0874 Technically, the social nested form virtually situates the physical nested form, producing the following two-level interscope.  For details on nested forms, consider A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Even though explicitly abstract terms enter into the empty slots of this two-level interscope, the overall structure keys into implicit abstraction.  The slots of an implicit relational structure are filled with relevant explicit terms, through the method of association and implication.

Once an association is made, ask “What does that imply?”

0875 Chapter one of Enfield’s book is titled, “Coordinating around Reality”.  It is the first chapter in Part I, titled, “Mapped by Language”.

The author tells the reader about Thomas Schelling’s psychological experiments, which found that people can often arrive at the same solution without speaking to one another.  If visitors in two locations are given the same map of the city, they will meet at the one bridge, without even talking to one another.  

Coordination has two implications.  The first is shared attention.  Michael Tomasello calls this “joint attention”.  The second is a certain type of mind-reading, that may or may not rely on… um… “language”.

0876 Back to the ongoing example.  If members of my team look at one another in angst, after I, the ad-hoc leader, point to a group of deer that we could drive over the cliff, then I may come to a judgment that I will express in hand talk.  Let us go home.  The brute reality of the implications of the cloud weighs against the social reality of what the team is supposed to accomplish.

0877 My judgment reflects the following sensible construction.

0878 The appearance of a particular cloud before the earliest fall storm is universal.  It happens most every year.  Everyone on the team has seen it in the past.  Now, they see it again, the harbinger of the first snow.

Worrying about getting back from the hunt is intelligible.  Everyone on the team knows it.

0879 However, in hand talk, there is no way to formulate the words, “universal” or “intelligible”.

What is there to picture or point to?

So, how does everyone on the team fixate, with the similar imaginations, onto the same situation-level potential?

0880 Are “universal” and “intelligible” adaptations, whereby physical universality… er… brute circumstances translate into social intelligibility… er… reality?  Are the explicit abstractions of “physical reality” and “social reality” and “translates” built into our bodies and brains?

0881 The relational structure of sensible construction seems to provide an answer, in so far as my judgment is rendered using hand talk.  So, I can say that the normal context of language_3c brings the actuality of the physical reality of the impending storm [translates into] the social reality of returning empty-handed from the deer hunt_2c into relation with the potential of coordination_1c.

0882 Yes, the above nested form puts sensible construction into perspective.

But, it cannot be rendered using hand-talk.

Indeed, this nested form lassoes the explicit distinction that Enfield casts in his introduction and places it as the actuality of an implicit perspective-level structure.  If brute reality_2c is universal, then social reality_2c better be intelligible, because intelligibility and universality emerge from and situate the potential of working together in order to survive_1c.  Yet, even that potential_1c requires a normal context, which I would call “talk_3c“, but Enfield calls “language_3c“.

0883 Here is a diagram of the three-level interscope for the ongoing example.

0884 At this point in chapter one, I hover right above figure 1.2, where the author introduces the electromagnetic spectrum in order to show that human construction of reality involves simplification.

Construction of brute reality simplifies physical reality.  It does so through (what appears to be) a sign-relation.  A particular cloud_2a (sign-vehicle) stands for the storm and cold_1a (sign-object) in regards to autumn weather_3a (sign-interpretant).

Construction of social reality also simplifies.  It does through a (slightly different) sign-relation.  An upcoming cold front_2a (sign-vehicle) stands for our need to get back home, pronto_2b, (sign-object) in regards to our team_3a and what not getting back means to each one of us_1a (sign-interpretant).

0885 These signs-relations are not exactly the same.  More work will follow.  But, for now, they seem to follow Enfield’s proposal that my senses simplify the physical and my perceptions simplify the social.  There are two filters.  There are two simplifications.

I notice that the perspective-level actuality precisely expresses the hylomorphic structure of Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  One way to portray secondness is as a hylomorphic structure, with two real elements (such as “matter” and “form“) and a contiguity that one places in brackets for notation(such as [substantiates]).  The result is a hylomorphic structure (matter [substantiates] form).

0886 Enfield is a scientist.  So, I am a little surprised that his first distinction fits into a hylomorphic structure so well.  Or maybe, I am not surprised.  After all, scientists are also interested in cause [and] effect.

0887 My question is, “How far does this go?”

Do the peculiar sign-relations (depicted above) simplify into hylomorphes?

0888 Well, yes they do.

So what does figure 1.2 really tell me?  

Are the filters to be labeled, “simplifications”?  Or should they be labeled, “transubstantiations of a sign-relation (belonging to thirdness) into a hylomorphe (belonging to secondness), where the word, ‘transubstantiation’, indicates a transition from one of Peirce’s categories to an adjacent category“?

0889 Okay, I am sticking with “simplifies”.

Here is the resulting three-level interscope for the ongoing example.

0890 Chapter two further develops the concept of coordination.

In the 1960s, economist Thomas Schelling (1921-2016 AD) devises games to test coordination.  Often, a game is framed as physical reality.  Then, the game reveals social reality.

0892 Consider this variation of the game of coin toss.  A tester flips the coin and two parties call out “heads” or “tails”.  Then, the coin comes up, “heads” or “tails” and an award is given when both parties call out the same prediction.  If both call “heads” or if both call “tails”, a reward is given to each contestant.

This is the kind of game that academics construct.

0893 This game is so strange that the perspective-level normal context of language_3c is crucial, since the reward should go to the person who calls the coin toss correctly.  Instead, it goes to both parties when they call the same.

Here is a picture of the way that Schelling designs this game (as reported by Enfield).

0894 Note how the explicit abstraction of ‘coordination_1c‘ changes with this experiment.  

‘Coordination_1c‘ for standard coin tosses goes like this, “We agree that the one who correctly calls the coin landing with heads or tails up is the winner and gets the reward.”

The ‘coordination_1c‘ for this variant of the game says, “Some nutty professor has changed the rules so that if both parties call the same ‘heads’ or ‘tails’, then both parties get a reward.”

0895 The strangely academic allure of this research is that contestants play a game where the rules are set by an egg-head so scrambled that he wins the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on game theory, rather than by themselves.  In effect, the professor inserts himself as the one who decides the rules, rather than the participants recalling the tradition of the game.  The participants are agreeable. After all, they get rewards.  But, they cannot imagine one implication.

Experts rule the potential of coordination_1c, by manipulating explicit abstractions of speech-alone talk_3c in order to alchemically manifest the way that physical reality [turns into] social reality_2c.

0896 How freaky is that?

0897 Well, never mind.

Enfield notes that Schelling’s trials show that physical realities are like trails that lead to social landmarks that are easily recognizable.

Physical trails [lead to] social landmarks!

That’s what the trials show.

That does not sound freaky at all.

0898 Chapter three is titled, “Language and Nature”.

Already, I presented a scene occurring around the time of the domestication of fire, say 750,000 years ago, when a particular cloud_2a (SV) stands for a coming storm bringing bitter cold_2a (SO) in regards to weather_3a and the potential of a weather event_1a (SI).

0899 This sign-relation is not quite the same as the specifying sign-relation discussed in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in October 2023.

But, it is close.

0900 The same pattern, where a sign-relation is flattened into a single level of an interscope, applies to the situation level.  An anticipated cold front_2b (SV) stands for the need to go home now_2b (SO) in regards to the deer-hunting team_3brealizing its predicament_1b (SI).

These two signs involve hand talk.  For the first, if nothing else, one team member points out the particular cloud.  For the second, hand talk can express the actuality quite well with the following statement.

[Image STORM][Image TEETH][Image COLD][Image BITE]

Translation?

Storm teeth bite cold.

0901 Now, a linguist and cognitive psychologist, who observes this scene through a time-suspending portal devised to surveille the distant past without being detected, would be very interested in how hand-talk translates the physical reality of the storm, the “reference”, to the social reality of a retreat, the “sense”.

The German philosopher, Gottlob Frege (1848-1925 AD), offers the labels of “reference” and “sense”.

To me, “reference” associates to physical reality and “sense” associates to social reality.

0902 How do these labels play out when regarding the interscope for the ongoing example?

Well, the perspective level looks a little awkward, because it really reduces the content-level actuality_2a to something that associates to “reference”_2a and the situation-level actuality_2b to something that associates to “sense”_2b.  So, I put the nested form in a lighter color.

After all, the terms, “reference” and “sense”, are explicit abstractions with different implications than “physical reality” and “social reality”.

0903 Frege moves the paradigm towards our current Lebenswelt, which is characterized by speech-alone talk.  Speech-alone talk facilitates explicit abstraction.  Hand and hand-speech, along with the evolved trait of implicit abstraction, fade into the background.  Speech-alone talk moves to the foreground.

Indeed, Frege’s terminology allows a generalization of the example, into the following interscope.

0904 This general interscope allows the reader to see how framing is a feature, not an option.

But, what does “frame” mean?

0905 Here is an example.

In terms of physical reality, when a person needs to get somewhere, he “walks”.  If the person has to go faster, he “runs”.

So, the choice of “walks_2a” as opposed to “runs_2a” frames the reference_2a.

Of course, framing the reference_2a also will alter the sense_2b.

0906 Now, if I am at a tea party, and if I want to appear more sophisticated than I actually am, then I might employ the terms, “shuffle”, “saunter”, “stroll”, “jog”, “dash” and “sprint”.

This terminological efflorescence attracts academic interest.  Short videos of someone moving on a college campus at different speeds and modes are shown to students in order to assess the above spectrum of terms.  Researchers change the reference and see how the word-sense changes.

Theoretically, I suppose that this scientific inquiry establishes a correlation between particular words_2a and the sense of those words_2b, because the reference_2a,2b consists of recorded videos.  It is like a controlled laboratory experiment.

0907 How far does this framing business go?

Physical trails lead to social landmarks.

0908 Consider the second planet from the sun.

Venus is closer to the sun than the Earth.  Consequently, Venus is always appears close to the sun.

Sometimes, Venus will appear near the sun in the evening.  Sometimes, Venus will appear near the sun in the morning.  So, Venus is called “the evening star” and “the morning star”.

At times, when Venus is directly behind or in front of the sun, astrologers say that Venus is in “combustion”.  When Venus appears to go backwards in its wanderings, Venus is in “regression”.  When it goes forward, it will “ingress” different constellations in its path.

0909 Here, the reference is seeing the planet Venus in the sky from the vantage point of the Earth.

We have particular words_2a as different ways for seeing Venus as a referent_2a, in the normal context of planetary sightings_3a arising from the potential of observing the heavens_1a.

We also have a flattened sign relation, where particular words_2a (SV) stand for the appearance of the planet, Venus_2a(SO), in regards to a sign interpretant of planetary sightings_3a operating on the potential of watching the heavens_1a (SI).

The sign-vehicle (SV), sign-object (SO) and sign-interpretant (SI) all occupy a single-level category-based nested form.  It may not be a classic sign-relation.  Classic sign-relations cross levels.  But, this structure is close enough.  

0910 Here is a picture.

A technical term for “close enough” comes from the Greek words, “hypo” (less than) and “morphe” (form).

0911 Here is a diagram for the ongoing interscope for the example of the astrological observation of Venus.

0912 The importance of framing on the content level can be seen as significance on the situation level.  Something universal becomes something intelligible, at least as far as astrological discourse_3b is concerned.

In a way, the transit from “the morning star_2a” to its astrological import_2b has the same character as the transit from a particular cloud_2a to the importance of going home now_2b.

However, the former transit belongs to civilization and commands speech-alone talk and the latter transit belongs to a world of constrained social complexity and takes place using hand talk.

0913 With this, I arrive at the end of Part I and conclude chapter three, concerning language and nature.

Enfield’s book consists in three parts.

Here is an overview.

0914 I now move into Part II.

Some of the terms may already seem familiar.

Part II is the terrain of our current Lebenswelt.  Experimental studies and their analyses involve explicit abstraction.  They require specialized disciplinary languages using speech-alone talk.  So, it seems that the results of scientific inquirycan only be regarded using explicit abstraction.

But, in this examination, I have conjured a surrogate for a corresponding implicit abstraction.  The interscope is a purely relational structure consisting of empty slots.  I put words that appear in Enfield’s text into the slots, then I discuss the implications of my associations.

0915 Here is a picture that started this examination.

Now, I have a spoken word to place in the cloud of implicit abstraction.

0916 A spoken word coalesces within the cloud of implicit abstraction.

Associations from Enfield’s text catch my imagination.  I hope that my fellow inquirers find my associations agreeable.  The implications may bring this examination and Enfield’s book into an odd sort of harmony… a weird sort of coordination… that is the province of postmodern scholasticism.

0917 Here is Enfield’s interscope as it currently manifests in the cloud of implicit abstraction, at the opening to chapter four, titled, “Priming and Overshadowing”.

0918 Since Part II deals with our current Lebenswelt, a few changes have been made.

On the content level, “particular” has been replaced by “spoken”.

Or should I say, “spoken” replaces “particular”?

0919 Also, the term, “frame” replaces “stands for”.  This frees the reference from “physical reality” in the common sense of the term.  The reference for the “particular cloud”, 750kyr ago, is the physical reality of a brutal cold front, the first of the season.  The reference for “the morning star” and “the evening star” and all that claptrap about “combustion”, “regression” and “ingression” is the physical reality of Venus, the wandering star… er… second planet in our solar system.

0920 After all, what is a frame?

A frame, like a door frame?

Yes, I suppose a door frame will do.  This door frame is composed of immaterial elements, a normal context and potential, that prime the person engaging in the content-level hypomorphic sign-relation to pass through a portal called “reference”.

0921 Here is a picture.

0922 In the single-level sign-relation that I associate to Enfield’s argument, spoken words_2a (sign-vehicle, SV) stands for a reference_2a (sign-object, SO) in regards to the normal context of what is happening_3a operating on the potential of ‘something happening’_1a (sign-interpretant, SO).

0923 Typically, the SV is on one level (say, content) and the SO is on the adjacent higher level (say, situation) along with the SI (also on situation level).  In this standard formulation, which is consistent with the historical path leading to the identification of the sign as a triadic relation, sign-relations couple adjacent levels of an interscope.  In short, the sign-relation is one way for content to alter a situation.

The above hypomorphic sign-relation may be seen, in a nascent expression, in Looking at Daniel Deacon’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria, to Bach and Back”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in December 2023.  The meme is precisely what “frame” versus “prime” describes.  An entire sign-relation squishes into a single level.  In short, here is a sign-relation where style alters content.

0924 At this point in the text, Enfield digresses into a passage from Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel, The Secret Agent, that does not exactly depict the following content.

What do I mean by the word, “exact”?

Well, the above statements may be taken quite literally, leading people to conclude that Mrs. Verloc should be put on trial for murder.

0925 However, this is not how Conrad frames the passage.

Enfield revels in the way that Conrad uses the active voice and the passive voice in such a masterful way that people who read the passage wonder whether Mrs. Verloc is guilty of the crime.

0926 How so?

In Conrad’s incredibly artistic weave of active and passive voice, another figure enters the dance, so to speak.  Stevie, the brother of Mrs. Verloc, is dead.  And, I suspect, right before dinner, Mrs. Verloc finds out that Mr. Verloc is the reason why Stevie is dead.  So, perhaps, during the entire meal, Mrs. Verloc anticipates Mr. Verloc to say something, anything, to confirm that the report of Mr. Verloc’s responsibility is not true.  But, he does not.

After all, Mr. Verloc has no regrets and is not even thinking of “business”.  But, Mrs. Verloc? She has regrets.  Incredible regrets.  However, she cannot leave her body and say, “Let me be free of this nightmare.”  No, she loves her brother, Stevie, and is broken hearted to see him go.  So, what happens next is right there in Conrad’s text, but it is so well scripted that Dr. Enfield does not even see it.

0927 Here is how Conrad frames the incident.

0928 No one in a jury would convict Mrs. Verloc.

She has nothing.  No husband.  No brother.  All because of a conflict between the two people whom she loves.  Mr. Verloc kills Stevie.  Now, Stevie kills Mr. Verloc.  What about Mrs. Verloc, both victim and conduit?  She is as good as dead.  Isn’t she?

That is what regular folk sense_2b.

Her deed_2a is overshadowed by her doom_2b.

0929 But, this is not what Enfield senses_2b.

In a profound testament to the cluelessness of the scientific mind, Enfield attributes the reason why people respond differently to the two versions, the just-the-facts version and Conrad’s version, to Joseph Conrad’s masterful use of linguistic framing.

Possession by disembodied souls is apparently a step too far.

0930 “In 1919, I get a job at a place that distributes this new-fangled liquid, called ‘gasoline’ to these dispensaries around Chicago, in order to fuel the automobiles, which are fast replacing horse and carriage.  Instead of drinking water, like a horse does, these mechanical carriages drink gasoline.  And that is where I come in, I load barrels of this gasoline onto wagons to bring to the stations that… you know… don’t want to pay for the truck delivery.  Horse-driven wagons are much cheaper.”

“Anyway, I tried the gasoline.  It tastes horrible.  I prefer the home-distilled whiskey from Indiana.  And when its slow, I take an nip or two, and then smoke a cigarette over in the shed, where they keep the empty barrels.   Gasoline catches fire.  So, no smoking near the full barrels.  But, the empty barrels…. what harm can be done?”

0931 Four months later, an insurance investigator reads these words, uttered by a fellow who miraculously survives the explosion and fire in the shed, then the storage unit, and then about half a city-block in Chicago.  The investigator’s name is Benjamin Whorf (1897-1941) and his hobby… or is it side job?… is the linguistics of Mesoamerica.  Funny how the world works that way.

So, Mr. Whorf… or is it Dr. Whorf?… has an idea, that Dr. Enfield calls “linguistic framing”.  It concerns how spoken words can generate misleading realities and how misleading realities can burn down half of a city-block in Chicago.

0932 Here is the current version of Enfield’s interscope, with words in the fellow’s testimony placed in the proper places.

On the content level, the spoken words_2a of “empty barrel” frame a referent_2a, which I call “no gasoline”.  Now, the frame influences the normal context of what is happening_3a and the potential of ‘something’ happening_1a.  In this case, the worker knows that gasoline is explosive.  So ‘something’_1a is a full barrel of gasoline catching fire.

0933 So, what does “no gasoline_2a” imply?  

Of course, the worker is now primed to sensibly situate a referent, “no gasoline_2a“, on the content level , as “will not catch fire_2b“, on the situation level.

And, I know what that implies.

0934 In chapter seven, on framing and inversion, Enfield widens the scope of Whorf’s insight.  Each spoken language creates its own linguistic frame.  Enfield begins his graduate career studying the mother tongue of a society in Laos.  The linguistic distance between an indigenous tribe in southeast Asia and the British Empire must be considerable. However, both languages have something in common.  They are spoken.  They are classified as speech-alone talk.

0935 According to the hypothesis of the first singularity, both Kri and English belong to our current Lebenswelt.  Both traditions have histories.  Those histories trace back to ancestral hand-speech talking cultures that drop the hand-component of their hand-speech talk in the process of adopting speech-alone talk.

0936 The ancestral cultures make the transition spontaneously after exposure to representatives from “more advanced” speech-alone talking cultures.  The representatives could have been missionaries, traders or warriors.  It probably does not matter because they express wealth and power that each hand-speech talking culture cannot imagine.

Yeah, people in the hand-speech talking culture are really much happier that these aliens showing up at their huts, but look at what these strangers have to offer.  They want to give us gifts.  And, they have a spoken word for the process.  They call their gifts, “trade”.  In fact, isn’t it odd that they have no hand talk?  They just use their mouths, which we do, but we gesture as well.

0937 By the time that Enfield publishes his book, nominally 7822 years after the start of the Ubaid, the last remnants of hand-speech talk disappear into the mists of prehistory.  Four hundred years ago, both the North American Plains Indians and the Australian aborigines practice fully linguistic spoken and “signed” languages.  Yes, they practice hand-speech talk, however modified by exposure to alien civilizations.  Now, these ways of talking slip through humanity’s fingers even as the theory of the first singularity places them in high regard.  Here are samples of who we evolved to be.

0938 This is not exactly new, but it is fresh.

See Comments on David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Book (2021) “The Dawn of Everything” (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) for a harbinger of the coming age when we (humans) realize precisely what Dr. Enfield is not aware of.  Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

A portion of the above-mentioned commentary appears in Razie Mah’s blog in March 2023 titled Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why the State Has No Origin”.

0939 Once, our gesture-words pictured and pointed to their referents.

Now, our spoken words do not.

Indeed, as noted in the general picture of the current interscope, spoken words on the content level are entangled with two referents.   One referent associates to Frege’s term, “reference” and the second overshadows Frege’s term, “sense”.

Also, spoken words permit the differentiation of the content and situation levels.  Referent_2a for the content level may be explicitly differentiated from the reference_2b on the situation level.

Plus, the difference between reference_2a and reference_2b depends on the way that ongoing discourse_3b contextualizes the manner whereby reference_2a is situated_1b.

So, one might expect that those who are able to formalize the manner in which a reference_2a is situated_1b as reference_2bgain certain advantages over those who are not able.

Hmmm….

0940 Here is a picture of Enfield’s interscope as it currently stands.

0941 Once upon a time, each manual brachial-word pictured or pointed to its referent.

One referent precedes one gesture-word.

Now, spoken words do not picture or point to anything.

Plus, two referents follow each spoken word.

0942 This may seem like a disturbing turn of events.

Should someone step forth and say, “It’s all okay.  Spoken words do reference something other than themselves.”?

Maybe, those who study spoken languages should step up to the plate and say, “The function of words is to ‘refer’.”.

Does that suggest that reference_2a is the same as reference_2b?

0943 The Russian-born American linguist Roman Jakobsen (1896-1982 AD) realizes that the so-called “referential function” of spoken words is not sufficient.  This is clear by the sequence of transformations taking place in Enfield’s interscope.

0944 Take a look at the content-level actuality.

At first, particular spoken words_2a [stand for] a reference_2a.  This matches the age-old impression, where a particular cloud [stands for] a coming storm.

Then, the actuality_2a becomes particular words [frame] a reference, and that configuration reverberates into the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a echoing back the message that particular words [can be primed for] a reference_2a.

Can this be the first step of the “conative function” of language?  After all, “empty gasoline barrels” cannot be explosive because they have “no gasoline”.  So, yes, smoking near the empty barrels is okay.  Go ahead and light up.

0945 Please, consider the so-called “phatic function”.

Here spoken words_2a may frame what is happening_3a and the potential of  ‘something happening’_1a while not indicating what the actual reference is.

If the actual reference is watch where you are walking, then I say, “Mind the gap.”

0946 How about the “emotive function” of language?

Well, after spoken words_2a [frame] reference_2a, then reference_2b [overshadows] sense_2a, in the same way that the soul of Stevie overshadows his sister and takes over her body even as her emotions overwhelm her, not because Mr. Verloc said anything, but because Mr. Verloc didn’t say anything about his responsibility for Stevie’s demise.

Surely, that does not make scientific sense.  But, it gives me the shivers.

0947 The two remaining functions that Jakobsen manufactures are the “poetic” and “metalingual” functions.  Do these put the other functions into perspective?

“Poetics” is about style, I suppose.  Rhetoric is the study of how all the other functions work to achieve a certain effect… or… affect_2a.

“Metalingual” is about… well… “meta” means “crossing out of” and “lingual” means “mother tongue”, so that sort of gets me back to Mrs. Verloc.  Metalingual is like a soul escaping a body, then looking back and labeling where it used to be.

Metalingual is like the art of translation.  What one might say “reference” (the body) translates into “sense” (the soul), forming a coherent unity, an embodied soul_2c, capable of situating the potential of ‘coordinating around reality’_1c within the normal context of spoken language_3c.

0948 Here is a picture, once again.

In the perspective_c-level actuality₂, something about reference [translates into] something about sense.

0949 But, what about the secret agent?

What about the revenge-seeking soul lurking in the shadows, ready to step in when emotional distress provides an incentive for a sensitive soul to step out of a world of cruelty, shock and humiliation?

0950 All spoken languages have one thing in common.

They are not hand-talk or hand-speech talk.

They are speech-alone talk.

Speech-alone talk allows explicit abstraction.

And, that is what Roman Jacobsen offers to the world, explicit abstractions bereft of an implicit abstraction.  He offers a model to replace the noumenon, the thing itself.

Enfield celebrates this triumph in the scientific study of language.

0951 The author cannot regard, because he does not know, the shamans in every hand-speech culture who resisted the transition to speech-alone talk, who fought the easy forgetting of the hand-component of their hand-speech traditions and who tried to prevent their culture from drifting into a diaphanous web of explicit abstractions, then into our current Lebenswelt.

Where is the celebration for them?

They are all dead.

Murdered, no doubt.

Indeed, one may wonder whether they will they return, like Stevie, in the guise of ideologies designed to capture the body when the soul is estranged?

Watch out when an alienated person, possessed by an ideology… er, shamanic spirit seeking revenge… quietly picks up the carving knife.

0952 All the origin stories of the ancient Near East depict a recent creation of humans.

Why?

The city-states of the Sumerian civilization cannot see beyond a time horizon defined as the first singularity.  They cannot remember the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  They cannot recall who we evolved to be.  They can only imagine that we (humans) are created, from mud, from seeds, from the blood or semen of gods, recently, in divine acts, not so long ago.

0953 Explicit abstractions, speech-alone labels, can carve up implicit abstractions as easily as Stevie can carve up Mr. Verloc with a carving knife held in the hand of Mrs. Verloc.  The labels come leisurely and academically, so it seems that they really do represent technical functions of the linguistic process.

The modern intellectual is so proud of these spoken words, which appear like gems in disciplinary discourse.  Oh, yes, clearly I aim for the emotive function, but the phatic function comes to the fore at the moment I say, “Beware.  Your spoken words veil a noumenon, the thing itself, with a mechanistic model.  And worse, you extol the veil, the shimmering screen of spoken words, as if you know what their referents really are.”

0954 What do humans need?

Well, if they are going to coordinate_1c, then they need to communicate_1b.

If they are going to communicate_1b, then they need to make sensible sense_2b of a referent_2b.

If they are going to make sensible sense_2b of a referent_2b, then they need to have the same label_1a for the referent_2a.

If they are going to share the same label for a referent_2a then they need to use spoken words_2a.

0955 Why?

Spoken words are all we have.

This is the dilemma of our current Lebenswelt.

Spoken words are purely symbolic.  They do not image or indicate their referents.  They are labels.  So, “communication” is all about the dynamics of sharing labels.

0955 Chapter six concerns communicative need.

In addressing the question of what humans need, answers track down the virtual nested form in the realm of possibility.

Here is a picture.

0956 Enfield tells of a magical moment when he is in a canoe with two village men, being transported down a river.  One has to read Enfield’s text in order to appreciate the magic of the moment.

0957 I suppose that once, I also experienced a similarly magical example.

I have a friend with a precocious two year old, who learned that the traffic sign reading “Not A Through Street” means “Dead End”.  While “not a through street” may be difficult to properly reference, “dead end” apparently is not.  This tyke yells “Dead End”, again and again, whenever the car passes a “Not A Through Street” sign, because of some “communicative need”.  Passengers not prepared for the display find it simultaneously humorous and disturbing.

What will this child grow up to be?

0958 Enfield wants to communicate one lesson. Since spoken words label only a fraction of things that can be labeled, then there must be a reason for why one spoken word exists while others do not.

I suppose the tyke in the above story has a reason for the display, which occurs with such an outburst of joy and excitement, that everyone in the car shares the revelry.

I know what that sign means!

0959 Enfield wants to communicate a second lesson which is even more notable.  All cultures around the world are remarkably alike in what they do capture.

0960 And, that reminds me of a religion and science conference that I attended, where all the scientists naturally took their seats on one side of the auditorium and the religious folk congregated in the seats on the other side of the auditorium.

0961 Of course, I am not saying that Enfield’s discussion concerning the structure of the Kri and English languages does not follow a model where there is a trade off between communicative costs and cognitive costs.  Nor am I saying that there is not an optimal frontier between having a vocabulary that provides more explicit information and takes more effort to learn as opposed to a vocabulary that provides less explicit information and takes (well, let’s be frank) less effort to learn.

However, I am wondering where the scientists and the theologians would place themselves in the spectrum of this optimal frontier.

0962 Of course, the scientists would claim the banner of the former, because scientific disciplinary languages provide very explicit information and take a lot of effort to learn.

At the same time, the theologians would not claim the banner of the latter, even though it is obvious to scientists that theological terms provide less explicit information and take less effort to learn.

0963 However, when it comes to theological subtlety, scientists find themselves clueless.  After all, the notion that Stevie could use Mrs. Verloc’s hand in order to stab Mr. Verloc with a carving knife is outside the bounds of science.  But, it is not outside the bounds of language and reality.

0964 Indeed, Enfield’s line of thought swerves after his scientific explanation, as if there is more to the optimal frontierthan a trade off between communicative and cognitive costs.

For example, the kinship terms of the Kri provide more detailed reference and are more difficult to learn because they aim not only to refer_2a, but to impress_2b.  As such, my father’s older sister must be situated differently than my father brother’s wife.  The kinship term for each_2a must be “sensed” with the appropriate sensibility_2b.

0965 In other words, a spoken label_2a decodes into its referent_2a and this referent_2b is a clue that should overshadow sense_2b.

This requires imagination_1b.

At the end of chapter six, Enfield calls language, “a tool for the instruction of imagination.”

0966 Enfield’s admission bring me back to the virtual nested form in the category of firstness, appearing earlier.

The normal context of “reference” and “sense” fostering coordination_1c brings the actuality that imagination is necessary for the referent to overshadow sense_1b into relation with the possibility of ‘something’ that words frame and that primes words_1a.