08/16/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 14 of 20)

0416 Chapter five discusses one particular scientismist3c arranged marriage between capitalism and socialism2b.

0417 Perhaps, this is a good time to review where the psychometric sciences appear in the interscope for the post-truth condition.

0418 The psychometric sciences2b express the operations of a suite of disciplines ranging from economics (corresponding to capitalist expertise) to social work (corresponding socialist expertise).  Associated degrees include accounting and administration, journalism and public relations, marketing and education, and so on.

0419 The psychometric sciences2b are contextualized by specialized languages within each discipline3b, often at variance with one another, so that translating from, say, marketing to administration is not an easy task.  Nevertheless, all specialized languages are formatted in the style of science.  Also, all ultimately apply to a single actuality, called “value2b“.

Specialized languages3b are necessary to formalize knowledge1b.  Knowledge basically takes what people say2a and turns it2a into observations and measurements1b that have the potential1b of being used as data for psychometric models2bPsychometric models2b arrive at value2bas the intersection of transactional value2H and transcendental value2V, roughly corresponding to financial exhange2H and organizational objective2V.

0420 The psychometric sciences wrestle with two intersecting nested forms.

Here is a diagram.

0421 On the horizontal axis, the normal context of market3H brings the actuality of transactional value2H (financial exchange2H) into relation with the potential of price1H.

On the vertical axis, the normal context of order3V brings the actuality of transcendental value2V (social value2V or objectorg2V) into relation with the potential of righteousness1V.

Value2b is the single actuality composed of transactional value2H and transcendental value2V.

The contradictions inherent in value2b can never be resolved, because that is the nature of intersections.

0422 What about the single actuality that Ramaswamy discusses in chapter five?

It is labeled “ESG”.

Environment.  Social.  Governance.

0423 Allow me to offer a humorous substitute: Social, Environment and X.

“S” stands for “social”, and refers to stakeholders interested in accommodating righteousness at the expense of um… the market.

“E” stands for “environment”, and refers to the elevated prices demanded by stakeholders interested in producing environmental products and services than must be mandated by government fiat on the basis of um… righteousness.

“G” stands for “governance”, which means substantial infiltration of corporations by experts certified in the modeling of transactional and transcendental values.  But, that letter changes to “X” as “the thing that Twitter must never become”.

0424 Here is a picture of the mystery of S.E.X.

0425 Before S.E.X., there is S.E.G., the single actuality2b endorsing Twitter’s censorship… or shadow banning… or deplatforming of opponents of woke-ism on the basis of transcendental values2V (involving the normal context of order3Vand the potential of righteousness1V).  These socialist policies weigh down Twitter’s transactional value2V (involving the normal context of market3H and the potential of price1H) and attract the curiosity of capitalist investors, who might have an inclination to turn Twitter into the thing that it must never become.

Yes, the curiosity smells like Musk.

0426 This personification of curiosity ends up purchasing Twitter and changing its name to “X”, which is precisely what Twitter must never become, because that turns the acronym, S.E.G. into S.E.X., where X stands for a lack of governance by woke experts, rather than what everyone thinks that “X” might stand for but are unwilling to say.  

As such, “X” stands for an eclipse of observations1b of the phenomena of what people say2a and a crucial failure of the psychometric sciences2b.  Experts can observe and measure phenomena of what people say about S.E.G.  But, no one is able to talk about S.E.X. in a way that that does not objectify what they think.   It seems that when one talks about S.E.X., objectification cannot be avoided.  Ask Jacques Lacan.

0427 What one thinks [cannot be objectified as] what one is willing to say2a follows the logic of science.  What one thinksis like a noumenon.  What one is willing to say may be regarded as its phenomena.  And, according to the modern Positivist’s judgment, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.

The exception is when a model is placed over the noumenon, so that one can no longer recognize the noumenon as the thing itself.  Then, the model… er… apparent noumenon [can be objectified as] its phenomena.

Unfortunately, no one wants to touch that objectification when it comes to S.E.X.

At least, not without gloves.

0428 This explains the disconnect between the expert models2b and what people think2b when it comes to S.E.X.

For the psychometric sciences, S.E.X. becomes possible when a surplus of righteousness produces a deficit in price.

For what most people think, S.E.X. becomes readily available when a deficit in righteousness produces a deficit in price.

08/15/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 15 of 20)

0429 Chapter four concerns the rise of experts, otherwise known as “the managerial class”.

As early as 1941, James Burnham warns against the political implications of a rising managerial class.  This managerial class knows everything about value2b.  Indeed, they define value2b.

How well do they succeed?

Members of the class to move laterally among leadership of diverse institutions.

There is always a job to move to.

0430 The managerial class3b distinguishes social phenomena2a from what people say2a.

The managerial class develops the disciplinary languages3b of the psychometric sciences2b and assists in making empirio-normative judgments3c actionable.  Actionable empirio-normative judgments2c define success2c.

0431 With that said, let me recall the four battles of the enlightenment gods.

From this timeline, one can see that the current battle is brewing for over 50 years before the field clears, and the managerial class (in 1989) manifests as a force to be reckoned.

0432 How so? 

The so-called Cold War labels a battle between capitalist and socialist ideologies.  Each ideology proclaims its own empirio-schematic judgments… or should I say?… empirio-normative judgments.

0433 Is it any coincidence that the Berlin Wall falls when a former-head of the CIA serves as president of the USA?

Surely, an agency interested in centralizing intelligence would prefer that both the capitalist and socialist traditions format themselves in the style of empirio-schematics.  Scientific discourse allows the managerial class to address financial as well as political issues.  The managerial class figures out ways to co-opt ideologies as diverse as laissez faire and communism.  They can all be discussed in the style of scientific discourse.

0434 The fact that the United States elected a president that was a former head of the CIA is testimony that voting citizensare not aware that the next war will be about domination, by a sovereign3bC religion3aC whose disparate factions are united in the expectation that experts3b will situate the citizens3a,1a.  In 1989, scrappy players have no idea of the implications of the post-truth condition.

0435  After capitalist expertise and socialist expertise become stylistically scientific (as to mimic the empirio-schematic nested form), they both enter into the slot for actuality2b on the expert level.

0436 But, that is not all.

The empirio-schematic nested form is only one variation of the situation level for the interscope for the post-truth condition.

The original post-truth condition looks like this.

08/14/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 16 of 20)

0437 Does the managerial class know what it’s doing?

I wonder.

0438 The above interscope may explain why the managerial class rises in the first place.

It starts with education.

0439 The relativist one3c is above all jurisdictions.  For education, that means all academic disciplines.

From what I already know, the perspective level of the post-truth interscope somehow fuses with the content-level of the society tier.  This means that when someone enters an approved educational institution3b and earns a credential2bdocumenting their mastery of formalized knowledge1b, then some institution3aC within the umbrella of sovereign power3bC has provided an opportunity1c (which coincides with righteousness1aC) for success2c (which corresponds to an organizational objective2aC, beholden to capitalist and to socialist values2b).

0440 But, that is not enough.

The relativist one3c needs all academic disciplines to have something in common.  This is where the style of science comes in.  If the relevant academic disciplines have a common, scientific style, then the relativist one3c can relabel as the one of scientism3c.  This allows psychometric academic disciplines to proliferate under the umbrella of the scientismist one3c.

Notably, academic fields such as humanism, the arts, theology, philosophy, rhetoric, history and so on, who have difficulties adopting an empirio-schematic denkstyle, have not flourished for the past fifty years.

0441 Overall, state education (1) offers organizational objectives2aC that demand sovereign power2bC in order to be implemented and (2) presents all psychometric sciences as officially “not religious”, because metaphysics is not allowed in the discourse of each discipline.

Education is key to the rise of the managerial class.

0442 So what really buried the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?

Is it the fact that, for the capitalist USA, success2a for the scrappy player (getting ahead) correlates to success2c for the relativist one (an actionable judgment)?

0443 Once the USSR falls, an affirmative answer unravels as two opposing regimes of expertise begin to intermingle and the relativist one3c gives way to the scientismist one3c.

Here is a picture of education and the psychometric sciences that meld more and more objectively after the fall of the Berlin Wall, along with a picture of the increasingly crappy player level.

0444 Universities become multiversities.

Specialization abounds.

For example, the discipline of Anthropology differentiates into physical, archaeological, social, and cultural sub-disciplines.  Each publishes its own journals.

Each is its own “science”.

0445 And, speaking of science, the psychometric sciences look at people as generators of social phenomena.  Only a selection of what people are willing to say2a registers as phenomena2a that can be observed and measured1b.

0446 Why?

How does one observe and measure metaphysical beings and statements about metaphysical beings?

0447 Well, its a problem.

Only those statements1b useful for modeling2b register, because the empirio-schematic judgment corresponds to what ought to be, in the Positivist’s judgment.

Furthermore, the positivist intellect is the relation in the Positivist’s judgment and the positivist intellect has a rule saying, “No metaphysics.”

Here is a picture of the Positivist’s judgment.

0448 Okay, what is for the Positivist’s judgment is a dyad.  A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.

Does that look like the structure of the actuality2a on the scrappy player level?

Coincidence?

0449 Of course, Ramaswamy does not formulate the rise of the managerial class as a process where humans are turned into things that are subject matter for the psychometric sciences.

Instead, he proposes a policy option that would please someone like Betsy Devos, whose book is examined in Razie Mah’s blog for June 1 through 9, 2022.  The title of the blog is Looking at Betsy Devos’s Book (2022) “Hostages No More”.

Here is how I diagram the content and situation levels of this sensible option.

Otherwise, admit it.

No student is going to get a good grade if he don’t tell the teacher what the teacher wants him to say as if that is what he be thinking.

08/13/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 17 of 20)

0450 Chapter three asks, “What is the purpose of a corporation?”

Plus, when does a corporation become an institution?

I know the answer to the latter question.

A corporationaB becomes an institutionaC when it tries to put itself into perspective.  A corporationaB has three levels: managementcaB, productionbaB and serviceaaB.  An institution3aC has a mission-statement and a justification detailing the purposes2aC of the corporation.  An institution also puts other corporations into perspective.

0451 At the risk of saying too much, I would like to wander into the territory of human evolution, in order to show that the distinction between corporation and institution is foundational.

Consider Razie Mah’s blogs for January through March, 2024, which covers some of the material in parts one and two of Comments on Michael Tomesello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) (by Razie Mah, available for purchase at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0452 Early on, in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, our hominin ancestors adapt to Pliocene, then Pleistocene conditions, of mixed forest and savannah, by becoming bipedal.  Bipedalism means that bands walk from one location of rich seasonal resources to another.  Tomasello, a professor in evolutionary anthropology, claims that bipedalism potentiates a behavioral adaptation that he calls, “obligatory collaborative foraging”.

In short, long before the Homo genus appears in the fossil record, australopithecines are working in teams, communicating to one another with pantomime and pointing, and gathering more food than the team can eat in order to return to the band and share with friends and family.  Each way of gathering or processing or storing food has its own team.

0453 No wonder the hominin brain expands over the course of time.  Generation after generation, successful teams select for individuals capable of performing team-tasks and belonging to the team.  Each team selects for adaptations that increase productivity as well as getting along and having fun.  Such adaptations require neural networks that are primed to develop in response to exposure to team activities.  The more successful teams, the bigger the hominin brain becomes.

0454 Today, in our current Lebenswelt, business start-ups are modern equivalents to teams.  The goals are clear and specific, the tasks are both technical and collaborative.  Team behaviors are readily diagrammed as sensible constructions, interscopes consisting in content and situation levels.  Teams work to get sensible things done.

0455 Ramaswamy creates a start-up that grows into a corporation.  He notes that the character of the institution changes.  Typically, a team consists of 15 members and a community incorporates 150 members.  That means that a community is just about a team of teams.

A community can flourish on sensible construction, to a certain extent.  But, one may ask, “How do diverse teams work together as a ‘team’, when each team has a different way of foraging, complete with its own version of hand talk, and its own sense of humor?”  Oops, I just slipped back into the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0456 But, the question still stands.  A corporation is like a team of teams with each team devoted to a special function, ranging from research on biomolecular pathways in endometrial cells to keeping the facilities clean.  Sensible construction goes only so far.  The executive team with the vision for the start-up must engage in social construction.  Social construction transcends sensible construction.  Indeed, social construction creates the cognitive stage for the team of teams, the corporation.

0457 So, I ask, “Does the corporation contextualize itself as a team of teams using social construction?”

I answer myself, saying, “No, the moment that the team of teams puts itself into perspective, it must be labeled as an institution.  The institution3aC‘s organizational objectives2aC are social constructions2aC.  And, these social constructions2aC are built on declarations of righteousness1aC.

0458 Teams flourish on sensible construction.  Corporations are teams of teams that rely on sensible construction, but sensible construction goes only so far, because corporations are also communities.  The moment that a start-upaB grows into a community, itaB becomes an institution3aC, engaging in the social construction of organizational objectives2aC that actualize the potential of righteousness1aC.

0459 I summarize with the following diagram.

0460  This figure portrays a subtle point of contention behind Ramaswamy’s story about how sovereign legislation creates the legal space for limited-liability corporations.

Note the header.

The category-based nested form of three tiers is not differentiated in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  As noted in The Human Niche, our ancestors evolve in social circles within a group that slowly increases in size over time.  The waystations are family (5), intimate friends (5), teams (15), bands (50), community (150) and the resonances are mega-band (500) and tribe (1500).

0461 The individual cannot survive alone.

Two social circles play key roles and serve as sites for adaptations.

Teams organize in sensible ways.  Proto-linguistic hand talk evolves in the milieu of teams.  According to Tomasello, teams promote the evolution of second-person morality.  I must care about other members of my team.  We must be productive.  We ought to have fun.

Communities institute themselves in social ways.  Fully linguistic hand talk evolves after the domestication of fire, when teams become numerous, due to cooking and a new social venue that encourages talking outside of teams.  Yes, I am talking about dinner.

Once hand talk is fully linguistic, hominins can make counter-intuitive, yet intrinsically sensible, statements.  One can grammatically describe the moon man whose manual-brachial word gestures are seen in the flight of birds at night as well as the winds blowing across mountains.  What is the moon man asking us to do?

Social construction is the meaning underlying the word, “religion”.

0462 Ramaswamy tells the story of the limited liability corporation in modern (or soon to be modern) Western civilization.

The LLC is like the team.  Think sensible construction.

Then, the LLC is like a community.  Think social construction.

0463 Of course, this legal fiction finds itself in a world where societyC, organizationB and individual in communityA are explicitly differentiated.  Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  So, the history of anything is complicated.  Ramaswamy paints a portrait of historical legal innovations.  My examination looks at the fabric of his canvas.

0464 But, I suspect that is not what the reader is thinking about.

The reader must be asking, “What about this moon man business?”

0465 Here is a picture.

0466 Everyone before the first singularity knows stories about the moon man.

[POINT to moon][Pantomime MAN]

08/12/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 18 of 20)

0467 Today, the same type of mysterious persona as the moon man speaks of winds moving across political and economic grids.

Yes, I am talking about the Forum for Universal Contemporary Knowledge and Unified Practices.

0468 Yes, I am talking about the “stakeholder”.

The stakeholder (SVi) stands for the Forum’s actualities [manifesting as] advisory decrees (SOi) concerning future global challenges such as the constellation of the fourth industrial revolution (SIi).

0469 What is happening3a?

The fourth industrial revolution.

What is the ‘something’ that resides in the potential1a underlying the fourth industrial revolution3a?

Future global challenges1a!

0470 This is not the world that Ramaswamy grows up in.  And yet, it is.

The Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods begins soon after Vivek is born.  The Forum has already transformed the very identity that Ramaswamy thinks he has.

What is that identity?

Ramaswamy is an individual.  And, individuals tell their own stories.

The individual2c (SVi) stands for the realness of what I think [manifesting as] what I say2a (SOi) in regard to the reader’s intellect3a operating on the reader’s sense of reality1a (SIi).

0471 In chapter two, Ramaswamy tells how he became a capitalist.

To an expert3b, capitalism2b is all about markets3H, value2H and price1H.

To the individual that is Vivek, capitalism2b is about getting ahead2a.  Capitalism is about creativity, fashioning new products that people want (and occasionally, need), manufacturing products safely and without too much in terms of third party effects, working on a team, coming together as a community and lots of work!  Plenty of things to do.  So, one must prioritize one’s time and efforts.

0472 Value for the capitalist is more than products that produce profits.

The corporation has a mission.

0473 I believe the Forum3aC warned about this type of nonsense.

The “capitalism” of “stakeholder capitalism” is not the same as the “capitalism” that arises from individuals pursuing their self-interest.  Success2c is not the same as “getting ahead2a“.  Success2c is finding a path towards all stakeholders getting ahead, especially the experts3b who represent the… um… people who are not willing to say what they think.

The experts3b represent the people who are not willing to say what they think, because if they thought what the experts would have them think, then they could easily say what needed to be recorded as phenomena2a for the observations and measurments1b required for expert psychometric formulations2b.  Psychometric models of value2b sustain opportunities1cfor the one of scientism3c to engage in empirio-normative judgments2c, which constitutes “success2c” by acting as a sign-vehicle (SVi) for an interventional sign-relation.

0474 Once again, here is a picture of the post-truth interscope for the enlightenment god that seeks to dominate by signaling to all stakeholders, as the stakeholder of stakeholders3aC, “The Forum’s normative judgment2c (SVi) stands for what I must think2a [in order to have my thoughts objectified as] what I say2a (SOi).

0475 Individuals may regard this as lunacy.

But, here is where the money is.

08/10/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 19 of 20)

0476 Chapter one is titled, “The Goldman Rule”.

At first, I thought, “He can’t be talking about a gold man.”

Or maybe, he refers to a god man.

0477 The title calls to mind some ancient civilization, who has a king, blessed by a god with a particular trait.  Everything that he touches turns to gold.  Such a story is easy to debunk as scientifically impossible.

But, one lesson, “He who has the gold makes the rules.”, is not so easy to refute, and leads to an awkward corollary, “He who makes the rules gets the gold.”

0478 The same type of circularity is on display at the heart of the psychometric sciences.

He who controls the financial exchanges2H, makes the organizational objectives2V.

He who makes the organizational objectives2V, will get to control financial exchange2H.

0479 By the way, have you heard about the value2b of central-bank digital currency?

Just asking.

0480 Through the hybridization of capitalist and socialist expertise, reformatted into an image of empirio-schematic science, the market3H can manifest the potential of righteousness1V, not directly, but indirectly, through value2b. Similarly, sovereign power can potentiate order1V capable of nudging prices1H, not directly, but indirectly, through value2b.

That means that the capitalist gold man and the socialist god man find opportunity1c in modeling values2b that lead to actionable judgments2c for the one of scientism3c.

0481 Here is a picture of an empirio-normative judgment.

The specialized disciplinary languages of experts on capitalism and socialism (relation, thirdness) brings a normative narrative, exhibiting the intelligibility of value from the psychometric sciences (what ought to be, secondness), into relation with observations of a universality in what people say, corresponding to phenomena salient to the psychometric sciences (what is, firstness).

0482 Two crucial qualifiers are depicted in red.

The psychometric model, the normative narrative, and what ought to be need to exhibit intelligibility.  Since this element is imbued with secondness, it should be intelligible enough to enter the slot for actuality2 when the actionable judgmentunfolds into a category-based nested form.  Intelligibility must seem real.

Observations and measurements of phenomena of what people say, corresponding to what is, need to seem universal,rather than biased, selective or conjured out of thin air.  No scientist would dare say, “I made up the phenomena that I observed and measured.”  Contemporary marketers and journalists take note.  You are experts in the psychometric sciences.  You cannot make up what people are saying in order to show that your models of value2b are supported by data.

0483 For the scientismist one3c, the empirio-normative judgment2c offers the opportunity1c to broadcast an interventional sign-vehicle (SVi) to be received by a sign-interpretant consisting of the reason3a,1a of people on the scrappy-player level (SIi).

0484 The resulting interventional sign-object (SOi) is what people think [that may or may not be objectified as] what people are willing to say.  Individuals say what they think.  Stakeholders say what they feel that they are being told to think.

0485 This brings me to the introduction of Ramaswamy’s book.

In the very first statement, Vivek Ramaswamy proclaims himself to be a traitor to his class.

What does this mean?

0486 Ramaswamy is an individual.  Individuals stand before God.

His class are stakeholders.  Stakeholders objectify the interventional sign-vehicles broadcast by the Forum for Universal Contemporary Knowledge and Unified Practices.  Stakeholders stand before the dominating deity of the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods and proclaim, “We submit!”

08/9/24

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

0487 Here is a picture of the interscope for the post-truth condition.

0488 In the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: Empirio-Normative Domination of Citizen Populations (1989-present), the scientismist one3c endeavors to first, bring a judgment2c into relation with the potential of an opportunity1c.

In this judgment, the disciplinary languages of the psychometric sciences (relation, thirdness) brings a normative narrative, expressing real intelligibility (what ought to be, secondness), into relation with something universal in what people say (what is, firstness).

Second, this judgment2c may serve as an interventional sign-vehicle (SVi) triggering people’s reason3a,1a (SIi) and creating a dyad where what I think coincides with the broadcast normative narrative [and is objectified as] what I am willing to say (SOi).

0489 Submission to the one of scientism takes the same character as when triumphalist science situates empirio-schematic research by placing a model over its noumenon, as discussed in Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) as well as Razie Mah’s blogs in April, May and June 2024.

Here is a comparison.

0490 The interscope for the post-truth condition allows the inquirer to step back from the conditions of submission, in order to explore the nature of the Woke World War.  The actuality of the scrappy player, who is yet to submit, but cannot ignore the broadcasts, perfectly mimics a thing that is the ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment.  That is to say, the scrappy player is the subject of a scientific inquiry and is trapped, like a rat, in the laboratory of the psychometric sciences.

Here is a comparison of the scrappy player’s actuality versus what is of the Positivist’s judgment.

0491 Standing against these two comparisons is a proposition that has been proclaimed by Christianity for centuries and has been rejected over and over again, because it forces the person to stand before God.

This actuality implies a fatal weakness of the post-truth condition.

Reason3a,1a is more than the intellect3a operating on the will1a.

0492 Ramaswamy knows this.

He knows that the sociopaths who run woke corporations and non-governmental organizations know this.  Reason is more than the intellect operating on the will.  But, this is the post-truth condition that bigilibs have grown to love, for fun (virtue-signaling) and for profit (financial benefits accruing through sovereign-imposed organizational objectives).

Deception thrives in the post-truth condition.

0493 Woke, Inc. tells a story that runs deep.

The beginning writes the end.

0494 My thanks to Vivek Ramaswamy for his engaging text.

08/8/24

Artistic Concordism.  Harmony between Genesis and Evolution?

0001 On August 14, 2024, Razie Mah, the blogger and author of The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion, releases an e-book, titled “Exercises in Artistic Concordism“.

Concordism is harmony between religion and science, particulary, the biblical origin stories and evolutionary history.  Concordism attempts to build a bridge.  But there is always a problem.

0002 According to current interpretations of these matters, either religion or science has to give.

Enter semiotics. Semiotics is the study of sign-relations. Sign-relations are triadic relations.  Triadic relations?  Thirdness (the triadic realm of normal contexts) brings secondness (the dyadic realm of actuality) into relation with firstness (the monadic realm of possibility).

0003 What if Genesis One is a sign of the evolutionary record?  

If one reads the Creation Story through the lens of Charles Peirce’s typology of natural signs, then each day of creation offers icons, indexes and symbols of a corresponding epoch. The days, like pearls, string perfectly onto the evolutionary record. The aesthetic correspondence is beautiful to behold.

0004 What has to give?

The interpretation that the Creation Story is itself the revelation? Perhaps, Genesis One records a revelation. That means there is a visionary, which brings up the question. How do we (as the ones who will hear the words of the vision) evolve to be who we are created to be? We are created to recognize the signs of God. What does this mean?

And, what if the stance that the Creation Story is a vision gives us ways to answer these questions?

0005 What else has to give?

Our theoretical formulation of human evolution?  Yes, there is more to our evolution than fossils and genetics. What if, as the Genesis text indicates, our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?  What if there is a cultural twist in recent prehistory?

0006 If one reads the awkward textual transition between the Creation Story and the stories of Adam and Eve as discontinuity, then one may wonder why all the written origins stories of the ancient Near East portray the origin of humans as a recent event. Humans are created, de novo, by differentiated gods. 

Why can’t any of the civilizations of the ancient Near East see past a time horizon that an anthropologist may place, say, at the start of the Ubaid archaeological period of southern Mesopotamia?

Why can’t these ancient civilizations see the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

These queries lead to a much more inflammatory question. Why is our current Lebenswelt not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

Imagine the answer to that one!

0007 Today, civilized folk are abuzz about the coming singularity. What if it is not the first?

Uh oh, the first singularity is a scientific hypothesis that harmonizes a cultural twist in human evolution with the stories of Adam and Eve.

0008 Both religious appreciations of the text and scientific blind-spots must transform if there is to be concord.

Plus, that concord will be neither religious nor scientific.

It will be artistic.

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 context3a and potential1a of reason3a,1a.  Reason3a,1a is the intellect3a contextualizing the will1a.  Plus, the interscope is not clear as to who engages reason3a,1a.  Is reason3a,1a the sign-interpretant (SIi) for the scientismist one3c‘s sign-vehicle (SVi)?  Or is reason3a,1a a feature of the scrappy player’s cognition?  Or both?

0760 The situation level is labeled “expert”.  Psychometric scientistsb situate what the scrappy player is willing to say2aas phenomena that may be formalized as observations and measurements1b.  Also, psychometric experts3b bring models of value2b 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 one3cis called, “the one of scientism3c“, because science has become the common style for expert3b expressions of value2b, where value2b is the intersection of capitalist and socialist nested forms.  So, the scientismist one3c 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 one3c.  In order to truly operate as a relativist, one must be outside of all relativized jurisdictions.  That observation indicates that the relativist one3c 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 experts3b are relative from the point of view of the scientismist one3c.

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

08/7/24

Looking at Josef Pieper’s Book (1974) “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” (Part 2 of 8)

0763 Now, to the text itself.

Modern philosophers love to start with Descartes or Machiavelli.

Old school philosophers love to start with Socrates.

0764 Plato’s stories about Socrates portray one of the cleverest, and oddly Christ-like, pre-Christian Greek philosophers.  At the time, philosophy is in the air.  Sophists, who are trained in rhetoric (so don’t try to debate them), make a lot of money arguing for particular positions in open forums.  In effect, sophists situate the average citizen.  They are like today’s experts.

The sophists are put into perspective by a thought-style that appreciates refined reason.  Yeah, it’s like sugar.  Take a certain plant and cook the living daylights out of it, then remove the solids and place the liquid in a container where the water evaporates, and there it is: refined sugar.  The same process happens with argumentation in ancient Greek forums.  People publicly debate long enough that specialists start to figure out which styles of argument work and which styles don’t.  Then, they retail their discoveries under the label, “education”.

Rhetoric is sweet business.

0765 Pieper claims that Plato reviles the sophists.  But, Plato is not bitter.  Plato figures out that the sophists are mercenaries, rhetoricians for hire, and are notoriously both good looking and eloquent in their argumentation.

Today, many academics regard the sophists as the earliest humanists, educators, teachers and advocates of… well… whatever concern that someone is willing to pay for.

0766 Okay, what about an interscope?

The Greek citizen concerned with what is going on matches the scrappy player level of the post-truth interscope.  The Greek citizen does not see who pays the sophist who argues before him.  Rather, the Greek citizen hears an argument and says what he thinks.

The sophist is concerned about winning the argument.  If the sophist wins, then the assembly will vote to implement a policy that will benefit the person who is paying him.

So, there are the two actors on the content level.

0767 Now, all the classical transcendentals (truth, beauty, goodness, nobility, prudence, temperance, and yes, I am throwing a few virtues into the mix) apply to the average citizen, because the citizen is at the forum to speak his mind.  So, I do not associate the average citizen’s nested form to a post-truth condition.

Not so for the sophist.  The transcendentals apply only insofar as they increase the potential of winning the argument.  So, the sophist’s transcendentals are conditional.  Truth becomes a property of logic.  Beauty describes the cleverness of an argument.  Nobility concerns how handsome the speaker looks.  Prudence describes the way that, once an argument is won, the sophist does not recklessly celebrate victory.  And, temperance connects to sophistication as a quality of all sophists, even the maniacs.

0768 So, even though sophists participate on the content level, where transcendentals are relevant to what people thinkand what people say, they simultaneously situate the content level with the normal context of rhetorical discourse3b bringing the actuality of sophisticated values2b (consisting of conditional transcendentals) into relation with the potential of framing propositions in such a way that victory is achieved1b.

0769 As far as the sophists (and the rich citizens who employ them) are concerned, the following is a sensible construction.

The sophist level virtually situates the content level.

0770 Well, this two-level interscope is sensible enough. The corruption resides off stage, so to speak.  Off stage?  Hmmm.  Am I referring to a perspective level?

Really, what about the rich citizens who make their huge fortunes from… how to say it?… public initiatives that are approved after debate in the forum?  Where do they fit into the so-called sensible construction?  After all, they are the movers and the shakers of the entire scam, aren’t they?

We can only guess.

0771 Pursuit of the gritty details of what would be a perspective level of corruption (which was once the dangerous mission of journalists) may be thwarted… oh, a better word is “diverted”… by the construction of a perspective level that journalists can get paid advertising.

The normal context of refined reason3c brings the actuality of a public decision2c into relation with the potential1c of the sophist’s values2b, based on conditional transcendentals.  Another word for that potential1c is “opportunity1c“.

Here is the resulting three-level interscope, characteristic of social construction.

0772 Where do the terms “sensible” and “social” construction come from?

Consider the series A Course on How To Define the Word “Religion”, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  The series contains two small works.  A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.  These works introduce the terminology that I use in this examination.

0773 What does the above interscope suggest?

The modern post-truth and the ancient Greek interscopes are so similar as to suggest that the one of scientism2c is actually a style of refined reason3c, rather than a person.

Yet, a person can represent refined reason3c and serve as the sophist3b that (according to latest opinion) puts sophistry into perspective1c.  In Plato’s stories, one of these acclaimed philosophers is Prodicus.  Another is Gorgeous… er, I meant to say… Gorgias.