0316 Oxygen gas is a byproduct of photosynthesis. Over billions of years, the continual release of oxygen transforms the atmosphere of the Earth.
The ubiquity of oxygen gas in today’s atmosphere makes experimental research into the chemistry of the early Earthdifficult. Today, the reaction that Sharov suggests, the oxidation of an alkane to a fatty acid, would require elaborate precautions. Why? Even a trace amount of oxygen would directly react with the light-absorbing pigment.
0317 So, what am I saying?
Well, research is difficult.
0318 Also, as soon as one gets to the earliest forms of life on Earth, such as photosynthetic prokaryotes, the “genomic complexity” (nominally, the length of DNA that belongs to only functional genes) is already high. If one plots the genomic complexity of (1) prokaryotes, such as bacteria, (2) single-celled eukaryotes, such as amoebas, (3) multicellular water animals, such as fish (4) invertebrate land animals, such as worms, and (5) vertebrate land animals, such as mammals, versus time for first fossil evidence, one gets the following graph.
0319 On one hand, Sharov concludes that the genomic complexity doubles every 340 million years since the start of the Earth.
On the other hand, Sharov points out that, if one projects the line down to zero genomic complexity, the intersection occurs a little over 9 billion years ago. But, the Earth is only 4.5Byr.
Fortunately, the universe is around 15 billion years old.
0320 If the early Earth is seeded, then biologists already have a label, “panspermia”.
All other planets and moons in the solar system should be similarly seeded.
So, future space exploration may provide an answer.
If it turns out that the early Earth is seeded through panspermia, then research into the origins of life (in general) becomes even more difficult.
0321 Now, I conclude.
Sharov and Tonnessen’s noumenal overlay characterizes biosemiotics.
The Deacon-Tabaczek interscope characterizes emergence.
Both relational structures apply to inquiry intothe origin of life on Earth.
This examination demonstrates how the two relational structures relate to one another and constitute complementary approaches for further inquiries into the origins of life.
0322 But, what I have learned concerns more than the topic of the origin of life.
This is significant.
Sharov and Tonnessen’s noumenal overlay may “expand” to include the entire D-T interscope, which includes both the specifying and the exemplar sign-relations.
0322 By extension, the S&T noumenal overlay associates to any three-level interscope, containing two sign-relations,according to the comparison in the following figure.
0323 The topic of the origin of life on Earth turns into a valuable insight into biosemiotics, emergence, and two sign-relations.
0324 The text before me is chapter ten in Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (2024, edited by Alexei Sharov and George E. Mikhailovsky, pages 217-243). The author hails from the Evolutionary Bioinformatics Laboratory at the Department of Crop Sciences and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, at the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA. The author and editors have permission to use and reprint this commentary.
From prior examinations, I propose that Alexei Sharov’s and Morten Tonnessen’s 2021 book, Semiotic Agency, formulates a noumenal overlay for the diverse field of biosemiotics. All manifestations of semiotic agency are unique. Each is a subject of inquiry on its own. Yet, they have one relational structure in common. Here is a picture of that dyadic actuality.
0325 Biosemiotics is not divorced from science. Scientists observe and measure phenomena, then build models based on those observations and measurements. The real elements in the above figure support phenomena. The contiguities (in brackets) call for models.
0326 So, what about communication mediated by biomolecules?
0327 In the introduction (section 10.1), the author reminds the reader of two premodern views of biological behaviorsand how they change over time. One is the force of life (in French, le pouvoir de vie), which tends to increase complexity. The other is the influence of circumstances (in French, l’influence des circonstances), which tends to select for… um… survivors.
These premodern views fit nicely into the contiguities in the above relational structure. Each dyad can be compared to Aristotle’s hylomorphe of matter [substance] form, allowing the following comparison.
0328 The force of life tends towards the many.
The influence of circumstances tends toward the few.. or rather… one goal.
Surely, my assignments are confusing, because the force of life is singular and circumstances tend to vary. Also, real initiating events can vary. But, goals tend to rule out alternatives.
0329 The author then draws upon a recently translated papyrus scroll, attributed to Empedocles. Empedocles speaks of two opposing forces, one capable of growing things together from the many and one capable of growing things apart. The former is labeled, “love”, the latter, “strife”.
0330 I wonder, “How does this ancient distinction fit into the schema pictured above?”
Here is my suggestion.
I have a 50:50 chance of being correct.
0331 Strife goes with the force of life, tending towards the many. Love goes with the influence of circumstances and tends towards a singular goal.
Both are substances and reflect (however distantly) Aristotle’s exemplar: matter [substance] form.
In the above figure, the real initiating event is like an form that conjures matter (information). At the same time, that matter (information) substantiates another form (goal). This conjured matter (information [love]goal) encompasses the presence that accounts for semiotic agency as a thing.
0332 What does that imply?
As [strife] acquires information, [love] moves closer to its goal.
0388 I conclude this examination of Gustavo Caetano-Anolles’ chapter with a brief discussion on the third item appearing in section 10.3, titled, “Communication”.
0389 The first item that the author mentions is Peirce’s tradition of inquiry. Peirce’s three categories offer a variety of ways to portray triadic relations.
Biosemiotics is all about triadic relations. This examination has shown that secondness tends to associate to phenomena. Thirdness and firstness tends to associate to what models need to explain.
0390 The second item that the author mentions is Shannon’s information theory.
I wonder about the implications of the virtual nested form in the realm of secondness that Shannon’s information theory generates.
What if the associations are more than mere analogy?
What if my neighbor, getting that new-fangled lumber treatment and all, is not sending me a message through a channel2b that conducts wood-eating insects that are not happy, and frankly, fed up with the wooden food-fare that my neighbor’s shed now offers?
How weird and disturbing is that?
0391 The third item that the author mentions is Chomsky’s hierarchy of formal languages. Formal language consists of operations within a finite symbolic order.
0392 Finite symbolic order?
Think of how Charles Peirce might rebrand Ferdinand de Saussures’s key term, system of differences.
0393 Ultimately, symbols enter into a picture of the evolution of biomolecular communication.
And, when they do, they seem to associate to “a receiver2c” in Shannon’s virtual nested form in secondness.
0392 Here is a picture.
0393 But that is not all, in the evolution of biomolecular communication, symbols overflow destination2c and cascade down into the bucket that the transmitter2a works from.
The author spends sections 10.4 through 10.8 discussing the implications of this imaginary overflowing, which reminds me of a Tarot card, the ace of cups, where a hand appears out of cloud overhanging an idyllic landscape.
The hand holds a water-filled cup that overflows, in a very biomolecular-cascading fashion, from a perspective-level that associates to love. Is love an empedoclement? Only after the empedoclements (which are the inverse of impediments) come together, in the right sort of way, does strife arrive to both hone and diversify the new creation.
0001 The book before me is Semiotic Agency: Science Beyond Mechanism, by biosemioticians Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen. The book is published in 2021 by Springer and logs in at volume 25 of Springer’s Series in Biosemiotics. Series editors are Kalevi Kull, Alexei Sharov, Claude Emmeche and Donald Favareau. These editors have Razie Mah’s permission for use of the following disquisition, with attribution of said blogger.
Points 0001 to 0226 cover Parts I and III of this book. These Parts are titled, (I) Overview and Historiography and (III) Theoretical Considerations. These two sections set forth the rationale for scientific inquiry into semiotic agency.
0002 Chapter one begins with a question.
Can agency be a scientific subject?
To me, the question, “What is science?”, must be addressed.
0003 Scientific inquiry involves a judgment within a judgment.
0004 Okay, then what is a judgment?
A judgment is a triadic relation containing three elements: relation,what is and what ought to be. When each of these three elements uniquely associates to one of Peirce’s categories, then the judgment becomes actionable. Actionable judgments unfold into category-based nested forms.
What am I talking about?
Consult A Primer on The Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0005 Here is a diagram of judgment as a triadic relation.
A relation (belonging to one category) brings what ought to be (belonging to another category) into relation with what is (belonging to the one remaining category). Peirce’s three categories are firstness, secondness and thirdness. Firstness is the monadic realm of possibility. Secondness is the dyadic realm of actuality. Thirdness is the triadic realm of normal contexts, mediations, judgments, sign-relations, and so forth.
0006 If scientific inquiry involves a judgment within a judgment, then the larger judgment is called the Positivist’s judgment. A positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings an empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be,secondness) into relation with the dyad, a noumenon [and] its phenomena (what is, firstness).
Here is a diagram.
0007 In regards to the relation, the positivist intellect has a rule. Metaphysics is not allowed.
0008 What is “metaphysics”?
Aristotle proposes four causes: material, efficient, formal and final. The first two are (more or less) physical. The second two are (more or less) metaphysical. So, the second two causes are ruled out in the seventeenth century by the mechanical philosophers of northern Europe.
0009 Of course, ruling out formal and final causes truncates material and efficient causalities. Imagine a material cause (such as the flow of ink onto a piece of paper) without its formal cause (the piece of paper will then be folded and put into an envelope). Imagine an efficient cause (the role of glue in sealing an envelope) without its final cause (the envelope will be put in the mail).
So, the rule of the positivist intellect has the effect of truncating physical material and efficient causalities from their metaphysical companion causalities. The positivist intellect is assigned to the category of thirdness, the realm of normal contexts.
0010 In regards to what ought to be, the empirio-schematic judgment belongs to the category of secondness (the realm of actuality), even though it obviously belongs to the category of thirdness, because judgments are triadic relations. In other words, to think in terms of the Positivist’s judgment, one must disregard the obvious and regard the empirio-schematic judgment as an exercise in the realm of actuality, if that makes any sense.
0011 It may help to consider the empirio-schematic judgment as a tool for producing scientific models. Disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).
Here is a picture.
These figures are initially constructed in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0201 The book before me is Semiotic Agency: Science Beyond Mechanism, by biosemioticians Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnnessen. The book is published in 2021 by Springer and logs in at volume 25 of Springer’s Series in Biosemiotics. The editors of this series have Razie Mah’s permission for use of following disquisition, with attribution of said blogger.
Part III concerns theoretical considerations, addressing the headliner question.
Here is a list of the chapters, along with their titles.
Each title labels a labor of biosemioticians.
0202 So far, from Part I, Sharov and Tonnessen propose a philosophical dyad that serves as an overlay for the noumenon of biosemiotics. The authors’ proposed noumenon constitutes what is for the Positivist’s judgment and contains what all biosemiotic phenomena have in common.
This is significant.
0203 The Positivist’s judgment is constructed, starting in the 1600s, by mechanical philosophers. Mechanical philosophers aim to bracket out metaphysics, in favor of models based on observations and measurements.
So, what is science?
0204 Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) “Natural Philosophy” shows that the scholastic ideation of three styles of abstraction comes close to a satisfying answer. But, no one can capitalize on that answer until a hidden knot is unraveled. A knot? Two judgments are entangled. This becomes clear when the abstractions are pictured as elements of judgment.
0205 The following diagram of the Positivist’s judgment is a satisfying way to portray what the mechanical philosophers created in the 1600s and what Kant corrected in the late 1700s.
In 2025, no definition of science compares to this diagram.
0206 In the Positivist’s judgment, the positive intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena (what is, firstness).
In the empirio-schematic judgment, disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is,firstness).
0207 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) forces natural scientists to concede that they investigate the observable and measurable facets of the thing itself. Plus, their observations and measurements cannot fully objectify the subject of inquiry.
0208 Over the next two centuries (1800s and 1900s), scientists promote their successful models, saying, “Our models are more illuminating than the thing itself. Indeed, our models can take the place of the noumenon. Once that happens, then our models can be objectified by their phenomena. Observations and measurements validate the successful model.”
The academic laboratory sciences are born. For example, a chemistry laboratory and its accompanying lecture belong to the laboratory science of chemistry. In contrast, the science of chemistry is the study of natural processes, that is, things themselves. The key to science is to make an observation and then explain it. The model is an explanation, rather than the thing itself.
0209 It’s funny how academics can turn disappointments around.
0210 Triumphalist science establishes a pattern. If one considers a model to be the noumenon, then one can look for phenomena that objectify that model. This is how the social sciences are born. Since their inception in the late 1700s, social scientists have argued that the mechanical philosophies that gave birth to the natural sciences also apply to the study of people and society.
How do social scientists identify social and psychological noumena?
Social sciences pull noumena out of holes in the ground. In other words, if a social scientist observes and measures activities that must correspond to a noumenon, then all the investigator needs to do is to dig a little and find the thing that their phenomena must be objectifying.
0211 This process gets formalized by phenomenologist Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). Husserl develops a method by which common opinions about a thing are bracketed out, because they cannot reveal what the noumenon must be. The models of natural science must also be bracketed out, because triumphalist scientists will insist that, if their models replace the noumenon, then everything becomes a controlled experiment, like in a college laboratory.
Phenomenology is precisely the formal process that self-identifying social scientists are informally practicing with the construction of the social sciences in the 1800s and 1900s.
0212 Yes, phenomenologists formalize the process by which noumena are formulated by the social sciences.
What do they get for their labors?
Established social scientists say that phenomenologists are pulling noumena out of their asses.
0213 How rude!
Okay, a lot of money is on the line. How so? Both social scientists (on their own) and phenomenologists (by way of a well-characterized method) ascertain what the noumenon must be, by considering associated phenomena. The intent is to activate the Positivist’s judgment. As soon as what is of the Positivist’s judgment constellates, it stands as a robust possibility worthy of empirio-schematic inquiry.
Empirio-schematic inquiry takes time and effort.
Is that the same as money?
Of course, social-science research requires so much money as to attract intellectuals who cannot tell their asses from holes in the ground.
In that regard, they are not so different from the laboratory sciences.
0214 Oh, on second thought, social scientists pull ideas out of holes in the ground.
Phenomenologists should not compete with that.
So, phenomenology takes a cultural turn. Husserl is hired to sit in the same professorial chair as Kant at the University of Freiberg. In 1916, Husserl is 56 years old. The (soon to be Catholic) philosophy student, Edith Stein, works as his personal assistant. In 1926, one of his students, Martin Heidegger, takes modern Western philosophy to the next level with the publication of Being and Time.
0215 All I can say is, “Look at what phenomenologists pulled out of their asses.”
0216 In Part III of their book, the authors dance through a philosophical critique without Peircean tools to depict triadic relations.
Uh oh. Without figures, is this critique philosophical or scientific or phenomenological?
0217 Here is the bottom line.
There is a method to the madness of the phenomenologists.
This is why Catholic philosophers long to engage in discourse with phenomenologists, even as phenomenologists reject discourse, on the um… grounds… that phenomenology follows the mandate of the positivist intellect. Metaphysics is not allowed.
0218 Catholic philosophers see that there is a method to phenomenology that can be articulated (somehow) by scholastic tradition (following Aquinas, not Poinsot). But, they do not appreciate how phenomenology is historically embedded in the modern Age of Ideas. Also, they do not appreciate what the scholastic tradition has achieved. John Poinsot writes in the 1600s and Thomas Aquinas writes in the 1200s. Poinsot figures out that signs are triadic relations. Aquinas mentions signs as things that signify other other things.
Razie Mah opens the lid to this can of worms in the series, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect (articles available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
0219 Yes, there is a method to the madness of the phenomenologists.
Phenomenologists intuitively generate (through their prescribed methods) noumenal overlays that coincide with semiotic agency, as articulated by Sharov and Tonnessen.
0220 What does this imply?
Sharov and Tonnessen’s formulation of semiotic agency, as a noumenal overlay, allows the inquirer to consider the prescribed methods of phenomenology as ways for examining natural and social phenomena arising from… the noumenal overlay of semiotic agency.
0221 Am I saying that phenomenological determinations of what the noumenon must be are really models that phenomenologists triumphantly overlay upon S&T’s noumenon?
I suppose… if what I say is correct… then biosemiotics is a science that belongs to a new age of understanding.
What age is that?
John Deely (1942-2017) thought long and hard about the proper label.
0222 With that said, here is a quick wrap-up of the four chapters in Part III.
For chapter six, Sharov and Tonnessen’s noumenal overlay conceptualizes semiotic agency.
For chapter seven, semiotic agency is considered an actuality2. In order to understand an actuality2, the actuality2 must have a normal context3 and potential1.
0223 Here is the nested form for semiotic agency2.
Semiotic agency2 presents a sign-relation as a dyadic actuality. This is shown in Part I.
Semiosis2 does not occur without an agent3 and the possibility of ‘significance’1.
0224 For chapter eight, the evolution of agents3 and the possibility of ‘significance’1 proceeds in tandem with the evolution of semiotic agency2.
0225 For chapter nine, phenomenology serves as a precursor to biosemiotics, just as the social sciences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries serve as intimations of phenomenology.
0226 Without a doubt, Sharov and Tonnessen build upon the insights of philosophers writing a century earlier, as seen in two of Razie Mah’s e-books: Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy and Comments on Nicholas Berdyaev’s Book (1939) Spirit and Reality. Both Maritain and Berdyaev are interested in understanding the nature of scientific inquiry. And now, their works inform biosemioticians.
0001 Daniel W. Houck juggles five challenges in his attempt to recover Thomas Aquinas’s teachings on original sin.
0002 One, Aquinas does not challenge Augustine’s mechanism of original sin. Original sin descends through Adam to all humans through human reproduction. Augustine’s speculation is now on the chopping block, because modern biologists observe no large genetic bottleneck, as required by Augustine’s proposed scenario. Concupiscence may be undeniable. But, it does not plague humans due to descent from a single ancestral pair.
On one hand, original sin cannot be accounted for as a sexually transmitted disease.
On the other hand, sexually transmitted diseases can, in part, be accounted for by original sin.
0003 Two, original sin is inextricably tied to a difficult conversation about the fate of the souls of infants and fetuses, who tragically die. Where do the souls of aborted fetuses go? To the city dump?
0004 Three, the doctrine of original sin does not appear in Scripture. Instead, original sin comes from interpreting Scripture. It’s like the smell of the rotting food. If one reads Scripture and follows the unfolding theodrama with care, one cannot help but conclude with Paul, in his notorious Letter to the Romans, that Adam and Christ are linked. The Scriptures stink of original sin. Yet, the fragrance of redemption overcomes the sordid aromas. That is the Good News. Jesus is a breath of fresh air.
0005 Four, despite recent attempts to revive the theology of Thomas Aquinas, his account of original sin remains neglected. There is a reason. Thomas never locks onto a clear and concise reckoning. A hundred years ago, Aquinas’s thoughts on the matter are debated. Jean Baptiste Kors publishes an in-depth examination under the title, La Justice primitive et le peche originel d’apres S. Thomas (1922). Now, it is crickets.
0006 Five, Houck consigns even the crickets to silence, because the crickets never considered Neodarwinism and how it puts Augustine’s speculation on the chopping block. In light of the shimmering axe of negation poised above the City of God, much less the City of Man, the crickets may silently snicker at Houck’s promise to tie together Aquinas’s account of original justice with other areas of the great medieval theologian’s thought. Does a synthesis matter? After the blade of scientific expertise comes down on the idea that Adam and Eve are the first humans, will the executioner call out, “Next, original justice.”?
0006 Already modern theologians slink away from the historicity of the Fall.
Can they do without this non-scientific nonsense?
Houck does not think so. No responsible Christian theologian thinks so.
Houck must juggle these five juggernauts, as if each does not have a life of its own. What is the secret that brings them into obedient motion, where one goes up while another comes down?
It is not to be found in his book.
0007 It is to be found in the hypothesis of the first singularity.
The stories of Adam and Eve, along with all currently known written origin stories of the ancient Near East, point to a recent time-horizon, beyond which civilization cannot see.
They point to the first singularity.
They cannot see beyond this event.
The ancient myths say, “Humans are made right before civilization starts.”
Now, archaeologists testify to humans before the time horizon of the first singularity.
Humans walk the earth long before the dawn of history.
0008 Is Adam the first human, as suggested by Augustine, as well as by the Genesis text?
If Adam is not the first human, then who is Adam?
Adam must be a figure in a fairy tale. The fairy tale may be about an event, or something like an event, hidden in time. We (moderns) do not know much about what came before this event. We know more than nothing. Neolithic stone tools that tell us that, after 12,000 years ago, plants become very important as food. The remains of sedentary villages tell us that we learned to give plants as food to the animals.
The Neolithic marks the invention of agriculture.
The Developed Neolithic combines stockbreeding and agriculture.
0009 There is an intimation, in Genesis 1:26-30, of a humanity before Adam. If that is the case, then why does the Story of the Garden of Eden start with God creating Adam from dust and Eve from Adam’s rib?
Oh yeah, the story of the Garden of Eden is a fairy tale. And, a fairy tale may be about an event, or something like an event, hidden in time. At the start of this event, Adam busies himself with the garden and names the animals. He gets to contribute a rib to make Eve. He is innocent. So is Eve. Together, they portray everything that the hominins evolved to be.
In the garden, there is the tree of life. This tree is a metaphor for Thomas Aquinas’s notion of original justice. It is also a metaphor for the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
The tree of life is a metaphor for the Lebenswelt where humans are what they evolved to be.
0010 The noumenon of humans, like all animals, is hylomorphic.
The word, “hylomorphe”, combines two words, “hyle” (matter) and “morphe” (form). According to Comments on Daniel De Haan’s Essay (2018) “Hylomorphism and the New Mechanist Philosophy…”, Aristotle’s hylomorphe associates to Peirce’s category of secondness. Peirce’s secondness consists in two contiguous real elements. Here, the two real elements are matter and form. The contiguity? May I use the word, “substance”?
The contiguity is placed in brackets. Secondness is denoted by the subscript.
0236 Augustine’s mechanism captures the essence of the first singularity. It does not capture the esse_ce. Augustine treats the Garden of Eden as if it is a real story. Instead, the fairy tales of Adam and Eve point to the first singularity.
Similar mythologies from the ancient Near East, revealed during the past three centuries from archaeological excavations, give the same impression. Humans do not have a deep past. Humans are recently manufactured by differentiated gods, who arise out of a foggy, undifferentiated nowhere.
0237 These ancient writings are not known during the Latin Age, so the scholastics do not contest Augustine’s mechanism. Yet, they find that the mechanism is not sufficient, because of those damned dead infants. How can infants express concupiscence?
The concern is both mechanistic and conditional. It can be portrayed as a dyad in the realm of actuality. This actuality corresponds to original sin2.
0238 How to describe the contiguity?
Houck lists three scenarios that gain prominence during the Latin Age: disease theory, a legal connection, and a realist view.
These three approaches tie into the above actuality.
0239 Augustine’s conflation of concupiscence and procreation provides a disease mechanism for how Adam’s rebellion infects us.
The legal framework corresponds to God’s Will, which is contained in the command, not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The status of humanity changes from blessed to cursed. A change in legal status puts Augustine’s conflation into context3.
The realist view is that humans lost something with Adam’s rebellion. The Story of the Fall indicates that humans lost access to the tree of life. A better way to put it is: The tree of life is no longer a possibility1. The Garden of Eden is no longer possible. So, God is no longer present as He once was.
0240 In sum, the scholastics, following Aristotle’s four causes, place Augustine’s mechanism into a complete category-based nested form.
0241 Perhaps, the reader can predict my next move.
I wonder, “Can this nested form go into the perspective level of divine suprasubjectivity?”
Or, does it correspond to what Christian doctrine projects into perspective-level elements?
Here is how the perspective level changes.
Note how the normal context3c and potential1c have changed character, they are now qualified.
Note how the judgment of original justice2c (belonging to thirdness) changes into a mechanistic dyad2c (belonging to secondness).
What are the implications?
0242 A change in perspective for God passes into a change of perspective for humans.
Our commitment2c does not make sense without God’s orientation (grace).
0243 Adam disobeying God’s command changes our legal status3c.
The ejection of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden changes God’s Presence1c from open to hidden.
And worse, a mechanism connects Adam’s rebellion to our own lives2c. Augustine’s hybridization of concupiscence and procreation is one mechanism that captures crucial features of the contiguity. However, modern evolutionary science argues for its implausibility. Adam and Eve are not the first human beings. Therefore, they are not the parents of all humans today.
0244 Is there a mechanism that will meet the qualifications of cause-and-effect and offer us (in our current Lebenswelt) a glimpse into who we evolved to be?
Augustine’s mechanism coheres to a literal interpretation of the Story of the Fall. Consequently, the mechanism is not independent of the biblical text.
The mechanism of the first singularity coheres with an interpretation of the Story of the Fall that is appropriate for the genre. The stories of Adam and Eve are fairy tales. Fairy tales are stories that are told to children. Often, they are preserved with remarkable precision over hundreds (and for these stories, thousands) of years. They may point to some primal event. That event cannot be reconstructed from the fairy tale itself. That event must be postulated independently of the fairy tale.
The hypothesis of the first singularity fits the criteria of (1) cause-and-effect and (2) a connection to the Genesis text. But, it does not allow us to appreciate how the twist in human evolution touches base with the doctrine of original sin.
0245 This is why Aquinas’s postulation of original justice2c is so crucial.
Original justice2c pertains to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
Original sin2c pertains to our current Lebenswelt.
Original sin2c is the privation of original justice2c.
Speech-alone talk is the privation of the hand-component of hand-speech talk.
Speech-alone talk attaches labels to the elements within the perspective-level actuality2c.
Why stop there?
Spoken words can label every element on the perspective level, as well as the situation level, as well as the content level.
This is not possible in iconic and indexal hand-speech talk.
0246 The Story of the Fall tells a tale, rich in details that call to mind the first singularity.
With the assistance of the serpent, Eve attaches spoken labels to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then, her spoken words generate the reality of Adam’s rebellion.
0247 Thousands of years later, scholastics refine the Story of the Fall into a perspective-level category-based nested form for original sin.
They know nothing about the content level, as it currently is configured by modern science.
They know that the content level pertains to crucial questions, “Where does the world come from? Where do we humans come from?”
They know that the situation-level addresses the question, “What went wrong?”
They figure that we cannot return to the Garden of Eden. We cannot go back to the original justice2c, enjoyed by Adam before his rebellion.
This explains why revelation is necessary.
0248 Jesus Christ fills the emptiness inherent to original sin. No one, not even infants, can avoid that emptiness. Original sin is the privation of original justice.
From this, Latin-Age scholastics cobble together a normal context3c and a potential1c for the mechanism connecting Adam’s rebellion to our current lives2c.
0249 Speech-alone talk facilitates the scholastic’s exercise in exemplar extrinsic formal causality. Speech-alone talk permits the articulation of exemplar signs.
The sign-vehicle (SVe) consists of phantasms that arise from the recitation of the Story of the Fall2b.
The sign-object (SOe) is the perspective-level actuality2c.
The sign-interpretant (SIe) is as shown below.
0250 In this exemplar sign, Augustine’s version of original sin2c initially stands where original justice2c used to be. Original sin2c overwrites original justice2c. This is what spoken words do. Our verbal rhetoric can never recapture the wholeness of the commitment2c that we evolved to sense and feel2a. But, it sure can trigger our longing for that wholeness.
Yet, Augustine’s vision captures an essential feature of our own lives2c. We are fallen.
0251 Similarly, the proposed confluence of Adam’s rebellion and a change in Lebenswelt may occupy the contiguity in the dyad where original justice2c used to be. Again, this proposal somehow distorts the judgment. But, it does so in a way that scientists cannot dismiss out of hand. The hypothesis of the first singularity is not the second doctrine of original sin. However, it offers a mechanism that reflects quite nicely in the mirror of theology.
See Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues (also appearing in Razie Mah’s blog from April through June 2024).
0252 Not unlike Augustine’s first version of original sin, the first singularity offers a suite of insights that are difficult to ignore. First, it is mechanistic in the way that science is mechanistic. Second, it challenges current paradigms on human evolution, but not the data that support them. Neodarwinism has not come to grips with the possibility that the human niche is not material. Modern evolutionary science has yet to entertain the idea that human evolution comes with a twist. Plus, the twist is metaphysical.
And, what better place to look for the metaphysical tools to construct the second doctrine of original sin, than those formulated by Thomas Aquinas and re-formulated by Charles Peirce, who is about to be baptized in the same way that Aquinas baptized Aristotle and Averroes?
0253 So, I conclude my comments on Daniel Houck’s Book (2020) Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution. My thanks to the author and apologies for wandering far and wide.
0254 And, what about the turtle?
When I place the apparently dead turtle into the pond. Its head and feet poke out from under the shell. It swims away. The pond is its Umwelt.
We (humans) are not so fortunate. We can never return to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. Nor can we create our own utopia. The most we can hope for is some miraculous redemption of our current Lebenswelt. This is precisely what God delivers.