0389 The book before me published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The question? What makes humans unique? The approach is scientific. Humans think differently than great apes, their closest biological kin. One way to understand that difference is to observe and measure the cognitive capacities of human newborns and infants, as well as the cognitive abilities of adult great apes.
This book belongs to a decades-long arc of inquiry by the author. During much of this time, Michael Tomasello serves as co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. I cover two decades in my examinations. Here is the fourth book in the list.
0390 What has this semiotician found so far?
First, from the very start of his journey, the content-level of Tomasello’s vision corresponds to the situation-level of Razie Mah’s hypothesis. The ultimate human niche consists of the potential of triadic relations.
Razie Mah’s hypothesis applies the two-level interscope for Darwin’s paradigm to human evolution.
0391 First, the general Darwinian paradigm looks like this.
0392 In The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), Razie Mah proposes that the ultimate human niche1b is the potential of triadic relations.
Tomasello’s hypothesis that joint attention2b and shared intentionality2b are behavioral and cognitive adaptations to the niche of sociogenesis1b reconfigures the situation-level of Darwin’s paradigm, resulting in what I call the “Tomasello-Mah synthesis”.
0393 Yes, fortune turns her wheel. Tomasello does not know Mah’s hypothesis. Tomasello’s arc of inquiry is underway in 1999. Mah’s hypothesis first appears online in 2018. So, Tomasello configures his insight, corresponding to the situation-level of the Darwinian paradigm, as the content-level of his vision.
Tomasello’s vision offers a way to bring a phenotype (of human ontogeny2c’) into relation with a foundational adaptation (of joint attention2a’). But, according to Mah, phenotype and adaptation are two independent fields of evolutionary inquiry. One does not situate or contextualize the other. Rather, the two intersect.
Consequently, Tomasello’s vision resolves the internal contradictions of the intersection of genetics and natural history,by assigning the phenotype to the category of thirdness and the adaptation to the category of firstness, while maintaining the actuality of both.
0394 Here is a picture of Tomasello’s vision.
0395 Of course, this examination appears precisely 25 years after Tomasello’s vision is cast in 1999 AD.
His vision is maintained throughout his arc of inquiry.
Consequently, his conclusions carry an awkward emptiness. The emptiness compares to the basement of a house. The basement is dark, cool, foundational and ignored, until of course, one must seek refuge in a storm.
0396 The previous examinations of Tomasello’s works demonstrate that the house, the abode of his vision, is furnished with morality.
Tomasello can ignore the basement, haunted by immaterial beings called, “triadic relations”. Yet, in that place, where a family might store potatoes, onions, smoked meat, along with luggage and Christmas ornaments, dwells something that Tomasello may safely ignore. I call that ghost, “religion”.
0588 The Tomasello-Mah synthesis shows the ghost in the basement of the house of Tomasello’s vision.
Indeed, as this version of Darwin’s paradigm begins to haunt the entire edifice of human evolution, then Tabaczek’s housebecomes more than a house with a basement. If sociogenesis1b is the potential1b of triadic relations2a, then Tomasello’s arc of inquiry may be re-articulated using triadic relations.
0589 For example, Razie Mah’s Primer on Sensible and Social Construction may be used to re-label the eras of individual, joint and collective intentionality. Individual construction associates to the category-based nested form. Sensible construction associates to the two-level interscope, containing content and situation levels. Social construction associates to the three-level interscope, containing content, situation and perspective levels.
Here is a list of what that might look like.
0590 To continue, the re-labeled eras may be regarded in terms of the evolution of talk.
The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.
0592 Next, I would like to focus attention on the era of collective intentionality.
Here is a list depicting the timeframe.
0593 Before the era of collective intentionality, hand talk is confined team activities. Hand talk produces sensible constructions. Each team develops its own way of hand talking.
After the domestication of fire, team-tradition hand talk starts to be used generally, eventually producing fully linguistic hand talk.
The situation is very dynamic. Since cooking with fire increases the number of teams, fully linguistic hand-talk is re-appropriated for specialized use in more and more teams. Fully linguistic hand-talk influences all social circles. In some of these circles, grammatically correct, yet apparently nonsensible statements, generate social constructions that open new cognitive spaces. These novel cognitive spaces become sites for more sensible construction.
0594 The voice comes into play during community meetings (150), seasonal mega-band round-ups (500) and special occasion tribal pow-wows (1500). The voice is used for synchronization. Song brings a large gathering of hominins into synchronization. Once this cultural habit starts, then singing joins other traits in sexual selection. The voice comes under voluntary control.
0595 Most likely, the early speciations of late Homo erectus produced species that could sing and hand-talk. But, they could not speak.
Speech is added to hand-talk with Homo sapiens. Anatomically modern humans practice a dual-mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for the next two hundred-thousand years.
0596 Hand-speech talk would still be practiced by anatomically modern humans today, were it not for the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. The hypothesis of the first singularity proposes that the Ubaid is the first culture on Earth to practice speech-alone talk.
Here is a picture of the era of social construction.
0598 Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.
This brings me to the limit of Tomasello’s vision. I open the door, and step out into the realization that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. I step into the vision of Razie Mah.
0599 The arc of Tomasello’s inquiry, spanning from 1999 to 2016, opens onto three masterworks by Razie Mah. These electronic books are available at smashwords and other e-work venues. This examination relies primarily on The Human Niche, along with books contained in the series, A Course on The Human Niche. A related series is titled, Buttressing the Human Niche.
Here is a list of Mah’s masterworks.
Still, there is more.
A Commentary on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) is available at smashwords and other e-book venues. This commentary includes Mah’s blogs for January, February and March, 2024, along with an examination of Becoming Human (2019), the fifth book in a sequence of five books.
0600 My thanks to Michael Tomasello, who writes the books under examination while Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, for conducting a scientific inquiry, from which I have examined only several works.
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?
0072 Chapter five is titled, “Linguistic Construction and Event Cognition”. The perspective-level linguistic communication2c participates in ongoing events2a.
Tomasello claims that joint attention is the key adaptation from which subsequent adaptations proceed. Surely, the three-level interscope depicted above does not contradict this claim.
After all, the evolution of joint attention should precede the evolution of linguistic communication.
0073 However, there is a disjunction, because great apes show few (if any) tendencies that may be characterized by joint attention. Even the occasional monkey hunt by chimpanzees is best characterized by several individuals deciding to pursue the same thing at the same time. The monkey-prey is the focus of attention, but the attention is disjointed, not really coordinated.
So, there must be a period before the evolution of joint attention, where individual intentionality reigns, even when group action takes place.
0074 So, when are these eras happening?
Tomasello wants to place the evolution of joint attention before the time of Homo heidelbergensis, who appears in the fossil record between 800 and 400kyr (thousands of years ago).
To me, this makes sense only so far as this.
Homo heidelbergensis leaves traces of cultural behavior in the archeological record.
To me, such traces indicate that these hominins are in the subsequent build-on era.
So, Tomasello’s timeline may require clarification.
0075 Okay, now that I am nitpicking, I must ask, “Is there a problem with making joint attention2athe foundation of an evolutionary theory?”
Allow me to return to Tomasello’s vision.
0076 According to Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), adaptation2 and phenotype2 belong to two independent scientific disciplines: natural history and genetics. Since both belong to situation-level nested forms that rely on different potentials, one cannot situate or contextualize the other. However, this is precisely what occurs in Tomasello’s vision.
Of course, Tomasello’s vision remains a breakthrough in the framework of modern science. At least, the phenotype does not correspond to the adaptation. Instead, the phenotype2c puts culture2b into perspective. Then, culture2b virtually situates the adaptation of joint attention2a.
Yes, to repeat, the phenotype2c does not directly situate the adaptation2a. Tomasello’s vision leads upwards from joint attention2a to human culture2b and then to human cognitive development2c. Cognitive development2c puts culture2b into perspective, just as culture2b virtually situates joint attention2a.
Tomasello’s vision is truly remarkable.
0077 And, it is difficult to achieve.
This book is the start of a twenty year journey.
0078 As noted in points 0055 through 0058, the last few chapters cover the cultural (situation) and ontogenetic (perspective) levels of Tomasello’s vision. As far as I can see, these chapters labor to show how human ontogeny2c (the scientific study of human development) virtually contextualizes human culture2b (a somewhat vaguely defined term that refers to all situations where joint attention2a pertains). In the process, Tomasello must also explain how human culture2b, especially spoken language and symbolic representation, virtually emerges from and situates joint attention2a.
How ambitious is that?
0079 Here a picture of the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality (the vertical column in secondness in Tomasello’s vision, portrayed as a nested form).
The normal context of the behavior of newborns and infants2c virtually brings the actuality of spoken language and symbolic representation2binto the potential of a foundational adaptation2a.
0080 Yes, this is very ambitious, and the final three chapters of this book strain to meet the challenge. They should be read with this in mind. The last three chapters are well composed. Tomasello is an excellent writer. He is very organized. But, his exposition is like lifting a two-hundred pound octopus out of the water. As soon as one arm is lifted, a different one slides back into the murk.
0081 Plus, there is the lingering issue of natural history.
Here is a picture with Tomasello’s guesses.
Tomasello makes two associations that make no sense at all, when considering joint attention2b as an adaptation to sociogenesis1b in the normal context of natural selection3b. Sociogenesis1b is the human niche1b. The human niche1b is the potential1b of triadic relations2a. Consequently, the adaptation of joint attention2a should be marked in the archaeological record with the appearance of the Homo genus, around 1.8Myr (millions of years ago).
0082 With that in mind, I close this examination of the first step in Tomasello’s journey, scientifically exploring who we are. The next step is a book that expands and clarifies this first step. It is published nine years later.
0083 In 2008 AD, Michael Tomasello, then co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, publishes the work before me (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).
This book is the second marker in Tomasello’s intellectual journey. I start following his journey with Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (appearing in Razie Mah’s January 2024 blog). That is the first marker.
0084 The second marker starts as an academic presentation in 2006. His Jean Nicod Lectures, in Paris, concerns his work on great ape gestural communication, human infant gestural communication and human children’s language development. These lectures attempt to construct one coherent account of the evolution of hominin communication.
Oh, that terminology. Where Tomasello inscribes, “human”, I say, “hominin”.
0085 From my examination at the first marker, I already have a guess about Tomasello’s vision.
Here is a picture.
0086 Note that the titles of the levels have changed.
Also note that human ontogeny2c or models of child development currently built by psychologists2c, associates to phenotypes and genetics. Joint attention2a or models in evolutionary psychology concerning hominin cognition2a,associates to adaptations and natural history.
0087 Tomasello uses the word, “origins”, in his title. Does this suppose that human communication may be regarded as a phenotypic trait or as an adaptation? Or maybe, the conjunction is “and”.
In the above figure, I get the idea that the phenotype virtually contextualizes the adaptation. But, that is not really the case. The phenotype2b virtually situates a species’ or individual’s DNA2a.
Here is a diagram.
0088 Not surprisingly, this diagram in genetics has the same two-level relational structureas Darwin’s paradigm for natural history.
0089 What does this imply?
A mystery stands at the heart of evolutionary biology.
The adaptation is not the same as the phenotype.
Yet, together, they constitute a single actuality, which may be labeled a genus, a species or an individual.
Two category-based nested forms intersect in the realm of actuality. It is like two streets that meet. The intersection is constituted by both streets. As far as traffic goes, intersections are sites of dangerous contradictions. Traffic from one street should not collide with traffic from the other street. I suppose that the intersection of adaptation and phenotypecarries irreconcilable contradictions as well.
0090 Perhaps, Tomasello’s vision may be resolved by considering both joint attention2a and human ontogeny2c as adaptations, even though the latter is technically, phenotypic.
I suggest this because selection is the normal context for all three levels in Tomasello’s vision. Since natural selection goes with adaptation, the vision is one of natural history.
0091 That implies that the potentials for all three levels are like niches.
Human ontogeny2c is an adaptation that emerges from and situates the potential of human culture2b, where human culture2b is like an actuality independent of the adapting species of individuals undergoing development3c.
Human culture2b is like an adaptation that emerges from and situates the potential of joint attention2a, where joint attention2a is like an actuality independent of the adapting ways of doing things3b.
Joint attention2a is like an adaptation that emerges from and situates sociogenesis1a, where sociogenesis1a is the potential of… what?… I have run out of actualities independent of the adapting species.
0092 Here is where the foundational Tomasello-Mah synthesis enters the picture.
Ah, so here is a problem.
Tomasello’s vision of the origins of human communication conceals the actuality underlying sociogenesis1a, the potential1a giving rise to joint attention2a. The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.
0093 What about the subscripts in the preceding paragraph?
They belong to Tomasello’s vision.
0094 This subscript business can be confusing.
To me, the concealment in Tomasello’s vision is not necessarily a drawback. Rather, it presents an opportunity to re-articulate Tomasello’s arc of inquiry using the category-based nested form and other triadic relations.
0095 In the prior series of blogs, examining a book published in 1999, I introduced an interscope for the way humans think that derives from work by medieval schoolmen, the so-called “scholastics” of the Latin Age.
Here is a picture of the scholastic version of how humans think, packaged as a three level interscope.
0001 The actual title of this blog is Looking at Avoiding Babylon’s 2023 Year in Review Podcast.
0002 One avenue to the podcast is https://spiritustv.com@avoidingbabylon.
At the moment of this writing, these comedic, yet earnest, podcasters are also on youtube and rumble.
0003 The current title employs an Arthurian legend riff, because, if anything, the four interlocutors in this video elaborate a sign-relation specifying what Pope Francis, seemingly simultaneously pope and poseur, means to each one. The appropriate Tarot card is the Hierophant. So, that is what I will label this confluence of fallible human and political position.
0004 In general, the sign is a triadic relation where a sign-vehicle stands for a sign-object in regards to a sign-interpretant.
Here is a picture.
0005 In a specifying sign, a content-based sign-vehicle (SVs) stands for a situation-based sign object (SOs) in regards to the question of what it means to me, operating on the potential of ongoing content (SIs).
The actions of the Hierophant play a prominent role in the year-end review. These actions serve as a specifying sign-vehicle (SVs) that stands for the reviewers drinking from a chalice of unholiness (SOs) in regards to what the news events of 2023 mean to traditional Catholics (SIs).
0006 Here is a picture.
0006 Now, the members of the discussion do not quest for the grail of the unholy. Rather, they suffer it. The elixir that they reluctantly imbibe is a distillate of the rotted fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, vaporized and condensed by nefarious operators similar to those fingered in Charles Theodore Murr’s book (2022) Murder in the 33rd Degree.
0007 Razie Mah offers two snapshots of this distillate.
One is Looking at Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s Music Video (2022) “Unholy”, presented in Razie Mah’s blog on February 11, 2023, several days after the Grammy awards.
Two is Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2021) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order”,presented during July 2022, in the same blog.
This is what the talents at Avoiding Babylon taste.
0008 So, what is this distillate?
Well, the answer is obvious.
The distillate is the liquid in the grail of the unholy.
Surely, the elixir is spiritual. But, it is not the blood of Christ. Its mash is stamped from the modern grapes of alienation and resentment.
0009 At this moment, pause, and take a glance at the title of this blog. The title proposes a quest, not for the distillate, but for the grail of the unholy. The grail is the vessel, the cup, the chalice of what is unholy.
0010 Spoken words are so slippery.
Perhaps, the following articulation is more suitable.
I propose a quest for the doctrine of original sin.
0011 The doctrine of original sin is the vessel of the unholy, purchased by Christ in the transaction of all time, bringing good out of the fall of Adam and Eve.
0012 But, has not Augustine’s doctrine of original sin been disproven by modern science?
This is a very good question.
To witness one Christian author caught in the tentacles of this “has not”, consider Looking at Andrew Ter Ern Loke’s Book (2022) “The Origin of Humanity and Evolution”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog between November 30 and 1, 2023.
0013 I propose that Avoiding Babylon pose this question to their audience, in an open forum, along with the following queries. (1) Is Augustine’s doctrine of original sin still valid after modern science demonstrates that there is no genetic bottleneck, as would be expected if Adam and Eve are parents of all humans? (2) Does Augustine’s diagnosis of concupiscence still apply? (3) What about other diagnoses, such as the Protestant’s doctrine of total depravity? Do they still apply? Finally, (4) are there any alternate formulations of original sin proposed after Augustine but before the modern Age of Ideas?
0014 I suspect that the answers will be: (1) No. (2) Yes. (3) Yes, look no further than the demos-racket party members and their rino consorts beholden to the glow-baloney-ists. (4) Yes, Thomas Aquinas proposes that original sin is the deprivation of original justice.
0015 In a subsequent open forum, I propose that the audience of Avoiding Babylon riddle this question. Does Aquinas’s proposal that original sin is the deprivation of original justice apply to human evolution?
In other words, is there a twist in human evolution?
Is human evolution shaken, not stirred?
Has the living world of humanity changed?
Is the German word, “Lebenswelt”, appropriate?
What if our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
0016 Why stop there?
Can the Lebenswelt that we evolved in correspond to an era of original justice?
Can our current Lebenswelt correspond to an era of original sin?
0017 Of course, with questions like these, an open forum may descend into chaos. To date, no one seems willing to connect the dots, except for Razie Mah. That give this literary figure a certain daring. He even proposes a label for the transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.
The label is “the first singularity”.
Yes, there is an archaeology of the fall.
0018 If Aquinas’s concept of original justice applies to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, then how are we to envision this… um… Edenic existence?
Perhaps, inquirers may consider the lives of newborns, infants, toddlers and young children.
These innocent creatures did not evolve to grow up in civilization, did they?
0019 Two recent blogs by Razie Mah assist in opening the modern mind to the possibility that we evolved to be what children expect us to be, which is nothing like what we adults actually are in today’s unconstrained social complexity.
One is Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”, appearing from October 30 to 2, 2023. John Deely (1942-2017 AD) is the only postmodern semiotician buried in the cemetery adjacent to Saint Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. His last student, Brian Kemple, runs the Lyceum website and is worthy of an interview. So are the contributors to his online journal, Reality.
Two is a series of examinations of the works of Michael Tomasello, recently retired Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (and may be living near Duke University in North Carolina). These will appear from March 31 to January 4, 2024 (and will be wrapped into an e-book titled, Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), soon to be available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
0020 So, the question is, “Are these little tykes expecting us to be, who we evolved to be? And, if so, then why do we seem to fail to live up to their expectations, say nothing of our own expectations for ourselves?”
I suspect that Dr. Tomasello might want to take a swing at that hardball question.
0021 Imagine the implications of associating Aquinas’s original justice to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0022 As for our current Lebenswelt of original sin, the prior specifying sign says that Pope Francis, as a premier news maker of 2023 (SVs), stands for traditional Catholics being forced to drink elixir from the grail of the unholy (SOs) in regards to the question of what it means to believers, who are concerned about ongoing events (SIs).
0023 Of course, scientists like to call these news items, “memes”, easily transmitted virus-like units of cultural information. Today, memes are everywhere. They are incessantly broadcast. So if the Hierophant employs memes, then what is the nature of memes?
Here, Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria, to Bach and Back”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in December 2023, offers a notion that memes, bits of gossip, pithy justifications of concupiscence, demoralizing proclamations, and label-attaching accusations involve the specifying sign (as already noted) as well as the interventional sign.
0024 The interventional sign?
The interventional sign is like a mirror of the specifying sign.
In a specifying sign-relation, the content-based sign-vehicle (SVs) is picked up by the senses as a mind-independent being. The situation-based sign-object (SOs) is mind-dependent.
In an interventional sign-relation, the content-based sign-object (SOs) is available to the senses as an apparently mind-independent being, which is totally backwards from the specifying sign. The perspective-based sign-vehicle (SVi) is mind-dependent.
0025 For the interventional sign-relation, a perspective-based idea in the mind of someone (or something) (SVi) stands for what the participants sense (SOi) in regards to the content-based question, what is happening, drawing upon the possibility that ‘something’ is happening (SIi).
0026 Here is a picture for the meme at hand.
0027 Note that the sign-object of the interventional sign (SOi) is contiguous with the sign-vehicle of the specifying sign(SVs).
However, the interventional sign-relation is much more difficult to assess than the specifying sign-relation.
0028 The lesson is on display in Avoiding Babylon’s podcast of the year 2023 in review.
The Hierophant offers an elixir that tastes like poison to traditional Catholics and the interlocutors ask what is happening. They cannot figure out the potential of ‘something’ happening’ because they cannot ideate, much less imagine, that the current Hierophant is an object (SOi), called into being by an alien intelligence guiding what is happening and the potential of ‘something’ happening (SIi) in the process of implementing an alien idea, plan or judgment (SVi).
0029 Now, substitute the word, “unholy”, for “alien”.
An unholy idea (SVi) stands for this Hierophant making the news (SOi) in regards to the question of what is happening arising from the potential of ‘something’ happening (SIi).
0030 No, this does not sound like concupiscence.
This sounds like something far more deranged.
0031 Has the Yaltaboath of Modernism found its Voice?
Does the Modern Yaltaboath seek to destroy the chalice of the unholy, which has been disproven, then disregarded, but still retains its power to contain the elixir of whatever idea, plan or judgment that our unconstrained minds can conceive?
Will Avoiding Babylon conduct a quest for original sin?
Will they seek to discover the cup of the unholy capable of containing the juices of Modernism?
0001 The full title of Deely’s book is Semiotic Animal: A Postmodern Definition of “Human Being” Transcending Patriarchy and Feminism: to supersede the ancient and medieval ‘animal rationale’ along with the modern ‘res cogitans’. The book is published in 2010 by St. Augustine’s Press in South Bend, Indiana.
John Deely (1942-2017 AD) starts as a Thomist interested in Heidegger and becomes a semiotician. He becomes a really, really good promoter of the study of signs. He writes a history of philosophy from the point of view of the revelation… or, is it discovery?.. that the sign is a triadic relation. For years, he teaches at University of Saint Thomas, Houston. He retires, moves to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, home of St. Vincent’s College, then dies.
This examination is to be read in parallel with or after reading (and writing marginalia) in Deely’s book. My argument may run like a dog on a long leash, compared to Deely’s argument. But, there is reason for the analogy. Thirteen years have passed since publication and five years since Deely’s burial, and the Age of Triadic Relations continues to manifest.
Semiotics is the study of signs. A sign is a triadic relation.
0002 Chapter one considers a question that we ask ourselves.
Humans, what type of animals are they?
Chapter two addresses the answer.
0003 Modern philosophy starts (more or less) when Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD) presents a sensation, as an idea and an image where the object of experience directs a construct of the mind. Consequently, he regards humans as thinking things… or the owners of thinking things (minds)… or something like that.
In terms of Peirce’s philosophy, there are two contiguous actualities, characteristic of the category of secondness. They are an object of experience and a construct of the mind. The contiguity (which, for nomenclature, is placed in brackets) is “directs”.
Here is a picture of Descartes’ dyadic actuality. In Latin, the title is “res cogitans“.
Figure 01
0005 As already noted, this hylomorphic structure is coherent with Peirce’s category of secondness. The actuality corresponds to a sensation. Sensation exhibits a dyadic character. Sensation is like cause [and] effect or matter [substantiating] form.
There is an implicit claim that this dyad describes the way humans think.
Plus, a superior claim (not realized until Charles Peirce (1839-1914 AD) wrote about it) may be asserted. Humans think in terms of triadic relations, such a signs, mediations, judgments and category-based nested forms.
Say what?
See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0006 With the superior claim in mind, it is no surprise that when later philosophers build epistemologies upon Descartes’ foundation, they end up shifting Descartes’ terms out of secondness, the realm of actuality, and into thirdness, the realm of normal contexts, and firstness, the realm of possibility.
Here is a category-based nested form that sort of captures Kant’s epistemology.
Figure 02
The normal context of the mind3 brings the actuality of an object of experience2 into relation with the potential of a particular condition1. What is that condition? The thing itself [cannot be objectified as] what one sees, hears, smells, tastes or touches.
0007 So, the experience of the five senses2 becomes an object2 as it simultaneously is contextualized by the mind3 and arises from the potential of a particular condition1. Plus, the particular condition1 is that the object of experience cannot be the thing itself1.
It sort of like saying that my image in a mirror is not me, even though I appear to be the object of experience.
0008 Welcome to modern… philosophy?… er… science?
The Positivist’s judgment formalizes the quasi-Kantian category-based nested form by thirdly, replacing the mind3 with a positivist intellect3. The positivist intellect3 rules out metaphysics. Secondly, the object of experience2 is replaced by an empirio-schematic judgment2, where disciplinary language (relation) brings observations and measurements of phenomena (what is) into relation with mathematical or mechanical models (what ought to be). Firstly, the thing itselfand what one senses1 are replaced by Latin terms, the noumenon and its phenomena1.
Here is a diagram of the Positivist’s judgment as a category-based nested form.
Figure 03
0009 The implications of the conversion of Descartes’ dyadic formula for sensation to a modern quasi-Kantian nested form for how humans think are most curious.
It seems that the construct of the mind weaves a normal context3 and potential1, sort of like a spider spinning a web in the hope of catching a flying insect. The metaphorical flying insect, is an experience2 that immediately becomes an object2as the manifestation of the realness of the normal context3 and potential1. Plus, the object2 is inside of the observer and the thing itself1 remains (potentially) on the outside.
Similarly, for the Positivist’s judgment, the scientist weaves the normal context of the positivist intellect3 with the potential that phenomena1 may be the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon1, then waits for observations and measurements (what is) to reveal patterns that can be modeled (what ought to be) and discussed with disciplinary precision (relation between what is and what ought to be)2. One of the oldest adages in science says, “First, observe phenomena. Second, explain them.”
0010 What a curious implication.
It is almost as if the construct of the mind is looking for an actuality2 that fits its ideals. And when it does, it transforms whatever enters the realm of actuality, such as an experience2 or a measurement2, into an object2 or an empirio-schematic judgment2.
0172 Deely concludes with a sequel concerning the need to develop a semioethics.
The meeting of the two semiotic animals in the previous blog is a case study.
Surely, that brief clash of objective worlds entails ethics, however one defines the word, “ethics”.
Perhaps, the old word for “ethics” is “morality”.
0173 Deely publishes in 2010.
Thirteen years later, his postmodern definition of the human takes on new life. This examination shows how far semiotics has traveled, swirling around the stasis of a Plutonic publishing world where Cerebus guards the gates. Please throw a sop to the editors in order to publish, rather than perish. While academics guard the way to the underworld of professional success, Deely looks down from the heavens above.
And what does he say?
Humans are semiotic animals.
0174 Okay, I have to correct myself.
I don’t know whether Deely is looking down from a heavenly perch.
Surely, many will sheepishly testify to his devilish, as well as his angelic, qualities.
As a shepherd, he is always trying to lead his rag-tag flock of semioticians, explorers and Thomists. He gets so far as to impress upon every one in his flock the validity of his claim that humans are semiotic animals.
0175 Razie Mah takes that lesson to heart and asks, “If humans are semiotic animals, then how did they evolve?”
The resulting three masterworks are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
An Archaeology of the Fall appears in 2012, followed by an instructor’s guide.
How to Define the Word “Religion” appears in 2015, followed by ten primers.
The Human Niche appears in 2018, along with four commentaries.
As it turns out, no contemporary scientist takes Deely’s claim seriously. Yet, the implications are enormous. If humans are semiotic animals, then triadic relations must be key to understanding human evolution.
0176 This examination of Deely’s book takes that lesson one step further.
The specifying and exemplar signs step out from Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings as expressions of premodern scholastic insight.
The interventional sign steps out from Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols” and establishes a postmodern life of its own.
0177 Humans are semiotic animals and how we got here shines like a revelation.
0001 Daniel Estulin holds a notable resume. He is a doctor of conceptual intelligence and a foreign policy advisor to sovereign states in Latin America and Eurasia. He has authored many books, and hosted a Spanish language TV show on RT (formerly, Russia Today). The subtitle of the book is “Tectonic Processes of Global Transformation”.
This look is a teaser for a more extensive examination, Comments on Daniel Estulin’s Book (2021) “2045 Global Projects At War”, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0002 Estulin formulates the concept of global project and applies it to a number of civilizations, nations and international cabals. His approach is intuitive and relies on his considerable experience and knowledge. Estulin’s book is not structured in a manner that the reader learns a particular technique. Consequently, the above-mentioned comments add value. Perhaps, there is a method to Estulin’s approach.
0003 Certainly, the concept of global project is valuable, especially when applied, by Estulin, to the world in the present day. Estulin is so well informed that he exercises the concept without trouble. Does he want the rest of us to wield this tool without his years of experience, trials and reflection?
I don’t know.
0003 All I know is that humans tend to think in the ways of purely relational structures, often without realizing that fact. So, I read Estulin’s text with two purely relational structures in mind, the Greimas square and the category-based nested form.
I start with a Greimas square and focus on the key word of “capitalism”. A quick introduction to the Greimas square may be found in the other blog for this month (at www.raziemah.com for January 2023).
0004 Here is the result.
Figure 01
0005 The four elements are clarified by the following statements.
A is the focal term. A is also the social head. A goes with economics.
B contrasts with A. B is also the social body. B goes with politics.
C contradicts B and complements A. C is capital. Capital goes with information, intelligence and conspiracy system. Anyone who gets an investment newsletter appreciates this. The stuff of investment letters scale up when considering prices, markets and monetary policies. C is what the social head fixates on. C functions as a mind-independent being. C is what the social head thinks about.
D contrasts with C, contradicts A and complements B. D is communion. Communion (D) is the object that brings us together. Communion (D) is not a mind-independent being, even though it appears to be. It (D) is mind-dependent, in the same way that a stomach and lungs are mind dependent. We don’t just want to eat or breath. We want to eat and breathe well. Communion (D) is aesthetic, while economics (A), politics (B) and conspiracy system (C) are calculating.
