0732 The article concludes after the third asterisk (3).
Discussion shifts from the topic of the future to the metaphor of space.
0733 Historical consciousness discusses the future as the place that we are going.
Cosmological consciousness portrays the future as a place that we have been before.
0734 Both ways, the message1c is that the future will be a continuation of past and present.
But, what if we lived in a Lebenswelt where our hand-talk could not picture and point to these explicit abstractions?
What if we could manual-brachial gesture an arcfrom the location of the sun (or moon) towards its point of rising (past) or setting (future)?
Would these hand-talkwords testify to an implicit abstraction?
0735 What if we could not explicitly state that the normal context of space-time3c brings the dyadic actuality of {continuity in time as matter2cm [substantiates] our current Lebenswelt as form2cf} into the relation with the potential of ‘a message concerning the continuity of past, present and future’1c?
0736 Here is a picture of the interscope with that perspective-level nested form.
0737 Space is an excellent metaphor fortime.
We move through time, just as we move in space.
0738 Our motion in space is continuous, so time must be continuous as well.
Well, it must be continuous if space and motion and time are metaphors for one another.
But, one wonders.
0739 Does the perspective-level hylomorphe, {continuity in time2cm [substantiates] our current Lebenswelt2cf} apply to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Does the derivative interscope explicitly manifest in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
0740 Can one express the explicit abstractions of history, cosmology, consciousness, continuity, and space-time in hand-talk?
What is there to image or point to?
0741 It makes me wonder. Are the foundations for these explicit abstractions somehow, built into the human thing… er… being?
Matter and form?
After all, “ego loquens” means “I speak”.
But, what if our kind evolves in the milieu of hand talk?
0742 My two conclusions are obvious and open-ended.
First, Uspenskij’s work may be diagrammed using the fundament (loquens) and derivative (ego) interscopes.
Second, time is not the only semiotic problem.
0743 My thanks to Boris Uspenskij for publishing this brief, yet engaging article.
0001 If I may present my conclusion at the beginning, “I suggest the following motto: First the bauplan, then the twist.”
0002 The full title of the essay under examination is “Unpacking the Neolithic: Assessing the Relevance of the Neolithic Construct in Light of Recent Research”. The article appears in the Journal of World Prehistory (2025) in volume 38:11, pages 1-58 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-025-09198-0). The author is affiliated with the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
0003 The author’s argument follows the Greek tradition of (A) setting out prior propositions, (B) adding further information and assessments and (C) proposing one’s own solution.
Prior propositions (A) are covered in the section titled, “The Origin of the Term ‘Neolithic'”.
Further information (B) includes sections on neolithic emergences in southwest Asia and other regions, including China, Japan, eastern north America, Mesoamerica and the northwest America.
The author’s proposal (C) appears in a section titled, “Repackaging the Neolithic”.
0004 I examine each movement in the sequence A, C then B.
0005 In regards to the historical origin of the term, “neolithic” (A), the word appears in the 1850s in the context of prehistoric lithic technology. A distinction between old “paleolithic” and new “neolithic” tools reflects a fairly recent change in the human condition. The Paleolithic extends very far back into the evolution of the Homo genus. The Neolithic is fairly new and applies only to Homo sapiens. By “new”, I mean, say, starting less that 20,000 years ago.
0006 As it turns out, stone tools and fossilized bones are the most recoverable items from the distant past. So, the idea that our kind evolves will of course rely of this type of data. The implications are significant. If lithic technologies are like matter, then the archaeologist may speculate on forms of prehistorical human (or “hominid” or “hominin”) conditions.
0007 For example, the earliest paleolithic stone tools are labeled “Oldowan”. These tools can be made on the fly. If I strike one rock with another, I can fracture off a shard and expose a sharp edge. Of course, one must choose the right rocks for this trick. Plus, technique is important.
Later stone tools are labeled “Acheulean”. These stone tools are made ahead of time, by the same technique of hammering off shards to reveal an intended form that… somehow… is intrinsic to the original rock.
0008 So, what am I suggesting?
Is the actuality of matter and form intrinsic to rocks, and ancestral hominins learn to tamper with one real element (matter) in order to sculpt the other real element (form)?
0009 I am suggesting more than that.
Aristotle’s hylomorphe (hylo = matter, morphe = form) is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness. Secondness consists of (at least) two contiguous real elements. For paleolithic hominins, a rock (matter) could be sculpted into a stone tool (form). From the point of view of the archaeologist, the hylomorphic structure still applies. The question is, “How?”
Paleolithic stone-tool technology “sculpts” prehistorical human conditions.
0010 Of course, the word, “sculpts”, serves as an aesthetic metaphor for the contiguity between paleolithic technology as matter and hominin conditions as form.
0011 The challenge for nineteenth-century anthropology is clear. Propose a better, more scientific, or at least, less metaphysical, label for the contiguity.
With only geological strata, stone tools and fossilized bones as evidence, proposals were necessarily speculative. But, archaeologists continued digging, and by the 1850s could make the distinction between paleolithic and neolithic. Also, they figured out a reason for why the advance from Oldowan to Acheulean stone tools “sculpted” more advanced hominin conditions. Man was making himself.
0012 What do these evidential and rational developments suggest?
For a Peircean, secondness is the dyadic realm of actuality. Secondness is only one of Peirce’s three categories. The other two are thirdness (the triadic realm of normal contexts, judgments, signs, mediations and so forth) and firstness (the monadic realm of possibility).
Each of these categories manifests its own logic. Also, each higher numbered category prescinds from the adjacent lower category. Thirdness prescinds from secondness. Secondness prescinds from firstness. Prescission allows the articulation of the category-based nested form, as described in Razie Mah’ e-book, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.
0013 Thirdness bring secondness into relation with firstness.
A triadic normal context3 brings a dyadic actuality2 into relation with the possibility of ‘something’1.
0014 Now I can slide the above dyad into the slot for actuality2 for the category-based nested form intimated by the title of V. Gordon Childe’s 1936 book, Man Makes Himself.
0015 The slide clarifies the contiguity, paleolithic technology constellates a substance, which I label, “technique”, that manifests an essence for the conditions of evolving hominins (that is, a substantiated form).
Consequently, the appearance of a new stone tool technology indicates a change in techniques as well as a change in the essence of the prehistoric human condition.
0016 According to Childe (1892-1957), the “neolithic” label encompassed more than a change in lithic technology. The prehistoric human condition gets entangled with all sorts of other matters, including sedentary communities, economies of delayed returns, various modes of storage and so forth. A long list of material arrangements gets entangled.
0017 As it turns out, once matter substantiates form, then form can entangle other matter, which is a confounding. Here, “confounding” is a technical term, precisely labeling one form originating from one matter and entangling another matter.
Historically, a confounding is an idea that belongs to Aristotle’s tradition. It is stumbled upon long after Aristotle’s campus went out of business. It is the brainchild of the Byzantine and Slavic civilizations.
0018 Here is a picture of Childe’s confounding.
0019 The upper three lines presents the neolithic thing. Neolithic stone-tool technology [substantiates] the prehistoric human condition. The nature of the [substance] is labeled, “technique”.
The lower two lines presents the entangled matter. The [entanglement] is difficult to label, because its nature is.. well… a long list of material arrangements.
0020 A list of material arrangements appears in Table 1 of the article. Even the social components of social mechanism, magico-religious sanctions and trade can be shoved under the rug labeled, “material arrangements”.
0021 As such, the “neolithic” may serve as an adjective to a noun, “revolution”, that appeals to academics sympathetic to Marxist formulations. Yes, they are the ones who only promote academics with similar sympathies. Also, Childe was… um… a sympathizer.
The question is not about whether prehistoric folk are “communist” or “fascist”, even though these labels may apply to this or that anthropologist of the 1930s.
The question is whether the Marxist formula applies to prehistoric folk.
0022 The answer becomes obvious, when Childe’s confounding resolves into the following hylomorphic structure.
0023 The above figure depicts a Marxist version of Aristotle’s hylomorphe, {matter [substantiates] form}. Childe’s hylomorphe lasts for nine decades (that is, until the present day at the start of 2026). Man makes himself through a standard Marxist formulation. Soon, Soviet era archaeologists adopt the stance that the appearance of pottery is a hallmark of neolithic emergence. Pottery is a material arrangement. The emergence of the neolithic is a human condition.
0001 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (44(3) (2016) pages 368-401) by two professors, Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin, hailing from Tallinn University in Estonia. The title is “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”. The subtitle is “A transnational perspective”.
0002 The abstract promises to situate the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics of the 1960s through 1980s. The article delivers more than promised.
How so?
0003 The authors sketch dynamic developments among intellectual circles within the (now former) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
0004 The term, “transnational”, indicates that there are nations within the former Soviet Union.
During this period in history, the governments of Estonia and Russia (along with Czechoslovakia and Poland) owe fealty to an empire with the title, “Socialist”, in its name.
So, “transnational” tells me that the article looks back from the present, into a past era, with the intent of portraying ‘something’ historical, without acknowledging that the “Union” and the “Socialist” descriptors no longer apply (at least, not in the way that they once did).
0005 “Transnational” applies to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, 1918-1989) as well as the upcoming… um… Eurasian convergence?
Here is a picture with three city-sites. Tartu and Moscow belong to the title. Tallinn is the location where the authors write their article. The blue is the Baltic Sea.
0006 “Transnational” steps over the boundaries depicted in black in the above figure.
Never mind the fact that the above territories reside behind, what American pundits once called, “the Iron Curtain”.
0007 Perhaps, one must appreciate an ambiguity to the term, “transnational”, given that there is another transit. This transit is in time. Or, even better, this transit is across a boundary between battles among Enlightenment gods.
Consider where the time period of 1960s to 1980s resides in the following timeline of Western civilization in the twentieth century.
Also consider the year when the article under examination is published.
Notice the boundary.
0008 The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiology constellates within one battle, as a transnational collaboration.
The TMS is remembered during another battle, which is not resolved, and so cannot be objectified as “historical”. I suppose that it can be objectified as “cultural”. Better yet, “theodramatic”.
Already, there is more to this article than meets the eye.
0348 In section eight (8), the authors discuss the third post-Soviet approach, that of Juri Lotman.
The title of Lotman’s 1990 book is The Universe of Mind.
The title is somewhat funny, since the mind associates to the normal context and a universe resides in the corresponding potential.
0349 How so?
The “universe” is not the closed totality of material arrangements.
The “universe” is the open totality of semiotic arrangements.
0350 Open to what?
Messages.
Another term for “the universe of messages1” is “the semiosphere1“.
0351 On the content level, the normal context of a TMS positivist intellect3a brings the actuality of the dyad2a, {literary text2af [entangles] language2af}, into relation with the potential of ‘(positivist) meaning’1a.
On the situation level, cultural studies3b brings the dyad2b, {cognition2bm [substantiates] social interaction2bf}, into relation with the potential of ‘(civilizational) presence’1b.
On the perspective level, mind theory3c brings the dyad2c, {semiotic arrangements2cm [substantiate] human conditions2cf}, into relation with the potential of ‘the semiosphere’1c.
0352 Lotman’s derivative interscope stands right in line with Charles Peirce’s theory of evolutionary love.
The Universe of Possibility defines the category of firstness. Firstness contains a universe of messages.
The Universe of Actualities includes semiotic arrangements and belongs to the category of secondness.
The Universe of Mind3c brings the Universe of Actualities2c into relation with the potential of the Universe of Messages1c.
0353 Mind theory3c brings the dyadic actuality of {semiotic arrangements [substantiating] human conditions}2c into relation with the ‘semiosphere’1c.
Marxist theory3c brings the dyadic actuality of {material arrangements [substantiating] human conditions}2c into relation with the potential of ‘something to do with message’1c.
0354 Surely, Juri Lotman, as an old man, does not suspect that his mind theory3c stands as an alternative to Marxist theory3c.
Marxist theory3c contextualizes the message of Soviet communism1c.
The Universe of Mind3c contextualizes the semiosphere1c.
Welcome to the Fourth Age of Understanding.
0355 The concept of the semiosphere1c is an organic development of Juri Lotman and his collaborators of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.
This explains why I claim, in point 0008, that there is more to this article than meets the eye.
This examination adds value to the authors’ article, in ways hitherto unimagined.
0356 In the following figure, the virtual nested form in the category of secondness is highlighted.
0357 The perspective-level dyad, {semiotic arrangements [substantiate] human conditions}2c virtually brings the situation-level dyad, {cognition [substantiates] cultural interaction}2b, into relation with the potential of the content-level dyad, {literary text [entangles] an aesthetic and positivist language}2a.
0358 Likewise, in the virtual nested form in the category of thirdness, mind theory3c brings cultural studies3b into relation with the possibility of the TMS positivist intellect3a.
0359 Finally, in the virtual nested form in the category of firstness, the semiosphere1c, the universe of messages1c, brings civilizational presence1b into relation with positivist meaning1a.
0360 The authors briefly discuss Lotman’s later books, which are translated into English long after his death. The authors note that these books treat issues that are rarely associated with the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, even when they place its collegial collaborations in perspective.
0361 Nonetheless, some scholars wag an accusatory finger and assert, “He turned into a post-structuralist.”
0362 “Post-structuralist”?
Technical terms are so important, especially when they mean ‘something’ that common folk don’t think they mean.
There is a gap, which cannot be crossed, especially by those subject to empirio-normative domination.
Well, at least, that is what the experts on television tell me.
“Post-structuralist” is a derogatory label.
Only experts know what the label means.
0363 The authors offer a quick summary of the questions that Lotman raises in these last works. First (1), can inquirers devise a common approach to natural, social and spiritual phenomena? Second (2), how is a mind theory3c paradigmgoing to handle evolutionary (think, Lebenswelt that we evolved in) and explosive (think, our current Lebenswelt) cultural transitions. Third (3), does artistic labor serve as a workshop that builds semiotic arrangements (as matter) into the human condition (as form)?
0364 Surely, these are appropriate questions.
And, not surprisingly, the pen of Razie Mah offers literary texts that touch upon these questions. They are (1) How to Define the Word “Religion”, (2) The Human Niche and (3) An Archaeology of the Fall.
0365 The authors conclude that a global history of semiotics will tell Lotman’s tale, as well as the complicated intriguescultivating semiotic awareness beneath the watchful eyes of Soviet Socialist ideologues.
But, as far as this examiner is concerned, these modern histories may also be viewed through a lens that focuses on an illumination that harkens back to the beginning.
A light dwells deep within Slavic civilization.
0366 I wonder. Is there is an unconceived reason for why the Virgin Mary appears in Portugal, in a town bearing the name of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed and Khadija, and calls for the Catholic Church to consecrate her Immaculate Heart to Russia?
The visions happen in 1917, right before the Russian Revolution.
0367 In 2022, a Latin-tradition-despising pope, along with his reform-fixated Vatican-Two-promoting bishops, do precisely that. They consecrate the Immaculate Heart of Mary to Russia on March 25, 2022, at the same time when Russian (no longer Soviet!) troops enter into Ukraine. They invade in order to stop… what? Everybody in Russia apparently knows. Does anyone know in the Collective West?
0368 Perhaps not.
Is there a gap, which cannot be crossed?
Will a curtain of propaganda become transparent?
Or what?
0369 There is one more juxtaposition to make.
0370 The lower line should look familiar.
The triadic normal context of Lotman’s mind theory3a (now transcending Marxist theory3c) brings the dyadic actuality of {semiotic arrangements [substantiate] our current Lebenswelt}2a into relation with the monadic ‘semiosphere’1a,where the “semiosphere” is the potential of ‘the universe of messages’1a.
0371 The upper line is introduced in points 0355 though 0371 in Razie Mah’s e-book, Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) (part 1, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
The triadic normal context of God’s Self-Actualization3c brings the dyadic actuality of {the Person who Speaks [utters] the Person who is the Word}2c into relation with the ‘Oneness of God’2c, where the “Oneness of God” is the monadic potential1c underlying God’s Self-Actualization3c.
0372 What does this juxtaposition inspire me to imagine?
Does it seem that the Speaker2c occupies the space for semiotic arrangement2cm?
Does it seem that Word2c, who creates the Lebenswelt that we evolved in (see Genesis 1-2.3) as well as our current Lebenswelt (see Genesis 2.4-10), occupies the space for the human condition2cf?
0373 Does it seem that God’s Self-Actualization3c encompasses a theoretical Universe of Mind3c?
Does it seem that the Oneness of God1c manifests the omnipresence and the omniscience of a universe of messages1c?
0374 It almost makes me wonder whether there is a post-post-truth condition.
0375 There is a story. It goes like this.
After the famous Russian philosopher, Marxist academic and scholar to be reckoned with, Juri Lotman, dies, he finds himself in a waiting room, in what looks to be an old Basilica. After a few minutes, the wooden door creaks open and he is greeted by St. Methodius, himself.
Lotman, confident of his own genius even in death, says, “Methodius, what can you tell me that I don’t already know?”
Methodius grins and says, “You’ve been working for us all along.”
0376 I thank the authors for this essay, published a decade ago, and fresh enough to support the fermentation of this examination.
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.
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.
0001 The full title of the book before me is The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together The Six-Million-Year Story Of How Words Evolved (2024, Basic Books, New York). Dr. Mithen is a Professor of Early Prehistory at the University of Reading. He has published before. More on that later.
The book works on the metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle. Fourteen chapters present the pieces. The introduction and conclusion stage and arrange them.
0002 This current metaphor is very different than a glorious historical metaphor used in a book published almost three decades earlier. The Prehistory of The Mind (1996) offers the historical development of the architecture of cathedrals in Europe as a lens for considering cognitive evolution. The metaphor works well because the nave associates to general intelligence and side chapels associate to specialized mental modules.
0003 From the genetic divergence from chimpanzees to the start of bipedalism, the simple nave of general intelligenceadapts to cognitive challenges.
From the appearance of bipedalism to the domestication of fire, specialized modules are added to general intelligence, but the two do not integrate. Indeed, both specialized modules and general intelligence are supported by their own, thick, walls. The metaphor is the Romanesque cathedral.
From the domestication of fire until the first singularity (think, “the potentiation of civilization”), general intelligence integrates with specialized modules, presumably due to talk becoming fully linguistic. Language becomes the walls, supported by flying buttresses of automatic decoding. The metaphor is the Gothic cathedral.
0004 Here is a picture.
0005 The metaphor is so wonderful that Razie Mah publishes the e-book, Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) The Prehistory of The Mind as one of the readers that accompanies the masterwork, The Human Niche, in the series A Course On The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
0006 Mithen’s approach is also echoed in the work of another evolutionary anthropologist, Michael Tomasello, working at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, as discussed in Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) (by Razie Mah, also see blogs for January through March, 2024).
0007 Mithen’s approach is also reflected in another review that belongs to the series, A Course On The Human Niche. The title is Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big. In this review, social circles turn out to be very important in hominin evolution. Mammalian brain size roughly correlates to group size. So, the larger the hominin brain grows, the larger the group.
Not surprisingly, Mithen’s metaphor indicates the social circle under the most intense selection pressure, irrespective of group size.
0008 What does this imply?
Obviously, group size is not the crucial factor in hominin evolution.
Whatever is increasing hominin brain size is.
0006 To me, it is not surprising that Mithen has not encountered Razie Mah’s review of his 1996 work, even though it is one of the few more-than-surface reflections on The Prehistory of The Mind available.
Perhaps, the same will go for this blog, which will take Mithen’s metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle quite literally.
0229 So, what is The Language Puzzle about, in an implicit sort of way?
It is about how speech gets added to hand talk after the domestication of fire.
The irony of the work is found in Mithen’s explicit denial of the gestural origins of language, while…
… at the same time, the author provides a solution to a question that he cannot even pose.
0230 Examinations don’t get better than this.
This examination adds value to Mithen’s work in a surprising fashion.
0231 This examination suggests that a tremendous amount of theoretical reformulation needs to be done. In particular, the following juxtaposition of events is suggestive.
0232 I ask, “Does Homo sapien’s encounter, love affair, then divorce from the Neanderthals create a condition where speech becomes more and more independent as a mode of talking? Does speech become capable of operating linguistically, independent of hand talk, yet remain integrated into the natural-sign references of hand-talk?”
0233 Take a look at the artifact of the lion-man, pictured in figure 3 on page 28 of Mithen’s text.
Maybe, we can ask him.
Do you think that he has something to say to us?
Surely, he cannot perform hand-talk.
So, the lion-man must speak for itself.
0233 Yes,it’s like synaesthesia gone wild.
0234 But, “wild” is not even close to this last implication, which tells me that our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
What about the item in red?
See Razie Mah’s e-books, The First Singularity and It’s Fairy Tale Trace (for a technical proposal) and An Archaeology of the Fall (for a dramatic rendering), available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0235 With that said, I thank Steven Mithen for publishing a book that can be fruitfully read both explicitly and implicitly.
Also, the story does not end here, because this examination plays a prominent role in the next commentary, Looking at Julian Jaynes’s Book (1976) “The Origin of Consciousness in The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”.
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 oneness1through 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?
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 terminologywithopen 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. Thepetit 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, BaelzebobJones,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 report2band 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.
