a prediction as to how Josef Pieper’s argument will play out.

08/1/24

Looking at Josef Pieper’s Book (1974) “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” (Part 8 of 8)

0826 Needless to say, the trader with refined reason_3c belongs to one of the finest families in Athens.

The ancients have a saying, “The best, corrupted, become the worst.”

Abuse of power goes hand in hand with abuse of language.

Abuse of language manifests in the realm of possibility₁.

Abuse of power develops in the realm of normal contexts₃.

0827 Here is a picture.

0828 The actualities₂ of the sophist interscope are topics of gossip and conversation.

0829 Does the sophist really believe what he says?

Is the idea that Athens should economically sanction Syracuse not the same as “war”?

Well, it is and it isn’t.

What is the definition of the word, “war”?

And finally, what about the enforcement of the sanctions?

Of course, Athenian troops can stop ships from Syracuse from docking, but is that enough?

I hear rumors that ships are now simply bypassing Athens and going to Thebes.

0830 In the forum, the bought-off… er… well-paid sophist hears what people are saying. He has a ready reply, “Thebes is causing a problem. We should think about going to war with Thebes. Not, this weak-kneed sanction business, but full-fledged conquest.”

0831 It’s like selling candy to a baby.

This is what Plato sees.

0832 What is there to stop the sophists_3b and their behind-the-scenes sponsors_3c?

If a reasonable person_3a,1a adopts the sophist terminology, then the reasonable person_3a,1a buys into the way that the sophist_3b has framed the citizen’s reality and understanding.

Consequently, even the reasonable person’s thoughts are tainted, because what he says (using a word whose meaning, presence and message has been tweaked by the sophist) cannot correspond to what he thinks (because he thinks in terms of the traditional meaning, presence and message of the spoken word).

0833 A citizen may ask, “Would sending a delegation to Thebes asking what is going on be a way to avoid war?”

The sophist replies, “No, Athena forbid! Sending a delegation would be an act of war. Obviously, the traders in Thebesalready are trying to take advantage of our conflict with Syracuse. We all know that ships from Syracuse are docking in Thebes. Sending a delegation would only tip them off, so they would attack us, with the assistance of Syracuse, before we can attack them.”

0834 The sophist interscope supports ruinous political decisions.

But, does the sweetness of refined reason_3c turn to bitterness?

Or does the fish rot from the head, down?

0835 The one who pays to support refined reason_3c no longer believes that refined reason_3c is right reason. Instead, it is a way to gain advantage_1c by promoting political decisions_2c that favor the elite, rather than all citizens. Without a doubt, the most advantageous political decision_2c is the one_2c where public citizens bear the risks and costs and private elites gain the benefits.

0836 Today, experts_2b call these arrangements, “public-private partnerships”. The arrangement sounds attractive, “the public” (that is, a government bureaucracy) works with “private” citizens (that is, very wealthy operators) in order to accomplish goals that neither can achieve alone, such as an active war with Thebes while engaging in sanctions with Syracuse.

Finally, the citizen becomes confused and starts saying what the sophist says as if it is his own thought. Sanctions are war. Diplomacy is war. Thebes and Syracuse must be defeated. No one quite knows why, because reason_3a,1a itself has fallen into sophistry_2b.

0837 Tyranny is near when reason_3a,1a falls into sophistry_2b, because a dictator and his allies may declare what one can say, as if that is the gateway to what one can think. Citizens who have fallen into sophistry have no defense and end up blaming those who speak against sophistry.

0838 Weirdly, this is the topic is covered from a completely different approach, in the ninth and tenth primers of the series, How To Define the Word “Religion” and Related Primers, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues. The titles are A Primer on Classical Political Philosophy and A Primer on Another Infrasovereign Religion.

0840 So, what was Plato’s problem?

We all know what happened to Socrates.

His admirers and compatriots, including Plato, were devastated.

Plato could only stop, and lay flat, and look into the empty sky.

And, an interventional sign-relation comes to be.

03/26/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2016) “A Natural History of Human Morality” (Part 1 of 22)

0389 The book before me published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The question? What makes humans unique? The approach is scientific. Humans think differently than great apes, their closest biological kin. One way to understand that difference is to observe and measure the cognitive capacities of human newborns and infants, as well as the cognitive abilities of adult great apes.

This book belongs to a decades-long arc of inquiry by the author. During much of this time, Michael Tomasello serves as co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. I cover two decades in my examinations. Here is the fourth book in the list.

0390 What has this semiotician found so far?

First, from the very start of his journey, the content-level of Tomasello’s vision corresponds to the situation-level of Razie Mah’s hypothesis. The ultimate human niche consists of the potential of triadic relations.

Razie Mah’s hypothesis applies the two-level interscope for Darwin’s paradigm to human evolution.

0391 First, the general Darwinian paradigm looks like this.

0392 In The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), Razie Mah proposes that the ultimate human niche_1b is the potential of triadic relations.

Tomasello’s hypothesis that joint attention_2b and shared intentionality_2b are behavioral and cognitive adaptations to the niche of sociogenesis_1b reconfigures the situation-level of Darwin’s paradigm, resulting in what I call the “Tomasello-Mah synthesis”.

0393 Yes, fortune turns her wheel. Tomasello does not know Mah’s hypothesis. Tomasello’s arc of inquiry is underway in 1999. Mah’s hypothesis first appears online in 2018. So, Tomasello configures his insight, corresponding to the situation-level of the Darwinian paradigm, as the content-level of his vision.

Tomasello’s vision offers a way to bring a phenotype (of human ontogeny_2c’) into relation with a foundational adaptation (of joint attention_2a’). But, according to Mah, phenotype and adaptation are two independent fields of evolutionary inquiry. One does not situate or contextualize the other. Rather, the two intersect.

Consequently, Tomasello’s vision resolves the internal contradictions of the intersection of genetics and natural history,by assigning the phenotype to the category of thirdness and the adaptation to the category of firstness, while maintaining the actuality of both.

0394 Here is a picture of Tomasello’s vision.

0395 Of course, this examination appears precisely 25 years after Tomasello’s vision is cast in 1999 AD.

His vision is maintained throughout his arc of inquiry.

Consequently, his conclusions carry an awkward emptiness. The emptiness compares to the basement of a house. The basement is dark, cool, foundational and ignored, until of course, one must seek refuge in a storm.

0396 The previous examinations of Tomasello’s works demonstrate that the house, the abode of his vision, is furnished with morality.

Tomasello can ignore the basement, haunted by immaterial beings called, “triadic relations”. Yet, in that place, where a family might store potatoes, onions, smoked meat, along with luggage and Christmas ornaments, dwells something that Tomasello may safely ignore. I call that ghost, “religion”.

03/1/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2016) “A Natural History of Human Morality” (Part 22 of 22)

0588 The Tomasello-Mah synthesis shows the ghost in the basement of the house of Tomasello’s vision.

Indeed, as this version of Darwin’s paradigm begins to haunt the entire edifice of human evolution, then Tabaczek’s housebecomes more than a house with a basement. If sociogenesis_1b is the potential_1b of triadic relations_2a, then Tomasello’s arc of inquiry may be re-articulated using triadic relations.

0589 For example, Razie Mah’s Primer on Sensible and Social Construction may be used to re-label the eras of individual, joint and collective intentionality. Individual construction associates to the category-based nested form. Sensible construction associates to the two-level interscope, containing content and situation levels. Social construction associates to the three-level interscope, containing content, situation and perspective levels.

Here is a list of what that might look like.

0590 To continue, the re-labeled eras may be regarded in terms of the evolution of talk.

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.

0592 Next, I would like to focus attention on the era of collective intentionality.

Here is a list depicting the timeframe.

0593 Before the era of collective intentionality, hand talk is confined team activities. Hand talk produces sensible constructions. Each team develops its own way of hand talking.

After the domestication of fire, team-tradition hand talk starts to be used generally, eventually producing fully linguistic hand talk.

The situation is very dynamic. Since cooking with fire increases the number of teams, fully linguistic hand-talk is re-appropriated for specialized use in more and more teams. Fully linguistic hand-talk influences all social circles. In some of these circles, grammatically correct, yet apparently nonsensible statements, generate social constructions that open new cognitive spaces. These novel cognitive spaces become sites for more sensible construction.

0594 The voice comes into play during community meetings (150), seasonal mega-band round-ups (500) and special occasion tribal pow-wows (1500). The voice is used for synchronization. Song brings a large gathering of hominins into synchronization. Once this cultural habit starts, then singing joins other traits in sexual selection. The voice comes under voluntary control.

0595 Most likely, the early speciations of late Homo erectus produced species that could sing and hand-talk. But, they could not speak.

Speech is added to hand-talk with Homo sapiens. Anatomically modern humans practice a dual-mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for the next two hundred-thousand years.

0596 Hand-speech talk would still be practiced by anatomically modern humans today, were it not for the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. The hypothesis of the first singularity proposes that the Ubaid is the first culture on Earth to practice speech-alone talk.

Here is a picture of the era of social construction.

0598 Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

This brings me to the limit of Tomasello’s vision. I open the door, and step out into the realization that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. I step into the vision of Razie Mah.

0599 The arc of Tomasello’s inquiry, spanning from 1999 to 2016, opens onto three masterworks by Razie Mah. These electronic books are available at smashwords and other e-work venues. This examination relies primarily on The Human Niche, along with books contained in the series, A Course on The Human Niche. A related series is titled, Buttressing the Human Niche.

Here is a list of Mah’s masterworks.

Still, there is more.

A Commentary on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) is available at smashwords and other e-book venues. This commentary includes Mah’s blogs for January, February and March, 2024, along with an examination of Becoming Human (2019), the fifth book in a sequence of five books.

0600 My thanks to Michael Tomasello, who writes the books under examination while Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, for conducting a scientific inquiry, from which I have examined only several works.

09/29/23

Looking at Appendix 1.1 in Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 1 of 18)

0028 This is the second blog in a series.

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “Intersection” appears in Razie Mah’s blog from May 15 through 18, 2023. In that brief examination (points 0001-0027), a technical category-based definition of the term, “intersection” is shown to mesh with the theme of Kemple’s book, whose full title is The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue (Walter de Gruyter, Boston/Berlin).

To me, that is fascinating.

0029 In this series of blogs, I examine Kemple’s appendices.

Yes, he has more than one appendix.

Plus, there are subdivisions.

0030 Appendix 1.1 is titled, “Presentative forms and the grounding of transcendence”. My associations will draw upon A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, as well as A Primer on Natural Signs, Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings, and Comments on Newell Sasha’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols”. These primers and comments touch base with Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, which is available, along with the other mentioned e-works, at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0031 The title of Appendix 1.1 contains two technical terms.

“Presentative forms” is a term coined by Jacques Maritain and literally means a form that is substantiated by its presentation, rather than by matter. The hylomorphe is presentation [substantiates] form, rather than matter [substantiates] form.

“The grounding of transcendence” is a phrase used by Martin Heidegger. It conveys what the presentative form accomplishes. The presentative form accomplishes more than matter-substantiated form, because it leads to (grounds) another form, which is located at a higher categorical level (transcendence).

0032 Surely, this implies that presentative forms and the grounding of transcendence coincide in a particular way. The “matter” of the presentative form associates to the adjacent lower category of its corresponding “form”.

Is this is a general feature of presentative forms?

Well, the claim is a good working hypothesis.

09/5/23

Looking at Appendix 3 in Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 18 of 18)

0161 What about Appendix 3, titled “Synechism and semiosis”?

0162 Well, I best look into Appendix 4, which presents a helpful list of definitions.

“Synechism” is a principle of continuity. There are no hard and fast distinctions between possibilities, because firstness is monadic. In the empirio-schematic judgment, the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena, exists in the realm of possibility and obeys this principle. There are no phenomena without their noumenon. There is no noumenon without its phenomena. The hazards of synechism are yet to be deeply appreciated. For scientific inquiry, what happens when certain actors claim to be observing the phenomena of a noumenon which is not… um… obvious to other people?

“Tychism” is a corollary of synechism. Peirce envisions chance (er… possibility) as universal. Without possibility, there is no actuality or normal context. If there is an actuality that appears out of nowhere, in such a fashion that it has no normal context, then we are back to phenomena of a noumenon which is not… um… subject to understanding.

“Semiosis” is the action of signs. Signs are triadic relations. Triadic relations constitute the human niche.

0163 For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, our ancestors adapt to an ultimate niche as well as many proximate niches. This means that hominin evolution is both convergent, with respect to our ultimate niche, and divergent, with respect to many proximate niches. The ultimate niche is the potential of triadic relations. The proximate niches are regional ecologies and environments.

Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. Hand talk relies on the semiotic qualities of icons and indexes to motivate a relation between parole (hand talk) and langue (mental processing). As this motivated relation becomes more and more conventional (that is, habitual within hominin social circles), hand-talk gestures become more and more like signs in an arbitrary system of differences (that is, symbols). Grammar consists of symbolic operations within a finite set of symbols. By the time anatomically modern humans appear, hand talk is fully linguistic.

0164 Speech is added to hand talk with the appearance of our own species, Homo sapiens.

Humans practice hand-speech talk for around 200,000 years, with great success.

0165 Around 7,800 years ago, the end of the previous ice age raises sea-levels, flooding shallow geological basins such as what is now the Persian Gulf. In the process, two hand-speech talking cultures, one settled on the basin and one settled along the coast and river gorge, are forced into proximity. A pidgin and then a creole ensues. The creole is the Sumerian language (unrelated to the nearby Semitic languages). But, more importantly, this creole is the first instance of speech-alone talk.

At its inception, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only culture in the world practicing speech-alone talk.

It is no coincidence that the world’s earliest civilization arises in southern Mesopotamia.

Speech-alone talk potentiates civilization.

0166 Our current Lebenswelt is marked by speech-alone talk. Speech-alone talk spreads from the Ubaid to the four-corners of the world, potentiating unconstrained social complexity wherever it goes.

7800 years ago, the world population may have been as many as seven million.

Today, it is seven billion.

Such is the significance of the first singularity, the transition from hand-speech talk to speech-alone talk.

0167 Heidegger is a German philosopher who strives to restart Western philosophy after it fumbles its founding charisma.

Peirce is a precocious American post-modern who becomes fascinated with one of the crucial questions asked by scholastic philosophers, “What is the causality inherent to the sign-relation?”

0168 Both these philosophers propose ideas that address a single question, “What is the nature of our current Lebenswelt?”

Their answers apply to a single actuality.

0169 I do not know the name of this actuality, but I do appreciate the significance of Kemple’s attempt to delineate an intersection (without being aware that the term, “intersection”, might have a technical definition that supports his inquiry).

An intersection is an actuality composed of two actualities, each of which has its own nested form.

0170 For these reasons, Brian Kemple’s book, The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue, deserves interest. While my examinations, so far, covering the term, “intersection”, and the appendices, are sparse, they are suggestive. There is a lot at play within the pages of this book.

05/18/23

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 1 of 4)

0001 According to Neoplatonic legend, the descent of the soul starts with a small immaterial gem resting on an undefinable pillow in the presence of transcendental beauty. Then, a trap door opens and the little source of illuminationbegins to fall. As it descends, it accrues matter. Matter enters form.

One may say that the matter is evil and the soul, good, and conclude that the immortal soul becomes encased in corruptible matter. But, the story is more complicated, because the term, “matter” slyly includes the capacity to become entangled with purely relational being. Matter holds the capacity for meaning. Matter substantiates form. So Christians, following the complication, witness the baby as bearing a message. The message? Baptize me.

0002 The book before me is Brian Kemple’s The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue, published in 2019 by Walter de Gruyter Press (Boston/Berlin). The masterwork is dedicated to the memory of John Deely (1942-2017 AD), who served as Kemple’s professor.

0003 The book presents a complex argument. I, a simpleton, fixate on the titular word, “intersection”.

For me, the term has a technical definition, as formulated in the chapter on message in the e-book How To Define The Word “Religion” (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues). An intersection is a single actuality composed of two actualities, each with its own category-based nested form.

Say what?

See A Primer on the Category-based Nested Form.

0004 A photon is an example of an intersection of two actualities: a wave and a particle. The normal context of a diffraction apparatus₃ brings wave properties of light₂ into relation with the potential of ‘observations of wavelengths’₁. The normal context of a metal plate₃ brings particle properties of light₂ into relation with potential ‘observations of the photo-electric effect’₁.

0005 Here is a picture.

0006 Here is another way to look at the photon as intersection.

0007 In the following blogs, I will endeavor to visualize whether Kemple’s use of the term, “intersection”, coheres with this technical definition.

In order to do so, I will locate two category-based nested forms, one for both Peirce and one for Heidegger, and see whether the two actualities meld into one.

05/15/23

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 4 of 4)

0020 The term, Bildendwelt, sounds like the concatenation of the words, “Bilden” and “dwelt”, as in the English statement, “I dwelt in that Bilden, before it came crashing down.”

In order to appreciate my humor, consider the October 1, 2022, blog at www.raziemah.com, titled, “Fantasia in G Minor: A speech written for Gunnar Beck MEP”.

Da Bilden is coming down!

Oh, I meant to say… the Bildendwelt makes no sense at all.

0021 So much for wordplay.

The compound-word, Bildendwelt stands, waiting to be refined in the furnace of postmodern use.

0022 The third division of Kemple’s book weaves together divisions one and two, titled World and Sign, into an intersection. In the process, Kemple focuses on two elements in the following figure: Sein_1V and sign_1H.

0023 To me, Kemple’s focus is remarkable, because Being_1V and triadic relations_1H are crucial for bringing our lineage from Umwelt, to Lebenswelt, and further into Bildendwelt. Indeed, I wonder whether these compound terms should be used to label the single actuality of Peirce’s experience_2H and Dasein_2V.

0024 But, let me not ignore one further possibility, the single actuality is us.

Here is a list of labels for the single actuality.

0025 Now, I can portray our descent.

Imagine us, as purely spiritual illuminations, perched on undefinable pillows, in the presence of transcendent beauty in an era when all time is now. A trap door opens and we descend into Being and Time. As we fall, we accrete two actualities, coinciding with Peirce’s experience following his realization that signs are real_1H and with Heidegger’s vision of Dasein_1V. These actualities are full of contradictions.

As we descend through Being and Time, we accrue World and Sign. We pass through our primordial Umwelt, the Lebenswelt that we evolve in, the first singularity, our current Lebenswelt and now, our Bildendwelt. Descent with modification. Then we are born, in the present, and each one of us bears a message. Baptize me.

0026 What does baptism do?

Baptism cleanses us of Gestell, the grammars of our world, carrying temptation, misdirections and lures that entrap us, confound us, and, in the end, convince us that the truth can never be found.

How so?

Truth is just a spoken word. We create our own “truth”. Spoken words are merely projections of our Innerwelt upon that which is outside ourselves. After temptation fixes our occasions of sin, after our own projections redirect the projections of others and weave a veil of reality, and after we begin to believe in our own self-divinizing speculative grammar, we construct artifacts that validate our spoken worlds. We build our own prison. Heidegger calls it, Gestell.

0027 When the waters of baptism pour over an infant, the baby often cries. The baby represents all of us.

The waters of baptism disturb. Dasein_2V! We enter a world perfused with signs. We are welcomed into a world where the material finds meaning in the immaterial. The human niche is the potential of triadic relations. How all encompassing will Peirce’s experience_2H be? We stand on the threshold of a new age of understanding.

Kemple offers the reader a portrait of John Deely’s vision, in a book that lives up to its title, in more ways than one. Bravo!

An Archaeology of the Fall

A Horror Story by Razie Mah

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