0187 Original justice_2c, commitment_2c, true and honest word-gestures_2c and openness to the One-Who-Signifies_2cmanifest only when we cannot pick their inherent triadicity apart.  A triadic relation is composed of three elements.  One stands in thirdness.  One secures secondness.  The other appears in firstness.  The triadic relation cannot be pictured or pointed to in hand-speech talk.  Each element maintains its integrity within the whole.

Speech-alone talk is purely symbolic.  It can symbolize the relation.  It can attach a label to each element.  Spoken words do not respect wholeness.  Spoken words can privilege parts over the whole.

0188 In modern and postmodern times, a major philosophical problem concerns how parts constitute a whole.  Most everything can be taken apart.  When that thing is alive, such disassembly proves fatal.  At some point, the scientist no longer works with a living creature, but a dead one.  Wholeness is lost.

0189 Death is the loss of the wholeness of life.

Evil is the privation of good.

0190 No wonder original sin and original death are mentioned, by Saint Paul, in a single sentence.  As soon as we speak of what puts human subjectivity into perspective_2c, we cannot help labeling the term.  We are soon dissecting it_2c.  Wholeness is lost.  Sin takes the scalpel.  Death is the consequence.

0191 The semiotics of hand-speech talk images and indicates a whole.  Sometimes, a feature of the whole inspires the word-gesture.  The part represents the whole.

The semiotics of speech alone talk allows explicit abstraction of the parts from the whole.  Sometimes, the whole is composed of its parts.  Is the whole nothing more than the sum of its parts?

0192 I can go farther and say, along with most modernists, “The thing itself, the noumenon, cannot be objectified as its observable and measurable facets, its phenomena.”

And, some triumphalist scientist will chuckle and reply, “No, we build our models based on observations and measurements of phenomena, and these models are more illuminating than their respective noumena.”

0193 In terms of semiotics, speech-alone talk is radically different from hand-speech talk.

In terms of evolution, our current Lebenswelt is radically different from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

In terms of sociology, unconstrained social complexity is radically different from constrained social complexity.

0194 I have drawn the circle.  Now, I find one point and proceed along a tangent.

What is a commitment_2c?

A commitment_2c derives from a judgment_2c.

A judgment is a triadic relation, composed of three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.

Here is a picture.

Uh oh.  What happened to intelligibility and universality?

Forget that!  This judgment is not holistic.  It is whatever I say it is.

0195 And, here is what I say.

A commitment consists of a nested form derived from the triadic structure of judgment, where the intellect (relation) brings together phantasms (what ought to be) and sensations (what is).

0196 From the point of view of a holistic intellect, hand talk cannot picture or point to any of these elements, much less the relation as a whole.  Hand talk can image and indicate sensations (such as warm or cold) and phantasms (such as symptoms of emotions).  But, hand talk cannot convey how sensations and phantasms pass into the intellect as what is and what ought to be.  Hand talk cannot discuss the intellect.

Commitment_2c must be lived.

0197 From the point of view of my fallen intellect, speech-alone talk can not only label the relation, it can also independently symbolize all three elements.  Once one element is named, then that element is different from another element, and the distinction may stand in the foreground.  The remaining element tends to fade into the background and be ignored.  As a result, the coherence of commitment_2c is lost.

Commitment_2c becomes subjectively incoherent.

But, don’t blame me.  I am only a messenger.

0198 Consider a pagan religion that preaches that gods are everywhere and in all things.  Someone labels this religion, “pantheism”.  What is the label hiding?

What is everywhere and in all things?

Signification_2c.

Signfication_2c produces sensations and feelings_2a.

What virtually situates these sensations and feelings_2a?

The phantasm_2b that gods are everywhere and in all.

But, what is the commitment_2c that this phantasm_2b inspires?

I wonder.  Show me a sign.

0199 Here is a another thought experiment.

Apollo rules the sun.  The sun is Apollo’s chariot.  Apollo drives the chariot of the sun across the sky every day.

0200 Here is a diagram.

0201 Clearly, this pagan judgment_2c resonates with the perspective-level actuality of human subjectivity_2c. 

Why hasn’t it unfolded into a commitment_2c?

Ah, the intellect (relation) stands in shadow because the phantasm (what ought to be) and the sensation (what is)constitute a whole within the whole.  May I call this partial wholeness, a “tautology”?

This tautology hides the intellect as the relation that brings what ought to be and what is together.

0202 So, how do ancient Greeks respond?

Some claim that Apollo is the god of reason.

Does this claim bring the intellect out of shadow?

Yes, Apollo promotes a certain preternatural awareness.  There is more to the sun than a flaming chariot.  The sun and Apollo’s chariot are given different names.  When both appear in the mirror of the world_3a, these names activate our bodily vision and our sensate soul_2b.  Clearly, we cannot look directly at the sun.  We can see what Apollo’s chariotilluminates.  The source of illumination is both overwhelming and divine.  Perhaps, in the brilliance, past, present and future are revealed.

0203 Apollo’s radiance is the intervention_2c that draws us to phantasms and sensations that honors reason_2b, if only by way of metaphor.  Have our own intellects fallen into shadow?  Or are they blinded by the brilliance of Apollo driving his chariot?

Apollo’s light_2c should guide us through our day_2b.

Like the path of Apollo’s chariot_2c, our day should run a straight course.

0204 Is this evil?

Is this a privation of the good?

Does human subjectivity, in our current Lebenswelt, somehow distort commitment_2c into ‘something_2a‘ characteristic of… what?

0205 We name and foreground some elements.  We fail to notice other elements.  We construct artifacts that validate our idols.  As long as the artifacts are salient, as long as they guide our sensations and engage our phantasms, our idolatries persist.  Yet, a disturbing element always hovers in the shadows.  And when we can see it, we lose our perspective.  We lose our minds.

0206 One of the ancient Greek plays to survive the gauntlet of time is the Bacchae, by Euripides.  It tells a tale about an unfortunate city, where the citizens, possessed by Dionysius, the personification of the intellect in shadow, withdraw.  The king, Apollo personified, takes rational action.  He goes out to spy on what they are doing.  The mob sees a wild lion, kills him, cuts off his head, and brings the trophy back into the city.  Only then does Dionysius step back into the shadow.

The mob carries the head of the king.

0207 Oh, the play is far worse than my telling.

When Dionysius steps into the minds of the mob, he stands as an intellect unable to ascertain what is or what ought to be.  He arrives as the most intoxicating idea that anyone can imagine.  His wine tells my mind that what ought to be no different than what is. Or, is it the other way around?

Apollo, the god of reason, is eclipsed.

0208 What does this imply?

Is tautology better than disorientation?

Does a tautology appear like reason compared to the madness of disorientation?

Is Apollo’s tautology a privation of the commitment_2c that corresponds to original justice_2c?

Is Dionysian disorientation a privation of Apollo’s tautology?

0209 I need not explore the permutations of tautologies and fixations.

I need only establish that the ability of speech-alone talk to name elements of the perspective level actuality_2c of human subjectivity ends up foregrounding some elements and backgrounding others.

0210 So, I return, with Houck, to Aquinas, who makes a simple extrapolation.

If evil is the privation of good, then original sin is the privation of original justice_2c.

0211 At this juncture, I find it necessary to emphasize the novelty of my non-theological assessment.  I follow Houck in using concepts and terminology of Aquinas’s theology of original justice and original sin.  At the same time, I hold the hypothesis of the first singularity, corresponding to the historical event that the fairy tales about Adam and Eve picture and point to.

0212 Small details loom large.

Why does the Genesis Story of the Fall feature a talking serpent, who ends up crawling on its belly like a snake?

Well, such a creature cannot possibly engage in hand talk.  It must talk in speech alone.

Why is there a the tree of life in the Garden of Eden along with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

Well, the tree of life represents original justice_2c.

0213 Aquinas’s formulations are welcome because we currently have few cognitive tools for articulating the characteristics of our current Lebenswelt and the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

On top of that, the philosophy of Charles Peirce, the ground for the category-based nested form and the triadic structure of judgment, may be construed as a historical re-emergence of the Baroque scholastic tradition.  Peirce’s writings are sort of like an academic re-enactment of the movie Jurassic Park.  Modern Positivists think that scholasticism is extinct and then, in Peirce’s seminal act, it hatches from an apparently infertile egg.  And, it has teeth.

American philosopher, Charles Peirce (1839-1914), and Baroque scholastic, John Poinsot (1589-1644), arrive at the same definition of sign.

Now, the theology of Aquinas provides unanticipated insights into the consequences of the first singularity.

How much longer will modernism, and faux postmodernism, find safety in the hotel?

0214 This brings me to infant baptism, a source of theological controversy and perhaps, a source of further insight about our current Lebenswelt.

According to Houck, Aquinas offers an account of original guilt.  An infant should be heir to original justice_2c.  But, “he” is not.  So, a privation (or evil) accrues just by entering into the world.

Here is the world that each infant innately expects to encounter.

0215 An infant should inherit the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  This is our originating niche.  But, the babe is born into our current Lebenswelt.  So, the infant is accused from the very start, charged with the crime of a change in Lebenswelt.  The child must suffer the penalty.

The transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt is called, “the first singularity”.

The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the scene of the crime.

0216 Saint Paul, while trying to explain the implications of the life, death and resurrection of Christ, stumbles upon this um… revelation.  Christ redeems what Adam binds.  Adam digs a privation and Christ fills the hole with abundance, so to speak.  This implies that the Christian believer attains a good that is even better than original justice_2c.

0217 However, this implication hides in the background of controversies about infant baptism in the early Church.

Certainly, when an infant dies, the loss cannot be put into spoken words.  Plus, this loss becomes entangled in procedural issues.  Is the deceased infant heir to the good that is even better than original justice_2c?  Two issues are entangled.  Both concern the infant’s human subjectivity.  The infant as subject enters into a fallen world.  What are the mechanics connecting the Fall to the subject?  What are the conditions in which these mechanics operate?

0218 The early Church Fathers focus on conditions.  Adam, the first man, and Eve, the first woman, eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Thus, the human condition changes soon after Adam and Eve are fashioned from dust and rib, respectively.

0219 Saint Augustine of Hippo offers a mechanism.  Since Adam and Eve are the first man and first woman, they are the ancestors of all humans.  So, the mechanics must have something to do with reproduction.

Well, Augustine certainly comes up with ‘something’ implicated in procreation.  Indeed, ‘something’ is a little embarrassing to talk about.

0220 Why?

No one wants to talk about desire.

0221 Funny, desire is the only thing that postmodernists want to talk about.  Why?  Forcing others to confess their desiresconstitutes a form of bureaucratic control.  Libido Dominandi.  To talk about desire is to conjure phantasms_2b without sensations_2a, or maybe, in search of sensations_2a. The reactive body_1b becomes habituated to act out certain sensations and feelings_2a, making the fantasy what it ought to be_2c.

0222 How do post-modern academics fixate on desire?

0223 Well, what ought to be looks vaguely pornographic.

What better way than to stimulate the limbic system, than with a promise of sexual liberation…

…and political control.

Ah, what year does America’s supreme court redefine pornography as “free speech”?

Here is a ruling that no one wants to talk about.

0224 Postmodernism defines what ought to be.

Academic discussions center on confession and fantasy.  Confession is demanded even of the befuddled.  Fantasy is also required.  If I cannot fantasize my victimhood, then I must be a perpetrator.  Ask Clarence Thomas.  Ask Brett Kavanaugh.  Confession of one’s victimhood is prized.  The rational intellect is openly disregarded as a co-conspirator in thought-crimes or as a self-imposed denial of the pain.  Sensations and feelings are salient when they enhance the fantasy of victimhood.

The academic wants to know.  What is your desire?  What are you guilty of?  What do you accuse others of?

Cupid’s arrows carry twisted barbs.  Ask Jacques Lacan.  Ask Michel Foucault.

0225 Augustine comes up with ‘something’ quite similar.  He calls it “concupiscence”.  The term translates literally into “the state of being with Cupid”.  Cupid is the passion child of Venus, the goddess of love, and Mars, the god of war.  What better companion to have in party town?  Cupid’s quiver is full of arrows of desire.

Augustine claims that original sin passes from Adam to us (today) through the act of conception. Conception entails “free speech”, if you know what I mean.  Procreation is entangled with concupiscence.  The two (or is it three, considering the natural consequence?) cannot be separated.

Augustine provides a mechanism for how Adam’s rebellion places the infant in the condition of original sin.

0226 The infant is subject to the actuality portrayed in the above figure, postmodern fixation 3.  Yes, the infant must confess that his parent’s fantasies inform their reactive bodies, habituating them, so that their actions are never innocent.  The lack of innocence transmits from parent to babe.  The infant bears the guilt of “his” own conception.

0227 Am I surprised that the site of naming in postmodern fixation 3 coincides with Augustine’s concupiscence?  

Perhaps, not.  After all, what ought to be associates to desire.  Power demands that desire reveal itself.  Only through confession and fantasy can desire be managed by experts.  Postmodern academics are not “judgmental”.  They are managerial.

0228 Postmodernism takes the dyadic actuality, confession & fantasy [informs and habituates] reactive body₂, in directions that Augustine never anticipated.  The educated can name their desires.  The uneducated brutes cannot.

How do the educated know the spoken words appropriate to this or that combination of perceptive soul [informing and habituating] reactive body?

0229 They have the information.  They have created a cognitive framework from their fevered imaginations.

The postmodern academic constructs terms that apply to the contiguity between perceptive soul and reactive body.  Only the educated can label their phantasms, thereby honoring themselves as star-filled perceptive souls, elevated above the mundane reactionaries who remain reticent to name their desires.  The reactionaries are full of fear.  They are deplorable.  They ought to be ground into dust.

0230 Disorientation transubstantiates into utopia.

Utopia represents the trans-substantiation of a dyadic element in judgment into a full-fledged triadic structure.  Here, what ought to be moves from realness (secondness) to judging reality (thirdness).

Yet, it remains in place as an element of a larger judgment.

What ought to be becomes a sick imitation of original justice_2c.

0231 Three hundred years after Saint Paul writes a letter to the Romans, Augustine formulates his mechanism for original sin.

A thousand years after Saint Augustine writes of original sin, Thomas Aquinas formulates the concept of original justice, as the good that original sin fails to deliver.

Eight hundred years after Saint Thomas writes of original justice, these comments propose that Augustine’s concept of concupiscence is the substrate for a bureaucratic formulation that socially constructs a utopia, a judgment that malignantly parodies original justice_2c, coinciding with the ministrations of a modern religion, Big Government (il)Liberalism.

Houck never gives us a clue as to how horrifying our substitutes for original justice_2c can be.

Or, how relevant.

It is as if original sin cuts original justice down to whatever it can name with speech-alone words, then sears this reduction with a flame of madness.

0232 If the what ought to be of original justice is named, “desire”, then those who construct the name and those who are indoctrinated into the expressions of the name stand against those who do not.  This judgment evokes an ideal, a utopia, where the believer apparently achieves what is lost in Adam’s rebellion, the wholeness of commitment_2c, the fruit of the tree of life.

Within this utopia, there is a stain that must be rooted out.

The uneducated must be purged.

So-called “liberalism” becomes illiberal.

But, no one can say that, without banishment.

So, the (il) is silent.

0233 Here is a picture of a Big Government (il)Liberal postmodern academic utopia, within its larger setting.

Don’t be taken aback.  This is only theoretical.  There is no real-world academic who idealizes to such an extent that what ought to be trans-substantiates into a judgment that then takes the place of commitment_2c.

Is there?

0234 In the Story of the Fall, small details loom large.

After God drives the man and the woman from the Garden of Eden, He places a cherubim, and a flaming sword that turns every direction, to guard the way back to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22).

In the utopia of postmodernism, the virtuous have celestial perceptive souls.  They apply their swords of spoken names. Their swords turn in all directions.  They have a label for every opponent.  If the uneducated person is not this, then the uneducated person must be that.

The utopians savor their fixation on what ought to be_2c.  In order to complete their vision, death must prevail over the mundane reactionaries, just like death prevailed over the shamans who wanted to retain the old, timeless traditions of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Cherubim holding flaming, swerving swords stand in the mirror of the world_3a.

When we see their reflections_1a, we see ourselves.

0235 I guess, I got this section turned around.

I should be asking, “What does original justice tell me about the consequences of the first singularity?“

0852 Okay, what is this business about a so-called “first singularity”?

The hypothesis claims that the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, which starts around 7800 years ago, is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk.  There are technical reasons for this.  In chapter eleven of Enfield’s book, the author mentions Aboriginal stories that tell of the inundation of hitherto dry land by a rising sea, producing the shallow Port Phillip Bay near Melbourne.  The event occurs more than 7000 years ago.

Imagine how much larger the infilling of the Persian Gulf would seem.

0853 Indeed, two hand-speech talking cultures are swept up by the infilling of the gorge and estuary of four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and the surrounding low lying broad valley.  One is a land-loving Neolithic culture that migrated down from northern Mesopotamia.  The other is a water-loving Mesolithic culture that probably migrated west along the coast from India.

As the waters rose, these two cultures were thrown into the same space, and since they engaged in different economies, they fused instead of warred.  Each culture was agreeable with respect to the other.  Each culture could imagine intermarrying with the other culture.  The producers in each culture began to coordinate, through trading before the temple, with the producers of the other culture.  In the process, two hand-speech cultures fused into one, the Ubaid.

0854 In terms of talk, when two cultures come into contact like this, the first step is to operate a pidgin, a hybrid of words of two languages.  The second step is for the children to reconstitute the pidgin as a creole, a brand new language that is more than a mere hybrid of the two original ways of talking.  The notable feature for the Ubaid is that the brand new language practices speech-alone talk, not hand-speech talk.

So, I mark 5800 B.C. as the nominal starting point for the Ubaid, with a new chronological label: 0 U0′ (Ubaid Zero Prime or “uh-oh prime”).  At this moment in prehistory, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only speech-alone talking culture in the world.  All other contemporaneous cultures practice hand-speech talk. 

0855 What happens next?

The Ubaid becomes the first culture in the world showing trends towards unconstrained complex sociality.  They are on their way to realizing civilization.

0856 Of course, the surrounding hand-speech talking cultures cannot help but notice that the Ubaid is… well… different.  The Ubaid is wealthier and more powerful.  They send emissaries that first, want to convert the village to the new system.  Then, they send traders, who want to do business.  Then, they send soldiers to take over the joint.  Around 1300 U0′, the Ubaid town-chiefdoms attempt to take over management in northern Mesopotamia.

0857 How, do the hand-speech talking cultures respond?

Well, imitation is the highest form of flattery.  The hand-speech talking cultures drop the hand-component of their hand-speech talk.  As soon as their talk is very close to speech-alone talk, they unexpectedly begin to develop labor and social specializations.  They become wealthier and more powerful.  Soon they are sending missionaries, traders and warriors to proclaim the news to other cultures.

0858 Speech-alone talk travels down established paths of down-the-line trading.  Then, it fans out.  Somehow, it even crosses the oceans to the Americas.  The spread of speech-alone talk is dramatized as angels carrying a cultural change from the Ubaid to all the world in chapter five of the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall.  Why angels?  Jacob presents to an Iranian imam.  Imams know all about angels.

0859 So, what about language, adversary and reality?

Villages of the Ubaid are evident by 0 U0′.  The town-chiefdoms of the Uruk of southern Mesopotamia follow at around 1800 U0′.  The city-states of the Sumerian Dynastic civilization begin around 2800 U0′.  That is three thousand years from speech-alone talk adoption to fully unconstrained social complexity.  This pattern should be seen repeated around the world.  This calls for research.  See Razie Mah’s blog for October 1, 2022.

Unlike the languages of other ancient civilizations, Sumerian is unique.  Sumerian is unrelated to any family of languages.  Why would that be?  Sumerian is a creole derived from two hand-speech talking cultures.  Sumerian is the first speech-alone talk language.

0860 The lesson is more than the opportunity for a fantastic research project.

The lesson is much more horrifying.

We (hominins) practice hand and hand-speech talk in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Today we (humans) practice speech-alone talk in our current Lebenswelt.

What does this mean?

We cannot be who we evolved to be.

0861 Enfield’s book is published in 7822 U0′.

Astrologers may further refine the nominal date for 0 U0′.  Right now, it stands as 5800 B.C.

0862 7822 years after the first singularity starts, N. J. Enfield publishes a book on the nature of language and reality, along with their adversary, the human mind.  He has no awareness that his civilization, indeed, all civilizations in all of history, are realities socially constructed using explicit abstraction made possible by speech-alone talk.

0863 Consequently, the foundational distinction that Enfield cannot make is between implicit and explicit abstraction.  (For further readings, consider A Primer on Implicit and Explicit Abstraction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Perhaps, not surprisingly, Enfield offers a second best distinction in his introduction.  The distinction between brute (or physical) reality and language (or speech-alone talk) is precisely the cut that separates labor (task-oriented) and social (role-oriented) specialization.  Scientists investigate physical reality.  Lawyers manipulate social reality.

0864 Here is a map of the two distinctions, one foundational and one next to foundational.

0865 The above distinctions pose a difficulty, because humans evolve in a Lebenswelt of implicit abstraction.  Hand-talk pictures and points to its referents.  Humans think in the ways of implicit abstraction.

0866 In contrast, speech-alone talk has no iconic or indexal traits.  Explicit abstraction derives from the purely symbolic character of speech-alone talk.  Speech-alone talk can label anything, including specifics for physical and for social reality, corresponding to labor and role specializations, the foundations of wealth and power.

Yes, speech-alone talk can label anything.  Because humans evolved practicing hand-talk, different labels imply different referents.  This may seem confusing, but humanity is yet to explore the entire spectrum of confusion that may arise from the fact that speech-alone talk can label anything, even the same thing, as if each label implies its own referent.  After all, physical and social realities are labels for the same thing, the consequences of explicit abstraction.

0867 So what about that funny cloud?

While everyone in the social and psychometric sciences worry about the stuff of labor and social specialization, implicit abstraction sits like a fog over the entire discourse, because the terms used by science are… um… explicit abstractions.

 How does the inquirer enter into that cloud of unknowing… er… implicit abstraction?

0868 I proceed by way of example.

0869 Imagine that I am the oldest member of a hominin team hunting deer in Eurasia during the time when fire is being domesticated.  I am not the leader, per se, but I am old enough to serve in that capacity.

Oh yeah, the spoken-word, “leader”, does not exist in hand-talk.

Yet, leaders exist in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Since we were successful at driving deer over a cliff the past few days, I think that the expedition today should go well.  But, the deer are skittish and will not run in the correct direction when we close in on them.

Then, everyone sees a particular type of cloud that appears after the second full moon after the solstice, portending a brutal storm followed by much colder weather.

0870 We all innately share a common relation in the style of a category-based nested form, where a normal context₃brings an actuality₂ into relation with the possibility of ‘something₁.  The subscripts denote Peirce’s categories of thirdness, secondness and firstness, respectively.  

Here, the normal context of the weather₃ brings the actuality of this particular type of cloud₂ into relation with the potential of ‘a sudden storm followed by cold’₁.

0871 Surely, this nested form touches base with physical reality.

Here is a picture.

0872 Well, there is a related nested form, corresponding to social reality.

The normal context of a deer-hunting team₃ brings particular gazes among team members₂ (after I suggest that we make one more attempt at corralling that group of skittish deer towards the cliff) into relation with the potential of ‘going home before the storm hits’₁.

0873 Better to go home hungry than tarry.

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.