Category Archives: Peirce and Aquinas

08/1/26

Looking at E. Michael Jones’s Book (2025) “Walking with a Bible and a Gun”  (Part 27 of 27)

0337 The colonies expanded into the wilderness of the frontier west.

The states expanded into the wilderness of nature.

The United States of America expanded into the wilderness of empire.

Now, we, the people, expand into the wilderness of a house of mirrors.

0338 The final three chapters and the epilogue convey a sense of resignation.  Is the fiction that critical theorists write to be regarded as a comedy or a tragedy?  Or is it a liberation or a trap?  Nothing is as it appears to be.  Not even the author remains undistorted.

0339 Even though Jones does not label the house of mirrors that constitutes Critical Theory “the new postmodern American fiction”.  Jones’s treatment of Joe Ritchey tells of someone who was not only canceled, but ruined, because of his American Identity.

0340 Without explicitly asking the question, Jones poses the quandary, “Do the institutions that support critical theory as a way to turn their world into a fiction have historical precedent?”

Which of the following pairs of comparisons does it parallel?

0341 The student is left to formulate an answer to the question.

0342 My own epilogue begins with a cheer for E. Michael Jones for this thought-provoking exercise.

0343 My examination begins with the introduction of a model through which I (the reader in 2026) can appreciate contemporary meaning, presence and message within historic American literature.  This is discussed in points 0027-0042.

As it turns out, a big picture of his original model of “existence precedes essence” may be diagrammed as a two-level interscope where identity3b virtually situates structure3a.

0344 Here is a picture.

This examination has been informed by a postmodern version of Jones’s Thomistic insight.

0345 What about Jones’s provocative writing style?

Readers from Catholic backgrounds might have a little difficulty accepting the text as written, because it (sort of) sounds like apologetics.  My own difficulty?  The model application, although consistent, does not shine, as it does in this examination.  Jones applies the model.  He does not articulate it.  In this, my examination adds value to Jones’s text.

Readers from Protestant backgrounds may have serious difficulties with Jones’s text, in so far as the author does not respect Martin Luther, John Calvin, King Henry VIII and other founders.  Plus, there is continuous mention of Satan as the hero of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.  Plus, Jones seems to have no fondness for the situational import of sola fide, sola scriptura and sola gratia.  This slogan situates the title of Jones’s book.

0346 Indeed, the first historical step to the American Identity contains the Protestant slogan as situation level and the title of Jones’s book as content level, as shown below.

0347 A meditation on this nested form tells me that Jones presents a gift to the Protestant and the American.  Here is the first expression of the American Identity conforming to the scholastic ideation that existence precedes essence.  Existence associates to the content level.  Essence associates to the situation level.

At the same time, the esse_ce of scripture2a is contiguous with the essence of us2a, as Americans to be.

0348 And the gun?

Is it really a talisman for self-protection from those who pretend to be absolved of the doctrine of original sin, that is, from those who deny the fall of man?

Surely, this question will inspire future inquiry.

0349 Overall, Puritanism (Calvinism) ran its course for a century before the American Revolution.  Then the romantic rehabilitation of nature ran its course for a century before the Civil War.  Then, the nemesis and its mirror of abolitionist and northern aggressor, democratic theorist and voter-rights advocate, secular scholar and value-free administrator, aggrieved theorist and agenda-pushing educator, and (lest I forget) rabbi and jew, has run its course for a over a century.

What is a good title for the coming end of the current saeculum?

Here is my suggestion.

A Shattering of the House of Mirrors.

Or maybe, A Reconstitution of the American Identity, will do.

0350 My thanks to E. Michael Jones for this work.  I hope that this examination adds value to his exposition and serves as a companion for the student interested in the topic.

06/29/26

Looking at Eric Santner’s Book (2016) The Weight of All Flesh (Part 1 of 28)

0001 The following 2017 essay comments on a recent book by a Professor of Literature about the subject matter of the political economy.  Eric Santner tries to figure out its immaterial measure.

Why do I say immaterial measure?

Consider the complete title: The Weight of All Flesh: On the Subject Matter of Political Economy.

Weight is a measure of something material.  However, weight itself is not material.

Similarly, matter ought to be material.  But, subject matter is not.

Also, the economy processes materials.  Politics does not.

Will literalism do under these circumstances?

Once the flesh has weight, then it is no longer simply what it is.

Once matter is taken to be a subject, then it is no longer merely what it is.

Once the economy is taken to be political, then it is no longer only what it is.

0002 To me, the category-based nested form applies.

The actualities of flesh, matter and economics exist by themselves.  But, humans evolved to consider more than what is at hand.  We are designed to put actuality into a nested form.

So, these actualities exist, for us, in the normal contexts of weight, subject and politics.  These are not the only normal contexts.  They are the contexts raised by the author.

The contextualization of actuality raises another question.

What potentiates the weight of flesh, subject matter and political economy?

You may already know the answer.  I do not.  Consequently, I turn to this text to see what I may discover.  This will be a fairly close reading, so have Santner’s book at hand.

‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

0003 Eric Santner wrote The Weight of All Flesh: On the Subject-Matter of Political Economy (Oxford University Press, 2016).  The main body of the book consists in a preface and two lectures.  The two lectures constitute chapters 1 and 2.  These chapters are broken into parts.

Santner’s presentations are works of art, composing the 2014 Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the University of California, Berkeley.

0004 The front piece is an introduction by Kevis Goodman.  The end piece is a suite of comments by Bonnie Honig, Peter E. Gordon and Hent de Vries, followed by a reply by Eric Santner.

The responses are very challenging.  How does one reply to something that sounds like free association?

Unfortunately, the front and end pieces will not be covered in these comments.  However, the end piece may be used as an exercise in the methodology that composes these comments.

0005 Why is this interesting?

My interest is obvious once one looks at How To Define the Word “Religion” plus the first ten associated primers.

The tenth primer ends before the majesty of sovereign power.  Primers 8, 9 and 10 tell of the difficulty of seeing beyond these mountains.  Anyone who argues about politics can stir up an avalanche.

What does Primer 8 tell me?

Infrasovereign religions grasp for sovereign power in order to impose their organizational objectives on those outside their organization.

What about Primer 9?

Socrates had to drink hemlock.  Why did he have to do that?

Primer 10?

Rene Girard proposes that a scapegoat mechanism is apparent in all civilizations.  Plus, the mechanism comes into play when power structures try to preserve themselves.

Overall, politics and religion map a dangerous landscape.  Eric Santner walks where angels fear to tread.

0006 Primers 8, 9 and 10 explore the presence underlying the word “religion”.

Institutions occupy the content level of the society tier.  They contextualize the organization tier.  These institutions harbor organizational objects, objectsorganization, that call the individual into organization.  These objectsorg are virtually situated by sovereign acts, laws and decrees.

0007 Eric Santner reads literature.  He observes art.  He sees that something changed in the West over the past few centuries.

What is this something?

It is completely missed by the current social and political sciences.  However, it appears in Western paintings, poems, novels, plays, and other artistic works.  This is the stuff that Eric Santner studies.

0008 Subject matter.  What is it?

“Matter” is stuff.  “Subject” is something that ends up objectified.

Okay, now what?

Does subject matter signal the objectification of matter?

Or does subject matter signify the objectification of something that matters?

0009 At the end of the Latin Age and the beginning of the Age of Ideas, around the 1600s AD, the subject matter of political theology was the king’s two bodies.  One body was mortal.  The other was sublime.

The object of the king’s glorious body supplemented the subject of the king’s mortal body.  Santner labels the process spectral (glorious body) materiality (mortal body).

0010 To me, the glorious body is the normal context for the actuality of the king’s mortal body.

The nested form looks like this:

Sublime body3( mortal body2( potential of kingly being1))

0011 Does this express the character of the subject matter?

The mortal body is matter.  The sublime body is the normal context that objectifies the mortal body.  Thus, the king’s mortal body becomes a subject for political theology.  The something that underlies the mortal body, giving its flesh weight, is the quality of being king.

0012 Moving to the present day, the matter of political theory falls to the people, rather than the king.  The subject gets dispersed from one king to many citizens.  The glorious body translates into what Michel Foucault calls “discipline”.  The qualities that weight the mortal body of the king turn into “biopower”.

To me, modern political theory translates into the following nested form:

Discipline3( citizen2( possibilities inherent in biopower1))

0013 The two nested forms are shown below:

Normal context3 and possibility1 surcharge actuality2.

0014 The mortal body of the king is more than it otherwise would be in any other context.  Its actuality possesses a surplus of immanence because it now has potential.

Similarly, one citizen may heroically rise above others as an expression of the biopower released by discipline.  Other citizens are weighed and measured in the exercise of biopower.

0015 The pressure cooker of the royal person expanded to the business of the citizen.  Medieval and early modern political theology gave way to modern political economy.

0016 Take a look at a painting.  Jacques Louis David painted the extraordinary Death of Marat, during the French Revolution.

Compare this image to a wax effigy of a dead medieval king, or some other memorial, placed on the throne during official mourning.

0017 Jean-Paul Marat, the citizen, dies in his tub.  David paints the death scene.

The king’s mortal body is buried.  An icon of his sublime body is placed on the throne.

Clearly, David paints the equivalent to the sublime body of the citizen, Marat.

0018 One could say that this represents a loss of enchantment.  After all, Marat, the revolutionary, hardly behaved royally.

This lack of royalty aligns with the emptiness above Marat, the corpse.  The upper half of David’s painting is empty.  If Marat had been royalty, the upper register would be full of angels and saints welcoming the glorious king.

What happened to the angels and saints?  

0019 Heck, not even Marat’s fellow citizens are in the upper frame, registering the emotions of shock, grief, and, perhaps, relief.  Critics have called the nondescript space above the dead Marat oppressive, abstract and unmotivated, characteristic of a representational deadlock.

0020 Perhaps, the cunning and ambitious artist was saying, “Do not let this be you.”, while painting, “This fellow was a citizen hero.”

Santner does not tell why Marat got knifed in his enclosed bathtub, filled with medicinal waters.  Marat was a radical agitator.  He named his newspaper, “The People’s Friend”.  He was murdered by a woman who had come to him, claiming news from one of the districts of France.

During her trial, she testified that she killed one man in order to save one hundred thousand.  She was found guilty.  Her head was chopped off with a guillotine.

0021 Jacques-Louis David was charged with organizing Marat’s funeral.  Surely, Marat was a martyr for the Revolution.  Yet, despite the acclamation, no other figure appears in the painting.

0022 Why?

The reason is simple.

No sane person (whether angel, saint or fellow citizen) wanted to be associated with this crazy person, who was typical of the Jacobins, the party that celebrated the Cult of Reason and the Cult of the Supreme Being.

0023 David’s painting is both a warning and a paean.

0024 To Santner, the empty upper register of the painting associates to the impossibility of transcendence in the modern age.  Business is busy-ness.

10/31/25

A First Look at Julian Jaynes’s Book (1976) “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” (Part 1 of 21)

0236 Why do I examine this work?

I reviewed Steven Mithen’s book, The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together The Six-Million-Year Story Of How Words Evolved (2024, Basic Books, New York).  See Razie Mah’s blog for September 2025.  The examination concludes on point 0235.

During the examination, I recall a book that Julian Jaynes publishes in 1976. 

I wonder, “Why does Mithen’s book remind me of Jaynes?”

I now have a copy of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (First Mariner edition (2000), New York, New York) before me.

This explains why I start the current examination on point 0236.

0237 Julian Jaynes (1920-1997 AD) earned master and doctoral degrees in psychology at Yale University.  He lectured in psychology at Princeton from 1966 to 1990.  In 1990, he writes a postscript that appears in the Mariner edition.

This afterward lists the four hypotheses in Books I and II.  Plus, the postscript expands on Part III, by discussing the psychological transition from the bicameral mind to subjective consciousness at the end of the Bronze Age in the Near East.

0238 Here is the list.

0239 So, why does Mithen’s book remind me of Jaynes’s work?

My review of The Language Puzzle led me to conclude that Mithen’s explicit rejection of a gestural origin of languageprevents him from realizing that his information implicitly supports the very position that um… he rejects.

Yes, if I ignore his declaration against a gestural origin to language, then I can start to recognize that speech is added to fully linguistic hand-talk after the domestication of fire, when the community becomes a social circle under pressure from natural selection.

0240 That reminds me of a curious pun that seems to have import in the year 2025AD.

The Russian word for “no” is “nyet”.

To the American ear, “nyet” sounds like “not yet”.  And, that means, “Yes, but not now.”

So, when Mithen says, “nyet”, to the gestural origins of language, his English speaking bicameral mind hears, “not yet”.  So, Mithen unwittingly drops clues to his nyet hypothesis within his own subjectively conscious argument.  These hints offer a weird twist to Looking at Steven Mithen’s Book (2024) The Language Puzzle.  It is as if Mithen’s own bicameral mind offers – what I will call – “a nyet hypothesis”.

0241 Now, consider the first two hypothesis (A and B) in Jaynes’s Books I and II.

First (A), subjective consciousness relies on spoken language.  Mithen consciously proposes that spoken words are built over millions of years through synaesthesia, cross modal “leakage” of sensations, from visual things and events to auditory vocalizations.

0242 Of course, this proposal comes across as sketchy.  Why would early hominins, such as the australopithecines and the early species in the Homo genus (3.5 to 0.6Myr – millions of years ago) do this?  And how?  The voice is most likely not under voluntary control.  Involuntary calls rule the day.

But, the vocal tract changes over time.  Most likely, the voice is on the verge of coming under voluntary control by the time that Homo heidelbergensis appears in the fossil record (perhaps, over 600kyr – thousands of years ago).

On top of that, Homo heidelbergensis shows up during the period when hominins domesticate fire (800-400kyr).  So, Mithen consciously and cautiously suggests that the synaesthesia business really takes off around that time.

0243 The nyet hypothesis?

Well, of course, proto-linguistic hand talk has plenty of time to evolve without cross-modal leakage during the early period (3.5 to 0.6Myr) and even has a couple of hundred-thousand years to become fully linguistic after hominins start to play with fire (0.8 to 0.6My).

So, synaesthesia would not make a jump from things themselves to vocal utterances, but from manual-brachial word-gestures to vocal utterances.

Suddenly, synaesthesia no longer seems implausible.

0244 Second (B), compare Mithen’s nyet hypothesis with Jaynes’s proposal of the bicameral mind.

To me, the idea that manual-brachial word-gestures provide stimuli allowing synaesthetic crossover from visual to auditory sensations seems like “auditory hallucinations”.

0245 My goal in this first examination is to develop this impression.

10/8/25

A First Look at Julian Jaynes’s Book (1976) “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” (Part 21 of 21)

0519 I conclude this first look at Julian Jaynes’s breakthrough masterwork, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, with a brief summary.

I examine the First Mariner Books edition, published in 2000, which offers the advantage of a postscript… er… “afterword”, written in 1990, fourteen years after the first edition.

The afterword does not substitute for the masterwork, even though it neatly distills the complex argument into four propositions.

0520 Here are the four propositions.

0521 This examination commences with these four propositions.

Why do I pursuit of this topic?

In my view, Mithen’s 2024 work, The Language Puzzle, exhibits the hallmarks of both subjective consciousness and bicameral mind.

0522 This examination concludes with modifications on Jaynes’s four propositions.

0523 Each of these modifications have been discussed in full.

These modifications bind together Mithen’s nyet hypothesis, pertaining to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, and Jaynes’s historical hypothesis, pertaining to our current Lebenswelt.

These modifications demonstrate that our current Lebenswelt (items in blue) is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in (items in green).

These modifications propose how the first singularity is a major cause for this difference.

The first singularity stands between the green and the blue items.

0524 Steven Mithen publishes in 2024, almost precisely five decades after Julian Jaynes publishes in 1976.  So much has happened during the past fifty years.  Also, so little has happened, when it comes to developing Jaynes’s four propositions.  How strange it is that Steven Mithen’s bicameral mind may have constructed a foreword to Jaynes’s masterwork, without the author consciously realizing it.

0525 This is precisely the irony that permeates Jaynes’s landmark work.

Who could have known? 

So concludes this first look at Jaynes’s text.

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.

06/30/25

Looking at George Mikhailovsky’s Chapter (2024) “Meanings, Their Hierarchy, and Evolution” (Part 1 of 9)

1053 The text before me is chapter six of Pathways (see point 831 for book details, pages 101 through 136).  The author is one of the editors of Pathways.

1054 To me, the abstract introduces evolution writ large.

The abstract suggests that the interventional sign-relation precedes semiotic agency, as far as evolution writ large goes.  Evolution writ large includes the evolution of the inanimate universe along with the evolution of life.

1055 Before life, inanimate objects manifest only as meanings-in-themselves.  An evolving macroscopic thing may be labeled an “eventity”, which seems like a real initiating (semiotic) event2a (SVs) or an action that could be goal-directed2c (SVi).

Surely, some eventities rely on lower-level entities.  But, what about agency and subagency?

With non-human life, hierarchies of sub-agents3 operate within each living agent3 (or “holobiont”).

With human life, persons3, who are holobionts in terms of anatomy and physiology, operate as subagents within… what?… social circles?

1056 The introduction (section 6.1) starts with an observation.  The term, “meaning” is typically used in three situations.

Here is the list along with associated sign-elements.

1057 This coincidence is remarkable.  At the very start of the introduction, the author offers situational instances of “meaning” that correlate to the three sign-objects intrinsic to a three-level interscope.

The author then writes that he is interested in the first two types (the ones associated with semiotic agency) but not so much the third type (the one associated with the interventional sign relation), because this one is already well-developed in linguistic semiotics.

1058 But, there is another coincidence to note.

Recall that Peirce’s typology of natural signs is based on the categorical qualities of the sign-object.

The icon is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on the qualities of firstness, including images, pictures, unities, wholes.  The logic of firstness is inclusive and allows contradictions.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of similarity or imagery.

The index is a sign-relation whose sign object is based on the qualities of secondness, including contact, contiguity, pointing, influence, cause and effect and so on.  The logic of secondness includes the law of noncontradiction.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of indication and pointing.

The symbol is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on the qualities of thirdness, including normal context, mediation, judgment, habit, tradition and so on.  The logics of thirdness are exclusion, complement and alignment.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of convention.

1059 Since all sign-objects belong to secondness, I can assign Peirce’s typologies on the basis of the category of the level in a three-level interscope.  Icon goes with the level of content.  Index associates the situation level.  Symbolmatches the perspective level.

1060 Here is a list of associations.

1061 I ask, “How well do the two coincidences correspond?

1062 I start with thirdness, an exemplar sign is a symbol whose sign-object, SOe, denotes a goal2c on the perspective level.  The sign-object has the qualities of both acquired habit and innate disposition.  So, the assignment of symbolworks.

1063 For secondness, a specifying sign is an index whose sign-object, SOs, denotes a symptom2b on the situation level. I suppose that corresponds to information2b.  A symptom2b virtually situates its phenomenon2a in the same way that information3b virtually situates an initiating (semiotic) event2a.  The sign-object holds the qualities of indication and pointing.  So, the assignment of index works.

1064 For firstness, an interventional sign is an icon whose sign object, SOi, denotes something that is indicated or expressed in spoken words or symbols2a on the content level.  Does that correspond to intention expressed2a (SOi)?  Or, better yet, does that correspond to an image of intention expressed2a (SOi) that is contiguous with a real initiating event2a (SVs) in the dyadic content-level actuality2a?

Is the third situation for “meaning” an image that is indicated or expressed in spoken words and symbols.

Imagine that!

‘Something’ is an image.

06/20/25

Looking at George Mikhailovsky’s Chapter (2024) “Meanings, Their Hierarchy, and Evolution” (Part 9 of 9)

1137 The material that I cover in my portrayal of C1 and C2 using Frege’s triangle goes with section 6.3, titled “Potential Meanings During the Abiotic Period of the Evolution of the Universe”.

Here is a picture.

C4 (is missing because it) covers the genesis of atoms with masses greater than helium.  Technically, C4 follows C5, as written above.  Why?  Atoms with masses greater than helium are produced by nuclear fusion in stars.  The story bifurcates from the cosmic sequence to the substance sequence.  The substance sequence starts with atoms with masses greater than helium and proceeds through the emergence of life.

1138 The Frege triangles for C1 and C2 are easy compared to what follows in section 6.4 (“Evolution of Meanings in Biological Systems”) and 6.5 (“The Evolution of Meanings in Human Societies and the Relationship between Hierarchies of Substance (that is, biology) and Semantics (that is, within our current Lebenswelt)”).

Nevertheless, my exercises demonstrate the utility of Frege’s triangle in the extension of the biosemiotic interscope into all aspects of postmodern inquiry, including into abiotic noumena, the domains of physics and chemistry.

1139 There are many threads to follow in this demonstration.

The first thread is obvious.  Can this be done for all noumena listed in Table 6.2?

The answer is yes.  Once one starts a spiral, other spirals follow, and they diverge, and they coalesce, and who knows what else.

1140 The starting point of the author’s cosmos chain (C1) is obviously the Big Bang.

But, one can say that other starting points can be imagined, hence theories of the multiverse.  The multiverse consists of many universes, each with different energy, space, natural laws and constants.  Physicists can simulate these many “universes”.  Hollywood movie makers can fashion plotlines from the conceptc.  It is all very theatrical, including the name for the start of our own universe, “the first singularity”.

1141 The starting point of the author’s substantial chain (S1) is atoms, made in stellar furnaces because (up to the atomic configuration of iron) fusing atoms releases a tremendous amount of energy, enough to keep a star from falling in on itself from gravity.

Anyone who has cracked a chemistry textbook knows that there is no “first singularity” to be found in this discipline.  One can imagine that each element in the periodic table constitutes its own singularity.  Spirals diverge and coalesce in the most fantastic ways, so there is no telling which molecules are the precursors to life and which are not.

1142 This is where Frege’s terms complement Peirce’s.

Frege’s terms serve as spoken labels.  Labels are used for symbolic operations.  Symbolic operations undergird grammar (that is, language).  So, Frege’s terms point to the somewhat disturbing intimation that speech-alone talk (or a theoretical equivalent) is intercalated into semiotic agency and, by way of bridging, to significance that is outside of semiotic agency (that is, the interventional sign-relation).

Here is a picture.

1143 Peirce’s terms also serve as spoken labels.  These labels apply to the contiguities between real elements in the actualities of all interscopes.  These labels apply to something like [substance], in a contiguity between something like matter and something like form.  To a greater or lesser extent, all dyads in Peirce’s secondness pay tribute to Aristotle’s hylomorphe as an exemplar.

1144 The biosemiotic interscope reifies into the biosemiotic noumenal overlay, including both semiotic agency and the interventional sign-relation.

This chapter presents an impossible challenge.  Spirals (or hierarchies) go back to the first singularity, thirteen billion years ago.  Each spiral brings the inquirer to a new level.  Some spirals write small, others write large, but they all begin … for us … with a clot.  A pen touches paper, then moves to portray a diagram, a purely relational structure, portraying what all living things have in common.

1145 This examination recites all that has gone before.

This examination is a refutation to those who think that modern science knows enough to weave these spirals into a vision of our universe, as well as of us, the images of the one who speaks the universe into being.

1146 I say, “Diagram spirals!”

Perhaps, the author agrees and anticipates that Frege’s triangles will reveal a hierarchy… or is it?… a spirality that portrays meanings and their evolution.

06/19/25

Looking at Lorenzo Magnani’s Chapter (2024) “Anchors of Meaning” (Part 1 of 7)

1147 The text before me is chapter eighteen of Pathways (see point 831 for book details, pages 379-400).  The full chapter title is “Anchors of Meaning: The Intertwining of Signs, Abduction and Cognitive Niches”.  This chapter opens Part IV of Pathways.  The title of Part IV is “Meanings in Humans and Beyond”.  

1148 The author belongs to the Philosophy Section of the Department of Humanities at the University of Pavia, Italy.  He has a scientific affiliation as well, being a member of the Computational Philosophical Laboratory.

1149 The abstract tells a story that mirrors this examination (so far).  Biosemiotics is not only semiotic agency.  Biosemiotics encompasses semiotic agency and the interventional sign relation.  The two are bridged through the contiguities of [conceptc] and [symbola].

Human brains thrive on semiosis.  The brain generates a series of signs (specifying and exemplar) that latch onto an apparently external sign-relation (interventional) with the two contiguities of [conceptc] and [symbola].

1150 Or, should I use the word, “anchors”?

Here is the picture of the [conceptc] and the [symbola] as corners that anchor Frege’s triangle. 

[Conceptc] is the contiguity within the perspective-level actuality2c of a goal2c.

A banner wraps around the interventional sign-relation.

[Symbola] is the contiguity within the content-level actuality2a of a real initiating (semiotic) event2a.

1151 In section 18.1 (“Humans as Ecological Engineers and Chance Selectors”), the real initiating (semiotic) event2aencompasses innately anticipated systems of differences.  For, example, the infant expects to interact with persons.  Each person has his or her own face.  It’s like a system of differences (Saussure’s view) or a symbolic order (Peirce’s approach).

The family is one of the smallest social circles of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Since roles are re-enacted generation after generation within this social circle, one might think that the each person2a images an appropriate role2c.  This happens at first…

…and one sees it when an infant gets separated from its mother.

That tyke is not taking any chances.

1152 The child is born with innate expectations of the smallest social circle (SOe) [and that means] family (SVi).

Does this look like Frege’s corner 2c?

1153 If so, then the interventional sign-relation, which stands outside every agent in the family, yet is the reality in which each agent participates, follows.

Family members2c (SVi) stand for their particular social roles2a (SOi) in regards to (a normal context like) what is happening3a operating on (a possibility like) the potential of ‘something’ happening1a (SIi).

1154 Here is a diagram of the interventional sign-relation for a newborn.

1155 Is this cultural-niche construction?

If so, then who or what is constructing this niche?  Or does the niche construct itself because it exploits an opportunitythat arises from the independent actuality of sign-relations?  Just like a bat exploits acoustics to echo-locate, humans exploit sign-relations to abduct who mommy must be.

Sign-relations are immaterial beings that entangle the material.  The materiality of the family members2c (SVi) signify the manifestation of ‘home’2a (the immaterial manifestation of family belonging, SOi) in regards to the normal context of the birth of an infant3a operating on the potential of ‘a successful birth’1a (SIi).

06/12/25

Looking at Lorenzo Magnani’s Chapter (2024) “Anchors of Meaning” (Part 7 of 7)

1216 This lion-man ivory is valuable.

Why?

1217 He is an agent, with a disembodied mind.

The other agent, the human, practices hand-speech talk, and occasionally is faced with moments when consultation may be advisable.  The community faces difficulties.  What are we to do?

Let the community-leader ask the lion-man.

1218 The Neanderthal cannot do this, because Neanderthals only practice hand-talk.

The humans practice hand-speech talk.  The ivory figure cannot hand talk.  So, the lion-man must speak.

1219 At this point, I enter the terrain of a precocious book, proposing that modern consciousness rises from the ashes of the breakdown of whatever is going on when the Paleolithic community-leader is speaking to lion-man, or rather, hearing the disembodied voice of lion-man.  The book is The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind(1976), by Princeton psychologist and psychohistorian, Julian Jaynes (1920-1997).

1220 The lion-man speaks in an interventional sign-relation.

Here is a picture.

Today, lion-man would be an app on an i-phone.

1221 This example brings this examiner through section 18.5 (“Material Anchors for Conceptual Blends”) and into section 18.6 (“Conclusion”).

1222 I rest my pen.

My thanks to the author, Lorenzo Magnani, and his team at the Computational Philosophy Laboratory.  May they find a way to portray the semiotics of a world that does not compute, otherwise labeled, the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.