0594 On page 438, the question of translation takes a creepy turn.

What happens when the presence_1b of the language_2am of meaning_1a produces a social interaction_2bf that is obviously not substantiated by a cognition_2am that makes sense?

0595 Say what?

Uspenskij proposes the following scenario.

When I say something to you, I can take into account that you may not understand me.  You may not translate what I am saying_2af according to the same… positivist intellect_3a or meaning_1a.  As soon as I know that this is the case, I become silent, as Wittgenstein advised (after he had published a vast treatise that could not be translated into any establishment framework).

0596 Does this sound familiar?

This is not a scenario about translation between two people speaking different mother tongues.

This is a scenario about translation between two people engaging different languages_2am of meaning_1a.

0597 For example, I ask about a “tool_2af“.

This raises the semasiological question of the meaning_1a… er… language_2am that gives the term meaning_1b.

What meanings can one attach to the word, “tool_2af“?

A handyman may translate that into a question about what instruments are needed to perform the task at hand_2am.

A surveillance agent may translate that into a question about what type of weapons are you talking about?_2am.

I suspect that the handyman that the agency sent is here to conduct surveillance because he does not appear interested in getting any work done_2bm.  Instead, he seems interested in figuring out where my weapons may be hiding.

0598 I immediately stop asking questions and fall silent, following Wittgenstein’s advice.

Why?

I do not want to send the wrong message_1c.

0599 Uspenskij offers this scenario twenty-three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Is he traumatized or what?

The interviewer is unfazed.

0600 On page 439, the next question (#8) concerns how Uspenskij feels about Saussure and Peirce.

Uspenskij says that, as a linguist, he subjectively appreciates Saussure and objectively understands what he says.  As for Peirce, he is incomprehensible.

The interviewer states that one of the advantages of Peirce’s sign-relations is that they allow one to differentiate among plants, animals and humans, just like Thomas Aquinas does, following Aristotle.

Uspenskij replies (more or less), “That is bullshit.”

0601 The old man is correct.

How so?

Take a look at the ego interscope.

Does the history and the semiotics of the first iteration of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics translate into this interscope?

0602 If so, then there is more to Peirce’s categories and semiotics than icons, indexes and symbols.

So, maybe, Peirce’s tradition will fare better in the second iteration of the TMS.

0603 Meanwhile, take a look at the above figure.

If Lotman is correct, then it is inevitable that there is something untranslatable in the translation_2a that occurs in the content-level actuality_2a of the ego interscope.

If entanglement is translation, then I wonder what the semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c (SV_i) stands for.

0604 Who am I?

Am I the one who emerges from (and situates) the languages that I speak?

Or am I who I am?

0605 Clearly, the first question applies to the narrator responsible for any literary text_2bf, also known as “the author”.

Theoretically, the second question applies to the reader of any literary text_2af, eager to ascertain its meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c.

0606 These profound questions_2af stand well within the domain of the TMS, yet remain only a Venn diagram away from… how do I say it?… languages_2am that cannot be contextualized as science.

Yeah, I am talking about languages that use Aristotle’s metaphysics shamelessly.

0607 Am I pointing theologians and classical philosophers?

Here is another way to picture the interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i), its sign-object (SO_i), and the entangled specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s).

How confounding.

I suppose that it is the task of theologians and old-time philosophers to savor this type of mess.

0608 The confounding of hylomorphe and entanglement is a Russian delicacy, the fruit of the fact that there is a uninterrupted (although wildly gyrating) history that starts with Aristotle, passes to the Slavs through the missions of Saints Cyril and Methodius, and has remained, sometimes flourishing and sometimes waning.

The Soviet academics Juri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij re-discover the recipe through their excavations of Slavic civilization.

0609 And what of the future?

Aristotle’s hylomorphe of {matter [substantiates] form} is an exemplar of Charles Peirce’s category of secondness.

So is {form [entangles] matter}.

0610 So where am I (in Latin: ego) in the following loquens interscope?

This is a provocative question.

0611 This examiner sets aside the remainder of the interview under examination, in order to address a possible solution to the last question, while relying on the discipline of biosemiotics.

0612 Am I the owl whose face appears on the wings of a moth?

Am I the small bird who would prefer to eat a moth and not be eaten by a predatory owl?

Am I the moth who would prefer to not be eaten by the small bird?

0613 What am I talking about?

Biologists observe a phenomena, appearing on the top surface of the wings of certain species of moths.  Each wingdisplays a large black dot, in such a fashion that the human instantly recognizes the face of an owl.  So, by extension, must small birds, the moth’s primary predator.

0614 I associate the appearance of an owl’s eyes_2bf with a literary text_2bf, substantiated by the language of pattern recognition_2bm in the normal context of a visual system_3b operating on the potential ‘laws of recognition for an animal’s visual system’_1b.

0615 With the situation-level of the loquens interscope filled, it is easy to say that the same level contains a specifying sign-interpretant (SI_s) and sign-object (SO_s).  The specifying sign-vehicle corresponds to the content-level actuality_2a(SV_s).

0616 The question arises, “Does this make sense?”

Yes, it makes sense when the appearance of the eyes of an owl_2bf (SV_e) stands for a primary… or is it secondary?… model_2c of a looming predator_2c (SO_e) in regards to a biosemiotic language_3c based on ‘observations of the behavioral phenomena of small birds’_1c. (SI_e).

0617 Ah, that statement constitutes the exemplar sign-relation, the sign-relation where a situation-level actuality_2b is contextualized.

0618 The question again is, “Who am I?”

Am I a small bird whose ancestors have learned to immediately evade the appearance of a looming figure with two large eyes?

Or am I the human who acknowledges that small birds evade the moth when it opens its wings?

0619 Are humans supposed to know the experiences of small birds that well?

What do their cultural traditions say?

0620 This counter-intuitive example stands at the heart of the biosemiotic project, as discussed in Biosemiotics as Noumenon (Parts 1-4) by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues (as well as Razie Mah’s serial blogs from January through June, 2024).  

If the behavior is innate for small birds, then human recognition of the bird’s sign-system is also innate.

0621 In period three of human evolution, from the domestication of fire to the first singularity, cooking with fire opens opportunities for novel teams.  Some of these novel teams are highly productive, yet highly dangerous.  So, the questionof whether a young male has the correct psychological disposition for these sorts of teams arises.  The mature men who work risky teams want to know who is eligible in advance.

The community solves the problem with initiation rites.

Before the evening rite, father says to son, in hand talk.

[Point to YOU][Point to own chest][image of small bird]

Put a small bird in your heart.

0622 With this in mind, consider the interventional sign-relation between the loquens and ego interscope.

0623 The initiation rite begins after sundown.

Figures with masks dance out of the shadows and into the fire-light.  One mask has the wings of moths glued to the face, looking like an owl, but at the same time, obviously not an owl.  Two dark spots serve as eyes that obscure the eyes of the old man wearing the mask.  The figure threatens whoever stands near.

In the ceremony, it seems as if each initiate attracts a masked person from a swarm of masked figures.  The masked figures not engaged with the initiates dance and sing and entertain everyone not directly involved in the initiation, which may be a good number in a community of 150.

0624 Does the young man remember to put a small bird in his heart?

He has trained the small bird exercises of evasion.  Life in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in is not for slackers, who prefer to sip latte and type out commentaries on their computers.  Every team expresses its own martial arts.  When father speaks his ceremonial command, the son knows exactly what his body is trained to do.  He also knows other exercises, for sure.

His father says what he must.

The son either pays attention or not.

0625 When the figure with the moth-adorned mask threatens and pursues, the young man avoids and does not strike the flying predator.

The young man acts out_2bf the language of danger_2am.

The young man is a small bird_2cf.

0626 This is who we evolved to be.

0653 How is this possible?

The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics grows out of the ambition of language departments – departments on Slavic studies – to become scientific, and gain repute in the socialist regime of the USSR.  They do not fully appreciate that the mechanical philosophers of the 1600s explicitly reject Aristotle’s formal and final causes, as well as Aristotle’s hylomorphe of {matter [substance] form}.  This appreciation is further muddled by the fact that the Marxist perspective-level vision (or is it “model”?) for the derivative interscope, is the hylomorphe, {material arrangements [substantiate] human conditions}_2c.

0654 Plus, the Slavic civilization grows, and expresses itself, within an unbroken tradition with Aristotle (unlike the West, who regains Aristotle’s texts in the 1000s to 1200s, during the crusades to the eastern Mediterranean).  My guess is that Orthodox Christians are already working with the inverse of Aristotle’s hylomorphe, {form [entangles] matter}, for centuries before the modern era.  Surely, {form [entangles] matter} sounds like the stuff of angels and a God of all Creation.

0655 So, the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics builds on the semiology_3a and structuralism_3b inherent in Saussure’s tradition, while the literary texts_2bf speak for themselves.  They speak through hylomorphism and entanglement, through normal contexts and potentials, without providing labels for their language_2bm and without scientifically translating their voices into a language_2am designed to label meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c.

The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics intends to convert the literary works_2af of the Slavic civilization into models_2c, whereby the literary text_2af can entangle a positivist_3a language_2am of meaning_1a, which then virtually potentiates presence_1b and engages a message_1c.

0656 Their intention is as Slavic as the civilization that they are trying to bring into the scientific era.  Their intention may be pictured as a confounding of substance and entanglement that crosses from the fundament to the derivative (or the loquens to the ego) interscope.

Here is a picture.

0657 What a breath-taking confounding.

The literary text_2af, the thing itself, is substantiated by language_2bm as esse_ce (substantiating matter), and entangles positivist language_2am, the matter of meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c.

0658 A casual observer has difficulty fully appreciating the daring and innovation of Lotman, Uspenskij and other members of the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.  They are like scholars pulling something old and something new from their treasures.  That includes the wool that goes over the eyes of watchful authorities.

0659 Confoundings are both illuminating and treacherous.  They are not to be toyed with lightly.

The esse_ce side is well constructed, using the tools of Saussure’s linguistics and Structuralism.

The essence side is open, as it must be, because that is the way of entanglement.

0660 The derivative or ego interscope allows the inquirer to see the dangers, as well as the opportunities, faced by the TMS.

0661 On the content level, the positivist intellect of the Tartu-Moscow School _3a brings the actuality of {literary text as form_2af [entangles] a language of meaning as matter_2am} into relation with the possibility of ‘meaning’_1a.

Surely, language as matter_2bm that substantiates the form of the literary text_2bf (the Slavic mother tongue) is not the same as language as a matter_2am of meaning_1a entangled by the literary text_2af, serving as the interventional sign-object (SO_i) for an interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i), consisting of a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c.

0662 Interventional sign relation?

Am I getting ahead of myself?

Or am I walking a previously trod path?

0663 On the situation level, the normal context of culture (the stuff of cultural studies)_3b brings the dyadic actuality of {cognition_2bm [substantiates] social interactions_2bf} into relation with the possibility of ‘a presence that situates the language of meaning_2am‘.

In short, the language of meaning_2am (that is entangled by a literary text_2af as the objectification of its semiological_3astructuralist_3b model_2c) is sensibly situated by a presence_1b that makes possible the substantiation of social interactions as form_2bf by cognition as matter_2bm.

The key term in the last sentence is “sensibly”.

0664 The perspective level is potentiated by a ‘message’_1c that contextualizes the sensible construction of the situation-level actuality_2b.

0665 Notably, the perspective level actuality_2c is a site of confusion between semioticians and Marxists.

Why?

It is empty, as far as the scholars of Slavic literature in the USSR are concerned.

Does that send a message_1c?

0666 The subtitle of the article offers a clue to the confounding, “The perception of time as a semiotic problem.”

If the article was of Marxist orientation, the subtitle might say, “The perception of time as a material arrangement that substantiates the human condition”.

0667 Am I saying that the perception of time as a semiotic problem substantiates the human condition?

Absolutely not.

That would contradict Marx’s model of civilization.

0668 Meanwhile, Uspenskij precedes the introduction with two quotes.  One is from St. Augustine’s Confessions.  The other is from Blaise Pascal’s Pensees.  Both testify that time is a problem for the human condition.

0669 The article is divided into four parts: the abstract and introduction (0), after the first asterisk (1), after the second asterisk (2) and after the third asterisk (3).

0670 With the abstract and quotes (0), I know that time_2bf is the literary text as form_2bf in the fundament interscope.

Here is a picture.

0671 Well, that was easy.

Uspenskij expands his discussion from the situation-level actuality_2b outwards.

First, what are the mother tongue’s traditional references concerning time_2af?

Obviously, tenses and moods are useful for denoting the past, present and future_1b as the potential_1b upon which time as a system_3b operates.

0672 Here are my associations of the situation-level of the fundament interscope to elements within Uspenskij’s abstract and introduction.

0673 It seems that Uspenskij states the obvious.

He dwells on the content level after the third asterisk (3), where he compares time and space.  

Time goes in only one direction.  Space goes in three directions.  Well, two directions for anyone in an automobile.

So, geography, space and time can mix with one another in the potential of ‘signified [&] signifier’_1a within the normal context of Saussure’s semiology.  The potential of time_2af is ‘something like moving through space’_1a, in one direction. There is no going backwards.  But, in science fiction, even going back in time is possible.

0674 Saussure’s semiology says that, for speech-alone talk, parole_2a and langue_2a are two arbitrarily related systems of differences.  The structure of the arbitrary relation_3b situates the content of within two systems of differences_3a.

0675 How do traditional time terms_2af and time-related practices_2af differ from one another?

Perhaps, they divide the one-dimensional motion of time_2am through explicit abstraction.

Certainly, the explicit terms, “past”, “present” and “future” accomplish this.  These terms are explicit abstractions.  Not all spoken languages maintain such terms.  Sometimes, a spoken language will present implicit versions of the above explicit terms, through tenses and moods.  In other words, tenses and moods do not explicitly register past, present and future.  They implicitly do.

0676 Here is a comparison between the general content-level and the application.

0677 The explicit spoken terms of “past”, “present” and “future” belong to our current Lebenswelt.

What about the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

0678 This is a question that Uspenskij cannot approach, even though his argument indirectly raises this question.  Does “time_2af” exist before the first singularity?

Of course it does.  We grow older as if we are moving in one direction through space.

So, how does one express time using hand-talk?

[Point to SUN or MOON][move pointing hand towards the rising (for past) or setting (for future)]

0679 How simple is that?

The very same principle that confounds time, space and geography is used in hand-talk to implicitly refer to something that can be imaged and pointed to.  The sun and moon move in time.  Time is an implicit abstraction.

History and cosmography are confounded in hand-talk words for “time”.

0680 However, the spoken label, “time”, does not exist.  Time is not an explicit abstraction.  It_2af can be performed using gestural-words that picture and point to pre-existing referents.  The referent_2am precedes the gestural word_2af.

0681 To date, the TMS tradition has not confronted the distinction between implicit and explicit abstraction that divides hand- and hand-speech talk and speech-alone talk.  What does it mean to refer to time as an implicit abstraction usingthe gestural-words depicted above?

Razie Mah offers an e-book, A Primer on Implicit and Explicit Abstraction (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  Perhaps, this is an adequate place to start.  The topic is currently wide open.  Inquiry will clarify the differences between the Lebenswelt that we evolved in and our current Lebenswelt.

0682 Finally, I come to the perspective-level for the fundament interscope.

0683 The normal context of a language of exact methods_3c brings the actuality of a semiological_3a structuralist_3bmodel_2c into relation with the potential of ‘observing phenomena in a literary text’_1c.

Language_2bm is both the matter that substantiates the literary text_2bf (esse_ce) and the observable facets (or phenomena) of the substantiated text (that is, the essence_2bf).

0684 Here are my associations to Uspenskij’s text.

The normal context of a language of semiotic problems_3c brings the actuality of historical and cosmological consciousness_2c into relation with the potential of ‘observing the phenomena of time’_1c.

0685 The semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c is historical and cosmological consciousness_2c.

In our current Lebenswelt, historical and cosmological time are distinct explicit abstractions.

In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the distinction cannot be talked about using hand talk, even though the distinction is intrinsic to the (proposed) hand-talk word-gestures.

0686 The fact the Uspenskij does not state that historical and cosmological consciousness_2c is a semiological_3astructuralist_3b model_2c is telling.  He intuitively performs what this examination depicts explicitly, by filling in the blank slots of a purely relational structure, because the purely relational structure expresses an implicit abstraction.

0687 Say what?

What is Uspenskij doing implicitly that this examination is doing explicitly through diagrams?

0688 Uspenskij builds the foundation for an interventional sign-relation.

Historical and cosmological consciousness_2c (SV_i) stands for the dyad_2a, {time as literary form_2af (SO_i) [entangles] a language of consciousness_2am} in regards to the normal context of the TMS_3a operating on the potential of ‘meaning’_1a(SI_i).

0689 Uspenskij performs the interventional sign-relation flawlessly and without hesitation.

The interventional sign-relation passes from the perspective level of the fundament (or loquens) interscope to the content level of the derivative (or ego) interscope.

0690 This particular application of the interventional sign-relation reminds me of the opening of the gospel according to John, re-presented here with my own ad-hoc commentary.

In the beginning was the Word (Loquens), and the Word (both the Word-Gesture and the Spoken Word) was with God, and the Word (Ego, Jesus the Messiah) was God.  Jesus (as an element in a triadic relation) was in the beginning with God (the one triadic relation); all things (that can be pictured or pointed to using hand talk) were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (including me, an ego as an image of God).

0691 How informative.

The New Testament application brings me back to the structure of the interventional sign-relation.

Here is a related example.

The Word as the beginning (a semiological_3a structural_3b model_2c of biblical revelation) (SV_i) stands for {the gospel of John as a literary text_2af  (SO_i) [entangling] consciousness of the Word (the Logos)_2am} in the normal context of the tradition of Christ_3a operating on the potential of ‘meaning’_1a (SI_i).

0692 So, what am I saying?

Is it possible for the TMS positivist intellect_3a to contextualize the metaphysical?

Absolutely, since material and efficient causations operate seamlessly with formal and final causalities.

0693 Uspenskij is a scholar of Slavic languages and the Slavic civilization does not become a people until St. Cyril and St. Methodius introduce a theological theory about the nature of Who I Am.  The Scandinavian Vikings who build a fort and proclaim sovereignty over the realm do not define the Slavic civilization.  Mundane sovereignty does not give the Slavs meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c.  Celestial sovereignty does.

In the conversion of the Slavs, Christ introduces Aristotle to the narod.

In the ensuing generations, Slavic civilization explores Aristotle’s hylomorphe of {matter [substantiates] form} all the way to its full inversion of {form [entangles] matter}.

0694 Here is a depiction of Uspenskij’s revelation.

Er… I meant to say “confounding”.

0695 The implications of the confounding, a binary of matter, have yet to be explored.

0696 One point is certain.

Western civilization, when it abandons metaphysics in order to achieve ideological purity within the Positivist’s judgment, lost the ability to recognize confoundings.

The scientific West is blind.

Through TMS, vision may one day return.

0697 Historical and cosmological consciousness?

After the first asterisk (1), Uspenskij discusses past and present in a detailed manner.

His discussion traces the contours of the specifying sign-relation.

0698 The actuality of {time in the form of a literary text (or is it a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c based on the text_2bf?)_2af (SO_i) [entangling] historical and cosmological consciousness_2am (SV_s)} stands for the actuality of {cognition based on past and present_2bm (SO_s)[substantiating] the present as a result of planning, as well as the present as a situation produced by cosmological antecedents_2bf (SV_e)} in regards to cultural – civilizational – inquiry_3boperating on the potential of ‘the presence of past and present’_1b (SI_s).

0699 What does the term, “consciousness” imply?

Consider Julian Jaynes’s use of the term in Looking at Julian Jaynes’s Book (1976) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (Razie Mah’s blog for October 2025 and appearing in the e-book, Synaesthesia and the Bicameral Mind in Human Evolution, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0700 Consciousness involves reflective thought.

So the ‘presence_1b‘ that cognition_2bm emerges from (and situates) is reflective, as well as representative.

0701 What does this imply?

A spoken word labels a past event.  Does that spoken word represent the past event?  Does that spoken word serve as an artifact that allows us to reflect upon what it represents?  Does that reflection eventually distort the representation?  Can we then reflect upon that distortion?

We can, only if we are “conscious”.

0702 Spoken words do not picture or point to their referents.

Spoken words invite us to create artifacts that validate their referents.

This applies to the spoken language_2am that is fixed in time in the form of a literary text_2af.

0703 As to the past leading to the present, Uspenskij identifies two styles (or “genres”) of representation and reflection.

0704 Historical consciousness sees one event following another in a complicated chain of causalities.  The continuity between past and present is like a path that leads somewhere.  We can extrapolate where we are going (the future) by sensible construction based on past events.

Cosmological consciousness testifies to a foundation event that predicates what is to come (the future).  Some call it “the cyclic view of history”.  With respect to a founding event, what is to come is both our past and our present.  So, the cognitive structure takes on the feel of a house of mirrors.  One cannot plan ahead with conviction, but one can rely on symbolic reproduction to avoid or dodge cyclic catastrophes.

0705 Both historical and cosmological awareness appear in all civilizations.

Why?

Time as a literary form_2af [entangles] the language of consciousness_2am.