0852 Okay, what is this business about a so-called “first singularity”?

The hypothesis claims that the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, which starts around 7800 years ago, is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk.  There are technical reasons for this.  In chapter eleven of Enfield’s book, the author mentions Aboriginal stories that tell of the inundation of hitherto dry land by a rising sea, producing the shallow Port Phillip Bay near Melbourne.  The event occurs more than 7000 years ago.

Imagine how much larger the infilling of the Persian Gulf would seem.

0853 Indeed, two hand-speech talking cultures are swept up by the infilling of the gorge and estuary of four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and the surrounding low lying broad valley.  One is a land-loving Neolithic culture that migrated down from northern Mesopotamia.  The other is a water-loving Mesolithic culture that probably migrated west along the coast from India.

As the waters rose, these two cultures were thrown into the same space, and since they engaged in different economies, they fused instead of warred.  Each culture was agreeable with respect to the other.  Each culture could imagine intermarrying with the other culture.  The producers in each culture began to coordinate, through trading before the temple, with the producers of the other culture.  In the process, two hand-speech cultures fused into one, the Ubaid.

0854 In terms of talk, when two cultures come into contact like this, the first step is to operate a pidgin, a hybrid of words of two languages.  The second step is for the children to reconstitute the pidgin as a creole, a brand new language that is more than a mere hybrid of the two original ways of talking.  The notable feature for the Ubaid is that the brand new language practices speech-alone talk, not hand-speech talk.

So, I mark 5800 B.C. as the nominal starting point for the Ubaid, with a new chronological label: 0 U0′ (Ubaid Zero Prime or “uh-oh prime”).  At this moment in prehistory, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only speech-alone talking culture in the world.  All other contemporaneous cultures practice hand-speech talk. 

0855 What happens next?

The Ubaid becomes the first culture in the world showing trends towards unconstrained complex sociality.  They are on their way to realizing civilization.

0856 Of course, the surrounding hand-speech talking cultures cannot help but notice that the Ubaid is… well… different.  The Ubaid is wealthier and more powerful.  They send emissaries that first, want to convert the village to the new system.  Then, they send traders, who want to do business.  Then, they send soldiers to take over the joint.  Around 1300 U0′, the Ubaid town-chiefdoms attempt to take over management in northern Mesopotamia.

0857 How, do the hand-speech talking cultures respond?

Well, imitation is the highest form of flattery.  The hand-speech talking cultures drop the hand-component of their hand-speech talk.  As soon as their talk is very close to speech-alone talk, they unexpectedly begin to develop labor and social specializations.  They become wealthier and more powerful.  Soon they are sending missionaries, traders and warriors to proclaim the news to other cultures.

0858 Speech-alone talk travels down established paths of down-the-line trading.  Then, it fans out.  Somehow, it even crosses the oceans to the Americas.  The spread of speech-alone talk is dramatized as angels carrying a cultural change from the Ubaid to all the world in chapter five of the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall.  Why angels?  Jacob presents to an Iranian imam.  Imams know all about angels.

0859 So, what about language, adversary and reality?

Villages of the Ubaid are evident by 0 U0′.  The town-chiefdoms of the Uruk of southern Mesopotamia follow at around 1800 U0′.  The city-states of the Sumerian Dynastic civilization begin around 2800 U0′.  That is three thousand years from speech-alone talk adoption to fully unconstrained social complexity.  This pattern should be seen repeated around the world.  This calls for research.  See Razie Mah’s blog for October 1, 2022.

Unlike the languages of other ancient civilizations, Sumerian is unique.  Sumerian is unrelated to any family of languages.  Why would that be?  Sumerian is a creole derived from two hand-speech talking cultures.  Sumerian is the first speech-alone talk language.

0860 The lesson is more than the opportunity for a fantastic research project.

The lesson is much more horrifying.

We (hominins) practice hand and hand-speech talk in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Today we (humans) practice speech-alone talk in our current Lebenswelt.

What does this mean?

We cannot be who we evolved to be.

0861 Enfield’s book is published in 7822 U0′.

Astrologers may further refine the nominal date for 0 U0′.  Right now, it stands as 5800 B.C.

0862 7822 years after the first singularity starts, N. J. Enfield publishes a book on the nature of language and reality, along with their adversary, the human mind.  He has no awareness that his civilization, indeed, all civilizations in all of history, are realities socially constructed using explicit abstraction made possible by speech-alone talk.

0863 Consequently, the foundational distinction that Enfield cannot make is between implicit and explicit abstraction.  (For further readings, consider A Primer on Implicit and Explicit Abstraction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Perhaps, not surprisingly, Enfield offers a second best distinction in his introduction.  The distinction between brute (or physical) reality and language (or speech-alone talk) is precisely the cut that separates labor (task-oriented) and social (role-oriented) specialization.  Scientists investigate physical reality.  Lawyers manipulate social reality.

0864 Here is a map of the two distinctions, one foundational and one next to foundational.

0865 The above distinctions pose a difficulty, because humans evolve in a Lebenswelt of implicit abstraction.  Hand-talk pictures and points to its referents.  Humans think in the ways of implicit abstraction.

0866 In contrast, speech-alone talk has no iconic or indexal traits.  Explicit abstraction derives from the purely symbolic character of speech-alone talk.  Speech-alone talk can label anything, including specifics for physical and for social reality, corresponding to labor and role specializations, the foundations of wealth and power.

Yes, speech-alone talk can label anything.  Because humans evolved practicing hand-talk, different labels imply different referents.  This may seem confusing, but humanity is yet to explore the entire spectrum of confusion that may arise from the fact that speech-alone talk can label anything, even the same thing, as if each label implies its own referent.  After all, physical and social realities are labels for the same thing, the consequences of explicit abstraction.

0867 So what about that funny cloud?

While everyone in the social and psychometric sciences worry about the stuff of labor and social specialization, implicit abstraction sits like a fog over the entire discourse, because the terms used by science are… um… explicit abstractions.

 How does the inquirer enter into that cloud of unknowing… er… implicit abstraction?

0868 I proceed by way of example.

0869 Imagine that I am the oldest member of a hominin team hunting deer in Eurasia during the time when fire is being domesticated.  I am not the leader, per se, but I am old enough to serve in that capacity.

Oh yeah, the spoken-word, “leader”, does not exist in hand-talk.

Yet, leaders exist in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Since we were successful at driving deer over a cliff the past few days, I think that the expedition today should go well.  But, the deer are skittish and will not run in the correct direction when we close in on them.

Then, everyone sees a particular type of cloud that appears after the second full moon after the solstice, portending a brutal storm followed by much colder weather.

0870 We all innately share a common relation in the style of a category-based nested form, where a normal context₃brings an actuality₂ into relation with the possibility of ‘something₁.  The subscripts denote Peirce’s categories of thirdness, secondness and firstness, respectively.  

Here, the normal context of the weather₃ brings the actuality of this particular type of cloud₂ into relation with the potential of ‘a sudden storm followed by cold’₁.

0871 Surely, this nested form touches base with physical reality.

Here is a picture.

0872 Well, there is a related nested form, corresponding to social reality.

The normal context of a deer-hunting team₃ brings particular gazes among team members₂ (after I suggest that we make one more attempt at corralling that group of skittish deer towards the cliff) into relation with the potential of ‘going home before the storm hits’₁.

0873 Better to go home hungry than tarry.

0874 Technically, the social nested form virtually situates the physical nested form, producing the following two-level interscope.  For details on nested forms, consider 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.

Even though explicitly abstract terms enter into the empty slots of this two-level interscope, the overall structure keys into implicit abstraction.  The slots of an implicit relational structure are filled with relevant explicit terms, through the method of association and implication.

Once an association is made, ask “What does that imply?”

0875 Chapter one of Enfield’s book is titled, “Coordinating around Reality”.  It is the first chapter in Part I, titled, “Mapped by Language”.

The author tells the reader about Thomas Schelling’s psychological experiments, which found that people can often arrive at the same solution without speaking to one another.  If visitors in two locations are given the same map of the city, they will meet at the one bridge, without even talking to one another.  

Coordination has two implications.  The first is shared attention.  Michael Tomasello calls this “joint attention”.  The second is a certain type of mind-reading, that may or may not rely on… um… “language”.

0876 Back to the ongoing example.  If members of my team look at one another in angst, after I, the ad-hoc leader, point to a group of deer that we could drive over the cliff, then I may come to a judgment that I will express in hand talk.  Let us go home.  The brute reality of the implications of the cloud weighs against the social reality of what the team is supposed to accomplish.

0877 My judgment reflects the following sensible construction.

0878 The appearance of a particular cloud before the earliest fall storm is universal.  It happens most every year.  Everyone on the team has seen it in the past.  Now, they see it again, the harbinger of the first snow.

Worrying about getting back from the hunt is intelligible.  Everyone on the team knows it.

0879 However, in hand talk, there is no way to formulate the words, “universal” or “intelligible”.

What is there to picture or point to?

So, how does everyone on the team fixate, with the similar imaginations, onto the same situation-level potential?

0880 Are “universal” and “intelligible” adaptations, whereby physical universality… er… brute circumstances translate into social intelligibility… er… reality?  Are the explicit abstractions of “physical reality” and “social reality” and “translates” built into our bodies and brains?

0881 The relational structure of sensible construction seems to provide an answer, in so far as my judgment is rendered using hand talk.  So, I can say that the normal context of language_3c brings the actuality of the physical reality of the impending storm [translates into] the social reality of returning empty-handed from the deer hunt_2c into relation with the potential of coordination_1c.

0882 Yes, the above nested form puts sensible construction into perspective.

But, it cannot be rendered using hand-talk.

Indeed, this nested form lassoes the explicit distinction that Enfield casts in his introduction and places it as the actuality of an implicit perspective-level structure.  If brute reality_2c is universal, then social reality_2c better be intelligible, because intelligibility and universality emerge from and situate the potential of working together in order to survive_1c.  Yet, even that potential_1c requires a normal context, which I would call “talk_3c“, but Enfield calls “language_3c“.

0883 Here is a diagram of the three-level interscope for the ongoing example.

0884 At this point in chapter one, I hover right above figure 1.2, where the author introduces the electromagnetic spectrum in order to show that human construction of reality involves simplification.

Construction of brute reality simplifies physical reality.  It does so through (what appears to be) a sign-relation.  A particular cloud_2a (sign-vehicle) stands for the storm and cold_1a (sign-object) in regards to autumn weather_3a (sign-interpretant).

Construction of social reality also simplifies.  It does through a (slightly different) sign-relation.  An upcoming cold front_2a (sign-vehicle) stands for our need to get back home, pronto_2b, (sign-object) in regards to our team_3a and what not getting back means to each one of us_1a (sign-interpretant).

0885 These signs-relations are not exactly the same.  More work will follow.  But, for now, they seem to follow Enfield’s proposal that my senses simplify the physical and my perceptions simplify the social.  There are two filters.  There are two simplifications.

I notice that the perspective-level actuality precisely expresses the hylomorphic structure of Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  One way to portray secondness is as a hylomorphic structure, with two real elements (such as “matter” and “form“) and a contiguity that one places in brackets for notation(such as [substantiates]).  The result is a hylomorphic structure (matter [substantiates] form).

0886 Enfield is a scientist.  So, I am a little surprised that his first distinction fits into a hylomorphic structure so well.  Or maybe, I am not surprised.  After all, scientists are also interested in cause [and] effect.

0887 My question is, “How far does this go?”

Do the peculiar sign-relations (depicted above) simplify into hylomorphes?

0888 Well, yes they do.

So what does figure 1.2 really tell me?  

Are the filters to be labeled, “simplifications”?  Or should they be labeled, “transubstantiations of a sign-relation (belonging to thirdness) into a hylomorphe (belonging to secondness), where the word, ‘transubstantiation’, indicates a transition from one of Peirce’s categories to an adjacent category“?

0889 Okay, I am sticking with “simplifies”.

Here is the resulting three-level interscope for the ongoing example.

0890 Chapter two further develops the concept of coordination.

In the 1960s, economist Thomas Schelling (1921-2016 AD) devises games to test coordination.  Often, a game is framed as physical reality.  Then, the game reveals social reality.

0892 Consider this variation of the game of coin toss.  A tester flips the coin and two parties call out “heads” or “tails”.  Then, the coin comes up, “heads” or “tails” and an award is given when both parties call out the same prediction.  If both call “heads” or if both call “tails”, a reward is given to each contestant.

This is the kind of game that academics construct.

0893 This game is so strange that the perspective-level normal context of language_3c is crucial, since the reward should go to the person who calls the coin toss correctly.  Instead, it goes to both parties when they call the same.

Here is a picture of the way that Schelling designs this game (as reported by Enfield).

0894 Note how the explicit abstraction of ‘coordination_1c‘ changes with this experiment.  

‘Coordination_1c‘ for standard coin tosses goes like this, “We agree that the one who correctly calls the coin landing with heads or tails up is the winner and gets the reward.”

The ‘coordination_1c‘ for this variant of the game says, “Some nutty professor has changed the rules so that if both parties call the same ‘heads’ or ‘tails’, then both parties get a reward.”

0895 The strangely academic allure of this research is that contestants play a game where the rules are set by an egg-head so scrambled that he wins the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on game theory, rather than by themselves.  In effect, the professor inserts himself as the one who decides the rules, rather than the participants recalling the tradition of the game.  The participants are agreeable. After all, they get rewards.  But, they cannot imagine one implication.

Experts rule the potential of coordination_1c, by manipulating explicit abstractions of speech-alone talk_3c in order to alchemically manifest the way that physical reality [turns into] social reality_2c.

0896 How freaky is that?

0897 Well, never mind.

Enfield notes that Schelling’s trials show that physical realities are like trails that lead to social landmarks that are easily recognizable.

Physical trails [lead to] social landmarks!

That’s what the trials show.

That does not sound freaky at all.

0898 Chapter three is titled, “Language and Nature”.

Already, I presented a scene occurring around the time of the domestication of fire, say 750,000 years ago, when a particular cloud_2a (SV) stands for a coming storm bringing bitter cold_2a (SO) in regards to weather_3a and the potential of a weather event_1a (SI).

0899 This sign-relation is not quite the same as the specifying sign-relation discussed in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in October 2023.

But, it is close.

0900 The same pattern, where a sign-relation is flattened into a single level of an interscope, applies to the situation level.  An anticipated cold front_2b (SV) stands for the need to go home now_2b (SO) in regards to the deer-hunting team_3brealizing its predicament_1b (SI).

These two signs involve hand talk.  For the first, if nothing else, one team member points out the particular cloud.  For the second, hand talk can express the actuality quite well with the following statement.

[Image STORM][Image TEETH][Image COLD][Image BITE]

Translation?

Storm teeth bite cold.

0901 Now, a linguist and cognitive psychologist, who observes this scene through a time-suspending portal devised to surveille the distant past without being detected, would be very interested in how hand-talk translates the physical reality of the storm, the “reference”, to the social reality of a retreat, the “sense”.

The German philosopher, Gottlob Frege (1848-1925 AD), offers the labels of “reference” and “sense”.

To me, “reference” associates to physical reality and “sense” associates to social reality.

0902 How do these labels play out when regarding the interscope for the ongoing example?

Well, the perspective level looks a little awkward, because it really reduces the content-level actuality_2a to something that associates to “reference”_2a and the situation-level actuality_2b to something that associates to “sense”_2b.  So, I put the nested form in a lighter color.

After all, the terms, “reference” and “sense”, are explicit abstractions with different implications than “physical reality” and “social reality”.

0903 Frege moves the paradigm towards our current Lebenswelt, which is characterized by speech-alone talk.  Speech-alone talk facilitates explicit abstraction.  Hand and hand-speech, along with the evolved trait of implicit abstraction, fade into the background.  Speech-alone talk moves to the foreground.

Indeed, Frege’s terminology allows a generalization of the example, into the following interscope.

0904 This general interscope allows the reader to see how framing is a feature, not an option.

But, what does “frame” mean?

0905 Here is an example.

In terms of physical reality, when a person needs to get somewhere, he “walks”.  If the person has to go faster, he “runs”.

So, the choice of “walks_2a” as opposed to “runs_2a” frames the reference_2a.

Of course, framing the reference_2a also will alter the sense_2b.

0906 Now, if I am at a tea party, and if I want to appear more sophisticated than I actually am, then I might employ the terms, “shuffle”, “saunter”, “stroll”, “jog”, “dash” and “sprint”.

This terminological efflorescence attracts academic interest.  Short videos of someone moving on a college campus at different speeds and modes are shown to students in order to assess the above spectrum of terms.  Researchers change the reference and see how the word-sense changes.

Theoretically, I suppose that this scientific inquiry establishes a correlation between particular words_2a and the sense of those words_2b, because the reference_2a,2b consists of recorded videos.  It is like a controlled laboratory experiment.

0907 How far does this framing business go?

Physical trails lead to social landmarks.

0908 Consider the second planet from the sun.

Venus is closer to the sun than the Earth.  Consequently, Venus is always appears close to the sun.

Sometimes, Venus will appear near the sun in the evening.  Sometimes, Venus will appear near the sun in the morning.  So, Venus is called “the evening star” and “the morning star”.

At times, when Venus is directly behind or in front of the sun, astrologers say that Venus is in “combustion”.  When Venus appears to go backwards in its wanderings, Venus is in “regression”.  When it goes forward, it will “ingress” different constellations in its path.

0909 Here, the reference is seeing the planet Venus in the sky from the vantage point of the Earth.

We have particular words_2a as different ways for seeing Venus as a referent_2a, in the normal context of planetary sightings_3a arising from the potential of observing the heavens_1a.

We also have a flattened sign relation, where particular words_2a (SV) stand for the appearance of the planet, Venus_2a(SO), in regards to a sign interpretant of planetary sightings_3a operating on the potential of watching the heavens_1a (SI).

The sign-vehicle (SV), sign-object (SO) and sign-interpretant (SI) all occupy a single-level category-based nested form.  It may not be a classic sign-relation.  Classic sign-relations cross levels.  But, this structure is close enough.  

0910 Here is a picture.

A technical term for “close enough” comes from the Greek words, “hypo” (less than) and “morphe” (form).

0911 Here is a diagram for the ongoing interscope for the example of the astrological observation of Venus.

0912 The importance of framing on the content level can be seen as significance on the situation level.  Something universal becomes something intelligible, at least as far as astrological discourse_3b is concerned.

In a way, the transit from “the morning star_2a” to its astrological import_2b has the same character as the transit from a particular cloud_2a to the importance of going home now_2b.

However, the former transit belongs to civilization and commands speech-alone talk and the latter transit belongs to a world of constrained social complexity and takes place using hand talk.

0913 With this, I arrive at the end of Part I and conclude chapter three, concerning language and nature.

Enfield’s book consists in three parts.

Here is an overview.

0914 I now move into Part II.

Some of the terms may already seem familiar.

Part II is the terrain of our current Lebenswelt.  Experimental studies and their analyses involve explicit abstraction.  They require specialized disciplinary languages using speech-alone talk.  So, it seems that the results of scientific inquirycan only be regarded using explicit abstraction.

But, in this examination, I have conjured a surrogate for a corresponding implicit abstraction.  The interscope is a purely relational structure consisting of empty slots.  I put words that appear in Enfield’s text into the slots, then I discuss the implications of my associations.

0915 Here is a picture that started this examination.

Now, I have a spoken word to place in the cloud of implicit abstraction.

0916 A spoken word coalesces within the cloud of implicit abstraction.

Associations from Enfield’s text catch my imagination.  I hope that my fellow inquirers find my associations agreeable.  The implications may bring this examination and Enfield’s book into an odd sort of harmony… a weird sort of coordination… that is the province of postmodern scholasticism.

0917 Here is Enfield’s interscope as it currently manifests in the cloud of implicit abstraction, at the opening to chapter four, titled, “Priming and Overshadowing”.

0918 Since Part II deals with our current Lebenswelt, a few changes have been made.

On the content level, “particular” has been replaced by “spoken”.

Or should I say, “spoken” replaces “particular”?

0919 Also, the term, “frame” replaces “stands for”.  This frees the reference from “physical reality” in the common sense of the term.  The reference for the “particular cloud”, 750kyr ago, is the physical reality of a brutal cold front, the first of the season.  The reference for “the morning star” and “the evening star” and all that claptrap about “combustion”, “regression” and “ingression” is the physical reality of Venus, the wandering star… er… second planet in our solar system.

0920 After all, what is a frame?

A frame, like a door frame?

Yes, I suppose a door frame will do.  This door frame is composed of immaterial elements, a normal context and potential, that prime the person engaging in the content-level hypomorphic sign-relation to pass through a portal called “reference”.

0921 Here is a picture.

0922 In the single-level sign-relation that I associate to Enfield’s argument, spoken words_2a (sign-vehicle, SV) stands for a reference_2a (sign-object, SO) in regards to the normal context of what is happening_3a operating on the potential of ‘something happening’_1a (sign-interpretant, SO).

0923 Typically, the SV is on one level (say, content) and the SO is on the adjacent higher level (say, situation) along with the SI (also on situation level).  In this standard formulation, which is consistent with the historical path leading to the identification of the sign as a triadic relation, sign-relations couple adjacent levels of an interscope.  In short, the sign-relation is one way for content to alter a situation.

The above hypomorphic sign-relation may be seen, in a nascent expression, in Looking at Daniel Deacon’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria, to Bach and Back”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in December 2023.  The meme is precisely what “frame” versus “prime” describes.  An entire sign-relation squishes into a single level.  In short, here is a sign-relation where style alters content.

0924 At this point in the text, Enfield digresses into a passage from Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel, The Secret Agent, that does not exactly depict the following content.

What do I mean by the word, “exact”?

Well, the above statements may be taken quite literally, leading people to conclude that Mrs. Verloc should be put on trial for murder.

0925 However, this is not how Conrad frames the passage.

Enfield revels in the way that Conrad uses the active voice and the passive voice in such a masterful way that people who read the passage wonder whether Mrs. Verloc is guilty of the crime.

0926 How so?

In Conrad’s incredibly artistic weave of active and passive voice, another figure enters the dance, so to speak.  Stevie, the brother of Mrs. Verloc, is dead.  And, I suspect, right before dinner, Mrs. Verloc finds out that Mr. Verloc is the reason why Stevie is dead.  So, perhaps, during the entire meal, Mrs. Verloc anticipates Mr. Verloc to say something, anything, to confirm that the report of Mr. Verloc’s responsibility is not true.  But, he does not.

After all, Mr. Verloc has no regrets and is not even thinking of “business”.  But, Mrs. Verloc? She has regrets.  Incredible regrets.  However, she cannot leave her body and say, “Let me be free of this nightmare.”  No, she loves her brother, Stevie, and is broken hearted to see him go.  So, what happens next is right there in Conrad’s text, but it is so well scripted that Dr. Enfield does not even see it.

0927 Here is how Conrad frames the incident.

0928 No one in a jury would convict Mrs. Verloc.

She has nothing.  No husband.  No brother.  All because of a conflict between the two people whom she loves.  Mr. Verloc kills Stevie.  Now, Stevie kills Mr. Verloc.  What about Mrs. Verloc, both victim and conduit?  She is as good as dead.  Isn’t she?

That is what regular folk sense_2b.

Her deed_2a is overshadowed by her doom_2b.

0929 But, this is not what Enfield senses_2b.

In a profound testament to the cluelessness of the scientific mind, Enfield attributes the reason why people respond differently to the two versions, the just-the-facts version and Conrad’s version, to Joseph Conrad’s masterful use of linguistic framing.

Possession by disembodied souls is apparently a step too far.