0229 So, what is the problem?

Oh yeah, the problem is Tabaczek’s optics.

0230 Chapter two of Divine Action and Emergence extols the Aristotelian, not as one who sees a reflection of empirio-schematic labor, but as an agent capable of looking into the mirror of science.

Surely, there is a history to tell.

Plus, if history is a noumenon, the I (acting as a scientist) may place a model on top of that noumenon, so as to obscure the thing itself, and reveal that “history” is nothing more than what my model says that it is.

0231 My semiotic construction of Tabaczek’s account starts with a model of our current Lebenswelt called, “the first singularity”.

For the next several points, I will use chronological nomenclature corresponding to the nominal beginning of the Ubaid period of southern Mesopotamia.  Zero U0′ (0 Ubaid Zero Prime or “uh-oh prime”) is set at 5800 BC.  The first singularity is a hypothesis that the potentiation of civilization is due a change in the ways human talk, from hand-speech talk to speech-alone talk, plus, the first culture to practice speech-alone talk is the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.

Yes, the hypothesis of the first singularity satisfies the (now deceased) positivist intellect.

Plus, the hypothesis bubbles with truncated material and efficient causations!

0232 Note how the time frame changes.

For example, Aristotle (384-322 BC) lives from 5416-5478 U0′.

In other words, Aristotle lives over five millennia after the initiation of the first singularity and the potentiation of civilization.

Aristotle participates in a debate on the nature of stability and change that begins with Thales (5180-5250 U0′) and Anaximander (5190-5225 U0′).  Aristotle figures out his famous four causes as well as the hylomorphic character of things.  Aristotle’s foil is Democritus, who proposes that everything is made of unchanging tiny things called “atoms”.

0233 The debate may be configured as follows.

0234 Consider the classic example of an acorn that germinates and grows into an oak tree.

How do Democritus and Aristotle explain?

Democritus’s account offers a fantastic vision that, in the 7600s, is shown to be scientifically correct.  The acorn is composed of particles, “atoms”, so small that the relative difference in mass between an oak tree and acorn is smaller than um… the absolute number of particles in the acorn in the first place.  In other words, relative differences are dwarfed by actual numbers, if that makes sense.  Say the oak tree is a million times larger than the acorn.  A million is ten times itself 6 times (that is 10⁶).  That difference is insignificant compared to the millions of millions of millions (ten times itself 18 times, 10¹⁸) of atoms composing the acorn.

Aristotle’s account offers a more accessible vision.   The acorn is a being-in-potency.  The oak tree is a being-in-perfection.  Here, the technical term, “perfection”, means “all grown up”, not “without flaw”.

0235 What is the problem with Aristotle’s account? 

Aristotle’s account cannot be reduced to truncated material and efficient causes.

Aristotle’s account cannot be converted into mathematical or mechanical models. 

So, Aristotle’s vision is rejected by the so-called “mechanical philosophers” in the 7400s.

0236 Not surprisingly, today, in 7824 U0′, scientists are starting to realize that emergent phenomena, such as a living acorn growing into an oak tree, cannot be described by mathematical and mechanicals models.  But, inquiry into these emergent phenomena can be gamed, by altering conditions and pretending that the changes in the emergent phenomenamay be modeled as quantitative responses to changing conditions.

0237 Tabaczek is not impressed.

He proposes that Aristotle’s four causes are relevant to a living acorn growing into an oak tree as well as other emergent phenomena.

0238 What he needs is an updated way to express Aristotle’s causalities.

This examiner suggests that Peirce’s category-based nested form offers an opportunity in that regard.

0239 Here is a picture for the acorn as an actuality₂.  In order to understand the acorn₂, one needs to ascertain its normal context₃ and potential₁.  Aristotle’s four causes describe complementary connections within and among the three elements of the following triadic relation.

0240 Sections 2.1.2 through 2.1.4 set forth Aristotle’s four causes along with hylomorphism.

The previous figure covers that territory, but it does not cover the distinction between primary and secondary matter, as well as other distinctions.

The previous figure also covers the interrelatedness of causes discussed in section 2.1.5.  Plus, it visualizes the importance of the hylomorphe as an exemplar of and a gateway to Peirce’s category of secondness.

0241 So far, I present a fairly simple example of a motor driven by a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell.  This example dovetails into a general picture of Deacon’s science-loving portrayal of emergence, as an interscope.

Here is a diagram.

0242 This diagram serves as a map for the next example.

Respiration in multicellular animals depends on special cellular organelles, called mitochondria.

Mitochondria live in eukaryotic cells.  The scientific project to discover how they conduct the biochemistry of respirationis one of the great successes of science.  In order to do so, scientists did not change the conditions of the mitochondria, but they did something similar.  They labeled each specific carbon in glucose with a radioactive carbon.  They traced each of the six positions through the Krebs cycle.  Then they “reverse engineered” the metabolic pathways.

0243 In terms of inquiry, these investigators consider respiration₂ as an actuality.  They already know that respiration₂requires mitochondria within a eukaryotic cell₃.  Indeed, mitochondria₃ provide the normal context for respiration₂.  Also, scientists already know that many cellular processes require ATP or similar high-energy phosphate carriers.  I could describe ATP as adenosine-P_iP_iP_i, where Pi is a phosphate.  The third P_i pops off with enough energy that cellular work can get done.

0244 Here is an initial nested form for respiration.

0245 Plus, here is how some of these terms might enter into Deacon’s interscope.

0246 Now, I want to clarify.  I am standing on Tabaczek’s “metaphysical” side of the mirror.  But, I am talking about natural philosophy.  So, I am looking into the scientific domain of truncated material and efficient causalities, as if it were a reflection of what nature is doing.

This view is not the same as triumphalist science, which would replace the noumenon with chemical models and reduce mitochondria to “little laboratories producing ATP”.  Nor is this view the same as logical positivism, which would claim that the positivist intellect is… ahem… still alive. This view sees a reflection in modern scientific inquiry into the phenomena of respiration. My goal is not to technologically manipulate respiration (as desired by many corporate sponsors of modern science).  My goal is to appreciate the thing itself.

0247 Let me start with the reagents of glucose and oxygen.  Typically, glucose is taken by a cell out of the bloodstream through special pathways.  Oxygen is breathed in as gas, then attaches to hemoglobin in the lungs, then is released from hemoglobin into capillary tissue.  How crazy is that?  The transport of oxygen is another special pathway.

These pathways work because of the properties of glucose and oxygen.  Here, the technical term, “properties” labels the contiguity between dispositions and powers.  As such, properties are not real elements, they are contiguities between two real elements.  Disposition is what a thing tends to do.  Power is what a thing is capable of doing.  These two real elements will change, depending on the normal context₃ and potential₁, but they always contiguous.  Each pair of disposition and power displays the contiguity called “property”.

0248 Here are two properties of glucose and oxygen.

These hylomorphes describe how glucose and oxygen find paths to the mitochondria.  The mitochondria is where the biochemistry of respiration occurs.  The lungs are where oxygen bind to hemoglobin.  The capillaries are where oxygen lets go of hemoglobin.  Since glucose is soluble in water, it can float in the plasma of the blood.  The concentration of glucose is tightly regulated, because there are other things that can feed off glucose, such as bacteria.  Too much glucose in the blood invites infections.

These hylomorphes also describe how one orthograde (or spontaneous) chemical reaction will get split, by mitochondria and the cell, into two.

Here is the one reaction.

0249 How does the one chemical reactions get split into two?  Glucose releases electrons.  Then, these electrons are transported by specialized molecules (sometimes with the hydrogen ion tagging along).  Where are the electrons (e^-1) and hydrogen atoms (a H⁺¹ and an e^-1, that is, a H⁰) transported?  The are carried to a system where oxygen takes electrons to form water.

0250 Here are labels for the carriers.  The labels NAD⁺ and FAD are acronyms for rather exotic biochemical names.  I will pass over these details, because I know that these molecules have the disposition to take on electrons (e^-1) as well as to release electrons (e^-1).  Sometimes, hydrogen ions (H⁺¹) are along for the ride (hence the term, H⁰).  These biomolecules have the power to transport high-energy electrons.

0251 Here is the category-based nested form for the thermodynamic level.

0252 The potential of the hemodynamic level imposes biases and constraints on the thermodynamic level, dividing it into two separate steps.

The first step includes the Krebs cycle, which starts outside of mitochondria and produce 2 ATP equivalents.

Here is a picture of this step.

0253 In the second step, the electron carriers release electrons into a transport chain, producing around 32 ATP equivalents.

0254 Two separated chemical reactions produce 34 ATP equivalents.

With this in mind, the homeodynamic level of Deacon’s interscope comes into clarity.

0255 Of course, ATP is crucial for staying alive_1c.  The eukaryotic cell_3c internally moves components and builds biomolecules_2c.

Now, the morphodynamic level comes into view.

0256 Does this picture of respiration as emergent phenomena describe a new style (or fashion) for the Aristotelian tradition?

The answer is “yes”.

Is this new style consonant with Tabaczek’s emphasis on disposition, property and power, as discussed in sections 2.2 through 2.4?

If the answer is “yes”, then I should take a moment to reflect on where Tabaczek is coming from.

0257 Tabaczek starts his journey as a Thomist.

Recall that Aristotle lives in the 5400s U0′.

In the 7000s, Thomas Aquinas provides a “new” style in Aristotle’s tradition.  Call it the “the schoolmen style”.  Aquinas raises a lot of questions.  His questions are debated for four centuries.  His “new” style becomes the “old” style.

In the 7400s, mechanical philosophers in northern Europe dismiss the “old” scholastic nonsense.   Final and formal causes are incompatible with building mathematical and mechanical models based on observations and measurements of phenomena.

The success of the mechanical philosophers gives rise, over the next four centuries, to the Positivist’s judgment.  In the Positivist’s judgment, a positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be,secondness) into relation with phenomena (what is, firstness).  Well, correct that.  Phenomena are the observable and measurable facets of their noumenon. Oh, never mind.  What scientist cares about the thing itself?

0258 On paper, mechanical philosophers accept Aristotle’s material and efficient causalities.

In practice, they do not.

0259 As I argue earlier, mechanical philosophers promote truncated material and efficient causes, severed from their complementary formal and final causes.  Why?  Truncated causes permit mechanical and mathematical models.  Furthermore, the severed causes may be imported into the truncated causes as shadowy elements.

By 7800 U0′, the severance and re-importation of formal and final causes makes people wonder about the modern use of the word, “cause”.

0260 According to Tabaczek, we are not the first to suspect.

Already, in the 7500s, two philosophers smell the head of a rotting fish.

David Hume (7511-7516 U0′) agrees that humans are not justified in claiming access to formal and final causations.  Without such access, “causality” reduces to… um… let me guess… mathematical and mechanical models.  Sure, it smells, but it is still good to eat.  Tabaczek discusses the contemporary wreckage of a revived Humean discourse in section 2.2.1.

Immanuel Kant (7524-7604 U0′) poses the question, “If mathematical and mechanical models account for observations and measurements of phenomena, then what about the thing itself (that is, the noumenon)?”

Of course, Kant embeds this question within a myriad of intricate arguments filling dense tomes, so it takes a while for the answer to manifest as a slogan.  Indeed, rumor has it that the simplified slogan gets scrawled on a bathroom stall at the University in Turbingen.  The slogan, translated into English, reads, “A noumenon cannot be objectified as its phenomena.”  Of course, I am fictionalizing here, but I am not embarrassed enough not to project my guilt upon one suspiciously idealistic student of that university, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (7570-7631 U0′).

0261 Yes, sometimes false accusations are true.  But, not in the way that the deceiver would have you imagine them to be.

0262 Another century passes before a French neo-Thomist writes the subject of Razie Mah’s e-book, Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, where the slogan that preserves the metaphysics-laden noumenon from triumphalist advocates of science appears as what is in the Positivist’s judgment.

Here, I refer the reader back to points 0017-0027 and the start of Tabaczek’s emergence.

0263 The development of Tabaczek’s mirror is discussed in points 0028-0050.

The science side transforms the empirio-schematic judgment into a hylomorphe.

The philosophical side transforms Kant’s slogan into something that cries for a new “new” Aristotelianism.

0264 The example of mitochondria “burning” glucose and oxygen to make ATP shows that when the philosophical side looks at its own reflection in the mirror of science, scientific discoveries get reconceptualized without significant distortion.

0265 So, I wonder, “If the Aristotelian does not distort the empirio-schematic side of the mirror, then why does the science side distort the metaphysical side of the mirror?”

Perhaps, modern scientists still channel the ghost of the positivist intellect. They get a lot of funding to conduct experiments with radioactively labeled chemicals and the like.  So, who would not distort the Aristotelian side of the mirror?  That is what the Positivist’s judgment recommends.  Who cares if the positivist intellect is dead?

0266 Who cares whether the component actions within emergent phenomena are the equivalent of dispositions [properties] powers, when the involved chemical reactions, when balanced, reflect something like a metaphysical unity?

0267 Of course, from this examiner’s point of view, Tabaczek’s persuasive impact would be radically improved if he realized that Peirce’s philosophy may be regarded as a postmodern branch of Thomism.  Peirce offers a neo-Aristotelian terminology. Aristotle’s hylomorphe exemplifies Peirce’s category of secondness.  Aristotle’s four causes integrate the category-based nested form.  Category-based nested forms offer a way to portray emergence.  As such, Aristotle’s causes are integral to describing the relationship between the thermodynamic, homeodynamic and morphodynamic levels in Deacon’s interscope.

0268 The specific example of cellular respiration satisfies Deacon’s general account of emergence.  The causality represented by the above interscope is described by Peirce’s concept of precission.  Precission describes how one category emerges from and orders the adjacent lower category.  Precission exhibits the logics of both “downward causation” and “dynamical depth”.  The situation level virtually emerges from (and situates) the content level.  The perspective level arises from (and contextualizes) the situation level.

0269 In terms of Aristotle’s causes, the situation level is what needs to be understood in material terms.  Notably, in Deacon’s schema, the situation level adjusts the thermodynamic level.

At the same time, the virtual nested form in the category of secondness offers a different view of material causation for this emergent. 

0270 The normal context of building biomolecules and moving cellular components_2c virtually brings the actuality of the high-energy molecule ATP_2b into relation with the potential of the mitochondria-facilitated Krebs cycle and electron transport chain_2a (which is the way that mitochondria “burn” glucose and oxygen_2a).  The word, “combustion”_2a becomes a metaphor for what mitochondria_3b are really doing_2b.  They_3b are containing and capturing some of the free energy_2breleased by a spontaneous chemical reaction_2a.

0271 Perspective-level formal causality fleshes out situation-level material causality.  The perspective level virtually puts the situation level into context.  The perspective level formalizes the situation level.

In particular, the actuality of ATP_2b is a formal requirement for the potential of staying alive_1b.  ATP_2b is the molecule of choice, because of its capacity to power proteins to move cellular components and to build biomolecules_2c in the normal context of the living eukaryotic cell of a multicellular organism_3c. 

At the same time, the virtual nested form in the realm of thirdness (pictured below) formalizes the virtual nested form in the realm of secondness (pictured above).

0272 Now, I present one long sentence.

The normal context of the living cell_3c virtually bringing the actuality of mitochondria_3b into relation with the potential of an adjusted orthograde reaction_3a formalizes the normal context of moving cellular components and building biomolecules_2c virtually bringing ATP_2b into relation with the mitochondrial use of glucose and oxygen_2a.

0273 In terms of Aristotle’s causes, the way that the situation level virtually emerges from (and situates) the content level dovetails into instrumental and efficient causalities.  The question may be asked, “How do mitochondria_3b work_1b?”  They_3b work by exploiting a spontaneous chemical reaction_3a that relies on the chemistry of glucose and oxygen_1a.  How they_3b accomplish the task_2a is solved by very clever laboratory work.

When thinking of efficient causality, must not ignore the virtual nested form in the category of firstness.

This virtual nested form is a launching point for the instrumental causalities that are inherent in the virtual nested form in secondness.  The chemical dispositions of glucose and oxygen_1a are exploited in the mitochondrial “combustion” of glucose and oxygen_2a.  The Krebs cycle and the electron transport chain_1b produce ATP_2b.  ATP_1c powers transport proteins and synthetic pathways_2c.

0274 What is missing is the way that final causality complements these efficient causes.

Final causes are ignored in scientific research.  Why?  The positivist intellect does not permit metaphysics.

Formal causes are banned as well.  But, I suspect that formal causes can slip in, as shadowy figures, under the umbrella of material causes.

Final causes have a little more difficulty infiltrating efficient causes.  The above figure demonstrates why.  It is not obvious how the virtual nested form in firstness implicates the virtual nested form in thirdness.

0275 Or is it?

To me, the term, “teleodynamic” is an appropriate label for the following juxtaposition.

0276 While this application of Deacon’s formula for emergence does not cover all the bases in section 2.4, it demonstrates that Tabaczek, the metaphysician, is able to visualize an image in the mirror of science that roughly corresponds to what agents of science would be proud to own.

0277 The book, Divine Action and Emergence, is divided into two parts.  Part one covers the first third.  Part two covers the second two-thirds.  Part two is titled, “God’s Action In Emergence”.

From part one, I gain a sense of how Tabaczek’s mirror operates.  The model side sees its own reflection on the noumenal side.  The noumenal side views its own reflection on the empirio-schematic side.  Plus, the noumenal side can see what is reflecting in the mirror of theology. The empirio-schematic side can see what is reflecting in the mirror of science.  The mismatches become quite interesting when each side engages the topic of emergence.

0278 Why?

Emergent phenomena are natural and are subject to empirio-schematic and natural philosophical inquiry.

On the empirio-schematic side, truncated material and efficient causes, shorn of any associations with formal and final causes, appear inadequate.  Inadequate?  Yes, scientists have difficulties producing models of emergent phenomena because one cannot predict them without knowing their underlying… um… mathematics and mechanics.  Reductionists game the problem by exposing emergent phenomena to varying conditions, then building models of the responses, and pretending that the model is… well… just as real as… um… okay… this may be a stretch… the thing itself.

Natural philosophers chuckle, because humans are adapted to recognize things themselves, especially when emergent phenomena are signs of a noumenon.  Unfortunately, no natural philosopher has applied for a grant to investigate the evolution of this adaptation.  What would go into the material and methods section?

0279 Well, Tabaczek has inadvertently constructed an instrument exploring this particular dilemma.

I call it a “mirror”.

0280 On one hand, Tabaczek’s mirror present an awkward analogy.  This mirror reflects what one side sees as if that one side is the only side looking into the mirror, and without realizing that the other side is looking back, as if it is the only side looking into the mirror.

Of course, Tabaczek’s mirror testifies to the fact that the Positivist’s judgment contains two illuminations: the model and the noumenon.  Triumphalist scientists would have us believe that the model should be the only illumination and the noumenon should serve as the thing that the model overlays.

Yes, forget about orbiting moons and falling apples, think about gravity!

Once the model covers over the thing itself, then the so-called “noumenon” [can be objectified as] its phenomena.

0281 On the other hand, Tabaczek’s mirror is a wonderful analogy because the metaphysician looks into science and sees a reflection of theology, just as the scientist looks into theology and sees a reflection of science.

Of course, this comedy of mismatching projections overlooks the tragic emptiness that accounts for Tabaczek’s mirror in the first place.  The positivist intellect is dead.  Now, I won’t say that Tabaczek killed him, because Tabaczek never regarded him as living in the first place.  While scientists look into a mirror that is fogged by the specter of the positivist intellect, insisting that a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena, the neo-Aristotelian knows that a noumenon is like a whole and its phenomena are like parts.  The noumenon [and] its phenomena is really the noumenon [and] its dispositions {properties} powers.

0282 Here is a diagram of Tabaczek’s mirror, once again.

0283 At the risk of repeating myself, allow me to recount points 0155-0165.

0284 When science looks in the mirror, it sees the following.

The model is the illumination.  The noumenon is its lackluster reflection.

Disciplinary language is the continuity between a mathematical and mechanical model and its supporting observations and measurements of phenomena.  Phenomena are relevant only because they are the observable and measurable facets of their noumenon.

0285 Another way to say this?

A model is objectified as observations and measurements according to the disciplinary language of a specialized scientific field.

The reflection in the mirror of theology displays a lack of disciplinary language.  This is appropriate, because the science-agent uses explicit abstraction, hence the need for precisely defined spoken terms.  The reflection in the mirror involves implicit abstraction.  The human capacity for implicit abstraction evolves in the milieu of hand-talk and hand-speech talk.  These ways of talking do not permit explicit abstractions because hand-talk words are icons and indexes of their referents.  Indeed, many hand-talk words image or point to their referent by imitating or indicating a… um… phenomenon of the noumenon.  The part represents the whole.

0286 Another way to say this?

The way of thinking on the model side belongs to our current Lebenswelt.

The way of thinking on the noumenal side reflects the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Of course, this touches base with Razie Mah’s e-article, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0287 So, what happens when the mirror called “philosophy” turns into a mirror called “theology”?

Well, two substitutions are obvious.

0288 Well, monotheists do not have much of a problem with this.  There is an entire specialized language devoted to the apophatic notion that God cannot be objectified as the world.

At the same time, there is a problem.  In the first chapter of Genesis, God creates the world.  So, the world objectifies God.  Are technical corrections required to approach this issue? After all, how can God actually accomplish the tasks described in the Creation Story?

So, maybe God is not really creating our world.

Maybe, God creates the Temple of the Heavens and the Earth. 

But, isn’t our world the Temple of the Heavens and the Earth?

Or is this another language game?

0289 Other issues include signs (which I will get to later) and emergence (which concerns Tabaczek).  I already know that the model side has significant difficulty reducing emergent phenomena to models based on truncated material and efficient causalities.  I also know that Tabaczek offers a helping hand with the suggestion that science should stop truncating their causalities and return to a full helping of Aristotle.  Deacon agrees, but wants to reformulate Aristotelian terminology in order to wash away the stain of metaphysics.  But, the stain will not wash away!

0290 So, when the empirio-schematic side projects itself into the mirror of theology, it wants to construct a disciplinary language in the mirror that, at least technically, allows the world to objectify its Creator.  And, what better metaphor to choose than “containment”.

0291 This brutal derivation of panentheism (the label for “the world in God”) does not appear in Tabaczek’s text. Nevertheless, this approach accounts for Tabaczek’s concern about theological reflections from philosophers standing on the agent-science side of the mirror.  Panentheism is incense offered to the ghost of the positivist intellect.

0292 What about agent-metaphysicians?

0293 What do they regard when looking at their own reflections in the mirror of science?

In chapter 3, Tabaczek offer a brief history of what philosophers see in the mirror of the world.

Well, Aristotle sees everyday people going about their business. The folk are not really engaged in looking in the mirror of philosophy.

0294 Plato offers a more spectacular vision.  Plato’s World-Soul strikes many contemporary agent-science theologians as an analogy of the God-World relationship.  The World-Soul₂ arises from the potential of matter entering into forms₁ in the normal context of a cosmos-creating demiurge₃.  So, the World-Soul₂ is like an Idea₂ (with a capital “I”) or a Principle of Divine Reason₂.

Do I have that correct?

0295 Let me try this again.

The World-Soul_2c is a God created by a demiurge_3c and expressing the principles of divine reason_2c that emerge from (and situate) the potential of Good_1c. 

In the normal context of the cosmos_3b, the world soul [informs] world bodies_2b based on the potential of Ideas in the celestial realm_1b.

In the normal context of our world of living and nonliving_3a, being and matter [substantiates] mundane forms_2a emerges from (and situates) the potential of the ideas of being and matter_1a.

0296 The resulting diagram does not precisely follow Plato or Plotinus or Proclus, but it does capture some of their notions and stuffs them into slots of a three-level interscope.

0297 Does this look like a three-level interscope for emergent phenomena?

If so, then the emergent is World-Soul [informs] world bodies_2b, which is contextualized by the perspective-level possibility inherent in Good_1b.

How obvious is that?

Is this why Plato considers the world of forms as more real than everyday life?

0298 Next, the reader should know the drill.  Consider the virtual nested forms.

Here is the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality.

0299 The “downward causation” and the “dynamical depth” of Plato’s interscope is apparent in passage from perspective to content level actualities.  The virtual nested form in the category of secondness descends from transcendent_2c to celestial_2b (or, at least big-picture) to mundane_2a (or little picture).  The transcendent_2c sets the normal context.  The celestial_2b characterizes the actuality.  The mundane_2a associates to possibility.

Perhaps, one of the reasons why Christian theologians find Plato is so attractive rests in certain relational (or metaphysical) similarities.  Unlike other deities, the Christian God spans all three of Peirce’s categories.  Expressions of the Christian God are diverse.  Many of the expressions fit category-based nested forms.  The following diagram shows the Trinity as portrayed in the first chapter of Genesis, corresponding to a virtual nested form in the category of secondness.

0300 An item by item comparison of these two virtual nested forms proves interesting.

For example, [informs] compares to [speaks].

To me, a comparison implies that world bodies_2b do not indicate things_2a, but rather the formulation of things_2a, just as the Word_2b is not creation, but the way that creation dynamically brings itself forth_2a.

Of course, the fact that this example is interesting is a bit of a distraction.  The big question is how one arrives at the virtual nested form in the category of secondess from the Creation Story in the first place.

Say what?

0301 Oh look, here is the virtual nested form in the realm of normal context!

0302 The logics of thirdness are exclusion, complement and alignment.  One demiurge_3c excludes all other demiurges.  This implies that there is only one universe.  Plus, the ruler of that one universe is responsible (puts into perspective) the celestial created order, the cosmos_3b.

For the past century, the cosmos is “outer space”, a world that no one really worries about.  Today, we know that the sun can launch a coronal mass-ejection capable of toasting modern electrical grids.  So, the boundary between the cosmos and the mundane becomes more like the boundary between situation and content.

On top of that, our solar system has orbited the center of our galaxy only 18 times.  Every orbit last several hundred million years.  Every orbit is a blessing.

With that in mind, most everything that we worry about is on the mundane level.  Plato wants us to broaden our view beyond our fixations on the living and the nonliving_3a in order to come into harmony (or alignment) with the cosmos_3band the creating demiurge_3c.

Here is the virtual nested form in the realm of possibility.

0303 Needless to say, every one of these “words” are sites of contention in our current Lebenswelt.  They are labels for entities that cannot be named in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, yet nevertheless are real, because they are relational beings_3a that we innately anticipate and seek_1b because they are good_1c.  What glucose is to honey, good ideas are to our living being.

0304 Of course, Plato and Neoplatonism come long before the Age of Ideas.  So, this general schema cannot be projected from one side of Tabaczek’s mirror to the other.  The mirror has not yet differentiated.

One can say that Plato and the Neoplatonics are natural philosophers, so they represent what science-lovers might see in the mirror of theology, over two thousand years later.

0305 With this jump in mind, it is no surprise that Tabaczek next mentions German Idealism, a philosophical movement that blossoms a century after the mechanical philosophers wind up the alarm clock for the Age of Ideas and set the alarm for 400 years.

They set the alarm around 7400 U0′.  The alarm goes off around 7800 U0′.  See point 0231.