Category Archives: Interscope & Intersection

05/4/23

Looking at Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein’s Book (2020) “A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century” (Part 15 of 16)

0086 In chapters ten (School) and eleven (Becoming Adults), the authors wrestle with 21st century social constructions that do not adequately conform with human adaptations that belong to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  

On top of that, contemporary grammar schools, high schools and colleges in the modern West are… um… not what they were before 2017.

That ship has sailed.

On all levels, your instructors1H are now assigned2H to inform you, the student, of an actuality2a(1V) that guides the internal dynamics of the postmodern educational system2V: political advocacy.

More on that later.

0087 Former hunters and gatherers face questions, such as, “What are schools supposed to do?  Why are the rituals of becoming an adult tied to modern schools?”

Yes, children are raised by parents.  But, are schools more than an extension of parental authority?  Yes, they are.

In terms of our evolutionary history, childhood and adolescence prepare the individual for a certain degree of specialization, characteristic of team activity.

0088 This allows me to propose, for the authors, an approach to include in their next book.  After all, if anything, this examination shows that their guidance is the first step towards an entirely novel curriculum outside the bounds of higher education2.

0089 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, children and adolescents are “schooled” in the ways of team activities.  Plus, each individual is given opportunities to compete to join a cooperative team.  Each individual is expected to exercise his or her talents.

If there is guidance by adults who are not the parents of a child or an adolescent, then that guidance opens a door to joining a team activity.  Teacher and student share risks within the team.  Every success benefits the team, directly, and all social circles, indirectly.  These risks and benefits accrue as the team encounters the world out there (the ecology and environment).

0090 Here is a picture.

Figure 36

0091 At this point, I can see that Heying and Weinstein’s book recapitulates an ancient paradigm, within the hypernovel world of the 21st century.

The student says, “Guide me.”  The teacher says, “Join my team.”

Patronize the darkhorse podcast and join the team.

0091 What is team activity2?

Team activity2 is a genus-specific trait2 that regularly entails guidance by non-parental members of a band.  Team-activities2 is a single actuality2 that contains adaptations2H and phenotypic traits2V.  So, I can place the term, “team activities”, into the slot for “species” in the intersection for biological evolution.

Figure 37

0092 Now, I can make alterations to this intersection, based on literal and metaphorical interpretations of the elements.

0093 First, I alter the potentials, then the other elements of each intersecting nested form, as follows.

The genome1b((1V) decodes DNA2a.  Similarly, one’s motivations1b decode one’s talents2a.  Talent2a supports an internal motivation to join a particular team1V.  The phenotypic expression2V is a desire to participate2V.  To participate2V is to belong2 in the normal context of both individual and team development3V.

The niche1b(1H) is the potential of an actuality2a that is independent of the adapting species2a(2H).

What is the actuality that is independent of all team activities?

It is the world out there!

Adaptation2H occurs in the normal context of natural (the individual must perform the appropriate tasks) and cultural (the individual must work for the team and with other team members) selection3H.  I call the adaptation competing to cooperate2H.  I shorten the slogan to comp-to-coop2H.  Comp-to-coop2H coheres to the definitions of direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity and altruism. Compete-to-cooperate2H explains their evolution.  Comp-to-coop2H emerges from (and situates) diverse potentials of the proximate niche1H.

0094 Here is a picture of the adjusted intersection.

Figure 38

0095 Well, this does not look modern at all.

Where are the desks lined up in rows, facing the instructor?  Where are the threats by administrators2H for instructors1H to tow the line of the latest trend in advocacy2a(1H)?

Take a look at the corrective sayings that Heying and Weinstein offers as guidance.  Do not fear.  Respect others.  Follow fair rules.  Protest unfair rules.  Do not get comfortable.  Do not get complacent.  Take risks.

All these suggestions describe the intersection of team activities2, in the normal context of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in3, arising from the potential of our talents and the world out there1.

0096 How does the current state-supported education system twist our natural being into something that can be controlled in a top-down political regime?

It channels the competition to cooperate2H into state-defined (and regulated) specializations2H.  In order to gain entrance into a specialization2H, one must attend school and become certified.

It channels the desire to participate2V into state-defined (and regulated) bodies of knowledge2V.  One must go to school in order to achieve certification in regards to that body of knowledge2V.  Mastery of the real separates professors2H (pre-2017) from instructors1H (post-2017).  State-regulated bodies of knowledge may be real.  Or, they may be fictions that high-level administrators want to be advocated. Who knows the difference?

0097 In the 21st century, expertise2 is the single actuality2 that encompasses specializations2H and certification2V.

Here is a picture.

Figure 39

0098 With this diagram in mind, take another look at what Heying and Weinstein have to say.

Plus, consider the trauma that they endured.

Higher education (post-2017) has become a gamed and rigged system.

Figure 40
05/3/23

Looking at Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein’s Book (2020) “A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century” (Part 16 of 16)

0099 Surely, there is more to Heying and Weinstein’s guidance than meets the eye.

Higher education (post-2017) resolves the intersection, by removing all the mystery.

Perhaps, the mystery dissolves into ways that administrators and their political allies rig and game the system.

When an intersection breaks down (that is, when it loses its mystery), it resolves into a two-level interscope.

0100 The following two-level interscope resolves the contradictions of expertise2.

Figure 41

0101 The actuality of postmodern (and modern) specialization2b virtually emerges from and situates school certification2aas the gateway to participation in a state-regulated system.  State-management1a channels personal motivations1a.  So, jobs1b are never satisfying, because they satisfy regulatory requirements1a and simply assume that personal motivations1aapply.

0102 At this point, I look backwards to chapter three (Ancient Bodies, Modern World) and forwards into chapter twelve (Culture and Consciousness).

Consider the following figure.

Figure 42

Can I say that culture goes with adaptation2H and consciousness goes with phenotype2V?

Figure 43

If so, then the above figure re-articulates the mystery within chapter twelve.  Chapter twelve juxtaposes culture2H and consciousness2V and plays the one off the other.  But, in reality, these two actualities pertain to a single actuality2, the Homo genus.

0103 “Homo” is Latin for “man”.  “Genus” is Latin for “general kind”.

Consider how modern wordplay has twisted the meaning, presence and message of these terms.

Then consider the value of this book, as well as Weinstein’s darkhorse podcast.

0104 Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein are professors, once adapted to the niche of higher education (pre-2017) and now adapting to the niche of podcasting (post-2017).

Currently, higher education eliminates the distinction between disciplinary mastery and educational mission.  Higher education (post-2017) resolves the mystery of team activities into a rigged system of regulated specializations situating school systems that game certifications.  

The niche of podcasting keys into the evolution of team activities.  In order to join the team, one patronizes the podcast. The next step, a crucial endeavor, concerns certification.  How does one certify what another person has mastered while listening to and supporting podcasts?

This is the question that I pose at the end of this examination of Heying and Weinstein’s book.

Surely, we need guidance in answering the challenge.

03/3/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2020) “Rorty” (Part 1 of 3)

0001 This chapter appears in Michael Millerman’s Book (2020) Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida and Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political (Arktos Press).  The composition of the book sends a message.  A forty-nine page introduction is labeled as a preface, complete with Roman numerals.  The first chapter covers Heidegger and stands in the center of the book.  Then, chapters two through five covers the responses of four political philosophers to Heidegger’s academic labors (as well as his political affiliation).

Richard Rorty is discussed in the third chapter.  This chapter serves as a transition from the weighty chapters on Heidegger and Strauss to the surprising chapters on Derrida and Dugin.

0002 Rorty offers a change of style.  Rorty is an American philosopher.  This pleases me, since I write like an American, too.  I roll, roll, roll down the river of literary endeavors.  My paddles are purely relational structures, such as the category-based nested form and the Greimas square.

Consequently, Millerman refers to movies, rather than books.  And, if books must be mentioned, then novels come first.

0003 Oh, I should add, the first novel comes from the pen of Cervantes.  Don Quixote marks the start of the Age of Ideas.  In seventeenth-century Spain, two movements coincide.  On one hand, Baroque scholastics finally articulate the causality inherent in sign-relations.  On the other hand, Cervantes creates a new literary genre.

Perhaps, these two hands belong to a single entity.  The novelist represents the scholastic behind the mask of modernity.  Like the heroic character in V for Vendetta, there is no removing the mask.  The Spanish innovator spins away from truth (the scholastics were all about mind-independent being) and leaps towards happiness (the novelists are all about mind-dependent beings).

Is it any surprise that, in the next century, France produces a revolution with a similar attitude?  Then, two centuries later, today’s social democratic politics perform the same routine.

0003 Richard Rorty wrestles with a strange duality.  Politics is contextualized by two distinct masters, truth and reality.  Politics emerges from the potential of good (which goes with truth) and the potential of what can be done (which goes with reality).

Here is a picture of two nested forms.

Figure 01

0004 Of course, Rorty wants to step away from truth3 and find happiness in reality3.  But, one cannot take the mask without the face or the face without the mask.  One cannot say, “Look at the mask without thinking about the face.”

Here is where Rorty flounders.  His social democratic politics tell him that viable options are the only things that matter. But, as a philosopher, he must face the question as to which options are good.

0005 In short, politics is a single actuality that is composed of two distinct nested forms.  Neither nested form can situate the other.  So, the actualities for both nested forms fuse, creating one single contradiction-filled actuality, as described in the chapter on message in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”.

I call the following diagram, “an intersection”.

Figure 02

0006 Right away, I spy that the single actuality of politics2 veils two unspoken actualities that emerge from (and situate) the vertical and horizontal potentials.  These two actualites are overshone by politics2, in the same way that Mercury and Venus appear to disappear within the Sun in astrological conjunctions.  The technical term is “combustion”.

Here is a Greek parody of politics2.

Figure 03

0007 Yes, truth3V and reality3H exhibit different orbits around politics2.

According to Millerman, Rorty is a social democrat advocating for truthlessness and hopefulness.

0008 How does that statement mesh with the above intersection?  Rorty distains Heidegger’s romance with language and says that there is no such thing as a thing itself that can be put into language.  So forget esse_ces (beings substantiating) and essences (substantiated forms).  Indeed, forget righteousness.  The question is whether the thing is useful.  Or not.

At first, it seems that Rorty is only interested in the horizontal axis.

0009 But then, Rorty writes that there are three conceptions of the aim of philosophizing in the modern era.  These three are Husserl’s scientism, Heidegger’s poetics and Dewey’s pragmatism.  The latter two respond to the former.  Husserl idealizes scientists.  Heidegger extols poets.  Pragmatists, like Rorty, Dewey and James, prefer engineers.

Now, if I associate these embodiments into the above mystery, then I replace Mercury with the engineer and Venus with the poet, resulting the the following intersection.

Figure 04

0010 Once I diagram this, the contradictions become more apparent.  The Heideggerian venusian poet2V and the pragmatist mercurial engineer2H orbit an all encompassing solar politics2.  From the point of view of an astrologer, sometimes these inner planets run ahead of the solar presence, sometimes they lag behind the solar presence, and sometimes they are in conjunction with the solar presence.  Combustion!   The Sun’s transit through the constellations, plays this celestial drama over and over again, for those who watch the heavens.  For those who watch politics, the Earth orbits the sun.

03/1/23

Looking at Michael Millerman’s Chapter (2020) “Rorty” (Part 3 of 3)

0021 Of course, Heidegger would (if he could) return the insult, by calling Rorty a liberal propagandist.

After all, Rorty is not concerned with questions of truth3V, preferring issues concerning social consequences3H.

0022 Plus, Heidegger (if he could) would have regarded the imprisonment of Rorty and other social democratic philosophers as a matter of “petty details”.

Petty details?

In Heidegger’s view, the West has exhausted its options1H.  And, proof comes later in the title of Rorty’s book, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity.   Are these options?  Or, are they signs of exhaustion?  Compare that title to Being and Time.

0023 The squishiness of the former title is made worse when Rorty’s dichotomy of choice, private versus public, appears to align with the potentials of good1V and options1H, respectively.  Is truth3V private?  Is reality3V public?  If so, then I ask, “Are these affirmations the poisonous fruits of the Treaty of Westphalia?”  The Treaty of Westphalia marks the start of the modern era, almost four hundred years ago.

Perhaps, Rorty inadvertently testifies to Heidegger’s proposition.  The West has exhausted its options1H.  Politics2 is the intersection of the actualities of reality3H and truth3V, arising from the potential of viable options1H and good1V.  Without a good1V, there are no options1H.  So, politics2 is dead.  But, our love (philo-) of wisdom (-sophy) endures.  So, it is only a matter of time before politics2 rises again.

Shout it from the rooftops!

Politics2 is dead.  Long live politics2.

0024 My thanks to Michael Millerman for his excellent chapter into how Rorty views Heidegger, chapter three in Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida and Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political (2020, Arktos Press, London), pages 97-134.

01/31/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 1 of 16)

0001 Mark S. Smith is a theologian in the Catholic tradition.  He writes a book that is equally weighted between text and endnotes.  The text ends at the center of the bound volume. The endnotes begin at the center of the bound volume.  Smith sends a message.  At the very center, there is a gap.  The gap is between the text and the endnotes.  Does the text write the endnotes?  Or, do the endnotes write the text?

The full title of the book is The Genesis of Good and Evil: The Fall(out) and Original Sin in the Bible.  It is published by Westminster John Knox Press, in Louisville, Kentucky.

0002 A scholarly introduction sets the tone.  This work is not about the Bible.  This book is about scripture.  Nowhere in the Bible, does anyone say the word, “Bible”.  Instead, people in the Bible say, “scripture”, all the time.  So, their scope (or cultural impress at the time) includes Jewish scripture.  Only a retrospective reading, by Christians, years after the gospels are added to the Jewish scripture, allows the use of the word, “Bible”, which comes from the Greek, “biblos”, denoting a collection of manuscripts.  The Bible, at its heart, binds two books, which we now call the Old and New Testaments.

0003 How scholarly is that?

01/29/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 2 of 16)

0004 Two key words pop out in the introduction, “scope” and “retrospect”.  Both apply to reading and writing.

First, consider the author.  The author has a gift, a charism.  Insights are framed by “his” scope, the cultural impress of the time.  But, the cultural impress does not determine the author’s words.  The author does.  The author has “his” own concerns, which somehow intersect with scope.   The author’s insights arise from “his” own interpretations and experiences.

0005 I can write two formulaic descriptions of the author, following A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form(available at the smashwords website as well as other purveyors of e-works).

One, the normal context of producing text3 brings the actuality of the author’s personal conditions2 into relation with possibilities inherent in the cultural milieu of the author1, including “his” scope.

Two, the normal context of writing3 brings insights2 into relation with the potential of the author’s point of view1, containing “his” charism.

0006 Do these nested forms interscope?

Some say that an author emerges from the civilizational conditions.  Others say that an author conveys insights.  Clearly, one nested from does not fully situate the other.

They do not interscope.

0007 Instead, they intersect.  The author is the single actuality that fuses the actualities of conditions2 and insight2.

0008 Ah, the author2 is a single actuality that is the intersection of two actualities, conditions2H and insight2V.  One nested form defines the horizon.  One nested form transects the horizon.  Clearly, the intersection celebrates, rather than resolves, contradictions inherent to the author2.

Here is a picture of the intersection.

08/19/21

Day 1: Looking at Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (Part 1 of 8)

0001 What is Reality?

Reality is a journal for philosophical discourse.

It is worthy of financial support by people of good will.

Reality is the only journal, to date, closing the gap between Thomistic philosophy and Peircean semiotics.

Brian Kemple Ph.D. is the editor of Reality.

0002 He is also the last graduate student of the late John Deely (1942-2017), of fond memory.  

0003 The essay at hand appears in 2020, volume 1, and covers pages 76-123.

The full title is “Signs and Reality: An Advocation for Semiotic Realism”.

0004 The issue is captured on page 115.

Kemple writes (more or less), “If we are to have a living, thriving realism, it must be a realism capable of dealing with the entirety of the real; not only the reality that we engage directly through our senses, but the reality we experience perceptually and intellectually as well, a reality comprising the relations and especially the sign-relations that constitute so much of our experience.”

08/18/21

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (Part 2 of 8)

0005 Matthew Minerd Ph.D. pens a commentary that follows Brian Kemple’s essay.

Thomists currently exhibit an attitude when it comes to semiotic things.

0006 He notes (more or less), “For contemporary scholastics, the domain of cognition-dependent reality generally is a kind of terra non-considerata.  Real being is ens naturae and is separate from the domains of knowledge, technical craft and moral freedom.  These are entia rationis (mind-dependent beings) that, honestly, belong in the shadow.”

0007 How so?

The shadow is not the causalities inherent in ens rationis.

The shadow is the awfulness of the topic.

Look at the shadow side of the domains that Minerd mentions: ignorance (shadow of knowledge), incompetence (shadow of technical craft) and depravity (shadow of moral freedom).

Entia rationis are the things of original sin.

0008 What Thomist wants to wade into that mess?

08/17/21

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (Part 3 of 8)

0009 Now, I regard Kemple’s article “Signs and Reality”, in the journal, Reality, and Razie Mah’s Comments on Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (available at the smashwords website).

Is there a crack in the mirror of the scholastic world, as it reflects on res (thing)?

Things are real.

So are sign relations.

If so, are sign relations things?

0010 If sign relations are real, then the consequences of their realness cannot be denied.

This if-then statement applies to biology.

Are sign-relations so real that they are able to support a niche, into which some hapless creature may adapt?  A niche is the potential of an actuality independent of the adapting genus.  Could sign-relations, or triadic relations in general, be so real as to constitute a niche?

Consider the masterwork, The Human Niche.

0011 There are more consequences.

If sign relations are real, then a cultural change in the natural-sign character of talk may account for a rapid, inexorable alteration of a Lebenswelt.  Does such a transition explain why our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

Consider the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall.

0012 Finally, if our current Lebenswelt turns the evolutionary progression upside down, elevating stipulation over custom and custom over nature, then how do we validate our spoken words?  If the meaning, presence and message underlying a spoken word is stipulated, upon what thing do we staple our stipulation?  How about this: If we construct an artifact, then that artifact should validate our stipulation.  The artifact validates what we stipulate it to be.

What can go wrong with that?

Consider the masterwork, How to Define the Word “Religion”.

08/16/21

Looking at Brian Kemple’s Essay (2020) “Signs and Reality” (Part 4 of 8)

0013 Three masterworks, all available on smashwords, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How to Define the Word “Religion”, expose scientific implications of Brian Kemple’s claims.

If sign-relations are things, then we have an entirely new way to appreciate human evolution, including a recent, and revelatory, twist.

0014 Another triadic relation, the category-based nested form, proves invaluable in discussing these issues.

A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction provide the background.

A category-based nested form consists in a normal context3, an actuality2 and a potential1.  The subscripts refer to Peirce’s categories.  These three elements fulfill four relational statements.

0015 Here is a picture.

Figure 1