Tag Archives: psychology

05/21/25

Looking at Alexei Sharov’s Chapter (2024) “Semiotics of Potential Meanings” (Part 1 of 8)

0901 The text before me is chapter seven of Pathways (see point 0831 for book details, pages 137-166).

Examinations of the chapters on non-human agency end up with a suggestion that biosemiotics may include more than semiotic agency.  Semiotic agency contains the specifying and exemplar sign-relations.  The scholastic interscope for how humans think contains one other sign-relation.  The interventional sign-relation is odd, compared to the other two sign-relations.

So is the author’s term, “potential meanings”.

0902 Of course, the terms, “interventional sign-relation” and “potential meanings” are mere labels.  They are tags.  They are spoken words.  They are unlike the manual-brachial word-gestures of fully linguistic hand or hand-speech talk.

For hand talk, in terms of parole, gesture-words picture and point to their referents.  They are icons and indexes.  So, word-gestures (SVs) abstract the natural sign-qualities of these types of signs.  Icons and indexes picture and point to ‘something that could be present’ (SOs).  Presence (SVe) can have many meanings, depending on what is going on.  Consequently, SOe is an intuitive abstraction based on what the word-gesture implicitly pictures and points to(langue).  I call the process, “implicit abstraction”.

For example, the hand-talk word, [image RAVEN], can denote the color black, as well as particular attitudes.

The hand-talk word, [POINT to corner of eye], can denote the color white, as well as particular attitudes and warnings.

0903 Can the term, “potential meaning” be stated using hand-talk?

No.  What is there to picture or point to?

The term is an explicit abstraction.

0904 In speech-alone talk, parole is arbitrarily related to langue.

Since parole comes first, as SVs, the specified referent (SOs) comes into being after a word is spoken.  After all, SVsassociates to message and message precedes presence (SOs).  The specified referent (SOs) associates to information2b.  But, since speech-talk cannot picture or point to anything, that information2b (SOs) may end up being explicitly defined.

0905 I say “may”, because sometimes information2b is obvious.  Consider the word, “chair”.  Everyone immediately intuits a “chair”, even though chairs do not occur in nature.  But, what about the American bureaucratic designation, “chair-person”? 

Sit down for a minute and think about it.

How can a person be a chair?

0906 Sharov’s technical term, “potential meaning” has two descriptors made into one character.  So, one way to approach the term is to step back and consider the initial claim made in Razie Mah’s e-book, How To Define The Word “Religion” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  The normal context of definition3 brings the actuality of a spoken term2 into relation with the potential of its meaning, presence and message’1.

0907 Surely, the reader anticipates my next move.

The words that go into the slot for potential1 are familiar.

Not only do they1 underlie the actuality of a spoken term2, they1 have already been used to label the three intra-level contiguities that occur in the biosemiotic noumenal overlay.

0908 Here is a picture.

Since [meaning] is the one contiguity that associates to “meaning”, [presence] and [message] must associate to the qualifier, “potential”

05/13/25

Looking at Alexei Sharov’s Chapter (2024) “Semiotics of Potential Meanings” (Part 8 of 8)

0975 In the closing, section 7.8, the author mentions a confounding word.

0976 What is that word?

Communication.

0978 Well, at least I can offer two other labels, “inter” and “infold”, which apply when the message comes externally or internally.

I don’t think that either “inter” or “infold” correspond to “communicate”.

And yet, they must.

0979 To this examiner, the conceptual apparatuses of potential meanings and potential signs entangle two features of the biosemiotic noumenal overlay, [presence] and [message].  “Potential meaning” dwells within [presence] and seems integral when an SOs “causes” an SVe.  “Potential sign” dwells within [message] and seems crucial to two types of contiguity between SOi and SVs, [inter] and [infold].

0980 By way of conclusion for this chapter, which harkens back to the beginnings of life on Earth, yet ends with humans in our current Lebenswelt, I would like to repeat the transformation that Sharov and Tonnessen perform(perhaps, unwittingly, but leading to great insight) in Semiotic Agency.  They transform the specifying and the exemplar sign relations into a dyad, suitable to overlay over the noumenon of what all living systems have in common.

0981 Specifically, they transform a fairly mature three-level interscope (comparable to the scholastic interscope for how humans think) into a dyad (matter2b [salience] form2c}) within a dyad (matter2c(2b( [self-governance3b: courses of action1b] form(2a))).

0982 Now, I review.

But, this will be more than a review.

I want to re-enact Sharov and Tonnessen’s construction of semiotic agency.

Plus, I want to add a reification of the interventional sign-relation, which completes the biosemiotic noumenal overlay.

0983 And most of all, I wish to perform this transformation and this re-enactment on the Deacon and Tabaczek interscope for emergence, appearing in Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) and in the Razie Mah’s blogs for April through June, 2024.

0984 Here is a diagram of the three-level interscope for emergence.

0985 The element corresponding to the biosemiotic real initiating (semiotic) event is “the contained circulation of ingredients2a“.

For mitochondria, this is the separation of oxidative and reductive reactions involved in the combustion of glucose with oxygen.  On the oxidative side, glucose loses electrons to biomolecules capable of carrying them, generating a few ATP equivalents in the process.  On the reductive side, oxygen gains electrons from those electron-bearing biomolecules, generating lots of ATP equivalents in the process.

0986 The combustion of glucose with oxygen is disposed to move towards equilibrium3a and, when ignited1a, may do so with the release of lots of heat.

Mitochondria do not allow ignition.  Rather, they use the separation of the oxidative and reductive reactions1b in the normal context of utilizing the nonequilibrium dynamics (of what would be combustion)3b in order to generate emergent beings, ATP2b.  ATP2b then makes its way from mitochondria to various enzymatic sites in the eukaryotic cell.

ATP2b is a high-energy molecule and will decompose if left alone.  So, an enzyme3c that has the potential of using ATP2b “simplifies1c” the situation, by using the energy-released when ATP becomes ADP plus Pi (inorganic phosphate in solution) in order to perform a cellular actions2c, such as building a protein2c or transporting a molecule across a membrane2c.

0987 Back to the diagram.

The content-level category-based nested form for mitochondria “burning” glucose and oxygen follows.  The normal context of combustion3a brings the actuality of separated oxidation and reduction reactions2a into relation with the potential of ‘conducting these spontaneous reactions separately’1a.

For the situation level, the normal context of taking advantage of a nonequilibrium dynamic3b brings actual biosynthesis of ATP2b into relation with the agent’s ability to transfer free-energy from the oxidation of glucose and the reduction of oxygen to the emergent being1b.

For the perspective level, the normal contexts of enzymatic forms3c perform various biophysical operations2c based on the potential of coupling the energy-releasing degradation of ATP with an energy-requiring cellular operation1c.

0988 Here is the transformation to a dyad within a dyad coupled to an interventional sign-relation.

On the perspective level, the persistence of an eukaryotic cell2c [means] the power2c to accomplish various biochemical tasks.

For the interventional sign-relation, power2c (SVi) stands for a disposition2a (SOi) in regards to the normal context of chemical reactivities3a operating on the potential to displace chemicals to distinct compartments1a (SIi).

On the content level, the disposition2a to keep the reagents coming2a {(SOi) [message]} adds more new ingredients to the container2a (SVs).

0989 The actualities go with phenomena.  These are real elements.

The normal contexts and their respective potentials are what need to be explained.  These are the major contiguities between actualities on different levels.

A minor contiguity occurs within each level, [message] for content, [presence] for situation and [meaning] for perspective.

0990 These associations may be subject to revision.  That is the nature of exploration into the topic of “potential meanings”.

I thank the author for his well-referenced chapter and hope that this examination adds value to the text.

05/12/25

Looking at Alexander Kravchenko’s chapter (2024) “A Constructivist Approach…” (Part 1 of 6)

0991 The text before me is chapter eight of Pathways (see point 0831 for book details, pages 167-185).  The full title is “A Constructivist Approach to Meanings in the Universe”.  The author is a linguist at Baikal University, Irkutsk, Russia.

0992 My examination, so far, identifies a biosemiotic noumenal overlay, composed of both semiotic agency (the Sharov and Tonnessen noumenal overlay) and the interventional sign relation.  The diagram reifies three sign-relations: specifying, exemplar and interventional.  The specifying and exemplar sign-relations belong to semiotic agency.  The interventional sign relation stands outside of semiotic agency, but is integrated with semiotic agency by way of its participation in a three-level interscope.  A three-level interscope contains all three sign-relations.

0993 The following figure of an interscope contains the three sign-elements (SV for sign-vehicle; SO for sign-object; SI for sign-interpretant) for each sign-relation (subscripts “s” for specifying; “e” for exemplar; “i” for interventional).

0994 An interscope is a category-based nested form composed of category-based nested forms.

For each level, a triadic normal context3 brings a dyadic actuality2 into relation with a monadic potential1.

The dyadic actuality2 fits Peirce’s formula for the category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  For clear notation, the contiguity is placed in brackets.

0995 In the above figure, the real elements are sign-vehicles and sign-objects.  The contiguity in each level carries the same label as one of the three potentials1 underlying any spoken term2 in the normal context of definition3.

Finally, among levels, perspectivec brings situationb into relation with the potential of contenta.

0996 Hmmm.  I have an interruption.

Now, what was I saying?

Uh-oh, I better start over.

0997 My examination, so far, isolates a biosemiotic noumenal overlay, composed of both semiotic agency (the Sharov and Tonnessen noumenal overlay) and the interventional sign relation.  The biosemiotic noumenal overlay reifies three sign-relations: specifying, exemplar and interventional.  The specifying and exemplar sign-relations belong to semiotic agency.  The interventional sign relation stands outside of semiotic agency, but is integrated with semiotic agency by way of two contiguities, [meaning] and [message].

0998 Here is a picture of the biosemiotic noumenal overlay.

0999 So far, so good.

The author of this chapter addresses the existence of meaning in the universe from an epistemological perspective.  “Episteme” derives from the Latin word for “knowledge”.  “Logos” comes from the Greek word for “word”.  Or maybe, “intrinsic nature of”?   How about “study of”?

Looking at the above figure, I see a problem.

For this examination, [meaning] is the contiguity between the exemplar sign-object (SOe) and the interventional sign-vehicle (SVi).

Is that the same as “the meaning” that exists in the universe?

1000 It makes me wonder, “What is a contiguity?”

Here are some cases.

1001 Aristotle’s hylomorphe is exemplar.  The much-abused word, “substance”, weirdly captures the way that matter “causes” form.  The verb, “substantiates”, is just as effective.  Can I justify the choice of the term, “substance”?  Well, what is one more technical definition among the many dictionary definitions for the word, “substance”?  Is that good enough?

One thing for sure, [substance] is not one of the real elements.  [It] is neither matter nor form.  [It] is the contiguity between them.  So, what is [substance]?

1002 We (humans) know [substance] because we know [cause], [effect], [contact], [influence] and many more contiguities between real elements.  This is precisely why contiguities cry out to be modeled.  The real elements support phenomena.  The contiguities cry out to be explained.

We (humans) also know actuality2.  Semiotic agency begins with a real initiating (semiotic) event (SVs) (that is, an encounter).  The first step in natural philosophy (for Aristotle’s tradition) is to regard a thing as matter [substance] form.  See Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Actuality2 belongs to the Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  Secondness is dyadic.

1003 With this said, I can see why there is a problem with [meaning].  [Meaning] is a contiguity between two real elements.  One of those elements (SOe) belongs to semiotic agency.  The other element (SVi) belongs to the interventional sign-relation.

1004 Earlier, in points 0887 through 0894, I portray [meaning] as the contiguity between the triadic structure of an actionable judgment (such as SOe) and the triadic structure of its category-based nested form (such as SVi).

In this case, another word for [meaning] is [unfolds].

An actionable judgment [unfolds into] a category-based nested form.

This very curious insight is not explored further in this examination.

05/6/25

Looking at Alexander Kravchenko’s chapter (2024) “A Constructivist Approach…” (Part 6 of 6)

1049 Or, should I say?

SOi is what a disinterested observer would objectify if he were actually on the suprasubjective level, which he obviously claims to be.

So, where is the language game?

Is it in our brains or in our minds?

In section 8.4, the author raises a rather frightening option.

The agent3 may be the human nervous system3 rather than the human person3.

Does the potential of ‘final causality’1 implicate my brain1 or my mind1?

1050 Oh my, does my own brain3 bring forth the actuality of semiotic agency2 with the potential of ‘a final causality, where meaning and message bring forth my mind in an entanglement of the suprasubjective and the subjective (very similar to language and also very similar to the idea that both my Innerwelt and my Umwelt are Outerwelt to my nervous system)’1?

How about Daisy’s mind?

Or the duck’s?

1051 Here is a picture of the semiotic three-level interscope, with descriptive dyads for the perspective and content-level actualities displayed.

The colors indicate complementary pairs.

To me, these pairs look like human adaptations into the niche of triadic relations.  The human niche includes the potentials of interscopes and sign-relations.  The pairs link dyadic actualities on the perspective level and the content level of a three-level interscope.  These actualities contain contiguities that bridge the interventional sign-relation and semiotic agency.

1051 If [message] goes with “mind” and if [meaning] goes with the contiguity between two real elements, a goal2c and its expression as a real event2c, I may ask, “Are ‘meaning’ and ‘mind’ brought forth by a… gasp… brain?”

What about “language”?

Or, are mind and meaning organic to the reality that the three-level interscope also contains three sign-relations and the fact that the interventional sign-relation bridges to semiotic agency through the contiguities of [meaning] and [message]?

These are good questions.

1052 Sometimes, it is good to conclude an examination with a few of good questions.

My thanks to the author of this chapter, fully titled, “The Constructivist Approach to Meanings in the Universe”. 

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.