0507 So, where was I?

Where have I traveled?

I have walked through the first of two interviews with a prominent member of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics at its first ascendant.  Because my approach capitalizes (some would say, “exploits”) Peirce’s formulations, my examination adds value to the discussion.  Diagrams of purely relational structures, such as the interscope, permits a visualization of semiotic changes and developments through time.

0508 The second interview, starting on page 425, discusses thirteen questions.  Predefined questions offer an awkward format for an interview.  Given the hyperventilation that occurs during the interview on August 25, 2011, the hope is for a more structured encounter at Uspenskij’s villa in Rome on May 27, 2012.

The interview concerns Uspenskij’s 2007 book, Ego Loquens: Language and the communicative space.

0509 The Latin term, “ego loquens“, roughly transliterates into “I speak”.

Of course, the end of Descartes’ famous slogan immediately comes to mind, “therefore I am.”

I speak, therefore I am.

0510 But, what am I?

Perhaps, I am language_2b (that another person can read like a literary text_2b) as well as a communicative space (like the way that I, as a literary text_2a, entangle a communal cognitive space called “language_2a“).

0511 How confounding.

A communal cognitive… er… communicative space_2a is the language_2am that is entangled by the literary text_2af, not as a thing itself_2b, but as a model_2c of structural_3b and semiological_3a signification_3c.

0512 I hope that this statement justifies the use of the title of Uspenskij’s book to label the fundament and derivative interscopes, as shown below.

0513 Look closely at the above figure.

Can the reader see a triadic relation where a semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c (SV_i) stands for a literary text as form_2af (SO_i) potentiated by meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c in the normal context of a defining intellect (SI_i)?

0514 At this point, I would like to introduce the interventional sign-relation, first brought to visualization in Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols” and then used as a tool in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal“. Both works are by Razie Mah.  The former may be purchased at smashwords and other e-book venues (while the time lasts!).  The latter appears as a series in Razie Mah’s blog during October, 2023).

0515 The interventional sign-relation?

How informative.

Please tell.

0516 In general, the interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) is a perspective-level actuality_2c.

The interventional sign-object (SO_i) is the represented content-level actuality_2a.

The interventional sign-interpretant (SI_i) consists in the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a.

0517 An interventional sign-vehicle (SV_i) stands for its sign-object (SO_i) in regards to an interventional sign-interpretant (SI_i).

0518 Here is a general diagram.

0519 This rendition of Peirce’s sign-relation in terms of Peirce’s category-based nested forms is founded on the notion that both the SV and the SO belong to secondness, the realm of actuality, leaving the SI to include both thirdness and firstness.  Since nested forms occupy levels in an interscope, the SO occupies the actuality on the adjacent higher level than the SV.  The SI occupies the same level as the SO.

0520 This rendition implies that there are three signs contained within any three-level interscope.

Each sign connects the levels of two adjacent categories, except for the interventional sign, which goes from thirdness to firstness.  One dare not call that “prescission”.

0521 Unless, one imagines, not precission among levels, but among interscopes.

The interventional sign-relation constellates precission between two interscopes.

In this case, the “tiers” belong to firstness and secondness.

How informative.

0522 Tiers of interscopes is not new.

Precission among tiers of interscopes can be found in Razie Mah’s chapter on presence in How To Define The Word “Religion”.  Ten primers belong to the corresponding course, for those interested in a step-by-step exposition.

Precission among tiers is also intimated in the very structure of the article under examination.  The first interview, part one, deals with the possibility of exact methods_3c virtually bringing structuralism_3b into relation with the potential of semiology_2a.  The second interview, part two, deals with Uspenskij’s literary text_2af, Ego loquens, and considers the possibility of meaning_1a, presence_1b and message_1c.

0575 Page 437 introduces a question (#7) concerning translation.

Why is adequate translation between languages impossible?

There are two specifying sign-relations in the TMS regime.

0576 In the first specifying sign-relation, in the fundament interscope, the literary text_2bf is substantiated by the language_2bm (SO_s) that virtually situates spoken words_2a (SV_s) as langue_2am and parole_2af of a particular mother tongue.  Translating a literary text into another mother tongue risks misreading the content character of a literary text_2af, especially when the text is rich with word-play.

0577 Here is the specifying sign-relation for the loquens interscope, in general.

Parole_2af (SV_s) stands for language_2bm (SO_s) in regards to a structuralist paradigm_3b((1b)) (SI_s).

0578 If the word-play is not translated, the text does not make sense.

In other words, an alien reader may not be able generate an adequate semiological_3a structuralist_3b model_2c of the original text.

The text_2bf is not funny anymore.

0579 In the second specifying sign-relation, in the derivative interscope, social interaction_2bf is substantiated by a cognition_2bm (SO_s) that virtually situates the language of meaning_2am (SV_s) that has been entangled by the literary text_2af.  Can this operation be translated into the various languages of a positivist intellect?  What if the positivist language is too different?  Then, will it be virtually situated by a style of cultural inquiry_3b that makes no sense at all, such as computer operations_3b.

0580 Say what?

Here is the specifying sign-relation for the ego interscope, in general.

A positivist language_2am (SV_s) stands for cognition_2bm (SO_s) in regards to a cultural-studies paradigm_3b((1b)) (SI_s).

0581 What if the literary text_2af is a series of apparently irregular scratches_2af that the academic thinks are inscribed near the center of only one side of each of the before mentioned pieces of fossilized wood?

What could these scratches_2af mean_1b in terms of the language of anthropology_2am?

0582 Of course, after the excavation, the researchers take the artifacts to Professor Rabenmann, who still has an office at the old Institute of Archaeology. 

What will the old man have to say?

0583 They explain the find and give him the two flat pieces of fossilized wood.  The Professor notes cord markings are on the opposing side of the scratches and much closer to the end of the flat pieces, than the marks.

Are the marks intentional?

What do these artifacts translate into?

0584 Hmmm.  The professor is not sure.  He opens the drawer to his desk and takes out a ball of string.  He measures out a meter, then cuts the string with a scissors.  Then, with a degree of deliberation, he places the stones face to face and starts to wind the string around the two pieces, retracing the one sided cord markings.

0585 Professor, what are you doing?

Give me a moment. I want to see.

You are not going to break them, are you?

Oh no, no breakage, these are hard as stone.  Now, look I have tied them together.

Now what?

0586 Then, the professor takes a walnut that is on his desk, places it between the two pieces, right where the scratches are, and presses the stone slabs together.

0587 The novices almost pass out.

“There you go.  It is a nutcracker.”, the professor says, while picking the meat of the nut away from the shell.

0588 Yes, the word “translation” now applies to two literary texts.  The loquens_2bf text (the one everyone talks about) is substantiated by the language of the mother tongue_2bm.  The ego_2af text (the one that Uspenskij talks about) entangles the language_2am of the TMS positivist intellect_3a.

0589 Later, the students use interferometry to make three-dimensional images of each fossilized piece in order to demonstrate that, if the two cord-impressed ends are bound by a simulated structure, then enough force could be simultaneously applied to the opposing termini as to compromise the mechanical integrity of a Persian walnut.

Now, that is what I call, “translation”!

0590 I recall that at the very opening of the second interview, Part II, Uspenskij notes that the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics is primarily interested in culture.  It does not regard inanimate and animate processes as significant.

0591 With that recollection in mind, consider a literary_2af… er computerized input_2af that entangles a coding language_2am.

Here is a picture.

0592 Does a cybernetic intellect_3a turn computer input_2af into machine code_2am according to the potential that ‘each word of the input translates into a sequence of machine codes’_1a?

0593 Does the answer imply that entanglement is translation, broadly speaking?

Entanglement is translation.

Does this apply especially to the content-level actuality_2a of the “ego” interscope, in so far as it embodies the sign-object of an interventional sign-relation (SO_i) and the sign-vehicle of a specifying sign-relation (SV_s)?

0097 The earliest stone tools show us that, once a team becomes both successful and long-lived, the disjuncture between the two selection pressures remains.  Once a new team habit settles in, individuals adapt to the habit over generations, rather than the habit adapting to the individuals.

One clue to the validity of this conclusion is found in the stability of stone tools.  

Here is a timeline.

0098 Oldowan stone tools are made the same way for almost a million years.  To me, this suggests that the perspective level of the following interscope does not change, because the team activity persists over generations.  Improvements in the Oldowan team activity are not as crucial as discovering another lucrative team activity.  The Oldowan team is one.  We do not know how many others there are.

0099 But, what about the individuals that participate in the Oldowan team activity?  Are they subject to natural selection for abilities to assess which stones to choose for rapid construction and whether a carcass is worth scavenging?

Yes, the content and situation levels of the above interscope show features where natural selection can operate.  Obviously, there are many specialized cognitive abilities that can be rewarded, through natural selection, over many generations.  Indeed, while the Oldowan stone-tool “kit” remains stable, a new species of human evolves, complete with substantially larger brains.

0100 After Homo erectus appears in the fossil record in Africa, a few more hundred thousand years pass before the team changes.  Mithen describes Oldowan and Acheulean stone tools in detail, but does not elaborate on how they were used.

0101 Oldowan stone tools are utilitarian and made on the spot.  Opportunistic scavenging seems to be the likely definition of success_2c.

Acheulean stone tools are more sophisticated and are made ahead of time.  Perhaps, this implies new ways to extract food.  Homo erectus hunt some sort of creature that can be taken down with what appears to be a fairly large stone tooth.  This is not the only possibility, but it is the one that appears in the following figure.

0102 Perhaps, the Acheulean stone-tool kit is used by more than one team.

It is difficult to know, without time travel.

If we moderns could time travel, I suspect that we would be amazed at the variety of extractive technologies that Homo erectus masters prior to the domestication of fire.  Homo erectus migrates out of Africa and into Eurasia around a million years ago.  Then, along with the domestication of fire, more refined Acheulean stone tools appear.  New stone tools imply that new teams are constellating, this time with hunting definitely in mind.

0103 Here is the ongoing timeline of hominin evolution.

0154 What a banner!

0155 The evolutionary anthropologist, Steven Mithen, publishes a book in 2024 with the full title, The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together The Six-Million Year Story Of How Words Evolve (BasicBooks: New York).  The book purports to describe the evolution of “language”.  But, what is “language”?  Is language the sole province of speech?  Of course not, deaf communities practice so-called “sign-language”.  I call this practice, “fully linguistic hand-talk”.

0156 Despite the reality that language can be performed in two modalities, manual-brachial gesture and voice, Mithen rules out the gestural origins of language.  Consequently, he faces the challenge of portraying the vocal origins of language.

0157 The problem?

Consider the following comparison.

0158 Two features are integral to language.

The first is displacement.  “Displacement” means that “the referent of the word does not have to be present”.

The second is symbolic operations. Symbols are sign-relations whose sign-objects are based on habit, convention, law and so forth.  Within any symbolic order, a symbol must be sufficiently different from any other symbol as to be readily recognized.  A finite set of symbols constitutes a symbolic order.  Symbolic operations constellate within a symbolic order.  One name for such symbolic operations is “grammar”.

0159 Archaeological evidence for bipedalism predates 3.5 Myr (million of years ago).  At this time, vocalizations are not only involuntary, but they tell everyone that a referent is present. It is the opposite of displacement.  Vocalizations denote placements.

Of course, that means that involuntary calls may be labeled indexes, in so far as the call indicates a presence.  That means that involuntary calls are indexes.

But, an involuntary call cannot be called a linguistic sign-relation whose sign object is determined by pointing, contiguity, cause and effect and so forth.  And, that is an index, too.

0161 Okay, that may be confusing.

Vocal calls are indexes in the same way that an emergency alarm is an index.  The alarm cannot tell me much more than “an emergency is happening”.  That is not displacement.

Manual-brachial gestures can point to something, even when that something is not present (like the location of the sunrise).  Manual-brachial word gestures allow displacement.

0162 In regards to symbolic operations, consider taking the metaphor, a word is like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle,literally.  Then, say, 1.7 million years before present time, while I am digging tubers with my team, not far from the forest’s edge, a vulture lands in a nearby tree and one of us notices that… uh oh… there is a jaguar in that tree.  The vulture sees the jaguar.  The jaguar eyes the little hominins.  We know why the vulture decides to land.  The vulture wants to see what happens.

Everyone gathers what tubers they have into leaf-baskets.  The elder of the team signs the following gestures to me and I reply.

0163 Elder signs [point-YOU][image-RUN][point-RIGHT][image-THROW].

Then in reply, I say, [point-ME][raise ROCK].

0164 Each iconic and indexal gesture-word has already been honed through usage to be sufficiently different from any other word-gesture (in our team-oriented lexicon) as to be instantly recognized.  So, the imagery and the indications snap together into one Gestalt, shared by both elder and myself.

Of course, Mithen discusses displacement and grammar, but not in this manner.  He proposes that displacement for the vocal channel involves synaesthesia, that is, cross-modal sensing.  But, how would this apply to the problems faced by teams, while extracting food under dangerous conditions (which Michael Tomasello labels “collaborative obligatory foraging”)?

0165 So, what is the key point?

Mithen claims to be solving a six-million year old process. But, his metaphor of the jigsaw puzzle, when taken literally, takes us through the period that stretches from the start of bipedalism to the domestication of fire.  This corresponds to Michael Tomasello’s “period two”.

Indeed, Mithen is not aware that his choice of metaphors undermines his claim against the gestural origin of language.

0166 Is that sort of funny?

In what way?

Technically, before the domestication of fire, hand-talk is protolinguistic.  Each team has its own protolanguage.  Plus, this protolanguage is not fully linguistic because it does not permit grammatically correct counter-intuitive statements, such as:

[imageTREE][point to EYES][roll EYEs back and forth]

0167 Oh, yes.  Our kind evolves in a surveillance society.  And we are on the menu.

The trees have eyes and are watching.

0066 Before I step further into chapter one, I must take a guess as to where Hegel’s term, “synthesis” resides.

In one way, “synthesis” resides in the normal context₃.  In another way, it resides in the potential₁, along with ‘truth’₁.  Since, the [substance] of [wealth and power]₂ emerges from (and situates) its potential₁, then there must be something more than ‘honesty’₁ in ‘truth’₁,  ‘Truth’₁ must be accompanied with ‘something substantial’, that is, ‘synthesis’₁.

Here is the resulting nested form.

0067 Chapter one opens with a question, “Who cannot handle the truth?”

May I point to those with capital and organizational excess, as well as to those with social influence and institutional excess?

Oh, those excesses.  It seems as if the former pulls the contiguity upwards by reifying [wealth] and the latter drags the contiguity downwards by reifying [power].

0068 Zizek, for his part, associates “truth” with a normative picture of a state of accord.  Accord of what?  Accumulation and order?  Thesis and antithesis?  As such, truth₁… and its synthesis₁… develops within a particular historical reality₂… that is… a particular civilizational moment₂.

0069 Does Lacan’s term, jouissance, associate to the potential of ‘truth and synthesis’₁?

It may well do so.  For Christians, the [substance] that is contiguous with Father and Son is historically contingent. Why?  One God has only one opportunity to actually enter the flow of the eternal present.  If God enters the flow of the eternal present multiple times, then each time He produces a new dyad, a new historically contingent “timestamp”, if you will.  Each timestamp is a divine mediation.

0070 It is not that timestamps do not abound in Christian… er… Jewish revelation.  There is Adam (corresponding to the start of the Ubaid archaeological period), Noah (touching base with the Uruk), and Abraham (pointing to the end of the Sumerian civilization), followed by Moses and King David.  Then, the exile to Babylon, followed by a return. Construction on the Second Temple begins.  During this time, the five books of Moses come together like never before. Yet, no one imagines that the Pentateuch would one day be labeled, “the Old Testament”.

0071 All these timestamps constitute a thesis, and Jesus marks the antithesis.  

Now, even though the substance (that is, the contiguity) of Father and Son₂ will change, depending on the winds of the Holy Spirit₃, the potential of ‘truth and synthesis’₁ becomes more and more apparent.  The synthesis₁ includes the potential of one God₁.  The potential of one God₁ reminds me of Zizek’s use of the term, “parallax”.  From one location, I see the Father as matter and thesis.  I see the Son as form and antithesis.  But, from another location, the Speaker is matter and the Word is form.  Thesis and antithesis depends on where I stand.

Here, the terms, “thesis” and “antithesis” are bound, into a thing₂, by a substance.  That substance includes [begat] and [dies with].  Father and Son are two real elements that, in theory, are distinct and separable, just like the real elements of matter and form are theoretically distinct and separable.  But, they cannot be separated without losing sight of the thing itself₂.

0072 When we lose track of the thing itself₂, we cannot understand.

Where have the normal context₃ and potential₁ gone?

0073 Zizek mentions an “irreducible oscillation”.  Here, the oscillation is among matter [and] form₂, particle [and] wave₂, Father [and] Son₂, capital [and] social₂, accumulation [and] the exercise of order₂.  The oscillation is irreducible because that is the nature of Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. One real element cannot be reduced to the other real element.  Secondness follows the logics of contradiction and noncontradiction.

What is disturbing about secondness?

What is contradictory₂ and what is not contradictory₂ will change with the normal context₃ and potential₁.  

0074 What does this disturbance imply?

Zizek’s parallax belongs to the realm of potential₁.  “Parallax” labels the optics of a monadic unity that underlies a quizzical dyadic actuality₂ that changes with its normal context₃.

0151 So, why is Lacan not a Buddhist?

Well, there is more to objet a_2c and [petit objet a]_2c than illusion.

If Buddhist enlightenment is all about transcending ontological realness, then the adept who attains enlightenment should just wither away from lack of jouissance.  If that happens, then all the insight that the adept has acquired (like capital!) cannot pour (like [wealth and power]) into exercises that train other adepts within Buddhist institutions (like social!).

0152 Zizek points out that Buddhism’s own mandate acknowledges that overcoming illusion is not all there is.

What is the Buddhist mandate for the adept who achieves enlightenment?

The adept must remain in order to guide others.

Here is a picture.

0153 From my brief foray into the topic of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, I know what an evolutionary anthropologist would label this [petit objet a]_2c.  The label is “altruism”.

[Altruism] is [wealth and power].

Yes, [altruism] is the contiguity within the actuality_2c of the Buddhist mandate.

But, these labels are explicit abstractions that belong to our current Lebenswelt.

0154 So, let me review.

There is a difference between an thing encountered and a thing understood.

0155 The first step in going from encounter to understanding is to regard the thing as an example of Peirce’s category of secondness.  So, when I encounter some good clay, I recognize that it is suitable for making a pot.  Both the clay and the pot constitute – what Lacan calls – an objet a.  The [substance] is petit objet a.  Petit objet a says, “Hey, this it the hylomorphe… er… ‘thing’… that you are looking for.”

0156 The second step on the path to understanding is to conjure a normal context_3a and potential_1a for the actuality_2a.  Here, my understanding depends on my familiarity with the potter’s wheel.

0157  If all I wanted to do is acquire a clay pot by exercising my social and technical know-how, then the story would end with content-level understanding.

But, in the prior examples, it does not.  Here is a picture of a virtual nested form in the category of secondness.  A perspective-level actuality_2c virtually brings a situation-level actuality_2b into relation with the potential of a content-level actuality_2a.

0158 If I ask the clay, “What do you get out of this?”

The answer comes back, “Nothing.”

And weirdly, it is the nothing inside the clay where people brew their tea.

Does that sound like “a pair of lacks”?

0159 Now, when I shift from a piece of clay on the content level, to an adept training in the Buddhist tradition, can I say that the adept is a piece of clay?

Does the adept empty himself or herself in order to gain happiness?

0160 The adept, like the clay, creates a hollow in which the objet a of the day can brew, releasing its aromatic [petit objet a], which tells the untrained mind, “This is the reality that you should buy into.”

This will make you happy.

A beautiful, high quality, clay pot is on sale today, at reduced price!

0161 But, what about the one my grandmother gave to me?

Destroy it. Replace it. Then, brew your tea with improved satisfaction.

The adept can see through the disturbance, contain the disturbance, release the disturbance.

It is as simple and as elegant as brewing a pot of tea.

Zen style.

0162 In sipping an illusion down to its dregs, the adept feels happiness.  This is the happiness of the {acquisition of enlightenment [wealth and power] release from the illusions that people are buying}_2c.  [Wealth and power] is not what we think it is.  The contiguity between acquisition and the exercise of order is dangerous.  So, why not simply let the suffering go?

“Oh wait!”, the Master intones, “Remember your form.”

0163 Surely, the greatest manifestation of [wealth and power] is what evolutionary anthropologists call [altruism].  Who can afford to give with no expectation of return?  No one can.  The adept begs for his food and for alms, so others can give and expect no thing in return.  Giving to a Buddhist monk is a moment of enlightenment.

0164 Zizek is correct in that Buddhism does not really grasp how jouissance_1x, objet a_2x, [petit objet a]_2x and the big Other_3x are radically intersubjective… or should I say?… “suprasubjective”.  They are inscribed, so to say.  But, they are not inscribed like pen on paper.  They are inscribed like the contiguity between pen and paper. {Pen [inscribe] paper}₂is the actuality₂ that requires understanding.  The inscription itself only requires recitation.

0165 With that, allow me to inscribe an observation.

Buddhism seems to put the evils of Soviet and Chinese Communism into the basket labeled “suffering”.

But, what about “evil”?

Are show trials evil?

Here is the observation as a virtual nested form in the category of secondness.

0166 On the content level, the normal context of a Stalinist state_3a brings the dyadic actuality of {policy failures [need for blame] show trials}_2a into relation with the possibility of ‘continuing current operations’_1a.

On the situation level, the normal context of broadcasting_3b brings the dyadic actuality of {accusation [constitutes] theatrical drama}_2b or {illusion [transaction] hollow satisfaction}_2b into relation with the possibility of ‘mollifying dissatisfaction with current operations’_1b.

On the perspective level, the normal context of the Relativist One_3c, the one who stands outside of all other jurisdictions, brings the dyadic actuality of {the projection of guilt as a judicial acquisition of “righteousness” [wealth and power] the social ordering of all when the accused confesses guilt}_2c into relation with the potential of  ‘a synthetic truth’_1c, which claims that current operations are both necessary and inevitable and well… do we feel the jouissance_1c?

0167 Oh, it all must make sense, since, if current operations fail, then we enter the night of the world.

Nobody wants that.

0205 What does Zizek do?

He investigates the contiguity between a noumenon [and] its phenomena, as if it might be a feature and not a bug.

He gives examples of Bell’s theorem.  He talks about anxiety, when it comes to relying only on phenomena.  What about the noumenon, the thing itself?  Oh, I can take the model, framed within the disciplinary languages of quantum mechanics, and account for the data, the observable and measurable features of the phenomena of really tiny things.  But, I have to take a lot of measurements, because these things are really small.  Plus, I cannot predict the behavior of any single small particle, because they are all identical as far as the measurement apparatus is concerned.

In a fashion, scientists transcend the ontological thing itself.

Scientist prefer to replace the noumenon with what the noumenon must be, according to their models.   Then, the model (standing in the place of the noumenon) [can be objectified as] its phenomena.

0206 Zizek considers space.

Zizek ponders time.

But, these excursions only bring the author to admit that space and time may well be located on the content-level, along with what it is_3a and the potential of ‘the thing itself’_1a.

You know, that is location with the “Please disregard…” sign.

Zizek writes something like this.  Science?  How crazy is science?  Science pushes symbolizing the real with formulas that don’t make sense to the point where we substitute our own encounters with the thing itself with what we imagine that our symbol-laden formulas are telling us what the noumenon must be.

0207 I suspect that is why Zizek is paid the big bucks.

He says it so much better than me.

Lacan was also paid well.  This fact pissed off competing psychoanalysts.  Lacan did not regard their urinations when he coined the French term, “achoses“.  Achoses gets transliterated into no-things.

For, example, a superposition of states/waves_2a is an achose.

Decades later, Zizek nicely ties the ribbon by noting that the “a” of achose is the a of objet a, which I have already encountered as the actuality_2x that emerges from (and situates) jouissance_1x, as the potential of ‘truth and synthesis’_1x.

Or, is it the possibility of ‘a synthetic truth’_1x?

0208 How about the following?

What if data_1c are syntheses_1c of the truth_1c of measurements_2b?

Then I can use a Lacanian… um… a Peircean re-articulation of a Lacanian schema… to boldly rip the banner of “Please disregard…” from the imaginary noumenon level and reveal the fully exposed achose_2a, as what the model says that the thing itself must be.  Oh… what?… a particle composed of superimposed waves_2a?… that is not it_2a, is it_2c?

0209 Here is a picture of the three-level interscope.

0210 Well, it_2a may not be the noumenon_1a, but it_2a is objectified by um… its phenomena_1b.

On the content or imaginary or noumenon level, the normal context of what it is_3a brings the thing that the model says it is_2a (that is, an achose_2a) into relation with the possibility of ‘the thing itself’_1a.   Or, should I say, “the possibility that it_2a can be the thing itself_1a, which it_2a obviously is not, because it_2a is what scientists say it_2a must be”?

On the situation or real or phenomenon level, the normal context of a measurement apparatus_3a brings the actuality of the dyad_2b, {the collapse of states/waves [yields] a measurement}_2b, into relation with the possibility of ‘phenomena from what is of the Positivist’s judgment’_1b.

On the perspective or symbolic or model level, the empirio-schematic judgment more or less unfolds.  The disciplinary language of quantum mechanics_3c brings the actuality of the dyad_2c, {acquired data [fits into] mechanical or mathematical model}_2c, into relation with the possibility of ‘data’_1c, which is obviously a mask for jouissance_1cdesignated as the potential of ‘a synthetic truth’_1c.

0211 After all, doesn’t “data_2c” manifest synthetic truth_1c?

And, doesn’t “data_2c” (as matter) fit into a mathematical or mechanical model_2c (as form)?

And, just like Jesus sees Satan fall from the heavens, like a lightning bolt, does not the symbolic cast its own image down to the imaginary?

Lacan follows a sacred vision to its obscene essence.

Metaphysics is not allowed.The achose is the discharge of radical materialism_2c into the hollow_2a between what it is_3a and the potential that it is_1a.

0212 Once the perspective, the symbolic, and the model_2c constellates, then BOOM!

In a flash of… um… illuminatingling… discharge, the believers speak in the tongues of disciplinary languages.

Here is the previous diagram at the moment when the tension between the perspective and content levels cracks down.

The form of a mathematical or mechanical model_2c instantiates the achose₂, a representation of the thing itself_2a.

0213 The transmigration of the symbolic into the imaginary is what every ambitious scientist dreams of. 

Ferdinand de Saussure’s model of language as two arbitrarily related systems of differences shocks the discipline of linguistics, then begins to seep into the content-level of psychology, sociology, anthropology and various humanities.

Albert Einstein’s model of relativity shocks the science of physics, then permeates into the content levels of a diversity of disciplines unrelated to physics, as if what it is_3a and the possibilities of ‘the thing itself’_1a have changed.

0214 It happens in all sorts of sciences.  The model transmigrates into the slot for the noumenon, constituting an imaginary noumenon that can be objectified as its phenomena.  Here, the term, “imaginary”, does not comport with common use.  “Imaginary” is technically a Lacanian label for a psychological being.

Here, the psychological being is the content-level of the above interscope.

The achose corresponds to the content-level actuality_2a.

0215 “Imaginary” overlays the level containing the noumenon.

The other two overlays are “real” and “symbolic”.

If I add Peirce to the mix, “imaginary” associates to the category of firstness, “real” to secondness, and “symbolic” to thirdness.  The symbolic virtually brings the real into relation with the possibilities of the imaginary.

The following figure compares the content-level that is disregarded by Copenhagen orthodoxy and the content-level that is electrified by scientists who triumphantly place their model_2c into the slot for the noumenon_2a. 

0216 I immediately notice that the actuality_2a in the content-level disregarded by Copenhagen orthodoxy is already tracing upwards towards a quantum mechanical model_2c.  It is only a matter of opportunity for the normal context of what it is_3a and the potential of ‘the thing itself’_1a to feel the impact of a symbolic discharge.

0217 What does this imply?

Does this imply that Lacan’s theoretical configuration of one particular level in an interscope fractally scales to the entire interscope?

Say what?

0218 Here is a picture containing both Lacan’s and Hegel’s terminology.  It applies to all levels, but most boldly to the perspective level (and Zizek’s configuration).

0219 Now, consider the thunderstruck three-level interscope, where triumphalist science has covered the noumenon_2aover with its model, so that the model (in the slot for noumenon) [can be objectified as] its phenomena.

What if the model_2c and model_2a correspond to an objet a writ large?

With that question in mind, consider the following figure.

Red denotes the objet a writ large.