0063 Where am I?

Okay, here is where I left off.

0064 I ask, “Why do hominins engage in cooperative activities_3b?”

0065 Hodder’s book serves as a concrete example.

Hodder labors to share his knowledge and insights.

Hodder anticipates remuneration or acclamation for his efforts.

Hodder competes (labors) to cooperate (share knowledge), because the fruits of cooperation (remuneration and acclamation) increase his chances of reproductive success.

0066 Okay, that may sound reductionist.  It is.  But, anyone who reads books by social scientists is familiar with this type of nonsense.

0067 As an archaeologist, Hodder is honestly trying to puzzle out a difficulty.  How does one explicitly discuss implicit abstraction_1b, the potential hiding within entanglement theory_3b?

Oh, I know how.

Rely on implicit abstraction to convey the impression that entanglement theory coincides with a human adaptation.

Well, now, the message is explicit.

0068 From the prior blog, I know that Hodder’s entanglement theory indirectly describes a human adaptation_2b.  This adaptation_2b exploits a niche_1b in the normal context of natural selection_3b.  The human niche_1b is the potential of triadic relations_1b.

Triadic relations_2a are purely relational beings.  They rely on material beings.  But, they are not material beings.  They are like things, in the sense that they exist in the environment of evolutionary adaptation.  They are not mere things, like boulders resting on a valley floor.  They are like boulders changing the way that water flows in a river.  They are relational beings.

0069 Hodder writes as if things entangle us.  He wants to extend the idea to biological evolution.  Things create potentials_1b that may be exploited by adaptations_2b in the normal context of natural selection_3b.

But the inverse is also true.  Life searches for opportunities to stay alive.  Life seeks ways to avoid death.  Sometimes, things provide those opportunities.  Sometimes, things provide dangers.  We know this in our bones.  Potential may be opportunity.  Potential may be dangerous.

Consequently, entanglement theory should fall into our mind’s lap, like manna from heaven.

0070 These comments add value to Hodder’s work.  Here is a way to articulate Hodder’s entanglement theory.

0071 Hodder refines his theory by isolating various dependencies.  Human-thing dependence is H_2b-T_2a.  Thing-human dependency, T_2a-H_2b, is an instance when the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a come into play as a projection of implicit awareness_1b.  Thing_2a-thing_1b dependency describes the nature of tools.

These dependencies are salient in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0072 Oh, I almost neglected to mention one more dependency.  Human-human dependency.

Now, this dependency is like all the other dependencies.  At the same time, H-H dependency is not the same as all the other dependencies.  How so?  One of the elements of H-H must be a thing.  One element changes from a human to a thing. This transformation characterizes explicit abstraction.  In this regard, all the other dependencies may be re-enacted with specialized humans as things.

H-H dependency is salient in our current Lebenswelt.

0073 Plus, our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0074 A terminological shift is appropriate when considering human-human dependency in our current Lebenswelt.  Instead of a “thing”, the person becomes an “object”.

Of course, in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, one can never objectify a person within one’s own social circles.  What does one image or point to?  Hand-speech talk does not allow objectification, that is, explicit abstraction.

0075 Can I wrap my head around this idea?

In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, linguistic hand-speech talk always referred to things and states of things that could be imaged or pointed to with manual-brachial word gestures.  In our current Lebenswelt, almost every spoken word that I know involves an explicit abstraction, where meaning, presence and message are projected into a formant-frequency placeholder (a parole) in a system of differences.  How mind boggling.

0076 When we project meaning, presence and message into a spoken word, the intended referent becomes an “object”.  A “baker” is someone who makes the dough to make bread.  A “ovener” is someone who makes sure that the fire heating an oven is constantly and correctly maintained.

Well, that is the nomenclature that I am going to use.

0077 Now, I can return to the diagrams of H_2b-T_2a, T_2a-H_2b and T_2b-T_2a presented earlier (points 0036-0041).

Emmer wheat is used to make bread.  This is an example of human-thing dependency, H_2b-T_2a, in our current Lebenswelt.

0078 Bread is a product of organized human activities.  Because spoken words may be used to label specialized features of the organization_2b, explicit abstraction allows various tasks to become specialties, such as baker and ovener_2a.  This follows the pattern of thing-human dependency, T_2a-H_2b.

Here is a picture.

0079 The specialties of “baker” and “ovener”, once defined, promulgate feelings of implicit abstraction.  These people-things become artifacts that validate our projections of meaning, presence and message into the spoken words.  These specialties_2a are part of the toolset for producing product_1a in the normal context of managing a bakery_3a.  

Humans are now tools.  The question arises, “What makes a good ‘baker’ or ‘ovener’?”

Of course, these human-tools require training_2a.

0080 Plus, these specialists_2b better do their jobs well_1b in the normal context of running a bakery business_3b.  This criteria fits the style of thing-thing dependence.  However, now the things are objectified humans.

0081  Needless to say, Hodder proves a variety of examples in his excellent work.

Some of the examples carry moral overtones.

0082 For example, the making of thread starts during the Neolithic with spinning whorls.  These distinctly shaped cylinders twist strands of wool or flax fiber together.  They take some skill to use.  One must turn the whorl in a particular way in order to produce thread.  The thread may not be fine.  It is thread nonetheless.

By the medieval period of Europe, “spinsters” use fairly sophisticated pedal-powered spinning wheels, where the rotary motion is powered by a foot pedal and the cylinder-aspect of the whorl is performed by a spinning wheel.  Obviously, explicit abstraction plays a role in the technical separation of the spin from the fiber holding aspects of the old-fashioned whorl.  Now, finer threads are made.

So, the whorl to spinning-wheel transition belongs to our current Lebenswelt.

0083 What about fire?

The domestication of fire, accomplished hundreds of thousands of years ago, occurs in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in,when hand talk favors implicit abstraction.  Note that there are no “fire specialists” apparent in the fossil record for the ensuing millennia.  Making fire involves tacit knowledge.  Making fire is procedural.  Making fire is an embodied experience.  Do we have a spoken word to label the making of fire as a cooperative effort?

0084 In contrast, the specialty of running a kiln occurs in our current Lebenswelt.  Kilns are used to cook things, such a pottery, at particularly high temperatures.  Indeed, in this instance, two specialties are apparent: the one who makes pots out of clay and the one who fires the pottery using a kiln.  Expertise is required for both specialties.  Explicit abstraction is required for expertise.

0085 Perhaps, the fact that humans can be objectified as things in our current Lebenswelt accounts for Hodder’s moral intonations.

Or, perhaps a feeling of moral indignation arises from his examples, include opium, which starts as a thing, a poppy plant.

0086 In our current Lebenswelt, explicit abstraction allows humans to be objectified.

Objects can be treated as things in Hodder’s H-T, T-H and T-T dependencies.

The result?

H-H dependencies include H-O, O-H and O-O dependencies.

0087 Plus, H-H dependency carries moral implications.

Why?

Dependencies on things is intuitively natural for humans.  We adapted into a niche filled with these dependencies.

Dependencies on objects requires explicit abstraction.  Once implemented, these dependencies start to feel intuitively natural.  Once established, they feel intuitively natural.

But, they are not.

0088 Perhaps, I am starting to appreciate the implications of Hodder’s title: Where are we heading?

Imagine what happens when I replace the term, “things”, with “objects” (that includes humans).

0089 Here is a diagram.