0431 In contrast to the capitalization of the term, “code”, if I go back, say 10,000 years before this time, before the potentiation of civilization, then I would find that the word, “code”, could not be uttered in hand-speech talk.
In human evolution, language evolves in the milieu of hand-talk. Speech is added to hand-talk, as an adornment, at the start of our species, Homo sapiens.
See Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) as well as the masterwork, The Human Niche (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues). Portions of the former may be found in Razie Mah’s blog for January through March, 2024.
0432 Hand-talk words picture and point to their referents. Consequently, the problem of definition is resolved before it can even be raised. The referent exists before the gestural word. Otherwise, what would the gestural word image or indicate?
Nevertheless, hand talk fits into code biology.
0433 The agent cannot be ignored.
For hand and hand-speech talk, the agent belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. The linguistic manual-brachial word gesture2a (SVs) stands for the referent that it images or points to2b (SOs) in regards to a specifying code3bperformed by a specific region of the hominin brain1b (SIs).
The hominin agent does not have to ask, “What is happening?”, because ‘something’ is always happening. All the hominin needs to do is implicit abstraction. Because hand-talk words are images or indications, then implicit abstraction is called for. “Decoding” enters the picture when the word-gestures are sufficiently different as to be rapidly interpreted on the grounds that they are easy to recognize.
Yes, meaning relies on codes, but agents cannot be ignored.
0434 The text before me is chapter twelve in Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (2024, edited by Alexei Sharov and George E. Mikhailovsky, pages 265-278). The full title is “Evolutionary Growth of Meanings in the Relational Universe of Intercommunicating Agents”. The author is a biologist at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, at St. John’s.
0435 The introduction places the term, “agent”, on stage.
How does one know whether “an agent” is an agent?
Well, the agent should be obvious. An agent is physical. An agent is the repository of – what Aristotle calls – “final causality”. Final causality associates to another metaphysics-laden term, “teleology”.
What is the meaning of this term, “repository”.
0436 I only ask this because the thing that we encounter in science associates to what is for the Positivist’s judgment. Sharov and Tonnessen’s noumenal overlay pertains to what is, and it describes semiotic agency. Semiotic agency (as the noumenon) gives rise to phenomena that are observed and measured by biologists, then the resulting models are attributed, not to agency2 itself, but to the agent3 and the agent’s intentions1 (that is, final causalities).
0437 “Repository” plays out as a category-based nested form.
The normal context of an agent3 brings the actuality of semiotic agency2 into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘final causality’1.
The agent3 puts semiotic agency2 into context. Semiotic agency2 emerges from (and situates) the potential of ‘teleology’1.
These basics are found in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0438 The image of “the agent” as “an obvious repository of final causality” treats the category-based nested form diagrammed above as a thing.
The author presents the image without hesitation, as if that is what human naturally do. Humans not only treat a thing as a thing, but we also treat a corresponding category-based nested form as a thing. Not the same “thing”, but still, a thing.
We observe semiotic agency2. We visualize the agent3 as a physical repository of final causality1.
0439 What does this imply?
Consider the title of the chapter, Evolutionary Growth of Meanings in the Relational Universe of Intercommunicating Agents.
Where do I slip the category-based nested form into this title?
Do category-based nested forms slide into the author’s designation of “relational universe”?
If so, then the substitution brings this examiner face to face with where the author seems to be going, the recovery of Aristotle’s causalities within the milieu of biosemiotics.
0440 If that is the case, let me present a more hylomorphic version of the category-based nested form.
0441 Notice that actuality2 corresponds to Peirce’s category of secondness. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. In the figure, the contiguity is placed in brackets for the purposes of notation.
For example, for Aristotle, when I encounter a thing, the two real elements that come to mind are matter and form. Matter is necessary for presence. Form is necessary for shape. What is the contiguity between matter and form? Here, I snatch a term that has been much abused, because it has been so difficult to grasp. The term is “substance”. I now assign a very specific, technical definition to the term in hand. “Substance” is the contiguity between matter and form.
0442 Aristotle’s hylomorphe is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness.
Thus, the recovery of Aristotle’s terminology in the biosemiotic milieu begins.
0443 Abir Igamberdiev is not the only one to imagine a recovery of Aristotle’s causality in light of the postmodern compromise of the positivist intellect.
Mariusz Tabaczek pursues a recovery in the field of emergence. Emergence endeavors to account for the constellation of higher-order noumena that could not be predicted on the basis of lower-level noumena. Like biosemiotics, the goal is understanding, rather than prediction and control.
See Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues. Much of this commentary may be found in Razie Mah’s blog for March, April and May 2024. Tabaczek’s work is discussed in this examination in points 0276 to 0300.
0460 Section 12.3 covers meaningful information in autopoetic systems.
“Auto” means “self”. “Poetic” means “powered”.
0461 To start, the universe is full of spontaneous processes that may be modeled by truncated material and efficient causes. Entropy increases. Agency does not need to be present.
Autopoetic systems are not really self-powered. Instead, they entangle a spontaneous process (where entropy increases) in a triadic relation, so that, as movement towards thermodynamic equilibrium proceeds, some of the free energy is diverted to the maintenance and construction of an “autopoetic” being. This is the nature of emergence. Emergence associates to life.
0462 Igamberdiev notices that biological dynamics include both low-energy and high-energy processes separated by an epistemic cut. The epistemic cut becomes obvious when visualizing the way that formal and final causes envelope material and efficient causes. Formal and final causes associate to “low-energy”. Material and efficient causes go with “higher-energy”.
In the above figure. Low-energy describes the ontolon (in purple). Higher-energy describes the vortices (in green).
0463 Now, it seems that the low-energy and the high-energy dynamics must work in tandem. For example, models of self governance and potential courses of action and of salience should capture basic structural interactions between a living organism and its environment. Jacob von Uexkull (1864-1944 AD) coins the term, “Functionkreis”. Functionkreis may be regarded as systems of reflexive loops (vortexes) generating a network of biological codes(ontolons).
0464 Codes?
Yes, the concept of codes is already discussed in points 0409 through 0433.
0465 The high-energy, hard work of Functionkreis is investigated in biological laboratories throughout the world. What are the truncated material and efficient causalities that go into… say… whether a mitochondria is operating properly or malfunctioning? Laboratory scientists aim for mechanistic answers, but the terminology that frames their research questions betray the biosemiotic reality that they cannot allow to infect their methodologies.
The low-energy, epistemologically relevant work of codes is investigated by biosemiotics, as shown in the following figure.
0466 In section 12.4, Igamberdiev introduces the term, “codepoesis”.
Codepoesis contrasts with autopoesis.
“Codepoesis” labels an intrinsic property of biological entities, where the holistic living system maps out onto a finite set of constituent… um… semiotic agents. Yes, the organism maps (through codepoesis) onto its organs and systems as semiotic agents. Then, organs and systems as semiotic agents map onto tissues and anatomical arrangements.
0467 The list continues downwards towards physical poesis.
Upwards, the list ends with a holistic terminus that exhibits the rewards of codepoesis, but itself is not so bound by a superior level of code. In autopoesis, the “soul” is the kinetic perfection (substitute the word, “completion”, for “perfection”) of the body and the body is the holistic terminus of codepoesis. The levels of codepoesis may also be called “subagencies”.
0468 In section 12.5, Igamberdiev adds one more level of poesis. The autopoesis of the individual human occurs within a super-organism that has its own autonomy.
0469 Here, at the end of Part II of Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (2024, edited by Alexei Sharov and George E. Mikhailovsky, pages 187-278), the value of the category-based nested form comes to the fore as a style of semiotic inquiry within the category of sociopoesis.
Igamberdiev lays out a hierarchy as well as a frame for that hierarchy.
Sharov and Tonnessen’s semiotic agency captures what is common in all biological processes.
Sharov and Tonnessen propose their noumenal overlay within the hierarchy of sociopoesis.
So, Abir Igamberdiev seems to get the last word.
0470 This concludes my examination of Part II of Pathways, containing chapters nine through twelve titled and “Meanings in the Evolution of Life”. My thanks to each author and the editors for publishing these challenging essays.
It is worthy of financial support by people of good will.
Reality is the only journal, to date, closing the gap between Thomistic philosophy and Peircean semiotics.
Brian Kemple Ph.D. is the editor of Reality.
0002 He is also the last graduate student of the late John Deely (1942-2017), of fond memory.
0003 The essay at hand appears in 2020, volume 1, and covers pages 76-123.
The full title is “Signs and Reality: An Advocation for Semiotic Realism”.
0004 The issue is captured on page 115.
Kemple writes (more or less), “If we are to have a living, thriving realism, it must be a realism capable of dealing with the entirety of the real; not only the reality that we engage directly through our senses, but the reality we experience perceptually and intellectually as well, a reality comprising the relations and especially the sign-relations that constitute so much of our experience.”
0005 Matthew Minerd Ph.D. pens a commentary that follows Brian Kemple’s essay.
Thomists currently exhibit an attitude when it comes to semiotic things.
0006 He notes (more or less), “For contemporary scholastics, the domain of cognition-dependent reality generally is a kind of terra non-considerata. Real being is ens naturae and is separate from the domains of knowledge, technical craft and moral freedom. These are entia rationis (mind-dependent beings) that, honestly, belong in the shadow.”
0007 How so?
The shadow is not the causalities inherent in ens rationis.
The shadow is the awfulness of the topic.
Look at the shadow side of the domains that Minerd mentions: ignorance (shadow of knowledge), incompetence (shadow of technical craft) and depravity (shadow of moral freedom).
0009 Now, I regard Kemple’s article “Signs and Reality”, in the journal, Reality, and Razie Mah’s Comments on Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (available at the smashwords website).
Is there a crack in the mirror of the scholastic world, as it reflects on res (thing)?
Things are real.
So are sign relations.
If so, are sign relations things?
0010 If sign relations are real, then the consequences of their realness cannot be denied.
This if-then statement applies to biology.
Are sign-relations so real that they are able to support a niche, into which some hapless creature may adapt? A niche is the potential of an actuality independent of the adapting genus. Could sign-relations, or triadic relations in general, be so real as to constitute a niche?
Consider the masterwork, The Human Niche.
0011 There are more consequences.
If sign relations are real, then a cultural change in the natural-sign character of talk may account for a rapid, inexorable alteration of a Lebenswelt. Does such a transition explain why our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Consider the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall.
0012 Finally, if our current Lebenswelt turns the evolutionary progression upside down, elevating stipulation over custom and custom over nature, then how do we validate our spoken words? If the meaning, presence and message underlying a spoken word is stipulated, upon what thing do we staple our stipulation? How about this: If we construct an artifact, then that artifact should validate our stipulation. The artifact validates what we stipulate it to be.
What can go wrong with that?
Consider the masterwork, How to Define the Word “Religion”.
0013 Three masterworks, all available on smashwords, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How to Define the Word “Religion”, expose scientific implications of Brian Kemple’s claims.
If sign-relations are things, then we have an entirely new way to appreciate human evolution, including a recent, and revelatory, twist.
0014 Another triadic relation, the category-based nested form, proves invaluable in discussing these issues.
A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction provide the background.
A category-based nested form consists in a normal context3, an actuality2 and a potential1. The subscripts refer to Peirce’s categories. These three elements fulfill four relational statements.
0016 Comments on Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality”, available on the smashwords website, examines Kemple’s work using the category-based nested form and the three-level interscope.
0017 Kemple presents three actualities: species impressa, species expressa and species intelligibilis from various texts by Aquinas.
These fit into a three-level interscope in the following fashion.
Figure 2
0018 Of course, one may contest these associations.
But, how else would these terms fit into the empty slots of a three-level interscope?
Perhaps, I could put in the word “normal context” for the normal context3 for all three levels and “potential” for the potential1 of all three levels.
But, that would not change the overall picture.
0019 Even more curious, these three actualities serve as sign-objects and sign-vehicles in sign-relations. There are three sign-relations in this figure. So each actuality may serve as both a sign-vehicle and a sign-object.
The interventional sign couples the perspective and content levels.
The specifying sign couples the content and situation levels.The exemplar sign couples the situation and perspective levels.
0020 Comments on Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” tells a story and suggests associations between Kemple’s… er…. Aquinas’s terminology and the category-based nested form.
First, three kinds of sign-objects correspond to three actualities in a three-level interscope.
Second, three sign-relations couple the levels, so that each object may serve as both a sign-vehicle and sign-object. The only sign that does not serve as both a sign-vehicle and sign-object is the interventional sign.
0021 Here is a picture.
Figure 3
0022 The interventional sign couples the perspective and content levels.
The specifying sign couples the content and situation levels.
The exemplar sign couples the situation and perspective levels.
0023 Kemple specifically mentions three types of signs. These correspond to the character of the sign-vehicle for the interventional sign.
These types are nature, custom and stipulation.
These three types associate to periods in human evolution.
0024 The first two are discussed in Comments on Chris Sinha’s Essay (2018) “Praxis, Symbol and Language”. See this blog for the middle of May, 2021.
Early in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, natural events serve as sign-vehicles for interventional signs. Since hominins adapt into the niche of triadic relations, the sign-objects of the interventional sign, sensations and feelings, turn into sign-vehicles for specifying signs.
Later in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in,linguistic manual-brachial word-gestures serve as sign vehicles for interventional signs. The sign-objects decode the interventional signs according to custom. Specifying signs are trained by timeless traditions. Exemplar signs cannot be articulated using hand talk, yet they involve crucial adaptations, because the exemplar sign-object manifests as a commitment.
0025 Finally, after the first singularity, in our current Lebenswelt, the exemplar sign is able to be symbolized by speech-alone talk.
This turns out to be most problematic, since speech-alone allows the interventional sign-vehicle to be stipulated. Comments on Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” tells a story about a stipulation. The story also tells about concupiscence.
0026 The sign-object of the exemplar sign occupies the same position in the three-level interscope as the sign-vehicle of the interventional sign. This is significant. Thomas Aquinas’s theology of original sin conducts itself precisely along the circuit depicted above, as discussed in Comments on Daniel Houck’s Book (2020) “Aquinas, Original Sin and the Challenge of Evolution”.
0027 Comments on Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality”, available at smashwords, includes a story of a rot consuming the Age of Ideas, the third age of understanding. Modernism is frozen in its gaze upon a thing, an innocent thing. Certain modern elites hunger to financialize and harvest such innocence. Call it what you will. The yearning goes by many names.
In time, the rot will run its course.
Modernism will fail.
However, in this theodrama, the premodern Thomism of the Latin Age, the second age of understanding, may transubstantiate into the postmodern Thomism of the Age of Triadic Relations, the fourth age of understanding. Deely predicts it. Kemple aims to manifest it. Signs are real, just like things.
0028 This is not the only fissure to appear in the scholastic mirror of the world.
Shall I elaborate?
0029 Smashwords contains an entire series of commentaries devoted to the question, “Is Aristotle’s hylomorphism an expression of Peirce’s category of secondness?“
Another series is devoted to empirio-schematics, starting with Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) “Natural Philosophy” and Comments on Nicholas Berdyaev’s Book (1939) “Spirit and Reality”.
Several commentaries in the series, Reverberations of the Fall, expand on Aquinas’s breakthrough concept of original justice.
0030 These series are not anomalies. They are features of what happens when Thomists take seriously the very topic that they struggle to avoid.
