Tag Archives: Science

01/1/26

Looking at Melinda A. Zeder’s Article (2025) “Unpacking the Neolithic” (Part 1 of 4)

0001 If I may present my conclusion at the beginning, “I suggest the following motto: First the bauplan, then the twist.”

0002 The full title of the essay under examination is “Unpacking the Neolithic: Assessing the Relevance of the Neolithic Construct in Light of Recent Research”.  The article appears in the Journal of World Prehistory (2025) in volume 38:11, pages 1-58 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-025-09198-0).  The author is affiliated with the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.

0003 The author’s argument follows the Greek tradition of (A) setting out prior propositions, (B) adding further information and assessments and (C) proposing one’s own solution.

Prior propositions (A) are covered in the section titled, “The Origin of the Term ‘Neolithic'”.

Further information (B) includes sections on neolithic emergences in southwest Asia and other regions, including China, Japan, eastern north America, Mesoamerica and the northwest America.

The author’s proposal (C) appears in a section titled, “Repackaging the Neolithic”.

0004 I examine each movement in the sequence A, C then B.

0005 In regards to the historical origin of the term, “neolithic” (A), the word appears in the 1850s in the context of prehistoric lithic technology.  A distinction between old “paleolithic” and new “neolithic” tools reflects a fairly recent change in the human condition.  The Paleolithic extends very far back into the evolution of the Homo genus.  The Neolithic is fairly new and applies only to Homo sapiens.  By “new”, I mean, say, starting less that 20,000 years ago.

0006 As it turns out, stone tools and fossilized bones are the most recoverable items from the distant past.  So, the idea that our kind evolves will of course rely of this type of data.  The implications are significant.  If lithic technologies are like matter, then the archaeologist may speculate on forms of prehistorical human (or “hominid” or “hominin”) conditions.

0007 For example, the earliest paleolithic stone tools are labeled “Oldowan”. These tools can be made on the fly.   If I strike one rock with another, I can fracture off a shard and expose a sharp edge.  Of course, one must choose the right rocks for this trick.  Plus, technique is important.

Later stone tools are labeled “Acheulean”.  These stone tools are made ahead of time, by the same technique of hammering off shards to reveal an intended form that… somehow… is intrinsic to the original rock.

0008 So, what am I suggesting?

Is the actuality of matter and form intrinsic to rocks, and ancestral hominins learn to tamper with one real element (matter) in order to sculpt the other real element (form)?

0009 I am suggesting more than that.

Aristotle’s hylomorphe (hylo = matter, morphe = form) is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of (at least) two contiguous real elements.  For paleolithic hominins, a rock (matter) could be sculpted into a stone tool (form).  From the point of view of the archaeologist, the hylomorphic structure still applies.  The question is, “How?”

Paleolithic stone-tool technology “sculpts” prehistorical human conditions.

0010 Of course, the word, “sculpts”, serves as an aesthetic metaphor for the contiguity between paleolithic technology as matter and hominin conditions as form.

0011 The challenge for nineteenth-century anthropology is clear.  Propose a better, more scientific, or at least, less metaphysical, label for the contiguity.

With only geological strata, stone tools and fossilized bones as evidence, proposals were necessarily speculative.  But, archaeologists continued digging, and by the 1850s could make the distinction between paleolithic and neolithic.  Also, they figured out a reason for why the advance from Oldowan to Acheulean stone tools “sculpted” more advanced hominin conditions.  Man was making himself.

0012 What do these evidential and rational developments suggest?

For a Peircean, secondness is the dyadic realm of actuality.  Secondness is only one of Peirce’s three categories.  The other two are thirdness (the triadic realm of normal contexts, judgments, signs, mediations and so forth) and firstness (the monadic realm of possibility).

Each of these categories manifests its own logic.  Also, each higher numbered category prescinds from the adjacent lower category.  Thirdness prescinds from secondness.  Secondness prescinds from firstness.  Prescission allows the articulation of the category-based nested form, as described in Razie Mah’ e-book, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.

0013 Thirdness bring secondness into relation with firstness.

A triadic normal context3 brings a dyadic actuality2 into relation with the possibility of ‘something’1.

0014 Now I can slide the above dyad into the slot for actuality2 for the category-based nested form intimated by the title of V. Gordon Childe’s 1936 book, Man Makes Himself.

0015 The slide clarifies the contiguity, paleolithic technology constellates a substance, which I label, “technique”, that manifests an essence for the conditions of evolving hominins (that is, a substantiated form).

Consequently, the appearance of a new stone tool technology indicates a change in techniques as well as a change in the essence of the prehistoric human condition.

0016 According to Childe (1892-1957), the “neolithic” label encompassed more than a change in lithic technology.  The prehistoric human condition gets entangled with all sorts of other matters, including sedentary communities, economies of delayed returns, various modes of storage and so forth.  A long list of material arrangements gets entangled.

0017 As it turns out, once matter substantiates form, then form can entangle other matter, which is a confounding.  Here, “confounding” is a technical term, precisely labeling one form originating from one matter and entangling another matter.

Historically, a confounding is an idea that belongs to Aristotle’s tradition.  It is stumbled upon long after Aristotle’s campus went out of business.  It is the brainchild of the Byzantine and Slavic civilizations.

0018 Here is a picture of Childe’s confounding.

0019 The upper three lines presents the neolithic thing.  Neolithic stone-tool technology [substantiates] the prehistoric human condition.  The nature of the [substance] is labeled, “technique”.

The lower two lines presents the entangled matter.  The [entanglement] is difficult to label, because its nature is.. well… a long list of material arrangements.

0020 A list of material arrangements appears in Table 1 of the article.  Even the social components of social mechanism, magico-religious sanctions and trade can be shoved under the rug labeled, “material arrangements”.

0021 As such, the “neolithic” may serve as an adjective to a noun, “revolution”, that appeals to academics sympathetic to Marxist formulations.  Yes, they are the ones who only promote academics with similar sympathies.  Also, Childe was… um… a sympathizer.

The question is not about whether prehistoric folk are “communist” or “fascist”, even though these labels may apply to this or that anthropologist of the 1930s.

The question is whether the Marxist formula applies to prehistoric folk.

0022 The answer becomes obvious, when Childe’s confounding resolves into the following hylomorphic structure.

0023 The above figure depicts a Marxist version of Aristotle’s hylomorphe, {matter [substantiates] form}.  Childe’s hylomorphe lasts for nine decades (that is, until the present day at the start of 2026).  Man makes himself through a standard Marxist formulation.  Soon, Soviet era archaeologists adopt the stance that the appearance of pottery is a hallmark of neolithic emergence.  Pottery is a material arrangement.  The emergence of the neolithic is a human condition.

01/1/26

Looking at Melinda A. Zeder’s Article (2025) “Unpacking the Neolithic” (Part 4 of 4)

0056 Okay, I will continue drinking my cocktail in the following exposition.

I regard the last two figures, along with the figures that appear in the article under examination.

0057 There is something in B that suggests two bauplans3.  Early Neolithic Bauplan 1 marks the terminus of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Late Neolithic Bauplan 2 denotes the start of our current Lebenswelt.

0058 Bauplan 1 looks like this.

The early Neolithic bauplan3 does not permit untrammeled social and labor specializations.  Rather, all social circles2m (family (5), friends (5), teams (15), bands (50), and community (150)) are optimized2f in the pursuit of the final cause of ‘settling down’1.  It is the same way that different organs and organ systems are optimized for ‘settling down’ into an individual.

Details of optimization will be specific to each location (because efficient causes differ), yet produce something ‘general’, that manifests in excavation sites as varied as Catal Hoyuk and Tepe Gobekli.  Domestication includes the local geography, plants and animals.  Domestication may even include settlements more than a day’s walk away.  Domestication may include the heavens.

0059 Once rendered in this manner, the slow, seemingly reversible, spiral into the neolithic thing2 gets depicted as thin dotted horizontal lines along the axes of arrangements versus time.

0060 The late Neolithic bauplan3 permits individual social and labor specializations.  Something significant has changed.  The key final cause of ‘settling down’ remains relevant.  However, another key final cause cannot be ignored.  The optimization of the early Neolithic somehow breaks down and the late Neolithic initiates a search for order1 that continues to this day.

0061 Here is a picture of what Bauplan 2 might look like.

0062 It is as if an individual, having been formed by a bauplan 1 gestation, gets born.

What a rude awakening.

0063 What about the timeline?

If I replace the increasing boldness of the horizontal dotted lines with a slowly rising bauplan 1 slope, and if I depict the most bold horizontal dotted lines as a bauplan 2 phase transition, then I get the following graph.

0064 What does this imply?

Obviously, bauplan 1 ends in a twist, that is, bauplan 2.

I noted this slogan at the start of my examination.

0065 Less obviously, the Neolithic revolution is not in the actuality of {material arrangements [substantiating] the neolithic condition}2. 

“The Neolithic Revolution” involves a transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.

0066 Fortunately, for the author, the American Marxist academic candle is about to exhaust itself, just as the Soviet Marxist illumination did decades ago.

Yes, the crisis begins.

0067 The impending change of cognitive grounds will be at least as great as the following transition from Karl Marx (1818-1883) to Juri Lotman (1922-1993).  This transition goes sigmoidal in 1989.

0068 The following hylomorphic transition is derived in Razie Mah’s blog for December 2025, titled Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”.  

0069 Marx’s actuality2 is supposed to arise from the potential of scientific models1, even though the actuality2 served as doctrine, rather than a mechanical or mathematical formulation.  Remember, Marx’s actuality2 conforms to the structure of Peirce’s secondness.  Secondness is the realm of actuality.  How easy is it to confuse this actuality with the realness of a mechanical or mathematical model?  Yet, they are not the same.

0070 Lotman’s actuality2 arises from the potential of the semiosphere1, the universe of sign-relations.  Semiotic arrangements are not the same as material arrangements.  They are not even close.

0071 So, what am I saying?

The author senses that ‘something’ is coming and she figures out that it must concern a bauplan.

After all, bauplan is a term that is familiar to evolutionary biologists.

0072 Happily, the semiotician, Razie Mah, has already explored human evolution from the point of view of Peirce’s categories.  The human bauplan is an adaptation to the niche (or the potential) of triadic relations.   Plus, human evolution comes with a twist.

Here is a list of works by Razie Mah that pertain to Bauplan 1 and Bauplan 2.

0073 Surely, this is a lot to unpack.  But, that is precisely what Melinda Zeder’s article calls for.

My thanks to the author for publishing this thought piece.

Happy New Year.

12/31/25

Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics” (Part 1 of 27)

0001 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (44(3) (2016) pages 368-401) by two professors, Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin, hailing from Tallinn University in Estonia.  The title is “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”. The subtitle is “A transnational perspective”.

0002 The abstract promises to situate the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics of the 1960s through 1980s.  The article delivers more than promised.

How so?

0003 The authors sketch dynamic developments among intellectual circles within the (now former) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

0004 The term, “transnational”, indicates that there are nations within the former Soviet Union.

During this period in history, the governments of Estonia and Russia (along with Czechoslovakia and Poland) owe fealty to an empire with the title, “Socialist”, in its name.

So, “transnational” tells me that the article looks back from the present, into a past era, with the intent of portraying ‘something’ historical, without acknowledging that the “Union” and the “Socialist” descriptors no longer apply (at least, not in the way that they once did).

0005 “Transnational” applies to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, 1918-1989) as well as the upcoming… um… Eurasian convergence?

Here is a picture with three city-sites.  Tartu and Moscow belong to the title.  Tallinn is the location where the authors write their article.  The blue is the Baltic Sea.

0006 “Transnational” steps over the boundaries depicted in black in the above figure.

Never mind the fact that the above territories reside behind, what American pundits once called, “the Iron Curtain”.

0007 Perhaps, one must appreciate an ambiguity to the term, “transnational”, given that there is another transit.  This transit is in time.  Or, even better, this transit is across a boundary between battles among Enlightenment gods.

Consider where the time period of 1960s to 1980s resides in the following timeline of Western civilization in the twentieth century.

Also consider the year when the article under examination is published.

Notice the boundary.

0008 The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiology constellates within one battle, as a transnational collaboration.

The TMS is remembered during another battle, which is not resolved, and so cannot be objectified as “historical”.  I suppose that it can be objectified as “cultural”.  Better yet, “theodramatic”.

Already, there is more to this article than meets the eye.

11/29/25

Looking at Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) “Adam and the Genome” (Part 1 of 22)

0001 This essay comments on a 2017 book by biologist, Dennis Venema, and theologian, Scot McKnight.  The title is Adam and the Genome: Reading Scripture after Genetic Science. The publisher is Brasos Press in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The book consists of two equal parts.  The geneticist shows that Adam and Eve cannot be a single pair who founded the human species.  The theologian wrestles with how to read Genesis in light of modern archaeology.

0002 My goal is to supplement these arguments in two ways.  I will re-articulate ideas about evolutionary biology using the specialized language of the category-based nested form.  I will present a scientific hypothesis that re-images the Adam and Eve stories as ancient Near Eastern fairy tales.

Perhaps, at the end of these comments, I can declare, “The old historical Adam is dead.  Long live the new historical Adam.”

0003 Before I begin, I attend to some housekeeping items.

‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

Suggested readings include Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form (#1), Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (#2), and the chapter on message in How to Define the Word “Religion”.  These works, by Razie Mah, are available at smashwords and other e-book venues, along with the compilation of this blog, titled, Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome.

0004 In order to see where many evangelicals are coming from, consult the September 2010 issue of Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith.  This particular journal of the American Scientific Affiliation presents a snapshot of some of the difficulties posed by the early chapters of Genesis.

0005 The 2017 book, Adam and the Genome: Reading Scripture after Genetic Science, addresses one conundrum with a simple admission: Adam and Eve cannot be the progenitors of all humans, as proposed by Saint Augustine, 1600 years ago.  The admission rebukes Christians striving to locate the primal couple in a genetic bottleneck event between 50 and 150 thousand years ago.

0005 Unfortunately, their solution provides little defense for Christian doctrine. Big government (il)liberals (BGilLs) claim that evolution disproves the second creation story in Genesis, just like the mercantilists, fascists and communists before them.  BGiLs also insist that the Bible is the stuff of myths.

0006 Evangelical communities continue to bleed students.

Why?

Original Sin.

Christians think it describes the human condition.

BGilLs do not.

0007 Christians believe that humans are disoriented.  Jesus provides orientation.  Jesus is the way.

For BGilLs, the human condition is perfectible through a never-ending revolution by an administrative state.  The human condition may be fulfilled by knowing one’s self.  Or, is it – constructing – one’s self?

With Original Sin, we are actors in a theodrama that transcends critical theory.  Indeed, critical theory may typify the corruption of Original Sin.

Without Original Sin, we are foolish players strutting on the world’s stage, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  So why not accept the ministrations of a totalitarian government?  Why not construct oneself?

07/31/25

Looking at Hugh Ross’s Book (2023) “Rescuing Inerrancy” (Part 1 of 25)

0001 The full title of the book before me is Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense (2023, Reasons To Believe Press, Covina California).  The author, Hugh Ross, is an excellent writer and a Christian scientist.  The qualifier is crucial here, because biblical inerrancy is mysteriously conjunct the modern construct of scientific inerrancy.  “Conjunct” means “stuck with”.

0002 The book has both a greek and a semitic architecture.  As noted in The Instructor’s Guide to An Archaeology of the Fall (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the two literary styles represent different types of recognition.

The greek argument presents a variety of opinions, weeds out the inadequate ones, then proclaims the one left standing, the winner.  One might call it “linear thinking”.  The greek style dominates the second half of the book (chapters 12 through 20), concluding with the proposal of a “model approach”.

The semitic style presents various rhetorical tricks, aiming to induce the reader to recognize a possibility.  Am I saying that the Bible is full of rhetorical tricks?  I suggest the reader look at the appendix of Ross’s book on that one.  Or, consider the Genesis use of the word, “day”, in the Creation Story.  The word leads to a flight of fancy, so to speak, asking the reader to recognize that the reported events are themselves, a flight of… what?… not of fancies, but of revelations… or significations… that become more and more esoteric (or hidden) even as they appear more and more exoteric (or obvious).

0003 What about Adam and Eve, fashioned from dust and rib, respectively?

Oh, they end up getting fooled by a talking snake.

0004 Christians are fine following the exoteric lessons and scratching their heads about some of the esoteric implications.

The problem is that Christians are stuck with the sciences.  Conjunct!  Science is all about truncated material and efficient causalities.  Truncated?  Scientific causalities are shorn of formal and final causation.  Formal and final causes are metaphysical (a step beyond physics) because they concern triadic relations.  It is like being able to account for all the motions (the truncated material and efficient causes) of a mechanical clock without acknowledging that the clock has a design (formal cause) and purpose (final cause)

And, the purpose has ‘something’ to do with us!

0005 The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.

So Christians are conjunct with a positivist intellect who has no idea that the purpose of the Genesis text may have something to do with us, right now, not as we once were at some time in the not-so-distant past.  The positivist intellect cannot consider that the first chapter of Genesis may be like a clock or whatever mechanical analogy one wants to use.  Is it a story designed to set the “time”?  The time of what?

Truncated material and efficient causalities cannot ideate what Christians observe (and sort of… measure, in the sense of “weighing”) in Scripture.  Christians struggle to discern what the early chapters of Genesis could possibly reveal.  Plus, those possibilities are not obvious at all.  Even a plain reading of these stories tells the inquirer, “A plain reading of this text is not enough.”

0006 The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics, published in 1982, says as much.  Ross lists the relevant articles in chapter three.

For example, in article eighteen, the convening theologians confirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatical and historical exegesis, so that Scripture is used to interpret Scripture.  Then, they reject the legitimacy of various modern quests, including postulating extra-Biblical civilizational sources, relativizing the text by comparing it to evolutionary science, demonstrating that the accounts are not “historical” in the modern sense of the word, and rejecting the Bible’s claims to authorship.

Here is a picture.

0007 I ask, “Are these theologians affirming that Genesis 1-11 confronts the reader with the possibility of ‘something’, and that ‘something’ is not obvious from a plain reading of the text?”

They say, “Look at the grammar.  Look at what the stories are saying in regards to history, in the widest sense of the term.”

0008 I ask, “Are these theologians denying that Genesis 1-11 can be assessed, compared to, and explained by scientific empirio-schematic inquiry?”

It sure looks that way.

And, that is a problem in a civilization where science appears triumphant.

07/1/25

Looking at Hugh Ross’s Book (2023) “Rescuing Inerrancy” (Part 25 of 25)

0211 This examination adds value to Ross’s project in five ways.

First, it introduces a history that encompasses the modern conundrum presented in this text.

Hugh Ross and the Reasons To Believe Team are actors in a theodrama that is at least 800 years old.

Plus, that theodrama is about to undergo a pivot that is captured in the following figure.

0212 Yes, the redemption2c offered by the party that exalts grace3c over nature3c and the protocols2c offered by the party that exalts nature3c over grace3c, are now entangled because, on the content level, the Creation Story is a sign of the evolutionary record and the Primeval History is an insider’s view of the start of our current Lebenswelt.

0212 Second, this examination offers a semiotic way to view what Ross is trying to articulate.  Theologians should be interested in sign-relations.  Scientists take sign-relations for granted.  Ross’s book is titled as if a scientific defense will rescue Biblical inerrancy.  This makes no sense unless its taken from a semiotic point of view.  Inerrancy draws the Bible, especially Genesis 1-11, into hitherto unimagined triadic relations with scientific inquiry.  The empirio-schematics of artistic concordism and the first singularity are variations of what ought to be for the Positivist’s judgment.

When, you think about it, signs tend to share certain characteristics with the term, “inerrancy”.  Every sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object in regards to its sign-interpretant.  Even if the interpretant is camouflage, the sign-relation purports to be flawless and honest in its own way.  Indeed, all signs are “inerrant” in the eyes of God.

0213 Third, this examination offers a way of appreciating how Ross’s efforts aesthetically derive from the Positivist’s and the empirio-schematic judgments.  Indeed, Ross’s project towers head and shoulder above other projects in the Venn diagram of science and religion because his aesthetics are one step away from the ways that scientists operate.

0214 Fourth, this examination offers a slightly different version of concordism than Ross.  Mah’s artistic version may assist Ross’s moderate version in future research.  In particular, I pray for a science book on the Earth’s evolutionary history to accompany Exercises in Artistic Concordism.  Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Fifth, this examination offers a wonderful endpoint, in the form of a label for the single actuality implied by the intersection of redemption2c and protocols2c.  The early scholastics knew this label well.   And now, perhaps, the following dyad will be born again.

0215 My thanks to Hugh Ross and this team at Reasons To Believe for publishing a book worthy of examination.

06/30/25

Looking at George Mikhailovsky’s Chapter (2024) “Meanings, Their Hierarchy, and Evolution” (Part 1 of 9)

1053 The text before me is chapter six of Pathways (see point 831 for book details, pages 101 through 136).  The author is one of the editors of Pathways.

1054 To me, the abstract introduces evolution writ large.

The abstract suggests that the interventional sign-relation precedes semiotic agency, as far as evolution writ large goes.  Evolution writ large includes the evolution of the inanimate universe along with the evolution of life.

1055 Before life, inanimate objects manifest only as meanings-in-themselves.  An evolving macroscopic thing may be labeled an “eventity”, which seems like a real initiating (semiotic) event2a (SVs) or an action that could be goal-directed2c (SVi).

Surely, some eventities rely on lower-level entities.  But, what about agency and subagency?

With non-human life, hierarchies of sub-agents3 operate within each living agent3 (or “holobiont”).

With human life, persons3, who are holobionts in terms of anatomy and physiology, operate as subagents within… what?… social circles?

1056 The introduction (section 6.1) starts with an observation.  The term, “meaning” is typically used in three situations.

Here is the list along with associated sign-elements.

1057 This coincidence is remarkable.  At the very start of the introduction, the author offers situational instances of “meaning” that correlate to the three sign-objects intrinsic to a three-level interscope.

The author then writes that he is interested in the first two types (the ones associated with semiotic agency) but not so much the third type (the one associated with the interventional sign relation), because this one is already well-developed in linguistic semiotics.

1058 But, there is another coincidence to note.

Recall that Peirce’s typology of natural signs is based on the categorical qualities of the sign-object.

The icon is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on the qualities of firstness, including images, pictures, unities, wholes.  The logic of firstness is inclusive and allows contradictions.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of similarity or imagery.

The index is a sign-relation whose sign object is based on the qualities of secondness, including contact, contiguity, pointing, influence, cause and effect and so on.  The logic of secondness includes the law of noncontradiction.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of indication and pointing.

The symbol is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on the qualities of thirdness, including normal context, mediation, judgment, habit, tradition and so on.  The logics of thirdness are exclusion, complement and alignment.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of convention.

1059 Since all sign-objects belong to secondness, I can assign Peirce’s typologies on the basis of the category of the level in a three-level interscope.  Icon goes with the level of content.  Index associates the situation level.  Symbolmatches the perspective level.

1060 Here is a list of associations.

1061 I ask, “How well do the two coincidences correspond?

1062 I start with thirdness, an exemplar sign is a symbol whose sign-object, SOe, denotes a goal2c on the perspective level.  The sign-object has the qualities of both acquired habit and innate disposition.  So, the assignment of symbolworks.

1063 For secondness, a specifying sign is an index whose sign-object, SOs, denotes a symptom2b on the situation level. I suppose that corresponds to information2b.  A symptom2b virtually situates its phenomenon2a in the same way that information3b virtually situates an initiating (semiotic) event2a.  The sign-object holds the qualities of indication and pointing.  So, the assignment of index works.

1064 For firstness, an interventional sign is an icon whose sign object, SOi, denotes something that is indicated or expressed in spoken words or symbols2a on the content level.  Does that correspond to intention expressed2a (SOi)?  Or, better yet, does that correspond to an image of intention expressed2a (SOi) that is contiguous with a real initiating event2a (SVs) in the dyadic content-level actuality2a?

Is the third situation for “meaning” an image that is indicated or expressed in spoken words and symbols.

Imagine that!

‘Something’ is an image.

06/20/25

Looking at George Mikhailovsky’s Chapter (2024) “Meanings, Their Hierarchy, and Evolution” (Part 9 of 9)

1137 The material that I cover in my portrayal of C1 and C2 using Frege’s triangle goes with section 6.3, titled “Potential Meanings During the Abiotic Period of the Evolution of the Universe”.

Here is a picture.

C4 (is missing because it) covers the genesis of atoms with masses greater than helium.  Technically, C4 follows C5, as written above.  Why?  Atoms with masses greater than helium are produced by nuclear fusion in stars.  The story bifurcates from the cosmic sequence to the substance sequence.  The substance sequence starts with atoms with masses greater than helium and proceeds through the emergence of life.

1138 The Frege triangles for C1 and C2 are easy compared to what follows in section 6.4 (“Evolution of Meanings in Biological Systems”) and 6.5 (“The Evolution of Meanings in Human Societies and the Relationship between Hierarchies of Substance (that is, biology) and Semantics (that is, within our current Lebenswelt)”).

Nevertheless, my exercises demonstrate the utility of Frege’s triangle in the extension of the biosemiotic interscope into all aspects of postmodern inquiry, including into abiotic noumena, the domains of physics and chemistry.

1139 There are many threads to follow in this demonstration.

The first thread is obvious.  Can this be done for all noumena listed in Table 6.2?

The answer is yes.  Once one starts a spiral, other spirals follow, and they diverge, and they coalesce, and who knows what else.

1140 The starting point of the author’s cosmos chain (C1) is obviously the Big Bang.

But, one can say that other starting points can be imagined, hence theories of the multiverse.  The multiverse consists of many universes, each with different energy, space, natural laws and constants.  Physicists can simulate these many “universes”.  Hollywood movie makers can fashion plotlines from the conceptc.  It is all very theatrical, including the name for the start of our own universe, “the first singularity”.

1141 The starting point of the author’s substantial chain (S1) is atoms, made in stellar furnaces because (up to the atomic configuration of iron) fusing atoms releases a tremendous amount of energy, enough to keep a star from falling in on itself from gravity.

Anyone who has cracked a chemistry textbook knows that there is no “first singularity” to be found in this discipline.  One can imagine that each element in the periodic table constitutes its own singularity.  Spirals diverge and coalesce in the most fantastic ways, so there is no telling which molecules are the precursors to life and which are not.

1142 This is where Frege’s terms complement Peirce’s.

Frege’s terms serve as spoken labels.  Labels are used for symbolic operations.  Symbolic operations undergird grammar (that is, language).  So, Frege’s terms point to the somewhat disturbing intimation that speech-alone talk (or a theoretical equivalent) is intercalated into semiotic agency and, by way of bridging, to significance that is outside of semiotic agency (that is, the interventional sign-relation).

Here is a picture.

1143 Peirce’s terms also serve as spoken labels.  These labels apply to the contiguities between real elements in the actualities of all interscopes.  These labels apply to something like [substance], in a contiguity between something like matter and something like form.  To a greater or lesser extent, all dyads in Peirce’s secondness pay tribute to Aristotle’s hylomorphe as an exemplar.

1144 The biosemiotic interscope reifies into the biosemiotic noumenal overlay, including both semiotic agency and the interventional sign-relation.

This chapter presents an impossible challenge.  Spirals (or hierarchies) go back to the first singularity, thirteen billion years ago.  Each spiral brings the inquirer to a new level.  Some spirals write small, others write large, but they all begin … for us … with a clot.  A pen touches paper, then moves to portray a diagram, a purely relational structure, portraying what all living things have in common.

1145 This examination recites all that has gone before.

This examination is a refutation to those who think that modern science knows enough to weave these spirals into a vision of our universe, as well as of us, the images of the one who speaks the universe into being.

1146 I say, “Diagram spirals!”

Perhaps, the author agrees and anticipates that Frege’s triangles will reveal a hierarchy… or is it?… a spirality that portrays meanings and their evolution.

06/19/25

Looking at Lorenzo Magnani’s Chapter (2024) “Anchors of Meaning” (Part 1 of 7)

1147 The text before me is chapter eighteen of Pathways (see point 831 for book details, pages 379-400).  The full chapter title is “Anchors of Meaning: The Intertwining of Signs, Abduction and Cognitive Niches”.  This chapter opens Part IV of Pathways.  The title of Part IV is “Meanings in Humans and Beyond”.  

1148 The author belongs to the Philosophy Section of the Department of Humanities at the University of Pavia, Italy.  He has a scientific affiliation as well, being a member of the Computational Philosophical Laboratory.

1149 The abstract tells a story that mirrors this examination (so far).  Biosemiotics is not only semiotic agency.  Biosemiotics encompasses semiotic agency and the interventional sign relation.  The two are bridged through the contiguities of [conceptc] and [symbola].

Human brains thrive on semiosis.  The brain generates a series of signs (specifying and exemplar) that latch onto an apparently external sign-relation (interventional) with the two contiguities of [conceptc] and [symbola].

1150 Or, should I use the word, “anchors”?

Here is the picture of the [conceptc] and the [symbola] as corners that anchor Frege’s triangle. 

[Conceptc] is the contiguity within the perspective-level actuality2c of a goal2c.

A banner wraps around the interventional sign-relation.

[Symbola] is the contiguity within the content-level actuality2a of a real initiating (semiotic) event2a.

1151 In section 18.1 (“Humans as Ecological Engineers and Chance Selectors”), the real initiating (semiotic) event2aencompasses innately anticipated systems of differences.  For, example, the infant expects to interact with persons.  Each person has his or her own face.  It’s like a system of differences (Saussure’s view) or a symbolic order (Peirce’s approach).

The family is one of the smallest social circles of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Since roles are re-enacted generation after generation within this social circle, one might think that the each person2a images an appropriate role2c.  This happens at first…

…and one sees it when an infant gets separated from its mother.

That tyke is not taking any chances.

1152 The child is born with innate expectations of the smallest social circle (SOe) [and that means] family (SVi).

Does this look like Frege’s corner 2c?

1153 If so, then the interventional sign-relation, which stands outside every agent in the family, yet is the reality in which each agent participates, follows.

Family members2c (SVi) stand for their particular social roles2a (SOi) in regards to (a normal context like) what is happening3a operating on (a possibility like) the potential of ‘something’ happening1a (SIi).

1154 Here is a diagram of the interventional sign-relation for a newborn.

1155 Is this cultural-niche construction?

If so, then who or what is constructing this niche?  Or does the niche construct itself because it exploits an opportunitythat arises from the independent actuality of sign-relations?  Just like a bat exploits acoustics to echo-locate, humans exploit sign-relations to abduct who mommy must be.

Sign-relations are immaterial beings that entangle the material.  The materiality of the family members2c (SVi) signify the manifestation of ‘home’2a (the immaterial manifestation of family belonging, SOi) in regards to the normal context of the birth of an infant3a operating on the potential of ‘a successful birth’1a (SIi).

06/12/25

Looking at Lorenzo Magnani’s Chapter (2024) “Anchors of Meaning” (Part 7 of 7)

1216 This lion-man ivory is valuable.

Why?

1217 He is an agent, with a disembodied mind.

The other agent, the human, practices hand-speech talk, and occasionally is faced with moments when consultation may be advisable.  The community faces difficulties.  What are we to do?

Let the community-leader ask the lion-man.

1218 The Neanderthal cannot do this, because Neanderthals only practice hand-talk.

The humans practice hand-speech talk.  The ivory figure cannot hand talk.  So, the lion-man must speak.

1219 At this point, I enter the terrain of a precocious book, proposing that modern consciousness rises from the ashes of the breakdown of whatever is going on when the Paleolithic community-leader is speaking to lion-man, or rather, hearing the disembodied voice of lion-man.  The book is The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind(1976), by Princeton psychologist and psychohistorian, Julian Jaynes (1920-1997).

1220 The lion-man speaks in an interventional sign-relation.

Here is a picture.

Today, lion-man would be an app on an i-phone.

1221 This example brings this examiner through section 18.5 (“Material Anchors for Conceptual Blends”) and into section 18.6 (“Conclusion”).

1222 I rest my pen.

My thanks to the author, Lorenzo Magnani, and his team at the Computational Philosophy Laboratory.  May they find a way to portray the semiotics of a world that does not compute, otherwise labeled, the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.