Category Archives: An Archaeology of the Fall

08/30/25

Looking at Slavoj Zizek’s Book (2024) “Christian Atheism” (Part 1 of 33)

0001 The book before me is a paperback, published in 2024 by Bloomsbury Academia (London, Dublin, New York) with the subtitle: How to Be a Real Materialist.  The author, Slavoj Zizek, is one of the most entertaining intellectuals on the circuit for the contemporary left.

The inner panel of the cover claims that this book is Zizek’s most extensive treatment of theology and religion to date.

This is enough to inspire me to test out Zizek’s analytic expertise.

Surely, Zizek offers food for thought.

0002 In order to pluck the… um… fruit from Zizek’s tree of knowledge, one should proceed to the final chapter, titled, “Conclusion: The Need for Psychoanalysis” (pages 235-266).  I know that that sounds like cheating, but a more extensive examination of the remainder of the book is promised.

0003 What does the label “Christian atheism” imply?

First, when the Son dies on the cross, the Father dies as well.

If I frame the relation of Father [and] Son as a hylomorphe, a dyad consisting of two contiguous real elements, the two real elements are Father and Son and the contiguity, placed in brackets for proper notation, should be something like [begets].  Here is the resulting hylomorphic structure.

0004 This actuality… er… hylomorphe… is typical for Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements, as discussed in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Secondness is the dyadic realm of actuality.  Secondness prescinds from firstness, the monadic realm of possibility.  Thirdness, the triadic realm of normal contexts, signs, mediations, judgments and so on, channels this precission.  Thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness.   Such is the nature of the category-based nested form.

0005 So what happens when the Father, the thesis of the Old Testament, begets His Son, Jesus, his antithesis in the New Testament?  Well, the good book tells the stories.  Jesus ends up dying on a cross after crying out, “Father, why have you abandoned me?”

Surely, this is a psychic trauma that Lacanian psychoanalysis might be interested in.  But above, there is only the divine actuality2.  Actuality2 is encountered, it is not understood.  In order to understand an encountered actuality2, one needs to figure out a normal context3 and potential1.  The category-based nested form has all the ingredients for understanding (that is, all three categories get labeled and constitute a single triadic relation).

0006 Zizek says that, when the Son dies, so does the Father.

Here is a picture of this actuality2, along with my guesses concerning the normal context3 and potential1.

0007 The normal context of the Holy Spirit3 brings the dyadic actuality of {the Father [dies with His] Son}2 into relation with the monadic possibility of ‘divine oneness’1, that some Christians want to call “Love”.  But, Muslims seem to call, “Allah”.

Even though Zizek is well-trained in Lacan’s psychoanalysis, he is also versed in Hegel’s philosophy and Marx’s materialism.  So, he notes that after Jesus dies… and the Father dies too… Christ becomes the Holy Spirit, as a new emancipatory collective (page 242).  Well, he calls the Holy Spirit, “the Holy Ghost”, so it makes sense that Jesus would be the Ghost instead of His Father, if that helps.

0008 So who or what is this emancipatory collective?

Uh oh, is it the so-called “bride of Christ”?

0009 The actuality of Father [begets] Son2 associates to an encounter in the Real.

How real?  

0010 On one hand, Protestants make the point that the Old and the New Testaments are more real than the Catholic church.  But, there is a distinction between an encounter (actuality2) and understanding (a complete category-based nested form).  Surely, the Old and New Testaments witness encounters.  I wonder whether the Protestants can pass to understanding. There are questions about the words.  What do the words in the text signify?

Zizek takes the words literally when he says that Jesus, the Christ, becomes the Holy Ghost.  But, there is a lacunae, because the Holy Spirit3 is the one who speaks from the cloud above the soon-to-be severed head of John the Baptist.  There, in the Jordan River, the king of kings is baptized.  The Holy Spirit3 is already present as a purely relational being, the normal context for the actuality of {Father [and] Son}2.

0011 The Catholic church, on the other hand, codifies one particular encounter, the Eucharistic sacrament (otherwise called “the Mass”).  Yes, Catholics can join in the potential of divine oneness1 through this sacrament2, which celebrates the simultaneous death of the Son and Father.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” applies to the Father as well as all humanity.  Just as elites of Roman Guard and Second Temple are monsters for murdering Christ under the pretext of their laws, the Father is a monster for offering his own Son as a sacrifice.  During the Mass, we humans remind ourselves of our own culpabilities and the Father, too, reminds Himself of His own, by transubstantiating the consecrated bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  Yes, the Father brings Jesus back to life, at the Resurrection and the consecration.

0012 The Mass is far more twisted than most theologians will admit.  But, a Lacanian can concede the deal.  The Father allows us into mystical union through the Son while saying, “If you eat of my monstrosity, I will accept your monstrosities.”

Of course, some qualifications apply.

That is what the sacrament of confession is for.

Here is a picture for the emancipated collective that associates to the Holy Ghost.

The triadic normal context of the church, as the Bride of Christ3, brings the dyadic actuality of {Jesus’ last supper [re-enacted in] the Mass}2 into relation with the potential of ‘my (human) mystical union with God’1.  The sacraments are mediators between human and divine.

0013 Well, this is not precisely what Zizek has in mind.

Zizek mentions the Holy Ghost in light of Freud’s death drive.  Freud uses the term, “death drive”, to label repetition disorders that basically say, “I am still alive.”  Or maybe, “If I keep doing this, I will not die.”

It’s like the fellow who loves fishing, encounters a massive illness that almost kills him, then returns to fishing.  I am still alive.  The death drive creatively sublimates the trauma.  Fishing becomes an obsession.  Fishing borders on the sublime.  The fish that struggles against the line is a symbol.  The life that the fish fights for is imaginary, because all of us are mortal.  But, one never knows until death arrives.  The death drive continues to repeat until we have reached the destination.

0014 So, what precisely does Zizek have in mind?

Well, I suppose that Zizek wants to capitalize on the idea of the Holy Spirit as an “emancipated collective” for his socialist theory.  Does Zizek buy into the hocus-pocus of the Catholic church as the Bride of Christ3?  Or, does he want to make Christ2, who belongs to the category of secondness, into a figure3, belonging to the category of thirdness, that operates on the potential of ‘truth’1?

0015 Zizek’s configuration is corroborated at the very end of the chapter (page 265) when he comments on a 1918 poem, titled “Twelve”, by Aleksandr Blok.  At the end of this poem, an apparition of Jesus walks before a team of twelve Red Guards, patrolling the snow-filled streets of revolutionary Petrograd.  Christ is not a leader2 (in the realm of actuality2), Christ3 is a shadow who contextualizes the actuality of a group of comrades2 who, in turn, both emerge from (and situate) their Cause1 (the potential of truth1).

So, I wonder, what type of king is this?

Does the kingdom of God dwell among us in such a strange and mysterious manner?

08/1/25

Looking at Slavoj Zizek’s Book (2024) “Christian Atheism” (Part 33 of 33)

0339 So, why compare the two interscopes?

Well, there are two Relativist Ones, one belonging to Zizek’s configuration and one contained in the post-truth condition.

That is a tad confusing.

Plus, it seems to me that the following association of Lacan’s terminology with open slots of the perspective level applies to both interscopes.  

All these items may be regarded as writ small.

Plus, the pattern repeats within Zizek’s interscope.  Jouissance1 writ large coincides with the virtual nested form in firstness.

Similarly, objet a2c(2a) writ large matches the actualities2 on the perspectivec and contenta levels.  The petit objet a writ large matches the situation-level actuality2b.

Uh, does that also apply to the interscope for the post-truth condition?

If it does, then there are two Relativist Ones3c, one corresponds to a little Big Other3c(2b) (in Zizek’s configuration as a psychometric valuation2b) and one corresponds to a big Big Other3c (for the interscope for the post-truth condition).

0340 Okay, the little Relativist Big Other3c(2b) dwells within the big Relativist Big Other2b.

What about Christian atheism?

Zizek’s configuration resides within the slot for psychometric valuation2b.

Does Zizek’s Christian atheism3c(2b) deny the divinity of the big Big Other3c?

If it does, then the following comparison offers another reason why modern politics is immanently theological and supports Zizek’s concluding chapter, arguing that the post-modern West should not disregard psychoanalysis, simply because it questions postmodern scientific-sounding capitalist and socialist valuations2b.

0341 So… uh…. why does Zizek propose Christian atheism3c(2b)?

Isn’t Slavoj Zizek an expert2b operating on the formalized knowledges of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hegelian philosophy and Marxist materialism1b?

Excuse me while I scribble a note saying, “Of course, he sees the light…”

0342 I want to note, if the big Relativist One3c is divine, as preached by the banquet dinner speaker, Baelzebob Jones,speaking, way back when, to the CPP on the evening when I was conceived, then psychoanalysis should be disregarded, because “wealth” and “power” are two distinct and separate entities2c, just like photons as waves and… um… photons as particles.

“… yeah, the light.”

Photons as particles1b(2b) and photons as waves1b(2b) produce distinct and separate measurements2b(2b), as far quantum-physics apparatuses3b(2b) are concerned.  Data1c(2b) is the potential1c(2b) of measurements2b(2b).  And, measurements2b(2b) virtually situate a model standing in the place of the noumenon2a(2b).

Consequently, an irreconcilable distinction between particle and wave2b  constitutes an opportunity1c that supports the divinity of the big Relativist One of the Physics of the Quantum Universe3c.

Fortunately, all hell broke loose before Dr. Jones finished his address.

0342 The logics of thirdness are exclusion, complement and alignment.  Here the little and the big normal contexts align, but the little cannot replace the big.  Nonetheless, the same term is used for both perspective-level normal contexts, even though the two normal contexts differ.  Both are Relativist Ones.

0343 The logics of secondness are those of contradiction and non-contradiction.  If the two actualities of {capital, acquisition [wealth and power] social, exercise of order}2c(2b)  and psychometric valuation2b do not contradict, then I can regard one as an example of the other… or maybe… the little one pays tribute to the big one.

0344 The logics of firstness are inclusion.  Firstness allows contradictions.  Here, the same principle noted above applies.  A synthetic truth1c(2b) supporting a situation-level little Relativist one3c(2b) offers opportunity1c for a perspective-level big Relativist one3c.

In Zizek’s book, a synthetic truth1c(2b) undergirds an intellectual configuration of the dyad, {capital, acquisition [wealth and power] social, exercise of order}2c(2b) for Zizek’s little Relativist One3c(2b).  Zizek’s psychometric valuation2b may contextualized as a possible opportunity1c by a post-truth big Relativist One3c.

Surely, opportunity1c is potentiated by the little Relativist one3c(2b).

But, what opportunity1c is potentiated by Christ3c(2b)?

Oh, I must not forget, Zizek calls for psychoanalysis.

So, Christ3c(2b) must be an intervention.

0345 The perspective-level nested form in Zizek’s configuration neatly fits into the slot for psychometric valuations2bon the situation-level of the post-truth interscope.

Does this explain why the names of post-truth levels should be totally juiced up?

0346 Okay, the entire interscope for Zizek’s configuration resides in the slot for psychometric valuations2b for the post-truth interscope.

This remarkable finding adds value to Zizek’s argument.

Zizek’s Christian atheism is designed to challenge current psychometric valuations2b arising from the potential of ‘a postmodern formalization of knowledge’1b within the normal context of a stylistic union of capitalist and socialist expertise3b.

Christian atheism3c(2b) can substitute for the little Relativist One3c(2b).

But, what about the union between the big Relativist One3c and the little Relativist One3c(2b)?

Would some say… “the unholy union”?

0347 See Razie Mah’s blog for February 11, 2023 for that one.

This blog serves as the first exercise for exploring the utility these arguments.

First, associate features of the music video to elements in Zizek’s configuration.

My hint is that the dyad, {money and political influence [pays for] the Body Shop} associates to the imaginary actuality, {raw materials [construct] specified product}2a(2b).

The rest is left to the exercise.

Second, place the first step into the slot for psychometric valuations2b in order to explain why this music video is produced and advertised by American corporate media.

0348 Do the producers and promulgators of this video want to influence what the white woman has to say?

Write your essay and send to raziemah@reagan.com with written permission for publication on Razie Mah’s blog.

0349 This first exercise reveals the comedy of locating Zizek’s configuration in the slot for psychometric valuations in the post-truth condition.  It also reveals the tragedy.

Consider the tragic photon.

In order to reveal itself as either a wave or a particle, it must be annihilated.

Is that too high a price to pay?

I guess not, because a photon is neither living nor dead.

0350 Take a look at the preceding interscope.

On the obscene level, no-one cares what the photon thinks, because it is doomed to annihilation in the process of determining whether it “says” that it is a particle or a wave.  How obscene is that?

On the undead level, experts in physics3b operate the apparatus3b(2b) that converts what the photon says2a into measurements2b(2b), that support an orderly model2c(2b).  The model2c(2b) asserts that the photon will say, “I am a particle composed of superimposed states and waves”2a(2b)“.  In other words, the measured photon2b(2b) says what the experts3b predict that it will say.

0351 Does this demonstrate the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’1b?

Formalized knowledge1b makes the annihilation of the subject2b(2b) possible.

The subject2a(2b)‘s content-level autonomy converts into a situation-level measurement2b(2b) that supports a model2c(2b)that offers an opportunity1c for an empirio-normative judgment2c to stand for what people think and say2a concerning the soon-to-be annihilated subject2a(2b).

0352 On the sacred level, the One Physicist2c formulates a judgment2b weighing the intelligibility of what the experts report2b and the universality of what photons are telling the experts2a.  This judgment reveals to human reason3a(1a)that it1b does not matter what photons think2a.

Isn’t that obscene?

Indeed, reason3a(1a), defined as “the intellect3a operating on the will1a“, is obscene.

Where the hell is truth1a?

0353 Isn’t that what Zizek is interested in?

Isn’t that what Christian atheism is supposed to deliver?

0354 So concludes my independent approach to what Zizek argues for.

I end with a note on nomenclature.

Lacan is very clever in his terminology.  

So is Zizek.

In the following picture on nomenclature, Lacan’s column applies to the entire interscope of Zizek’s configuration and Zizek’s “juiced up” column applies to the entire post-truth interscope.

Perhaps, these columns intimate future directions of inquiry during these crazy times, belonging to the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods.

0355 I thank Slavoj Zizek for a book that is worthy of examination.

07/31/25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is a picture.

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

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

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

It sure looks that way.

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

07/5/25

Looking at Graham Langdon’s Book (2024) “The Mystery of the Navel Idols”  (Part 1 of 4)

0001 The book before me is published by Archaic Lens Publishing (North Carolina).  The author posts podcasts on youtube, writes on twitter, and has a website, www.archaiclens.com.  The book’s subtitle is The Thread that Connects the Ancient World.

0002 The author documents navel idols that are readily identifiable to the human eye on the basis of several characteristics, as shown below.

0003 They appear at the dawn of history, in regions that will end up civilized, but before any advances in the direction of labor and social specializations.  Later, the idols will associate to the Chalcolithic (the Copper Age), corresponding to the era before the Bronze Age (when copper is mixed with other ingredients to create effective weapons).

The oldest navel figure is Urfu man, recovered from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey (Anatolia) and dating to around 10,000 B.C.  This is long before the end of the last interglacial.  The megastructure site associates to the pre-pottery Neolithic, which comes before the pottery Neolithic.  Subsequent Neolithic cultures throughout southwestern Asia will be labeled and identified on the basis of their pottery.

Also, Gobekli Tepe is not associated with a sedentary settlement, such as the contemporaneous Catal Huyuk.

0004 So, what am I saying?

Gobekli Tepe, Catal Huyuk and similar sites do not end up constellating into a tangle of unconstrained social and labor specializations, where social circles transmogrify into networks of economic and political-religious affiliations.

0005 In the section on Turkey, the author makes an interesting point.  The body habitus of Urfu man appears in statuary and figurines in early civilizations around the world.  The further from Gobekli Tepe, the later in time these navel idols appear.

Ironically, this point is precisely the rule of thumb held by archaeologists during the early twentieth century.  The further from southern Mesopotamia, the later an early civilization forms.

0006 Coincidence?

Or is one observation swept up in the other?

0007 In the section on Turkey, the author includes a watercolor image of an awkward looking small artifact, with enormous alien-like eyes, v-neck adornment and hand on either side of navel.  This clay figurine dates to around 5,000 B.C., during the copper age, according to the British Museum.

This artifact dates to 5,000 years after Gobekli Tepe.

The prehistoric cultures associated with the later artifact occur on the cusp of civilization, where the term, “civilization” is characterized by unconstrained labor and social specialization.

0008 A look at the sections on the Kosovo, Serbia and the Balkans support this association.  The navel idols of the Vinca culture (5850-5750 B.C.) appear similar to the latter Turkey artifact.  The Vinca culture practices farming, animal husbandry and copper smelting.  A similar pattern occurs in Bulgaria.  These cultures are on their way to increasing social complexity.

0009 The pattern will hold for all navel idols found to the west of the Aegean Sea.  The navel idols and the Chalcolithic and other features, such as astronomy-related megalithic arrangements, spread west from southwestern Asia.

Since Gobekli Tepe is pre-pottery and pre-Chalcolithic, it cannot be the direct inspiration for the navel idol figures located the West, five millennia later.  So, the old archaeologists’ saying of the early 20th century applies.  Something from southern Mesopotamia sends out emissaries bearing the news of not talking with one’s hands, as well as copper manufacture and astronomy.

Indeed, it may be that the cultural efflorescence that builds Gobekli Tepe and other Anatolian sites spreads into northern, then southern Mesopotamia as the glacial climate gives way to the Wet Neolithic of southwestern Asia and northern Africa. 

0010 The sea-level rise serves as a good way to demark the navel idols before pottery and copper and the navel idols after.

07/5/25

Looking at Graham Langdon’s Book (2024) “The Mystery of the Navel Idols”  (Part 4 of 4)

0030 To the immediate west of Mesopotamia, the navel idols of Israel, dating to 4500-3500 B.C., look like they correspond to the first message.  The Canaanite coffins of 1300-1200 B.C. look as if they are inspired by the latter message.  The coffins do not contain emissaries from Mesopotamia, they contain Canaanite elites who benefitted from trends towards unconstrained social complexity.

0031 In Sardinia, the messages separate into more than one style of navel icon..

0032 Here, this examiner leaves the reader to use the speculative structure of two messages to appreciate the many navel icons that the author presents in this well-appointed art-book.

To me, the overall picture is clear for the West and for the East (as far as Eurasia is concerned).

The navel icons, as well as their speech-alone talking emissaries, are next involved in establishing a foothold in South America, but the messages are confounded with a trend already occurring in China.  The same pose and adornment of the original navel icons are adopted as indications of elite status.

0033 Here is a picture.

0033 The conclusions… er… speculations of this examiner now set forth, I wonder whether the author will agree.

Of course, in this book, the author never entertains the idea that the navel icons are associated with either the bicameral mind (message 1) or the first singularity (message 2).

However, the author hints that intentional diffusion may be a reasonable explanation.  The navel icons spread at the cusps of early civilizations throughout Eurasia and the Americas.  Plus, there are other novel trends associated with the spread of the navel icons.  These include copper metallurgy and… well… something to do with tracking celestial bodies.  Oh, I should not forget v-shaped neck adornments.

0034 My thanks to the author for gathering evidence that is obvious to the eye, yet very difficult to account for.  Perhaps, this examination, based on two works by Razie Mah, may assist.

07/1/25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

06/5/25

A Brief Overview of What Razie Mah offers Biosemioticians in 2025 (Part 1 of 3)

1272 Biosemiotics challenges the current scientific vision of human evolution (as of 2025).

Okay, maybe I should correct that.

Razie Mah presents a challenge.  Biosemioticians can board the academic siege-apparatus at their leisure.

Leisure?

In 2010, in the book, Semiotic Animal, John Deely describes the owl of Minerva taking wing in the twilight of the modern Age of Ideas.  He, Thomas Sebeok and (no doubt) biosemiotician Alexei Sharov, know that the Third Age of Understanding comes to a close.

1273 In October 2023, Razie Mah blogs a review, titled Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010), “Semiotic Animal”.  This examination contains the scholastic interscope for how humans think.  The initial version of this interscope is developed in Razie Mah’s e-book, Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings.  The interventional sign-relation comes into view in Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2019) “The Affectiveness of Symbols”.

1274 Then, starting in July and running through October 2024, Razie Mah offers a series of examinations in his blog, including Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition”; Joesph Pieper’s book (1974) “Abuse of Language: Abuse of Power”; Vivek Ramaswamy’s book (2021), “Woke, Inc.”; Michelle Stile’s book (2022), “One Idea to Rule Them All”; and N.H. Enfield’s book (2022), “Language vs. Reality”.

These reviews, full of diagrams of the interventional sign relation and detailing its relevance to the current historical moment, are collected in three e-books, Parts 1, 2 and 3, of Original Sin and The Post-Truth Condition.

1275 The owl of Minerva lands in the dawning Age of Triadic Relations.

1276 This brings me to the question of human agency.

Section 3.6 of Semiotic Agency is titled, “Development of Human Agency in Historical Perspective”.

The authors’ story begins with the Neolithic Revolution of the Fertile Crescent, starting around 12,000 years ago, then seamlessly drifts to our own current day.  It reads as if our current Lebenswelt starts with the Neolithic archaeological period.

1277 This story of the development of humanity is not much different from the written myths of the ancient Near East, where humans are um… created… when some differentiated god places special seeds in the soil… or something like that.  These ancient myths are recorded on cuneiform clay tablets, that are preserved by their incineration in royal libraries thousands of years ago.  

Yes, incineration.

The tablets are made of clay.

The capital burns.  Clay fires to brick.  Brick lasts so long that an archaeologist can read the script of a tablet millennia later.

1278 The origin myths of the ancient Near East testify that humans are recent creations, formed from differentiated gods, for the god’s own purposes.  That sounds like our current Lebenswelt to me.  That sounds like the “Development of Human Agency in Historical Perspective”.

Why don’t civilized humans have the agency to see beyond the start of their own civilizations?

1279 Biosemiotics has an answer.  Civilized humans practice a type of semiosis that differs from the type of semiosis that their ancestors practiced.

What am I talking about?

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.

1280 Our current Lebenswelt of civilizations practices speech-alone talk.  Speech-alone talk offers the comforts of implicit abstraction (characteristic of icons and indexes) and facilitates the unexpectedly profitable rewards (and the unanticipated costs) of explicit abstraction.  Speech-alone talk can attach a label to anything.  In short, anything can become a sign-vehicle (SVs), just by speaking the label.

1281 So, what does a spoken word mean?  Is the nature of its presence merely a label?  What message does that send?  The answers to all these questions are explicit abstractions.  Spoken words facilitate explicit abstractions based on the purely symbolic-sign qualities of symbols.

1282 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in practices hand-talk (for the Homo genus) and hand-speech talk (for the species Homo sapiens).  Hand talk permits implicit abstraction.

What do I mean by “implicit abstraction”?

The diagrams in my examination of Alexei Sharov’s and Morten Tonnessen’s book, Semiotic Agency, depict purely relational structures that hominins adapted to over the course of millions of years.  The idea is mind boggling to the modern.  However, implicit abstraction accounts for modern trends, such as the appearance and success of phenomenology in a civilization prospering on empirio-schematic inquiry.

1283 One of the first items of value for the biosemiotician are works that are contained in the series, A Course on Implicit and Explicit Abstraction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

1284 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in practices only implicit abstraction.Our current Lebenswelt also practices explicit abstraction.

06/4/25

A Brief Overview of What Razie Mah offers Biosemioticians in 2025 (Part 2 of 3)

1285 Biosemiotics challenges the current scientific vision of human evolution (as of 2025).

Okay, maybe I should correct that.

Razie Mah presents a challenge that biosemioticians should explore.

Human evolution comes with a twist.

1286 The transition between the Lebenswelt that we evolved in and our current Lebenswelt starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, nominally, 7800 years ago.  That makes the current year, 7825 U0′ (Ubaid Zero Prime).  The year is merely a formality.  Perhaps, astrologers will have something to say about the year when the Ubaid settles as the world’s first speech-alone talking culture.

At its inception, the Ubaid is the only speech-alone talking culture on Earth.  All other cultures practice hand-speech talk.  The power of speech-alone talk makes the Ubaid disposed to unconstrained social complexity.

1287 The Ubaid archaeological period is followed by the Uruk (starting around 1800 U0′).  The Uruk archaeological period is followed by the Sumerian Dynastic (2800 U0′).  The Egyptian Dynastic starts at the same time, showing precocious development after exposure to speech-alone talk from the the original source in southern Mesopotamia.

1288 As the first singularity spreads, nearby hand-speech talking cultures drop the hand-component of their hand-speech talk in favor of speech-alone talk.  Why?  Speech-alone talk is the practice of wealthier and more powerful neighboring cultures (starting with the Ubaid). Speech-alone talk permits explicit abstraction.  Explicit abstractionfacilitates specialization.  As soon as explicit abstraction is practiced, trends towards labor and social specializationmanifest.

Wealth and power.

What is not to like?

1289 The potentiation of unconstrained social complexity shows up in various guises in the written origin myths of the ancient Near East.  Of course, one well-known myth comes from an oral tradition that lasted for thousands of years, before being committed to writing.  Yes, I am talking about the biblical stories of Adam and Eve.

Notice that the talking serpent does not have hands.  It could not have performed hand talk.  It is an exemplar of speech-alone talk.

1290 What does the speaking serpent accomplish?

It demonstrates the nature of speech-alone talk.

Surely, the serpent enjoyed the game… until the boss showed up.  Once Adam and Eve leave the garden, trends towards unconstrained social complexity follow.  The social circles of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in cannot withstand the onslaught of labor and social specialization.  Brother turns against brother.

1291 Of course, a drama is the best way to tell the tale of the first singularity, that is, the beginning of our humanity… er… current Lebenswelt.

Consider Razie Mah’s fiction, An Archaeology of the Fall.

1292 Nominally, the year of this examination is 7825 U0′ (Ubaid Zero Prime).

And, postmoderns are beginning to realize the power of spoken words to create reality.

That is the nature of our current Lebenswelt.

1293 Here is a list of Razie Mah’s masterworks.

06/3/25

A Brief Overview of What Razie Mah offers Biosemioticians in 2025 (Part 3 of 3)

1294 Biosemiotics is born out of the tradition of phenomenology.

Biosemiotics explains of how phenomenology works in light of modern biology.

In Semiotic Agency (7821 U0′), Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen effectively propose the first step of a biosemiotic noumenal overlay.  Alexei Sharov and George Mikhailovsky complete the overlay in 7824 with Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe.

The biosemiotic noumenal overlay consists in semiotic agency and the interventional sign-relation.

1295 The examination of these works has proceeded in Razie Mah’s blogs since the start of January, 2025.  The examination is not exhaustive.  But, it has been revealing.  These blogs will be collected into four books, titled Biosemiotics as Noumenon (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Of course, Razie Mah has been writing and blogging on semiotic topics for over a decade.  The blog may be found at Razie Mah’s website.  E-articles and e-books for sale are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  These works are placed in series for convenience.  A full table of contents for e-works and the blog should be available by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, a few suggestions for further research follow.

1296 For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the following should be of interest.

1297 For the twist in human evolution, the following applies.

1297 For our current Lebenswelt, there are many threads to follow.

1299 All these works pertain to chapter three of Semiotic Agency, titled “Human Agency”.

They show what biosemiotics can do.

1300 My thanks to Alexei Sharov, Morten Tonnessen and George Mikhailovsky, as well as the many contributors to Pathways, for interesting material to examine.  As noted elsewhere, all the material in these examinations, as well as in Biosemiotics as Noumenon, are available to these authors and contributors to use in their efforts to build biosemiotics as a specialization… or… maybe I should say… a “noumenalization” of what all biological processes have in common.

12/31/24

Looking at Bill Arnold’s Article (2020) “Genesis and the Challenges of the 21st Century” (Part 1 of 5)

0001 This article records a presentation at a symposium on Adam, the Fall, and the goodness of God.  The text is published in the journal, Pro Ecclesia (2020), volume 29(4), pages 387-406.  I request that the journal to unlock this issue.  After all, this lecture is not the only gem, covering a topic that is seldom broached.

0002 The author steps to the podium and posits two axioms.  One addresses the evolutionary sciences, in a minimalistic sort of way.  The other addresses biblical hermeneutics in the modern age.  Ironically, another science hides in the shadow of the second axiom.  That science is archaeology.

0003 Here is a picture of the two axioms.

0004 The science axiom poses a double difficulty.

Currently, the biological sciences present all evolution as continuous developments in time, although there are moments of radical… um… “re-organization”, hence the theory of punctuated equilibrium.  When the evolutionary sciences cast their models of human evolution into the mirror of theology, the theologian sees a picture that does not quite sync with the wild change of… um… “genre” that occurs the moment after God wraps up the Creation Story, by telling humans that they should give food to the animals (Genesis 1:30).

Speaking of that, here is an application of the two axioms in action.

0005 Mirror of theology?

See Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2014), available at smashwords and other e-book venues, as well as Razie Mah’s blog for the months of April, May and June, 2024.

On the one hand, the mirror of theology embraces the noumenon.

On the other hand, the mirror of theology reflects models proposed by science.  Science is not interested in the noumenon, the thing itself.  Scientists are only interested in a noumenon’s phenomena.  Phenomena are the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon.  Scientists build models based on observations and measurements of phenomena.  If the model “works”, then scientismists want to say that the model is more real than the thing itself.  At this point, natural philosophers and theologians object and say, “No, the scientific model is not more real than the thing itself.”

0006 After an awkward pause, triumphalist scientists reply, “Well, then, how are you going to know anything about the noumenon without our models?”

“Well,” the natural philosophers say, “What about matter and form?  I can know these about the noumenon through experience of it.”

“So how are you going to do that when the noumenon is evolutionary history?  How can you grasp that though determining its matter and form?”

To which the theologian sighs and says, “Listen, whatever the noumenon is, it cannot be reduced scientific models of its phenomena.  So, I will set up a mirror that will reflect your scientific model, so you can be assured that your models are not ignored when I contemplate the metaphysical structures intrinsic to the thing itself, while keeping my mind open to revelation (including the the Bible). I will call it ‘the mirror of theology’.”

0007 To which the scientist counters, “And, we will correspondingly set up a mirror in our domain, a mirror of science.  We will look at the theological statements concerning the character of the noumenon, which really should just be replaced by our mathematical and mechanical models.  Then, we will laugh at and ridicule them.”

0008 Now, I once again present the odd coincidence pictured before as an application of the two axioms.

Do I have that correctly?

Does the scientist project his model into the mirror of theology?

Does the theologian project his metaphysical analysis into the mirror of science?

How confusing is that?

0008 It seems to me, a mere semiotician, that these two images actually reflect a single real being.  The theologian looks into the mirror of theology and sees what evolutionary scientists project, then looks at revelation and locates an appropriate correspondence.  Then, when the theologian’s correspondence is viewed by the scientist in their mirror of science, it says, “That is superstitious nonsense!”

“It”?

I thought male and female he created them.

“It” must be a first approximation.

0009 Of course, to the semiotician, the whole situation is sort of funny, because it implies that there is a body of wisdom that is independent of science, but not subject to science, because it concerns the noumenon, the thing itself.