Tag Archives: first singularity

12/24/24

Looking at Tomasz Duma’s Article (2023) “The Specificity of Secundum Dici Relations…” (Part 1 of 14)

0001 In 2017, the author publishes a book, in Polish, with the English title, “The Metaphysics of Relation: At the Basis of Understanding the Relations of Being”.  This article slices out one topic among many.

Thomas Aquinas uses the Latin term, relationes secundum dici, in ways that lead to a variety of interpretations.  Consequently, the complete title of this work is “The Specificity of Secundum Dici Relations in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics”.  The article appears in Studia Gilsoniana 12(4) (October-December 2023), pages 589-616.

0002 I know that this article is scholarly, because the summary (abstract) appears at the end of the text.

0003 Why does this article capture my attention?

The term translates into relations (relationes) according to (secundum) speech (dici)… er… talk (dici).

I don’t think the Romans have a word for forms of talking other than speech.

They are so civilized.

0004 The term applies to various questions, such as when a pagan calls his god, “Lord of the heavens”, as well as the relation between matter and form, the relation between accident and substance, qualities of things, one’s orientation in labeling one side of an auditorium “right” or “left”, and so.  These are just samples.  Duma presents five cases in detail.

0005 The dici term contrasts to a similar term, relationes secundum esse.

The latter translates into relations (relationes) according to (secundum) existence (esse)… er… esse_ce (esse).

Esse_ce?

Esse_ce is a written play on the Latin term, esse.

Esse_ce is the complement to essence.

Whatever has esse_ce also has essence.  Whatever has essence also has esse_ce.

0006 Those two statements sound like relationes secundum esse even though they may be relationes secundum dici.

Why?

The relation between esse_ce and essence is another way to state the relation between matter and form.

0007 Plus, the relation between matter and form is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness, the dyadic realm of actuality (that contrasts with thirdness, the triadic realm of normal contexts, and firstness, the monadic realm of possibility).

Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the real elements are matter and form.  The contiguity is not named.  However, a name stands ready-at-hand.  That name is “substance”.  So, I can take the word, “substance”, and place it in brackets (for notation), to arrive at the following figure.

0008 Now, my interest in Duma’s article begins to clarify.

The relation between matter and form is a relation where the terminus of the relation is a word, so to speak, that denotes either the presence (matter) or the shape (form) of a thing.  But, it does not denote a thing (which expresses both esse_ce and essence).

The same goes for the creature calling his creator, “master”.

When I watch the ritual proclamation, I encounter two real elements, the creature and the proclaimed word.  I must figure out the contiguity between these two real elements.  Both real elements are locked in a literal relationes secundum dici (a relation according to talk).

So, I place my guess into the slot for contiguity.

0009 Because Aristotle’s hylomorphe is a premier example of Peirce’s secondness, the creature [calling Creator] aspect of the dyad carries the feel of matter [substance], esse_ce, or “existence”.  Also, the [calling Creator] “Master” aspect carries the feel of [substantiating] form or essence.

May I go as far to say that much of Aquinas’s philosophy carrries the feel of matter [substance] form, even as Aquinas transcends the esse_ce and essence of Aristotle’s philosophy in an intellectual flight towards a recognition that is so… so… divine?

God is Substance.

God is the contiguity between all real elements in Peirce’s secondness.

0010 According to John Deely’s massive book, Four Ages (2001 AD), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is an important waystation between St. Augustine (354-430), who poses the question of sign-relations, and John of St. Thomas (John Poinsot (1589-1644)), who finally and correctly identifies signs as triadic relations.

Aquinas mentions relatives in his discourses on various theological and philosophical questions and disputes.  The diciand esse relations stand out.  They are are similarly worded. The formula is relationes secundum X, where X is either esseor dici.  Esse relations pose few difficulties.  Dici relations lead to confusion and debate.

0011 Here is a table listing some of the characteristics of each.

0012 In this examination, I have already brought Duma’s article into relation with one aspect of Peirce’s philosophical schema.

I hope that no one is surprised.

The next step adds another layer and that may take the reader off guard.

12/11/24

Looking at Tomasz Duma’s Article (2023) “The Specificity of Secundum Dici Relations…” (Part 14 of 14)

0119 The conceptual-flow apparatus of A,B,&C also applies to Peirce’s category of firstness as explicit matter (A).

0120 An explicit definition of firstness (B) stands as form in the dicey bucket, then as matter in the esse bucket.  

In the esse bucket, dici (speech-alone talk acting as hand-talk) relates to whatever follows the logics of inclusion and allows contradictions.

0121 Rather than giving another example, I proceed to section four, where the author formulates how we should understand relationes secundum dici.

Since this examination is already disruptive, let me proceed to some suggestions that sort of correspond to the author’s points and some that do not.

0122 First, let go of the distinction between categorical and transcendental.  Even though the distinction is helpful, it does not appear to be critical to the speculations at hand.

0123 Second, all dici relations have two termini, the relation itself (portrayed as a hylomorphic dyad consistent with Peirce’s definition of secondness) and the elements that go into the relation (for Aristotle’s hylomorphe, “matter” and “form”, and for the dici relation, “dici” and “relationes“).

0124 Third, as soon as relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) is formulated as a dyad in the realm of actuality, the relation is subject to the laws of contradiction and noncontradiction.  The label for the contiguity is placed within brackets for clear notation.  The contiguity’s label is selected on the basis that [it] minimizes contradictions between the two real elements.

[Secundum] may be regarded as a contiguity that minimizes contradictions.

0125 Fourth, relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) is an actuality2.  A normal context3 and potential1 are required to attain understanding.   An entire (filled-in) category-based nested form associates to understanding.  Understanding encompasses the three distinctly different logics of thirdness, secondness and firstness.

In hominin evolution, our genus adapts to the potential of triadic relations, including “understanding”, defined as “the completion of a category-based nested form”.  Implicit abstractions produce complete nested forms holistically (that is, without explicit articulation of the three elements).  Hand-talk favors implicit abstraction.

Explicit abstractions may articulate elements within a relation, by using the purely symbolic labels of speech-alone talk.  At the same time, the conceptual-flows of A,B,&C suggest that speech-alone talks engages implicit abstraction (and visa versa).

Nonetheless, A and C are not precisely the same relationes, even though they are contiguous with B, dici.

Nor, are A and C the same dici, even though they are contiguous with B, relationes.

0126 Fifth, what does [secundum] (translated as [according to]) in relationes secundum X (where X = esse or dici) imply?

Secundum compares to substance, in Aristotle’s hylomorphe of “matter [substance] form”.

Secundum also associates to either implicit abstraction or explicit abstraction, depending on the dyad.

Secundum entangles the distinction between categorical and transcendental relations, for those who cannot let go (see first point).

0127 Sixth, Peirce’s diagrams allow an inquirer to consider labels (from explicit abstractions) within a visual framework (that coheres with implicit abstraction).

0128 This examination adds value to Tomasz Duma’s contribution to our current appreciation of relationes secundum X,by suggesting that the philosophies of Aristotle, Aquinas and Peirce are (1) congruent and (2) illuminate cognitive features of both our current Lebenswelt as well as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0129 Furthermore (3), this congruence allows contemporary philosophers to consider the difference between explicitly abstracted relations that act as matter to dici (speech-alone talk) as form and implicitly abstracted relations that act as form to dici (hand talk) and esse as matter.

Now, that is one complicated “furthermore”.

0130 Oh, one more “furthermore”!

Recall that Duma gives five cases where relatives appear in the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

In this examination, I also provide five examples for relationes secundum X.

The Oldowan stone tool is a case for X=esse.

The hand-talk gesture-word, [RAVEN], is a case for X=dici (hand talk).

[WOLF][FINGER] is a case for X=dici (hand talk) and then X=dici (speech-alone talk).

“Ravenous chairperson”, “cushy job” and “drought” are cases for X=dici (speech-alone talk).

“A bridge that meets code” is a case for X=dici (speech-alone talk).

0131 Is this what the author anticipated when he sent his article for publication?

I suppose not.

0132 Okay, the author may chuckle during the course of this examination, as it tracks from Aquinas’s relatives straight into a key question concerning human evolution.

Why is our current Lebenswelt not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

Are relationes secundum dici integral to an answer to this question?

What if.

0133 Indeed, laughter is an appropriate response.

Who would have guessed that Aristotle, Aquinas and Peirce, all strangely brilliant yet incomplete philosophers, are (inadverently) in the business of illuminating differences between who we are and who we evolved to be?

0134 My thanks to Tomasz Duma for his article on this very intriguing topic.

12/2/24

Looking at Brandon Wanless’s Article (2023) “…on the State of Original Innocence” (Part 12 of 12)

0106 In Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul II proposes that original innocence entails a gift of holiness given to man and to woman, enabling them to participate in the inner life of God, through their radical giving of self to one another, in purity of heart.

He concludes that the ethos of the gift may serve as the basis for a truly adequate anthropology.

0107 To this examiner, Pope John Paul II stands on the soapbox of the theology of Thomas Aquinas.  He proclaims biblical teaching.

At the same time, he points toward the prelapsarian Adam… or adamah… and subtly suggests that a truly adequate anthropology may be found in… an application of Aquinas’s metaphysics and biblical teaching to who we evolved to be.

0108 Male and female we evolved to be?

And more…

Male and female in mutual self-giving, we evolved to be.

0109 Here is a picture with another way to appreciate the relation between John Paul II’s specific application and the broad application that The Theology of the Body intimates.

This schema may be applied to all social circles.

0110 Adamah is “humanity”, when the hominin and the social circle may be distinguished but not separated.  Adamah do not articulate triadic relations using explicit abstractions.  Rather, adamah live them and, over generations, adapt to them. We live by implicit abstraction.  Implicit abstractions are built into our souls and bodies.  Adamah associates to the “image of God” of Genesis verses 1:26-31.

0111 The foundational social circles are family (5) and friends (5).

The social circle for obligatory collaborative foraging is the team (15).  Here is where our lineage learns to be productive and have fun.  Proto-linguistic hand talk is an adaptation to teams.  Teams engage in sensible construction.

The social circle that provides safety in numbers in travel and at night is the band (50).

The social circle that brings harmony to diverse teams is the community (150).  Here is where we learned to be more than productive and experience more than fun.  Fully linguistic hand talk is an adaptation to community.  Communities engage in social construction.  Social construction is the meaning underlying the term, “religion”.

0112 The social circle that gathers bands and communities in seasonal celebrations is the mega-band (500).  Here is where singing is first used for social synchronization.  The gathering cannot last long, in order to avoid disease.  So, rapid social synchronization is required.

Once the voice is under voluntary control due to social and sexual selection, the voice is exapted at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens, over 200,000 years ago.  Humans practice hand-speech talk until the first singularity.

The social circle that calls for wisdom and offers deep witness to the signs of The One Who Hand Talks the World Itself is the tribe.  The tribe is a linguistic community.

0113  Unbeknownst to Pope John Paul II, a theology of original innocence as a disposition towards interpersonal self-giving may be precisely the metaphysics needed to conceptually elucidate the dynamic harmonies within and among social circles that characterize hominin evolution.

0114 Man is not meant to be alone, as a radical individual, whose sexuality is a tool to satisfy “needs”, according to some theoretical -ismist construction.

Yet, man is alone, caught in a web of explicit abstractions promising to solve his alienation, by incorporating him into an idea, an “-ism”, concocted by some “Western Enlightenment inspired” political philosopher.  If he buys into the agenda, then he may be a person, among an ideologically defined people.

Such theory may be technically correct, but it is wholly misleading.  Now, -ismists are increasingly discredited.

0115 In our current Lebenswelt, we live in the state of original sin.

We are not alone in contemplating our condition.

Alexander Dugin calls for a fourth political theory.

Pope John Paul II offers a theology that complements Dugin’s vision.

Dugin offers a political theory that complements the pope’s theology.

0116 Just beyond Adam, representing our current Lebenswelt, there is adamah, prelapsarian humanity, representing the Lebenswelt that we evolved to be.  Philosophical inquiry into biblical teaching may allow us to see that humans and social circles co-evolve, so man was never meant to be alone.

The people are beginning to realize that the -ismists are wrong, the narod is where we could be, and the ethnos is where we can never return to.  We long to return.  But, we cannot.  So turn around and see what God has to offer.

0117 Perhaps, now, in a confused and exploratory fashion, we can modify our scientific interpretation of human evolutionand stand on Aquinas’s soapbox just like the the pope does, and greet the prelapsarian adamah, as who we evolved to be.

0118 My thanks to the author for publishing an article worthy of examination.

Surely, this examiner goes to places that the author never envisioned.

Such is the way of scholastic inquiry.  Commentaries follow commentaries.  Then, everything changes.

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.

03/26/24

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

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

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

0390 What has this semiotician found so far?

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

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

0391 First, the general Darwinian paradigm looks like this.

0392 In The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), Razie Mah proposes that the ultimate human niche1b is the potential of triadic relations.

Tomasello’s hypothesis that joint attention2b and shared intentionality2b are behavioral and cognitive adaptations to the niche of sociogenesis1b reconfigures the situation-level of Darwin’s paradigm, resulting in what I call the “Tomasello-Mah synthesis”.

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

Tomasello’s vision offers a way to bring a phenotype (of human ontogeny2c’) into relation with a foundational adaptation (of joint attention2a’).  But, according to Mah, phenotype and adaptation are two independent fields of evolutionary inquiry.  One does not situate or contextualize the other.  Rather, the two intersect.

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

0394 Here is a picture of Tomasello’s vision.

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

His vision is maintained throughout his arc of inquiry.

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

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

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

03/1/24

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

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

Indeed, as this version of Darwin’s paradigm begins to haunt the entire edifice of human evolution, then Tabaczek’s housebecomes more than a house with a basement.  If sociogenesis1b is the potential1b of triadic relations2a, then Tomasello’s arc of inquiry may be re-articulated using triadic relations.

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

Here is a list of what that might look like.

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

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

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

Here is a list depicting the timeframe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is a picture of the era of social construction.

0598 Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

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

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

Here is a list of Mah’s masterworks.

Still, there is more.

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

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

02/29/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2014) “A Natural History of Human Thinking” (Part 1 of 22)

0187 In the preface, the author notes that this book is a prequel to The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999, Harvard University Press).  The question is the same.  What makes humans unique?  The answer is the same.  Humans think differently than great apes, their closest biological kin.

In 1999, researchers in evolutionary anthropology could say, “Only humans think of other humans as intentional agents.  Plus, my cat and my dog are intentional operators, as well, say nothing of the weather.”

Okay, I added the second sentence for dramatic effect.

Unfortunately, research conducted after 1999 introduces a problem.  It turns out that great apes recognize intentionality in others.

Uh oh.

0188 This book is the third marker in Tomasello’s intellectual journey.  I start following his trek with Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (appearing in Razie Mah’s January 2024 blog).  The second marker that I examine may be found in Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2008) “Origins of Human Communication” (appearing later in the same blog for the same month).

0189 In the publication before me, A Natural History of Human Thinking (2014, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts), Tomasello explicitly abstracts three cognitive processes in order to distinguish humans from apes.  The processes are cognitive representation, inference and self-monitoring.  He then proposes that all three components were transformed in two key steps during hominin evolution.  He labels his claims, “the shared-intentionality hypothesis”.

0190 Does this follow the trajectory set by previous works?

Here is a theme that appears in the second marker, pre-emptively modified with the above propositions in mind.

0191 This modified picture allows me to offer slogans for movements zero and one.

For zero, the slogan is “I work for food.”

For one, the slogan is “We work for food.”

01/31/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (Part 1 of 12)

0001 In 1999 AD, Michael Tomasello, then co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, publishes the work before me (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).

To me, this work marks the start of the author’s twenty year journey, culminating in a theory of human ontogeny, published in 2019.  The word, “ontogeny”, refers to human development and associates to the human phenotype.

0002 What interests me in Tomasello’s journey?

As noted in Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), “phenotype” and “adaptation” are not the same.  Instead, these labels apply to distinct actualities that coalesce into a single actuality.  One may call that single actuality, an individual, a species or a genus.  One may also call that single actuality, “a mystery”.

I am interested in the natural history side of the mystery of human evolution.  However, the genetic (or ontogenetic) side cannot be ignored.  Plus, natural history cannot be reduced to genetics, or visa versa

0003 Chapter one of Tomasello’s book is titled, “A Puzzle and a Hypothesis”.

Of course, a puzzle is not a mystery.  A puzzle can be resolved.  A mystery cannot.

The puzzle starts with genetics.  Geneticists have examined the DNA of chimpanzees, bonobos and humans and predict that the last common ancestor lives 6 or 7 Myr (six or seven million years ago).

In contrast, physical anthropologists (natural historians) propose the fossil record noted in the following figure.  With terminological sleight of hand, they refer to human ancestors as “hominins”, even though the old term for any bipedal primate (ape or human) is “hominid”. 

0004 Hmmm. Does the puzzle concern time?

According to genetics, the last common ancestor (LCA) between chimpanzees and humans lives 7 Myr (millions of years ago).  But, little significant shows up in the fossil record until 4 Myr.  Our lineage obviously evolves feet first.  As it turns out, starting around 5 Myr, the extent of tropical vegetation in Africa decreases due to desiccation.  Bipedality is an adaptation to mixed forest and savannah.

0005 The fossil record provides other clues, especially stone tools.

The first stone tools are Oldowan.  Oldowan stones tools are constructed on site.  They are used to scrape meat off of bone and to crack long bones (that are full of fatty marrow).

Acheulean stone tools appear later in the archeological record.  Acheulean stone tools are made beforehand and carried with some intention in mind.  They have the appearance of a giant tooth.  Notably, Acheulean stone tool technology remains unchanged for over a million years.  Innovations in stone-tools follow the domestication of fire.

0006 Surely, these two tables are puzzling.  In the first, the fossil record pertains to changes in hominin phenotypes.  In the second, the fossil record pertains to hominin adaptations, but these adaptations are not phenotypic. They are artifacts.  Are these adaptive artifacts cultural?  Are they behavioral?  I wonder, “Do the words, ‘culture’ and ‘behavior’, capture the matter and the form of these artifacts?”  It is as if an adaptation recognizes matter and generates form.

0007 What is the nature of the adaptation that maintains (and occasionally changes) artifacts, as if these artifacts are phenotypes?

Tomasello suggests that an adaptation is a novel form of social cognition.  Our lineage adapts to a new way of thinking about one another, eventually allowing sociogenesis, new styles of learning and cultural evolution.

0008 Tomasello proposes that there is one adaptation that potentiates subsequent adaptations.

Razie Mah proposes that there is one ultimate niche for our lineage.  The hypothesis is presented in the e-book, The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0009 Do Tomasello (in 1999) and Mah (in 2018) propose that our lineage is defined by the same adaptation… er… niche?

What is the difference between an adaptation and a niche?

To these questions, I next attend.

01/18/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (Part 12 of 12)

0072 Chapter five is titled, “Linguistic Construction and Event Cognition”.  The perspective-level linguistic communication2c participates in ongoing events2a.

Tomasello claims that joint attention is the key adaptation from which subsequent adaptations proceed.  Surely, the three-level interscope depicted above does not contradict this claim.

After all, the evolution of joint attention should precede the evolution of linguistic communication.

0073 However, there is a disjunction, because great apes show few (if any) tendencies that may be characterized by joint attention.  Even the occasional monkey hunt by chimpanzees is best characterized by several individuals deciding to pursue the same thing at the same time.  The monkey-prey is the focus of attention, but the attention is disjointed, not really coordinated.

So, there must be a period before the evolution of joint attention, where individual intentionality reigns, even when group action takes place.

0074 So, when are these eras happening?

Tomasello wants to place the evolution of joint attention before the time of Homo heidelbergensis, who appears in the fossil record between 800 and 400kyr (thousands of years ago).

To me, this makes sense only so far as this.

Homo heidelbergensis leaves traces of cultural behavior in the archeological record.

To me, such traces indicate that these hominins are in the subsequent build-on era.

So, Tomasello’s timeline may require clarification.

0075 Okay, now that I am nitpicking, I must ask, “Is there a problem with making joint attention2a the foundation of an evolutionary theory?”

Allow me to return to Tomasello’s vision.

0076 According to Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), adaptation2 and phenotype2 belong to two independent scientific disciplines: natural history and genetics.  Since both belong to situation-level nested forms that rely on different potentials, one cannot situate or contextualize the other.  However, this is precisely what occurs in Tomasello’s vision.

Of course, Tomasello’s vision remains a breakthrough in the framework of modern science.  At least, the phenotype does not correspond to the adaptation.  Instead, the phenotype2c puts culture2b into perspective.  Then, culture2b virtually situates the adaptation of joint attention2a.

Yes, to repeat, the phenotype2c does not directly situate the adaptation2a.  Tomasello’s vision leads upwards from joint attention2a to human culture2b and then to human cognitive development2c. Cognitive development2c puts culture2b into perspective, just as culture2b virtually situates joint attention2a.

Tomasello’s vision is truly remarkable.

0077 And, it is difficult to achieve.

This book is the start of a twenty year journey.

0078 As noted in points 0055 through 0058, the last few chapters cover the cultural (situation) and ontogenetic (perspective) levels of Tomasello’s vision.  As far as I can see, these chapters labor to show how human ontogeny2c (the scientific study of human development) virtually contextualizes human culture2b (a somewhat vaguely defined term that refers to all situations where joint attention2a pertains).  In the process, Tomasello must also explain how human culture2b, especially spoken language and symbolic representation, virtually emerges from and situates joint attention2a.

How ambitious is that?

0079 Here a picture of the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality (the vertical column in secondness in Tomasello’s vision, portrayed as a nested form).

The normal context of the behavior of newborns and infants2c virtually brings the actuality of spoken language and symbolic representation2b into the potential of a foundational adaptation2a.

0080 Yes, this is very ambitious, and the final three chapters of this book strain to meet the challenge.  They should be read with this in mind.  The last three chapters are well composed.  Tomasello is an excellent writer.  He is very organized.  But, his exposition is like lifting a two-hundred pound octopus out of the water.  As soon as one arm is lifted, a different one slides back into the murk.

0081 Plus, there is the lingering issue of natural history.

Here is a picture with Tomasello’s guesses.

Tomasello makes two associations that make no sense at all, when considering joint attention2b as an adaptation to sociogenesis1b in the normal context of natural selection3b.  Sociogenesis1b is the human niche1b.  The human niche1b is the potential1b of triadic relations2a.  Consequently, the adaptation of joint attention2a should be marked in the archaeological record with the appearance of the Homo genus, around 1.8Myr (millions of years ago).

0082 With that in mind, I close this examination of the first step in Tomasello’s journey, scientifically exploring who we are.  The next step is a book that expands and clarifies this first step.  It is published nine years later.

01/17/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2008) “Origins of Human Communication” (Part 1 of 12)

0083 In 2008 AD, Michael Tomasello, then co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, publishes the work before me (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).

This book is the second marker in Tomasello’s intellectual journey.  I start following his journey with Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (appearing in Razie Mah’s January 2024 blog).  That is the first marker.

0084 The second marker starts as an academic presentation in 2006.  His Jean Nicod Lectures, in Paris, concerns his work on great ape gestural communication, human infant gestural communication and human children’s language development.  These lectures attempt to construct one coherent account of the evolution of hominin communication.

Oh, that terminology.  Where Tomasello inscribes, “human”, I say, “hominin”.

0085 From my examination at the first marker, I already have a guess about Tomasello’s vision.

Here is a picture.

0086 Note that the titles of the levels have changed.

Also note that human ontogeny2c or models of child development currently built by psychologists2c, associates to phenotypes and genetics.  Joint attention2a or models in evolutionary psychology concerning hominin cognition2a,associates to adaptations and natural history.

0087 Tomasello uses the word, “origins”, in his title.  Does this suppose that human communication may be regarded as a phenotypic trait or as an adaptation?  Or maybe, the conjunction is “and”.

In the above figure, I get the idea that the phenotype virtually contextualizes the adaptation.  But, that is not really the case.  The phenotype2b virtually situates a species’ or individual’s DNA2a.

Here is a diagram.

0088 Not surprisingly, this diagram in genetics has the same two-level relational structure as Darwin’s paradigm for natural history.

0089 What does this imply?

A mystery stands at the heart of evolutionary biology.

The adaptation is not the same as the phenotype.

Yet, together, they constitute a single actuality, which may be labeled a genus, a species or an individual.

Two category-based nested forms intersect in the realm of actuality.  It is like two streets that meet.  The intersection is constituted by both streets.  As far as traffic goes, intersections are sites of dangerous contradictions.  Traffic from one street should not collide with traffic from the other street.  I suppose that the intersection of adaptation and phenotypecarries irreconcilable contradictions as well.

0090 Perhaps, Tomasello’s vision may be resolved by considering both joint attention2a and human ontogeny2c as adaptations, even though the latter is technically, phenotypic.

I suggest this because selection is the normal context for all three levels in Tomasello’s vision.  Since natural selection goes with adaptation, the vision is one of natural history.

0091 That implies that the potentials for all three levels are like niches.

Human ontogeny2c is an adaptation that emerges from and situates the potential of human culture2b, where human culture2b is like an actuality independent of the adapting species of individuals undergoing development3c.

Human culture2b is like an adaptation that emerges from and situates the potential of joint attention2a, where joint attention2a is like an actuality independent of the adapting ways of doing things3b.

Joint attention2a is like an adaptation that emerges from and situates sociogenesis1a, where sociogenesis1a is the potential of… what?… I have run out of actualities independent of the adapting species.

0092 Here is where the foundational Tomasello-Mah synthesis enters the picture.

Ah, so here is a problem.

Tomasello’s vision of the origins of human communication conceals the actuality underlying sociogenesis1a, the potential1a giving rise to joint attention2a.  The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.

0093 What about the subscripts in the preceding paragraph?

They belong to Tomasello’s vision.

0094 This subscript business can be confusing.

To me, the concealment in Tomasello’s vision is not necessarily a drawback.  Rather, it presents an opportunity to re-articulate Tomasello’s arc of inquiry using the category-based nested form and other triadic relations.

0095 In the prior series of blogs, examining a book published in 1999, I introduced an interscope for the way humans think that derives from work by medieval schoolmen, the so-called “scholastics” of the Latin Age.

Here is a picture of the scholastic version of how humans think, packaged as a three level interscope.