Tag Archives: presence

03/25/25

Looking at Abir Igamberdiev’s Chapter (2024) “Evolutionary Growth of Meanings…” (Part 1 of 4)

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.

03/21/25

Looking at Abir Igamberdiev’s Chapter (2024) “Evolutionary Growth of Meanings…” (Part 4 of 4)

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.

07/15/21

Looking at Josh Hammer’s Opinion Piece (2021) “…Experts” (Part 1 of 4)

0001 Josh Hammer authors an opinion piece for The Epoch Times.  Zerohedge reprints the opinion on Friday, June 4, 2021 at 9:00 p.m.  The full title is “Covid-19 Has Forever Destroyed America’s Trust in Ruling Class ‘Experts'”. 

0002 I only want to look at the first paragraph.

0003 I will look at this paragraph in two ways.

First, I will use the Greimas Square.  The Greimas Square is introduced in Comments On Philip Marey’s Post (2021) “Insurrection”, appearing in this blog in January 2021.  To date, no series has been generated for the Greimas Square in smashwords.

Second, I will use the first two levels of the society tier.  The two-level interscope is introduced in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (available at smashwords).  The society tier is posited in the masterwork How To Define the Word “Religion” (also available at smashwords).  

The two-level interscope recently appears in this blog with Saturn-Jupiter Conjunction in Aquarius (Jan. 2021), Be Little Men (Sept. 2020) and Comments on Yoran Hazony’s Post (2020) “Challenges of Marxism” (Sept. 2020).

0004 Here is the first paragraph of Josh Hammer’s opinion piece, reproduced for examination in the following two blogs.  There are three sentences in this paragraph.  I present them in sequence.

Hammer writes, “As even many casual observers of America’s fractious politics are aware, the overwhelming majority of lawmaking at the federal level no longer takes place in Congress as the Constitution’s framers intended.

“Instead, the vast majority of the ‘rulemaking’ governing Americans’ day-to-day lives now takes place behind closed doors, deep in the bowels of the administrative state’s sprawling bureaucracy.”The brainchild of progressive President Woodrow Wilson, arguments on behalf of the administrative state are ultimately rooted in, among other factors, a disdain for the messy give-and-take of republican politics and an epistemological preference for rule by enlightened clerisy.”

07/14/21

Looking at Josh Hammer’s Opinion Piece (2021) “…Experts” (Part 2 of 4)

0005 First, I ask the question, “How does the term, ‘expert’, distinguish itself in spoken language, defined by Ferdinand de Saussure as two arbitrarily related systems of differences?”

Or, more briefly, how does the spoken word, “expert”, hold a place in a finite system of differences?

0006 An answer: The word, “expert”, has a unique Greimas Square, a configuration of four elements (A1, B1, A2 and B2).  Each element forms a corner in a square.

Here is a picture.

0007 Here are the rules: A1 is the focal word.  B1 contrasts with A1.  A2 contradicts B1 and complements A1.  B2 contrasts with A2, contradicts A1 and complements B1.

0008 The term, “expert” goes into A1.

What contrasts with A1?

How about the word, “bureaucrat”?

“Bureaucrat” goes into B1.

0009 What contradicts the bureaucrat?

Expert discourse focuses on the subject-matter and does not take into account other issues.  Subject-matter discourse (A2) is content-oriented.

0010 What contrasts with subject-matter discourse (A2)?

Administrative, rule-making discourse does (B2).

0011 In the next blog, I show the diagram.

07/13/21

Looking at Josh Hammer’s Opinion Piece (2021) “…Experts” (Part 3 of 4)

0012 From the prior blog, I construct the following Greimas square.

0013 Each word is a placeholder in a system of differences.  Clearly, the word, “expert”, is not the same as the word, “bureaucrat”.  But, the words are entangled, and therefore, the distinction is subject to manipulation.

0014 What are the key relational features of this distinction?

0015 The first contrast involves rules (A:B contrast in 1 and 2).

The expert knows the rules.  The expert does not make the rules.  The expert is rule-bound.

The bureaucrat makes and enforces rules. The bureaucrat is rule-following.

Hammer reinforces this contrast by saying that the vast majority of rules governing the everyday lives of Americans are made behind closed doors, by federal bureaucrats.  This governance fulfills the vision of progressive President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924, President 1913-1921).  The administrative state has grown for over a century.

0016 The second pair of contradictions (A2 to B1 and B2 to A1) involves performance and discourse.

Expert discourse is bound to subject-matter.  The expert knows the rules of the subject-matter.  Personal and organizational circumstances are not supposed to influence the expert’s advice.  The expert is supposed to be objective (and, ideally, suprasubjective).

Administrative discourse is bound to rule-making and rule-enforcing.  The bureaucrat engages in ministerial operations.  Bureaucrats tend to be subjective, while pretending to be objective, and intersubjective, while feigning to be suprasubjective.  Hammer highlights these points by saying that bureaucrats disdain give-and-take political wranglingand prefer the ministrations of an enlightened clerisy.

0017 What does this imply?

The use of the word, “expert”, by the federal government, for a person in its employ, is misleading.

The word, “bureaucrat”, is not misleading.

0018 Does the slogan, “Trust the experts”, sound as convincing as “Trust the bureaucrats.”?

Here is a good example of deception through the manipulative use of spoken words.

07/12/21

Looking at Josh Hammer’s Opinion Piece (2021) “…Experts” (Part 4 of 4)

0019 Second, I look at the confounding of the sovereign and institution levels of the society tier, implicit in Josh Hammer’s opinion piece, and intrinsic to BG(il)L corporate media’s use of the word, “expert”, in reference to a federal bureaucrat.

0020 The following two-level interscope portrays the first two levels of the society tier.  The interscope for the society tieris developed in the masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”, available at smashwords.

0021 Here is a diagram.

0022 According to the first paragraph of Josh Hammer’s opinion piece, bureaucrats exercise federal power2b within the “bowels” of the administrative state3bC.  They do so by filling in legislative ambiguities and authorizations2bC. Bureaucratic decrees2bC establish the order1bC that vague legislation2bC mandates.

0023 How do federal bureaucrats develop their rule-based protocols?

They follow their “guts”… I mean… their “experts”.

0024 Of course, the metaphors of bowels and guts point to digestion.  Digestion nourishes the body.  What body?  The administrative state?

0025 So, I ask, “What if the administrative state is a body?”

Well, the body is animated by a soul.

What is the soul of the administrative state?

0026 Well, why do the legislators pass vague laws2bC that authorize federal bureaucracies to do what they deem appropriate in order1bC to achieve certain organizational objectives2aC?

They do so on the basis of righteousness1aC.

0027 Does this imply that the Congress confounds the potential for order1bC with the potential for righteousness1aC?

Yes, for the past century, Congress establishes institutions3a within the federal government3bC on the basis of righteousness1aC, leaving the (federal) institutions themselves3aC to fill in the details of the authorizations2bC.

0028 This confounding constitutes one of two types of religion.  Infrasovereign religions are institutions3aC arising out of righteousness1aC and bounded by the necessity of order1bC.  Sovereign religions are institutions3aC that require (and exercise) sovereign power3bC in order to implement their organizational objectives2aC.

The other type of religion is suprasovereign3cC.

0029 While Josh Hammer’s point concerns the manipulative use of the word, “expert”, to refer to a federal bureaucrat, there is a deeper current in his opinion.  Vaguely-worded legislation authorizing bureaucracies to fill in the details2bCconfounds order1bC and righteousness1aC and constitutes the formation of a sovereign religion3aC.  Such legislation2bCviolates the first amendment of the Constitution, forbidding the federal government from establishing a religion.

07/7/21

Looking at Manvir Singh’s Article (2021) “Magic, Explanations, and Evil” (Part 1 of 5)

0001 This blog compliments Comments on Manvir Singh’s Essay (2021) “Magic, Evil and Explanations”, available at smashwords and other websites selling electronic works.

0002 Singh’s article appears in Current Anthropology.

Manvir Singh is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, France.

To me, his work contrasts with Sasha Newell, who, in 2018, publishes a theoretical piece titled, “The Affectiveness of Symbols”, also in Current Anthropology.

Singh aims for science.  Newell focuses on interpretation.

0003 Will the discipline of Anthropology turn towards an empirio-schematic approach or towards an approach where the word, “science”, is no longer relevant?

Mark Horowitz, William Yaworsky and Kenneth Kickham publish a survey, under the title, “Anthropology’s Science Wars: Insights from an New Survey”, in 2019, in Current Anthropology.

0004 These three papers tell us much about the divided discipline of contemporary Anthropology.

07/6/21

Looking at Manvir Singh’s Article (2021) “Magic, Explanations, and Evil” (Part 2 of 5)

0005 Anthropology stands astride the narrower, more technical, disciplines of Sociology and Psychology.

Manvir Singh constructs a modern paradigm for a topic dear to Anthropology, but not to the narrower disciplines.

What is the nature of magic?

0006 Singh publishes the results of a Mystical Harm Survey, applied to 60 societies on the Probability Sample File of the electronic Human Relations Area Files.  He uses principal component analysis to reduce forty-nine raw variables to two principal dimensions with the greatest variation.

Principal components?  Greatest variation?

0007 Principal components are the dimensions with the greatest variation in a scatterplot.

Typically, principal component analysis shows variables that are relevant to the topic at hand.

For example, when considering mystical harm, one would expect significant variation between a common person and, say, a warlock, along some parameter that might be called, “warlockness”.

0008 Singh finds two parameters distinguishing common folk, sorcerers and witches.  Witches are high in PC1 and low in PC2.  Sorcerers are low in PC1 and high in PC2.

PC1 is witchiness.  Witches fly, meet in secret in the forest on a full moon, suddenly appear and disappear, and so on.  To me, witchiness is the embodiment of malicious magic.  Witches not only perform magic, they live it.

PC2 is the evil eye.  Sorcerers do not embody the magic that they perform.  Instead, the magic resides in their gaze.  The evil eye is a harmful mystical operation that signifies a whole range of magical works.  The evil eye is the worst.

0009 Singh does not dwell on the seemingly philosophical distinction between embodiment and gaze.  Neither do the anthropologists who are pleased with the scatterplot of PC1 and PC2 in Figure 1 (of the article).  Anthropology looks like science.

07/5/21

Looking at Manvir Singh’s Article (2021) “Magic, Explanations, and Evil” (Part 3 of 5)

0010 Singh identifies two principle components to harmful magic, witchiness (PC1) and the evil eye (PC2).

What happens next?

0011 Singh proposes a model to account for the observation.  The model consists of three schemes of cultural selection.

The first selection (F) is for intuitive techniques of harmful magic.

The second selection (G) is for plausible explanations of misfortune.

The third selection (H) is for myths that demonize a subgroup (in this case, sorcerers and witches).

0012 Singh misses the scaffolding beneath the glass that he stands on.  His exposition is on malevolent magic.  He does not seem to realize that malevolent magic recapitulates the open, generative magic of group living, including…

…intuitive techniques for beneficial magic (F’)…

…plausible explanations of fortune (G’)…

…myths that celebrate the group (H’).

0013 Here is a table.

07/2/21

Looking at Manvir Singh’s Article (2021) “Magic, Explanations, and Evil” (Part 4 of 5)

0014 For example, a number of ladies in the community, noting that berries are in season, set out to collect several baskets.  They perform the rituals of gathering to ensure success.  Then they set out, chattering, as always.  During the harvest, one mother is bit by a spider that no one can identify.  After hastily returning, they bring the spider’s remains to the shaman.

The shaman is concerned.  He makes a paste to put over the bite.  The next morning, the woman is dead and the berries, left overnight in the baskets, are mysteriously rotted.

0015 Later, questions arise.