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.
0841 This is an encore performance to the sequence of blogs on the post-truth condition.
As such, this examination wraps up Part Two of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
Take a gander at the full title of Enfield’s text, Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good For Lawyers and Bad For Scientists.
Surely, that sounds like a book that belongs to a set of books on the post-truth condition.
So, the numbers continue to build from the last examination.
0842 The book is published by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The author is a professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney and the Director of the Sydney Centre for Language Research.
0843 The title of the book is a play on John B. Carroll’s (editor) collection of essays by Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941 AD), published in 1956 under the title, Language, Thought and Reality.
To me, this implies that “thought” has transubstantiated into “versus”. The substance of the word has changed, so to speak. The word, “versus”, derives from the same root as the word, “adversary”. So, if “thought” once used to nominally stand between “language” and “reality”, then today, “thought” is confounded with “adversary”, and that might serve as a hint concerning the nature of our adversity.
Perhaps, this is not the only notable feature of the title.
Then again, a book titled, Language, Adversary and Reality, might not fly off the shelves in feel-good book-outlets. It is not as if, next to the Self-Help section, there is a Come To Grips With Your Doom section.
So, expect me to play with the title throughout this examination.
0844 Another notable feature of this book, at least to me, is that the author is not acquainted with Razie Mah’s re-articulation of human evolution, in three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues). The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. Plus, the evolution of talk comes with the twist, humorously called, “the first singularity”.
So, Enfield’s work serves as a marker for the twilight of the Age of Ideas and the dawning of the Age of Triadic Relations.
0845 Okay, let me dwell on the idea that the evolution of language is not the same as the evolution of talk.
Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues, and also, for the most part, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog for January, February and March, 2024) divides the evolution of talk in the following manner.
0846 The first period starts with the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineage (7 million of years ago) and ends with the bipedalism of the so-called “southern apes” (around 3.5 to 4 million years ago).
In the second period, australopithecines adapt to mixed forest and savannah by adopting the strategy of obligate collaborative foraging. Eventually, Homo erectus figures out the controlled use of fire, leading to the domestication of fire, starting (perhaps) around 800 thousand years ago.
The third period, lasts from the domestication of fire to the earliest appearance of anatomically modern humans. During this period, hand talk becomes fully linguistic, religion evolves as an adaptation to large social circles (of 150 individuals and more) and hominins use the voice for synchronization during seasonal mega-band and occasional tribal gatherings. Then, sexual selection does the rest and the voice comes under voluntary neural control.
0847 The fourth period starts when the voice, now under voluntary control, joins hand-talk, resulting in a dual-mode way of talking, hand-speech talk. Hand talk retains the iconicity and indexality that grounds reference in things that can be pictured or pointed to. But, speech adds a symbolic adornment, which starts as a sing-along and ends up taking a life of its own. Four centuries ago, the North American Plains Indians and the Australian aborigines still practiced hand-speech talk, with full fledged sign and verbal languages. Now, their hand-speech talk is all but dead.
0848 That death, along with the demise of all hand-speech talking languages, comes (and came) due to exposure to speech-alone talk, which has significantly different semiotic qualities than hand-talk and hand-speech talk. Hand-talk is iconic and indexal. The referent precedes the gestural word. Speech-alone talk is purely symbolic. The spoken word labels ‘something’, and sometimes that ‘something’ cannot be imaged or indicated.
Well, it must be real because speech-alone talk provides a label for an explicit abstraction!
0849 Here is a picture of the transition labeled, “the first singularity”.
0850 Consider the words, “language”, “adversary” and “reality”. Each word is a label for ‘something’ that cannot be pictured or pointed to. These words do not exist in hand-talk or hand-speech talk, because the referent cannot be imaged or indicated using a manual-brachial gesture. What does this imply? Does a referent exist because a label has been attached to it? Or, does an explicit abstraction properly label referents that exist irrespective of the spoken word? This type of question is addressed in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.
Fortunately, the author of the book under examination is unaware of the first singularity and the difficulties that a change in the way that humans talk poses. Human evolution comes with a twist.
0851 So why examine this work?
Well, I expect to see the evolution of talk manifesting in this book, even though the author is not aware of Razie Mah’s academic labors.
Surely, Enfield’s work details recent scientific research in linguistics and cognitive psychology, in an attempt to provide the reader with a coherent view of how language is good for lying lawyers and bad for honest scientists.
0255 The full title of the book before me is Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam (Center Street Press: Nashville and New York). The book consists of an introduction, followed by fifteen chapters.
0256 Why am I numbering the start of this examination with the number that follows the end of Professor Steve Fuller’s 2020 book, A Player’s Guide to The Post-Truth Condition?
Well, I have a question.
Is Fuller on target?
0257 One way to address this question is an examination of an author who is a player in the current theo-political dramaof the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods (1989-present).
Vivek Ramaswamy offers a book that suits the purpose. Take a look at the table of contents. The title of the introductionis “The Woke-Industrial Complex”. The title of the final chapter is “Who are We?”
0258 Are “we” the ones who have substituted the broadcasts of the empirio-normative judgment for our own thoughts, so what we say can be objectified as phenomena for the psychometric sciences?
Or are “we” the ones who read the previous sentence and ask, “What the hell are you talking about?”
The choice is clear.
0259 We are in the fourth world war. I call it The Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: Empirio-Normative Domination in the Post-Truth Condition.
Here is a list of all four wars.
0260 Of course, those who are certified in modern history will classify this list as “revisionist”.
But, reflect on the titles of the introduction and chapter fifteen of Ramaswamy’s book and ask, “Just who is acting as a revisionist?”
Woke, Inc.?
Or, the confounded subject of domination.
0261 In the introduction, Ramaswamy claims that two characteristics define America as a nation.
The first is the American Dream, where “success” is regarded in terms of “getting ahead”. To many, “getting ahead” is associated with capitalism.
The second is the Latin slogan, e pluribus unum, out of many, one. Pluralism celebrates a variety of views and the challenges of convincing others of the relevance of one’s own view. We all have this in common. Everyone has an opinion. Ramaswamy associates this to democracy.
0262 Here are the associations.
0263 But, how do these slogans associate to the interscope for the post-truth condition?
Yes, I must go there.
The following interscope is typical for the many interscopes that appear in the examination of Fuller’s guide.
0264 For the content-level, the normal context of my intellect3a brings the dyadic actuality of what I think [cannot be objectified as] what I am willing to say2a into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘my will’1a
What is the nature of this dyadic actuality2a?
It has to do with science.
What I think is like a noumenon, a thing itself.
What I say is like its phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of a thing.
According to Kant’s slogan, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.
Therefore, what I think [cannot be objectified as] what I say.
0265 Kant’s slogan figures in what is in the Positivist’s judgment.
Here is a diagram.
0266 Clearly, the content-level actuality2a corresponds to what is of the Positivist’s judgment.
If logical positivists had their way, they would dismiss the noumenon as a stumbling block for scientific inquiry into phenomena. This is precisely why Kant insists on the realness of the noumenon, in addition to its phenomena. Scientific models are not the same as the thing itself, even though triumphalist scientists would have models replace their noumena.
Nevertheless, for most sciences, the noumenon is merely a book-keeping entry corresponding to what is responsible for observable and measurable phenomena.
So, I repeat.
What I think is a book-keeping entry.
What I say corresponds to what the psychometric sciences observe and measure.
0756 The essay is originally published in German by Kosef-Verlag, Munich. In 1988, the essay is translated by Lothar Krauth, in an edition by Schuabenverlag AG, Osterfindern bei Stuttgart. The essay before me is published in 1992 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco.
Why should I examine this essay?
Is the post-truth condition a manifestation of original sin?
0757 If the answer is “yes” to the latter question, then the answer to the former is partially unveiled.
Obviously, there is no direct path from the post-truth condition to a reincarnation of the doctrine of original sin, but both can enter the cognitive space carved out by Pieper’s title. The stories of Adam and Eve portray an abuse of language similar to the type that we see today.
0758 The post-truth interscope is formulated in Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “The Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition” and applied in Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.”.
The post-truth interscope has three levels.
Here is a picture.
0759 The content level is labeled “scrappy player”. This is a level of under contention. How so? The actuality does not look like the scrappy player’s own self-impression. Typically, people feel that what I think [accords with] what I say,rather than a dyad that has the characteristics of what is of the Positivist’s judgment. So, the content-level actuality for the post-truth condition comes across as weirdly familiar, yet unnatural. The same goes with the normal context3a and potential1a of reason3a,1a. Reason3a,1a is the intellect3a contextualizing the will1a. Plus, the interscope is not clear as to who engages reason3a,1a. Is reason3a,1a the sign-interpretant (SIi) for the scientismist one3c‘s sign-vehicle (SVi)? Or is reason3a,1a a feature of the scrappy player’s cognition? Or both?
0760 The situation level is labeled “expert”. Psychometric scientistsb situate what the scrappy player is willing to say2aas phenomena that may be formalized as observations and measurements1b. Also, psychometric experts3b bring models of value2b into relation with the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’1b.
0761 The perspective level is labeled “relativist one”. This is a level that is difficult to grasp. The current relativist one3cis called, “the one of scientism3c“, because science has become the common style for expert3b expressions of value2b, where value2b is the intersection of capitalist and socialist nested forms. So, the scientismist one3c may be regarded as “the system” or “the style” (or even, “the hive”) for the current interscope of the post-truth condition.
Fuller notes that there is an absolute character to the relativist one3c. In order to truly operate as a relativist, one must be outside of all relativized jurisdictions. That observation indicates that the relativist one3c should occupy the perspective-level normal context of the post-truth interscope. Plus, that observation indicates that relativized jurisdictions should belong to the situation level. So, all sciences and experts3b are relative from the point of view of the scientismist one3c.
0762 So, let me make a prediction as to how Josef Pieper’s argument will play out.
0826 Needless to say, the trader with refined reason3c belongs to one of the finest families in Athens.
The ancients have a saying, “The best, corrupted, become the worst.”
Abuse of power goes hand in hand with abuse of language.
Abuse of language manifests in the realm of possibility1.
Abuse of power develops in the realm of normal contexts3.
0827 Here is a picture.
0828 The actualities2 of the sophist interscope are topics of gossip and conversation.
0829 Does the sophist really believe what he says?
Is the idea that Athens should economically sanction Syracuse not the same as “war”?
Well, it is and it isn’t.
What is the definition of the word, “war”?
And finally, what about the enforcement of the sanctions?
Of course, Athenian troops can stop ships from Syracuse from docking, but is that enough?
I hear rumors that ships are now simply bypassing Athens and going to Thebes.
0830 In the forum, the bought-off… er… well-paid sophist hears what people are saying. He has a ready reply, “Thebes is causing a problem. We should think about going to war with Thebes. Not, this weak-kneed sanction business, but full-fledged conquest.”
0831 It’s like selling candy to a baby.
This is what Plato sees.
0832 What is there to stop the sophists3b and their behind-the-scenes sponsors3c?
If a reasonable person3a,1a adopts the sophist terminology, then the reasonable person3a,1a buys into the way that the sophist3b has framed the citizen’s reality and understanding.
Consequently, even the reasonable person’s thoughts are tainted, because what he says (using a word whose meaning, presence and message has been tweaked by the sophist) cannot correspond to what he thinks (because he thinks in terms of the traditional meaning, presence and message of the spoken word).
0833 A citizen may ask, “Would sending a delegation to Thebes asking what is going on be a way to avoid war?”
The sophist replies, “No, Athena forbid! Sending a delegation would be an act of war. Obviously, the traders in Thebesalready are trying to take advantage of our conflict with Syracuse. We all know that ships from Syracuse are docking in Thebes. Sending a delegation would only tip them off, so they would attack us, with the assistance of Syracuse, before we can attack them.”
0834 The sophist interscope supports ruinous political decisions.
But, does the sweetness of refined reason3c turn to bitterness?
Or does the fish rot from the head, down?
0835 The one who pays to support refined reason3c no longer believes that refined reason3c is right reason. Instead, it is a way to gain advantage1c by promoting political decisions2c that favor the elite, rather than all citizens. Without a doubt, the most advantageous political decision2c is the one2c where public citizens bear the risks and costs and private elites gain the benefits.
0836 Today, experts2b call these arrangements, “public-private partnerships”. The arrangement sounds attractive, “the public” (that is, a government bureaucracy) works with “private” citizens (that is, very wealthy operators) in order to accomplish goals that neither can achieve alone, such as an active war with Thebes while engaging in sanctions with Syracuse.
Finally, the citizen becomes confused and starts saying what the sophist says as if it is his own thought. Sanctions are war. Diplomacy is war. Thebes and Syracuse must be defeated. No one quite knows why, because reason3a,1a itself has fallen into sophistry2b.
0837 Tyranny is near when reason3a,1a falls into sophistry2b, because a dictator and his allies may declare what one can say, as if that is the gateway to what one can think. Citizens who have fallen into sophistry have no defense and end up blaming those who speak against sophistry.
0838 Weirdly, this is the topic is covered from a completely different approach, in the ninth and tenth primers of the series, How To Define the Word “Religion” and Related Primers, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues. The titles are A Primer on Classical Political Philosophy and A Primer on Another Infrasovereign Religion.
0840 So, what was Plato’s problem?
We all know what happened to Socrates.
His admirers and compatriots, including Plato, were devastated.
Plato could only stop, and lay flat, and look into the empty sky.
0023 The full title of the book before me is A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition: The Name of the Game (Anthem Press: London and New York). The book seems brief, but it packs a lot of material in sixteen short chapters… well… technically, an introduction, fourteen chapters and a conclusion.
0024 Professor Steve Fuller introduces the topic with the headline, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Post-Truth Condition”. The headline is a tongue in cheek reference to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 intellectually pleasing masterpiece, “Dr. Strangelove”.
Yet, one has only to trace Kubrick’s career trajectory to envision a conclusion beyond worry and love. Kubrick dies in 1999 after wrapping up a homage to the will, titled “Eyes Wide Shut”.
0025 What matters is not whether something is true or false.
What matters is how something is decided.
The first statement concerns the intellect. The second statement concerns the will.
0026 So, how is a matter to be decided?
Shall we call upon the experts?
Consider the issues of anxiety and affection. An expert may reduce diverse and unsettling experiences to phenomena that can be observed and measured. Then, the expert may build a model, using a specialized disciplinary language. Next, with that model in hand, the expert will consider avenues to control the phenomena.
0027 For example, in a casual academic encounter at a university, I meet a needy and uncertain scholar who constantly nags her compatriot and (most likely) lover about the importance of managing her anxiety. Of course, the university setting is full of people making odd demands, so I think nothing of it. Later, I find out that her “husband” is a pharmaceutical salesman.
Indeed, she learned how to stop worrying about her field of inquiry and to love her husband with his briefcase full of Valium samples.
0028 So, is there a problem?
Fuller suggests that the “distance” between the layperson and the expert shrinks, because a layperson can become acquainted with the disciplinary language of any field of expertise well enough as to ask apparently intelligent questions. Yes, a question may be posed to the pharmaceutical salesman that goes like this, “I can see that your lover is addicted to Valium. Could you tell me exactly the mechanism for how this drug operates on the love-centers of the brain?”
To which the expert in marketing scoffs, “The human brain has frontal, parietal and occipital lobes. The human brain has a cerebellum. These anatomical structures perform various specialized neurological functions. Okay? The human brain does not have a ‘love-center’. What an ignorant question.”
0029 Indeed, the salesman goes on to testify before a legislative committee on the need to monitor and reduce the amount of medical disinformation on the internet. When laypeople read books on the neurological underpinnings of sexual attraction and drug addiction, they think that they’ve learned something. They think that they can ask revealing questions. So, they stupidly ask about “cerebral love centers”.
A law must be passed to deter this conduct.
0030 What does Fuller predict?
Just as during the Reformation, when Bibles printed in the layperson’s language opened the opportunity for any layperson to interpret sacred text,the current internet allows anyone who can read to become familiar with the language of any specialized discipline. Then, that layperson may publish a podcast that asks… um… revealing questions about what experts are supposed to know best.
The cost of entry into the market is astonishing low. So, many experts argue that it is the responsibility of the state to increase that cost through regulation and censorship.
0239 Francis Bacon (1561-1626 AD) lives at the start of the current Age of Ideas. He is a lawyer. He accepts that lying is part of everyday life, especially in the courtroom. He discovers that inquisitional modes of investigation force people to report in public what privately they do not hold. In short, the inquisitorial mode of testing and observing and measuring produces what I call “phenomena”. Courtroom phenomena do not reveal what a subject “privately” thinks. Courtroom phenomena reveal what the subject is openly willing to disclose under inquisition.
What I privately think associates to the noumenon.
What I am willing to say associates to phenomena.
0240 What does this imply?
Just as a triumphalist scientist wants to replace the noumenon with a mathematical or mechanical model,the scientismist one wants to replace what I privately think with what the Positivist’s judgment ought to be, that is, an empirio-normative narrative.
0241 Okay, then does that mean, once I am properly credentialed, that I have bought into a lie?
Yes and no.
Yes, phenomena cannot objectify their noumenon. If I do not testify to what I think, then I must be lying. So, the very idea of phenomena entails, not necessarily a falsehood, but a deception.
No, phenomena can objectify a model substituting for the noumenon. If I have successfully substituted an empirio-normative narrative for what I think, then I am always engaging in deception, even to myself. Either that, or I am always telling the “truth” (that is, the narrative) that can be objectified as what I say.
Did I write that correctly?
0242 The Christian doctrine of Original Sin derives from a mythic account of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are fashioned by God in a paradise near the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They disobey God’s command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Okay, let me tweak the tree’s label to “the fruit of the tree of formalized knowledge1b“. Mythically, this tree occupies the center of the Edenic garden.
The problem is not disobedience, per se, but a capitulation to a post-truth condition imposed by… what else?… a speaking snake. Serpents must speak, because they cannot talk with their hands.
0243 Needless to say, the serpent has a variety of narratives to offer. The fruit will allow Eve to own its beauty (the capitalist model of value2b) as well as make her wise (the socialist model of value2b). Eve sees an opportunity1c. She makes an actionable judgment2c. And, the relativist one3c notches up two successes2c, since Adam is along for the ride.
So, the Fall in the Garden of Eden has a lot to do with disobedience (to God, but obedience to the serpent) and lying (to oneself by adopting the narrative of the serpent as one’s own).
0244 Saint Augustine associates the Fall to a permanent weakness called “concupiscence”, which transliterates to “con (with) cupi (Cupid) scence (the state of being)”. The state of being with Cupid is a little more entertaining than the state of being scammed by a speaking snake. But, the post-truth condition for each is pretty much the same.
0245 Why?
The foundational potential of the post-truth condition is the will1a.
By definition, the foundational potential of the prior condition is the truth1a.
0246 What does this imply?
Well, if Adam and Eve associate to the start of our current Lebenswelt, as proposed in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace (as well as An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), then the prior truth condition must associate to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. Consequently, Adam and Eve may be historical, in so far as they are fairy tale figures associated with the start of the Ubaid archaeological period of southern Mesopotamia. The Ubaid marks the start of history (that is, our current Lebenswelt).
0247 Of course, Saint Augustine does not know this. So, he proposes that all humanity shares in the original sin of Adam and Eve through direct descent. All humans are subject to original sin2c because Adam and Eve are the first parents.
This turns out to be a scientific proposal. All humans are related to an original pair of humans. This hypothesis is debunked by modern genetics. There is no genetic bottleneck, as would be expected for a single-pair founding our species.
0248 So, Fuller points to a post-Augustine interpretation of our current Lebenswelt as a breeding ground for the post-truth condition. We are expected, by our inquisitors, to say only what we are publicly willing to disclose, as if that is what we are thinking. Whenever we live up to that expectation, we deceive ourselves. At the same time, we notch up successes2c for the relativist one3c.
On top of that, our hard-won academic credentials encourage us to utter statements based on the latest empirio-normative narratives2c, as if they2c are what we are thinking2a.
0249 Razie Mah heartily agrees. See his blog post for January 2, 2024.
0250 Perhaps, among other things, original sin involves defying the God of Creation by publicly mouthing the normative narratives of lesser deities, relativist ones3c, who put both the human intellect3a and will1a into perspective.
The sacrament of baptism plays a role in washing away that original sin, in so far as it introduces the infant to people who offer the story of the One True God, despite the fact that the story is unbelievable, according to all relativist one-heads.
0251 That said, Fuller’s genealogy of the post-truth condition points back to the very start of our current Lebenswelt.
Here is one vista that Fuller, as a guide to the post-truth condition, allows.
0252 Each person must decide which path to follow in the fourth Enlightenment Battle.
There are two paths.
One turns the person in to a certified mask that utters empirio-normative narratives.
One turns a person into a sign-tracker on a path that leads to a sign-vehicle that does not stand for what the empirio-normative judgment is telling me to think. This is the path of metalepsis. If Fuller is on target, the sign-tracker will discover an interventional sign-vehicle containing both a novel doctrine of original sin (for our current Lebenswelt) and a new appreciation of the human asan image of God (for the Lebenswelt that we evolved in).
In order to appreciate original justice, one must first respect original sin.
0253 Razie Mah offers three works that reconfigure the current empirio-schematic narrative of human evolution in a way that may assist sign-trackers. These works are titled, The Human Niche,An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion”. These works address the Lebenswelt that we evolved in,the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt.
Indeed, these works begin where Fuller’s excellent guidebook concludes.
0254 My thanks to Steve Fuller for his daring, and brief, exposition of the contemporary post-truth condition.
0001 On January 2, 2024, Razie Mah posts a blog challenging a Catholic podcast to take up a quest. Re-articulate the doctrine of original sin for the forthcoming age of triadic relations.
0002 The challenge rests on four points.
0003 Here is the first point.
In the 300s AD, Saint Augustine formulates the doctrine of original sin. In the process, he inadvertently proposes a scientific hypothesis. All humans descend from Adam and Eve as the original pair.
Of course, Augustine has no reason to question the Genesis text in this regard. The Bible is sacred text, a witness to God’s action in our current Lebenswelt. The science of genetics stands 1600 years in the future.
In the 1900s, geneticists definitively debunk the idea that all humans descend from an original pair, unless that founding pair lives over 500,000 years ago.
0004 This is not the only surprise.
In the 1800s and 1900s, archaeology discovers the historical depth of the ancient Near East. Now, the stories of Adam and Eve are listed among other origin stories of this age and location. All these stories (with the exception of the first chapter of Genesis) depict a recent creation of humanity, which does not make sense, since humans have been around for at least 200,000 years.
Why do all the written origin stories of the ancient Near East testify to a recent creation of humans?
0005 Indeed, if Augustine were around today, he would frame the doctrine of original sin within the paradigms of the current scientific age. Adam and Eve are not the first Homo sapiens, even though the second chapter of Genesis depicts their unique manufacture. The stories of Adam and Eve are ancient Near East mythologies. The artisanal fashioning of Adam and Eve, as well as the talking serpent, are correspondingly mythic. Also, the stories recorded in Genesis 2.4 through 10 concern the same start of humanity that is suggested by all other written origin stories of the ancient Near East.
0006 The problem?
What is this business about a recent start to humanity?
Why can’t the origin stories of ancient civilizations envision times significantly earlier than their civilizational foundings?
The social and biological sciences have done their utmost to portray human evolution in a way that excludes the witness of the earliest civilizations.
Does human evolution come with a twist?
Of course, it does.
0007 Why does Augustine claim that Adam and Eve are the first humans? The book of Genesis says so. But, once one realizes that all the origin stories of the ancient Near East point to an event horizon beyond which civilization cannot see,and that this event horizon is recent (rather than in deep evolutionary time), then the stories of Adam and Eve turn into fairy tales that address the coming-to-be of our current Lebenswelt.
0008 Before our current Lebenswelt, there are no civilizations. There is no unconstrained social complexity. There are no experts, or sophists, or relativist ones, or post-graduate ones.
Before our current Lebenswelt, humans live in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, which is unquestionably different than our own civilized condition. Social complexity is always constrained. Social hierarchies seldom contain more levels than grand-parents, parents and children. Maybe there are specialists, like a midwife or a shaman, but there are no institutions for education in “nursing” or “medicine”.
0009 What does this imply?
Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
All the origin stories of the ancient Near East (except for Genesis One) testify to the beginning of our current Lebenswelt as the start of all humanity. The Lebenswelt that we evolved in cannot be remembered.
The history of the ancient Near East runs deep. Archaeologists point to the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, as the time and the place where the earliest unconstrained social complexity manifests. Civilization is further potentiated during the Uruk archaeological period, when urbanism starts and social stratification becomes obvious. Plus, uncanny inventions are made, such as the wheel and the use of the donkey for long-distance caravans. Civilization is obvious at the start of the Sumerian Dynastic archaeological period.
0010 So, what do the stories of Adam and Eve depict?
In the 300s, Augustine gives a premodern answer and formulates the first doctrine of original sin. Adam and Eve are the parents of all humans. The taint of original sin passes from one generation to the next.
In the 2000s, Augustine’s followers will give a postmodern answer and formulate the second doctrine of original sin. The stories of Adam and Eve are fairy tales about the start of our current Lebenswelt.Our current Lebenswelt begins with the first singularity.
0011 Here is the second point.
If Augustine’s hypothesis that Adam and Eve are the first humans fails, then is there another relevant scenario suggested before the modern age of ideas?
Thomas Aquinas offers one, when he reflects on the state of (the literal) Adam before the Fall. Before the incident involving the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve live in a world of original justice. Then, after the Fall, they live in a state of original sin.
Does the state of original justice correspond to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
What was life like during the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Did hominins live up to a recent slogan offered by the expert-driven, science-oriented and empirio-normative-dominated World Economic Forum, “You will own nothing and be happy?”
Our Paleolithic ancestors own nothing (compared to anyone in any civilization) and they are happy (in ways that we currently cannot imagine).
0012 For example, our hominin ancestors adapt to the transcendentals that are extolled by religious intellectuals and ridiculed by secular sophists. It is as if the transcendentals are sign-vehicles that elicit adaptive sign-objects in the hominin mind, so our brains and bodies express a phenotype that serves as a sign-interpretant for those adaptive sign-objects.
Yes, our ancestors cannot label the transcendentals with spoken words. Instead, they experience the transcendentals as adaptations. Truth, beauty, nobility, temperance, strength, wisdom, and prudence do not have spoken labels. They have moments of perfection in the hominin body and mind.
0013 Aquinas knows nothing about the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. So, he depicts Adam as something of a Greek philosopher, rather than someone who modern anthropologists might recognize: a hominin who owns nothing, works in teams, belongs to community, suffers ailments and danger, yet is unimaginably happy. After all, our ancestors are who we evolved to be.
We are not so lucky.
0014 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in holds secrets that contemporary evolutionary anthropologists cannot articulate using the disciplinary languages of the social sciences. (See Razie Mah’s blog for January through March, 2024, as well as Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), available at smashwords and other e-book venues). Tomasello’s technical term, “joint attention”, is an explicit abstraction that describes hominins, working in teams, being productive and having fun. It is a mystery how they do it. Yet, that is what hominins evolve to do.
0015 Another big secret about the Lebenswelt that we evolved in is that, unlike modern anthropologists, our hominin ancestors cannot conduct explicit abstractions. Our hominin ancestors cannot explicitly label things or events with spoken words. Why? They talk with their hands. Speech is added to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens. Then, Homo sapiens practices a dual-mode way of talking, hand-speech talk, for over 200,000 years before the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia appears, nominally 7,800 years ago, as the world’s first culture to practice speech-alone talk.
0016 Hand talk and hand-speech talk facilitate implicit abstraction.
Even when hand-talk becomes fully linguistic, explicit abstraction not possible. Manual-brachial gesture-words are holistic. The referent exists before the word. The gestural-word pictures or points to its referent.
Speech-alone talk permits implicit abstraction. It also facilitates explicit abstraction.
Spoken words label parts, distinct from the whole. For example, the rotational motion that goes into making clay pots is explicitly abstracted with the invention of the pottery wheel. Then, the pottery wheel is explicitly re-oriented to become the wheel of a cart.
Spoken words exist before the referent. Spoken words cannot picture or point to anything. That is why the referents for spoken words exist as meanings, presences and messages in the realm of possibility. How often do we create artifacts that validate the meaning, presence and message underlying spoken words? How long do such validations last?
0017 The differences in the semiotics of hand talk and speech-alone talk are discussed in the opening chapters of the fictional drama, An Archaeology of the Fall.
0018 Point three follows points one and two, in so far as the mythic, as well as the historical, Adam and Eve stand at the event horizon beyond which the origin stories of the ancient Near East cannot see. The stand at the very start of our current Lebenswelt. They signify the first singularity.
See The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0019 The fourth and final point is this fool’s errand. Razie Mah’s blogs for July through October 2024 offer a stumbling yet ambitious start to the quest posted on January 2, 2024.
The sequence of presentation in the three-part e-book, Original Sin and The Post-Truth Condition, is not quite the same as the sequence of appearance in the blogs. The blogs are sequenced for space and convenience.
The numbering of the points follows the list presented here.
0020 Fuller’s account of the post-truth condition is examined first. This examination is foundational.
The results are applied to a book by American entrepreneur and politician, Vivek Ramaswamy, as well as a monograph on American propaganda by Michelle Stiles.
An essay by Josef Pieper on the abuse of language, reconceptualizes the application and serves starting point for a second formulation of the doctrine of original sin. In the blog, the examination of Pieper appears between the examinations for Ramaswamy and Stiles.
By the end of Pieper’s work, a connection between the post-truth condition and original sin, deepens.
0021 But, that is not all.
An examination of a book on language and cognitive psychology shows that, in 2022, secular academics are yet to confront the hypothesis of the first singularity. This examination stands as a warning that this hypothesis challenges both theology and science. Theologians need to devise a post-Augustine formulation of the doctrine of original sin. Scientists need to consider that (1) the human niche is the potential of triadic relations, as proposed in Razie Mah’s e-book The Human Niche, (2) our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, as dramatized in An Archaeology of the Fall, and (3) the semiotics of speech-alone talk is radically different than hand and hand-speech talk, as discussed in How To Define The Word “Religion”.
0022 The post-truth condition is a product of the semiotics of speech-alone talk.
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.
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?
