Category Archives: Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in
Human psychology evolved under in the social milieu of constrained complexity. Currently, humans live in unconstrained complexity. What has this done to our minds? These topics are addressed in various parts of An Archaeology of the Fall, particularly in chapters 8C and 11B.
0106 In Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul II proposes that original innocence entails a gift of holiness given to man and to woman, enabling them to participate in the inner life of God, through their radical giving of self to one another, in purity of heart.
He concludes that the ethos of the gift may serve as the basis for a truly adequate anthropology.
0107 To this examiner, Pope John Paul II stands on the soapbox of the theology of Thomas Aquinas. He proclaims biblical teaching.
At the same time, he points toward the prelapsarian Adam… or adamah… and subtly suggests that a truly adequate anthropology may be found in… an application of Aquinas’s metaphysics and biblical teaching to who we evolved to be.
0108 Male and female we evolved to be?
And more…
Male and female in mutual self-giving, we evolved to be.
0109 Here is a picture with another way to appreciate the relation between John Paul II’s specific application and the broad application that The Theology of the Body intimates.
This schema may be applied to all social circles.
0110 Adamah is “humanity”, when the hominin and the social circle may be distinguished but not separated. Adamah do not articulate triadic relations using explicit abstractions. Rather, adamah live them and, over generations, adapt to them. We live by implicit abstraction. Implicit abstractions are built into our souls and bodies. Adamah associates to the “image of God” of Genesis verses 1:26-31.
0111 The foundational social circles are family (5) and friends (5).
The social circle for obligatory collaborative foraging is the team (15). Here is where our lineage learns to be productive and have fun. Proto-linguistic hand talk is an adaptation to teams. Teams engage in sensible construction.
The social circle that provides safety in numbers in travel and at night is the band (50).
The social circle that brings harmony to diverse teams is the community (150). Here is where we learned to be more than productive and experience more than fun. Fully linguistic hand talk is an adaptation to community. Communities engage in social construction. Social construction is the meaning underlying the term, “religion”.
0112 The social circle that gathers bands and communities in seasonal celebrations is the mega-band (500). Here is where singing is first used for social synchronization. The gathering cannot last long, in order to avoid disease. So, rapid social synchronization is required.
Once the voice is under voluntary control due to social and sexual selection, the voice is exapted at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens, over 200,000 years ago. Humans practice hand-speech talk until the first singularity.
The social circle that calls for wisdom and offers deep witness to the signs of The One Who Hand Talks the World Itself is the tribe. The tribe is a linguistic community.
0113 Unbeknownst to Pope John Paul II, a theology of original innocence as a disposition towards interpersonal self-giving may be precisely the metaphysics needed to conceptually elucidate the dynamic harmonies within and among social circles that characterize hominin evolution.
0114 Man is not meant to be alone, as a radical individual, whose sexuality is a tool to satisfy “needs”, according to some theoretical -ismist construction.
Yet, man is alone, caught in a web of explicit abstractions promising to solve his alienation, by incorporating him into an idea, an “-ism”, concocted by some “Western Enlightenment inspired” political philosopher. If he buys into the agenda, then he may be a person, among an ideologically defined people.
Such theory may be technically correct, but it is wholly misleading. Now, -ismists are increasingly discredited.
0115 In our current Lebenswelt, we live in the state of original sin.
We are not alone in contemplating our condition.
Alexander Dugin calls for a fourth political theory.
Pope John Paul II offers a theology that complements Dugin’s vision.
Dugin offers a political theory that complements the pope’s theology.
0116 Just beyond Adam, representing our current Lebenswelt, there is adamah, prelapsarian humanity, representing the Lebenswelt that we evolved to be. Philosophical inquiry into biblical teaching may allow us to see that humans and social circles co-evolve, so man was never meant to be alone.
The people are beginning to realize that the -ismists are wrong, the narod is where we could be, and the ethnos is where we can never return to. We long to return. But, we cannot. So turn around and see what God has to offer.
0117 Perhaps, now, in a confused and exploratory fashion, we can modify our scientific interpretation of human evolutionand stand on Aquinas’s soapbox just like the the pope does, and greet the prelapsarian adamah, as who we evolved to be.
0118 My thanks to the author for publishing an article worthy of examination.
Surely, this examiner goes to places that the author never envisioned.
Such is the way of scholastic inquiry. Commentaries follow commentaries. Then, everything changes.
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.
0841 This is an encore performance to the sequence of blogs on the post-truth condition.
As such, this examination wraps up Part Two of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
Take a gander at the full title of Enfield’s text, Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good For Lawyers and Bad For Scientists.
Surely, that sounds like a book that belongs to a set of books on the post-truth condition.
So, the numbers continue to build from the last examination.
0842 The book is published by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The author is a professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney and the Director of the Sydney Centre for Language Research.
0843 The title of the book is a play on John B. Carroll’s (editor) collection of essays by Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941 AD), published in 1956 under the title, Language, Thought and Reality.
To me, this implies that “thought” has transubstantiated into “versus”. The substance of the word has changed, so to speak. The word, “versus”, derives from the same root as the word, “adversary”. So, if “thought” once used to nominally stand between “language” and “reality”, then today, “thought” is confounded with “adversary”, and that might serve as a hint concerning the nature of our adversity.
Perhaps, this is not the only notable feature of the title.
Then again, a book titled, Language, Adversary and Reality, might not fly off the shelves in feel-good book-outlets. It is not as if, next to the Self-Help section, there is a Come To Grips With Your Doom section.
So, expect me to play with the title throughout this examination.
0844 Another notable feature of this book, at least to me, is that the author is not acquainted with Razie Mah’s re-articulation of human evolution, in three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues). The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. Plus, the evolution of talk comes with the twist, humorously called, “the first singularity”.
So, Enfield’s work serves as a marker for the twilight of the Age of Ideas and the dawning of the Age of Triadic Relations.
0845 Okay, let me dwell on the idea that the evolution of language is not the same as the evolution of talk.
Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues, and also, for the most part, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog for January, February and March, 2024) divides the evolution of talk in the following manner.
0846 The first period starts with the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineage (7 million of years ago) and ends with the bipedalism of the so-called “southern apes” (around 3.5 to 4 million years ago).
In the second period, australopithecines adapt to mixed forest and savannah by adopting the strategy of obligate collaborative foraging. Eventually, Homo erectus figures out the controlled use of fire, leading to the domestication of fire, starting (perhaps) around 800 thousand years ago.
The third period, lasts from the domestication of fire to the earliest appearance of anatomically modern humans. During this period, hand talk becomes fully linguistic, religion evolves as an adaptation to large social circles (of 150 individuals and more) and hominins use the voice for synchronization during seasonal mega-band and occasional tribal gatherings. Then, sexual selection does the rest and the voice comes under voluntary neural control.
0847 The fourth period starts when the voice, now under voluntary control, joins hand-talk, resulting in a dual-mode way of talking, hand-speech talk. Hand talk retains the iconicity and indexality that grounds reference in things that can be pictured or pointed to. But, speech adds a symbolic adornment, which starts as a sing-along and ends up taking a life of its own. Four centuries ago, the North American Plains Indians and the Australian aborigines still practiced hand-speech talk, with full fledged sign and verbal languages. Now, their hand-speech talk is all but dead.
0848 That death, along with the demise of all hand-speech talking languages, comes (and came) due to exposure to speech-alone talk, which has significantly different semiotic qualities than hand-talk and hand-speech talk. Hand-talk is iconic and indexal. The referent precedes the gestural word. Speech-alone talk is purely symbolic. The spoken word labels ‘something’, and sometimes that ‘something’ cannot be imaged or indicated.
Well, it must be real because speech-alone talk provides a label for an explicit abstraction!
0849 Here is a picture of the transition labeled, “the first singularity”.
0850 Consider the words, “language”, “adversary” and “reality”. Each word is a label for ‘something’ that cannot be pictured or pointed to. These words do not exist in hand-talk or hand-speech talk, because the referent cannot be imaged or indicated using a manual-brachial gesture. What does this imply? Does a referent exist because a label has been attached to it? Or, does an explicit abstraction properly label referents that exist irrespective of the spoken word? This type of question is addressed in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.
Fortunately, the author of the book under examination is unaware of the first singularity and the difficulties that a change in the way that humans talk poses. Human evolution comes with a twist.
0851 So why examine this work?
Well, I expect to see the evolution of talk manifesting in this book, even though the author is not aware of Razie Mah’s academic labors.
Surely, Enfield’s work details recent scientific research in linguistics and cognitive psychology, in an attempt to provide the reader with a coherent view of how language is good for lying lawyers and bad for honest scientists.
0001 The actual title of this blog is Looking at Avoiding Babylon’s 2023 Year in Review Podcast.
0002 One avenue to the podcast is https://spiritustv.com@avoidingbabylon.
At the moment of this writing, these comedic, yet earnest, podcasters are also on youtube and rumble.
0003 The current title employs an Arthurian legend riff, because, if anything, the four interlocutors in this video elaborate a sign-relation specifying what Pope Francis, seemingly simultaneously pope and poseur, means to each one. The appropriate Tarot card is the Hierophant. So, that is what I will label this confluence of fallible human and political position.
0004 In general, the sign is a triadic relation where a sign-vehicle stands for a sign-object in regards to a sign-interpretant.
Here is a picture.
0005 In a specifying sign, a content-based sign-vehicle (SVs) stands for a situation-based sign object (SOs) in regards to the question of what it means to me, operating on the potential of ongoing content (SIs).
The actions of the Hierophant play a prominent role in the year-end review. These actions serve as a specifying sign-vehicle (SVs) that stands for the reviewers drinking from a chalice of unholiness (SOs) in regards to what the news events of 2023 mean to traditional Catholics (SIs).
0006 Here is a picture.
0006 Now, the members of the discussion do not quest for the grail of the unholy. Rather, they suffer it. The elixir that they reluctantly imbibe is a distillate of the rotted fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, vaporized and condensed by nefarious operators similar to those fingered in Charles Theodore Murr’s book (2022) Murder in the 33rd Degree.
0007 Razie Mah offers two snapshots of this distillate.
One is Looking at Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s Music Video (2022) “Unholy”, presented in Razie Mah’s blog on February 11, 2023, several days after the Grammy awards.
Two is Looking at Carlo Vigano’s Speech (2021) “How the Revolution of Vatican II Serves the New World Order”,presented during July 2022, in the same blog.
This is what the talents at Avoiding Babylon taste.
0008 So, what is this distillate?
Well, the answer is obvious.
The distillate is the liquid in the grail of the unholy.
Surely, the elixir is spiritual. But, it is not the blood of Christ. Its mash is stamped from the modern grapes of alienation and resentment.
0009 At this moment, pause, and take a glance at the title of this blog. The title proposes a quest, not for the distillate, but for the grail of the unholy. The grail is the vessel, the cup, the chalice of what is unholy.
0010 Spoken words are so slippery.
Perhaps, the following articulation is more suitable.
I propose a quest for the doctrine of original sin.
0011 The doctrine of original sin is the vessel of the unholy, purchased by Christ in the transaction of all time, bringing good out of the fall of Adam and Eve.
0012 But, has not Augustine’s doctrine of original sin been disproven by modern science?
This is a very good question.
To witness one Christian author caught in the tentacles of this “has not”, consider Looking at Andrew Ter Ern Loke’s Book (2022) “The Origin of Humanity and Evolution”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog between November 30 and 1, 2023.
0013 I propose that Avoiding Babylon pose this question to their audience, in an open forum, along with the following queries. (1) Is Augustine’s doctrine of original sin still valid after modern science demonstrates that there is no genetic bottleneck, as would be expected if Adam and Eve are parents of all humans? (2) Does Augustine’s diagnosis of concupiscence still apply? (3) What about other diagnoses, such as the Protestant’s doctrine of total depravity? Do they still apply? Finally, (4) are there any alternate formulations of original sin proposed after Augustine but before the modern Age of Ideas?
0014 I suspect that the answers will be: (1) No. (2) Yes. (3) Yes, look no further than the demos-racket party members and their rino consorts beholden to the glow-baloney-ists. (4) Yes, Thomas Aquinas proposes that original sin is the deprivation of original justice.
0015 In a subsequent open forum, I propose that the audience of Avoiding Babylon riddle this question. Does Aquinas’s proposal that original sin is the deprivation of original justice apply to human evolution?
In other words, is there a twist in human evolution?
Is human evolution shaken, not stirred?
Has the living world of humanity changed?
Is the German word, “Lebenswelt”, appropriate?
What if our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
0016 Why stop there?
Can the Lebenswelt that we evolved in correspond to an era of original justice?
Can our current Lebenswelt correspond to an era of original sin?
0017 Of course, with questions like these, an open forum may descend into chaos. To date, no one seems willing to connect the dots, except for Razie Mah. That give this literary figure a certain daring. He even proposes a label for the transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.
The label is “the first singularity”.
Yes, there is an archaeology of the fall.
0018 If Aquinas’s concept of original justice applies to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, then how are we to envision this… um… Edenic existence?
Perhaps, inquirers may consider the lives of newborns, infants, toddlers and young children.
These innocent creatures did not evolve to grow up in civilization, did they?
0019 Two recent blogs by Razie Mah assist in opening the modern mind to the possibility that we evolved to be what children expect us to be, which is nothing like what we adults actually are in today’s unconstrained social complexity.
One is Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”, appearing from October 30 to 2, 2023. John Deely (1942-2017 AD) is the only postmodern semiotician buried in the cemetery adjacent to Saint Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. His last student, Brian Kemple, runs the Lyceum website and is worthy of an interview. So are the contributors to his online journal, Reality.
Two is a series of examinations of the works of Michael Tomasello, recently retired Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany (and may be living near Duke University in North Carolina). These will appear from March 31 to January 4, 2024 (and will be wrapped into an e-book titled, Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), soon to be available at smashwords and other e-book venues).
0020 So, the question is, “Are these little tykes expecting us to be, who we evolved to be? And, if so, then why do we seem to fail to live up to their expectations, say nothing of our own expectations for ourselves?”
I suspect that Dr. Tomasello might want to take a swing at that hardball question.
0021 Imagine the implications of associating Aquinas’s original justice to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0022 As for our current Lebenswelt of original sin, the prior specifying sign says that Pope Francis, as a premier news maker of 2023 (SVs), stands for traditional Catholics being forced to drink elixir from the grail of the unholy (SOs) in regards to the question of what it means to believers, who are concerned about ongoing events (SIs).
0023 Of course, scientists like to call these news items, “memes”, easily transmitted virus-like units of cultural information. Today, memes are everywhere. They are incessantly broadcast. So if the Hierophant employs memes, then what is the nature of memes?
Here, Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria, to Bach and Back”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in December 2023, offers a notion that memes, bits of gossip, pithy justifications of concupiscence, demoralizing proclamations, and label-attaching accusations involve the specifying sign (as already noted) as well as the interventional sign.
0024 The interventional sign?
The interventional sign is like a mirror of the specifying sign.
In a specifying sign-relation, the content-based sign-vehicle (SVs) is picked up by the senses as a mind-independent being. The situation-based sign-object (SOs) is mind-dependent.
In an interventional sign-relation, the content-based sign-object (SOs) is available to the senses as an apparently mind-independent being, which is totally backwards from the specifying sign. The perspective-based sign-vehicle (SVi) is mind-dependent.
0025 For the interventional sign-relation, a perspective-based idea in the mind of someone (or something) (SVi) stands for what the participants sense (SOi) in regards to the content-based question, what is happening, drawing upon the possibility that ‘something’ is happening (SIi).
0026 Here is a picture for the meme at hand.
0027 Note that the sign-object of the interventional sign (SOi) is contiguous with the sign-vehicle of the specifying sign(SVs).
However, the interventional sign-relation is much more difficult to assess than the specifying sign-relation.
0028 The lesson is on display in Avoiding Babylon’s podcast of the year 2023 in review.
The Hierophant offers an elixir that tastes like poison to traditional Catholics and the interlocutors ask what is happening. They cannot figure out the potential of ‘something’ happening’ because they cannot ideate, much less imagine, that the current Hierophant is an object (SOi), called into being by an alien intelligence guiding what is happening and the potential of ‘something’ happening (SIi) in the process of implementing an alien idea, plan or judgment (SVi).
0029 Now, substitute the word, “unholy”, for “alien”.
An unholy idea (SVi) stands for this Hierophant making the news (SOi) in regards to the question of what is happening arising from the potential of ‘something’ happening (SIi).
0030 No, this does not sound like concupiscence.
This sounds like something far more deranged.
0031 Has the Yaltaboath of Modernism found its Voice?
Does the Modern Yaltaboath seek to destroy the chalice of the unholy, which has been disproven, then disregarded, but still retains its power to contain the elixir of whatever idea, plan or judgment that our unconstrained minds can conceive?
Will Avoiding Babylon conduct a quest for original sin?
Will they seek to discover the cup of the unholy capable of containing the juices of Modernism?
0157 Now that I have arrived at a technical definition of the term, “meme”, within the framework of postmodern scholasticism, I may examine chapter nine of Dennett’s book (“The Role of Words in Cultural Evolution”) and chapter twelve (“The Origins of Language”).
0158 Dennett’s argument goes like this.
Words are a key ingredients to culture, because they belong to language. Spoken words make excellent examples of memes. Spoken words are like viruses.
But, I wonder, what about hand-talk words?
0159 Apparently, the idea that language evolves in the milieu of hand talk does not cross Dennett’s mind. Indeed, many evolutionary biologists treat culture, in general, and language, in particular, as the actuality independent of the adapting species2a, rather than an adaptation2b. Why? They are convinced that humans have no ultimate niche, only a blend of proximate niches, all of which offer material or instrumental advantages or challenges.
0160 Au contraire.
According to the masterwork, The Human Niche (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), our lineage adapts to an ultimate niche1b, the potential1b of triadic relations2a, as well as diverse proximate niches, including various Pliocene and Pleistocene ecologies and environments.
Practical language2b is an adaptation to team activities and contributes to the expansion of the hominin neocortex between 2000kyr (thousands of years ago) and 800kyr. Hand talk evolves from pantomime to rudimentary (team-specific) grammars.
General language2b is an adaptation that evolves within the milieu of hand talk, after the domestication of fire, around 800kyr (800 thousand years ago). Hand talk evolves from rudimentary team-specific languages to fully grammatical general languages.
Here is a picture of the latter step.
0161 What is language in the milieu of hand talk?
Hand-talk consists of manual-brachial gestures. Manual-brachial gestures work (that is, have the character of memes) because they picture or point to their referents. In terms of semiotics, manual-brachial gestures are icons and indexes.
When these are routinized, symbolic processing starts to occur, enhancing the distinctiveness of each gesture, and turning each into a word-gesture in a system of differences. The modern linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913 AD) defines “spoken language” as two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole (speech) and langue (mental action). A finite system of differences (for Saussure) is a symbolic order (for Peirce). Grammar consists of operations within a symbolic order.
In hand talk, the relation between parole and langue is motivated by the natural sign characteristics of hand-talk words. Manual-brachial gestures are icons and indexes. Gestures image and indicate their referents. At the same time, hand talk also routinizes gestures into words. Words operate as symbols. They form a symbolic order. A symbolic order allows grammar. Grammar makes hand talk linguistic.
0162 Our ancestors never imagine that their gesture-words are icons, indexes or symbols.
Nevertheless, they become better and better at hand talk.
0163 How do manual-brachial word gestures fit the definition of meme?
A perspective-level actuality2c may be a conviction that cannot be explicitly expressed using iconic and indexal signs. After all, how can a hand-talk word point to or picture a species impressa2a, a species expressa2b or a species intelligibilis2c?
Nevertheless, the conviction2c is real. Plus, if the hypothesis proposed in The Human Niche is credible, and if the scholastic interscope for how humans think describes what it claims to describe, then conviction2c is an adaptation.
So, how do our ancestors express their convictions2c?
They express their convictions through hand-talk expressions2a (SOi) in the normal context of what is happening3a and with the potential of ‘something’ happening1a (SIi).
Then, the hand-talk words2a are linguistically decoded into an icon or index (SVs).
0167 Here is a picture of hand-talk as a meme.
0168 Before general language, the practical hand-talk languages of each team activity are distinct and only occur within the normal context of each team activity. Many of the characteristics that we associate with spoken words remind me of how hand-talk languages adapt to the crucible of team activities.
During the team activity, conviction2c judges whether the ongoing content-level normal context of what is happening3asupports the ongoing situation-level normal context of what this means to me3b.This conviction2c (SVi) substantiates hand-talk words (SOi) that either maintain the situation-level potential1b in the face of content-level potentials1a or not.
0169 For example, we don’t gather mushrooms at locations where lions are known to prowl. Plus, when a lion is nearby, everyone wants to get back to the band. There are hand-talk words that convey these tidbits of semantic information. We expect that our words refer to things and states of things. We expect our words to be honest. We insist that certain words are used appropriately. We expect words to contribute to our awareness of the ongoing situation. We expect words to convey, sometimes with comic zeal, what is happening and what it means to me.
0170 So, is there a problem with this scenario?
Have you noticed that no one talks with their hands anymore?
According to the masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), around 7800 years ago, the only culture on Earth practicing speech-alone talk is the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. All other Epipaleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures practice hand-speech talk.
0171 Why?
For one, speech is added to hand talk at the start of our species, before 200kyr. Our human ancestors practice a dual mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for over 190 thousand years. Then, the first singularity occurs.
For two, the first singularity starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk. In fact, every civilization throughout history practices speech-alone talk, raising the question, asking, “Did the adoption of speech-alone talk potentiate civilization?”
For three, the answer is yes.
0172 Here is a picture of speech-alone talk as a meme.
The difference between hand-talk words and speech-alone words may seem subtle. Nevertheless, the difference is substantial.
0173 Hand-talk and hand-speech talk facilitate constrained social complexity.
Speech-alone talk potentiates unconstrained social complexity.
0101 Our current Lebenswelt (B) contrasts with the first singularity, because it follows the event. Our current Lebenswelt (B) is characterized by speech-alone talk. Speech-alone talk allows explicit abstraction, along with implicit abstraction. Explicit abstraction involves symbolic labels (spoken words) and the mental manipulation of such labels (symbolic operations). Implicit abstraction does not require spoken words and is very difficult to explain using spoken words.
0102 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in (C) contradicts our current Lebenswelt (D). The Lebenswelt that we evolved in(C) is characterized by hand-talk and hand-speech talk. Hand talk relies on sign-processing, which is the fundament for implicit abstraction. Implicit abstraction has nothing to do with labels and symbolic operations. Rather, implicit abstraction engages sign-processes, starting with sensation, opening to perception and (eventually) initiating judgment. Implicit abstraction allows us to understand actualities2 by intuitively recognizing the appropriate normal context3 and potential1. This is what we evolved to do.
The Lebenswelt that we evolved in (C) complements the first singularity (A), in so far as scientists, in our current Lebenswelt (B), who cannot imagine the first singularity (A), also cannot imagine the ultimate human niche as the potential of triadic relations (C).
0103 Human evolution (D) contrasts with the Lebenswelt that we evolved in (C), speaks against the first singularity (A), and compliments our current Lebenswelt (B).
Human evolution (D) is a scientific construct. The Lebenswelt that we evolved in (C) is the world of signification of our distant ancestors. Scientists do not want the construct of human evolution (D) to have a discontinuity (A). Why? They rely of the principle of uniformitarianism in order to understand the prehistoric past. If there is a twist (A) in human evolution (D), then this principle does not apply. Scientists are thrown in the same basket as the rest of us (B), wondering whether the labels that we use to perform symbolic operations are as good as we presume they are.
0104 Of course, Loke takes us into the next Greimas square.
Figure 22
Here is where Loke’s theoretical construction begins.
0105 Here is the first applied Greimas square appearing in this examination of Loke’s book (point 0011).
Figure 23
0106 The title, “Image Bearer of God”, is the focal term (A). God makes him in His image. Male and female He creates them. Does this sequence reflect some chauvinistic attitude of the ancient Near East? Is this an artifact of translation? Right after the Creation Story, God directly fashions Adam from the earth and Eve from Adam’s side. Theologians may debate, but the debate somehow does not recognize that the Genesis Creation Story is distinct from the Primeval History. In the creation story, the humans are images of God. In the stories of Adam and Eve, two people are fashioned in order to hold the title, “Created in the Image of God”.
Loke cites John Stott’s 1984 book, Understanding the Bible, and proposes a way to appreciate how there is no incompatibility between evolution and the Bible. If Adam is the first human, then he is simply the first person to be labeled, “created in the image of God”. Stott calls Adam, Homo divinus. I call him, “Earth man”, in acknowledgement of his humble beginnings. Loke calls him, “Image Bearer of God”.
In the end, we are talking about a label. This label may be placed on any individual in the Homo genus. Plus, this label may be applied to other humans along various lines of descent, including those outside of biological generation.
0107 Other titles have been given to humans (B). Aristotle calls us, “political animals”. Porphyryr calls us, “rational animals”. Saint Paul calls us, “inheritors of Adam’s sin”. Rene Descartes calls us, “thinking things”. Biologists name us, Homo sapiens. John Deely calls us, “semiotic animals”.
0108 None of these appellations are as grand as the title, “Image Bearer of God” (C), awarded to Adam and Eve. This title (C) stands against all other titles (B).
0109 Here I consider that Adam, as the first bearer of the title (C), stands in the same position as the world of original justice (formulated for Adam before the Fall, by medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas) (C) as well as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in (C), 1.8Myr to .78Myr (C) and the uplands of De Nile (C).
0110 Humans, in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, practice hand-speech talk, which embodies the semiotic qualities of hand talk. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk, long before our species appears. Speech is added to hand talk at the dawn of our own species, Homo sapiens.
0111 Hand talk manifests the semiotic qualities of icons (images) and indexes (indicators). This facilitates sign-processing because referents (which are things that can be pictured or pointed to) are natural sign-objects. I call the cognitive processing that proceeds through sensations (content) to perceptions (situation) to judgment (perspective), “implicit abstraction”. Today, this cognitive cascade is intuitively obvious and is difficult to put into spoken words.
0112 How does this apply to Loke’s concept that Adam is the first to receive the label, “Image Bearer of God”?
There are no gestural words in hand talk for “image” or “God”. Certainly, there is a term for “bearing”, as in “carrying”. But, there is no hand talk word for “bearing”, as in “holding a title”.
0113 The task is easy for speech-alone talk, since speech-alone talk is purely symbolic. One can attach a label to anything.
Similar labels apply to humans in our current Lebenswelt, as evidenced by the philosophical debates on how to describe humans (B).
0114 What does this imply?
The endowment of the appellation onto Adam (C) occurs in a world that practices speech-alone talk (hence, the explicit abstractions can be uttered). However, this world is not aware that speech-alone talk is any different than hand-speech talk (C). Why? No civilized person practices hand-speech talk. So, how would anyone know?
It is as if Adam stands at the bottom of the falls, looking up, and not realizing that he has tumbled from a world that no longer exists. Or, it is like Adam, standing at the top of the falls, does not recognize that one more step…
0115 God warns Adam. Do not eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
0116 The divine comedy is brought to pure what-if-ness when theologians, after the revelation of Christ, try to come to terms with how God labels Adam and Eve. They do so by committing the error embodied in the spoken words. They think that there must be truth in labeling. They attempt to figure out the meaning, presence and message behind the term, “image of God”, as it applies to Adam and Eve… um… before the tumble over the watery edge.
Early theologians characterize the Biblical “image of God” as one who exercises rational powers, moral sensitivity, fellowship with God, a sense of beauty and, of course, language… that is… speech-alone talk, which characterizes our current Lebenswelt.
0117 Adam names the animals. Surely, that seems like the way that hand-speech talk works. The gesture-word images or indicates its referent.
Note that Adam does not name that tree in the middle of the Garden. The name of that tree is full of explicit abstractions,such as “knowledge”, “good” and “evil”. These terms cannot be conveyed using manual-brachial gestures. But, they can be uttered by a talking snake.
0118 Thus, the hypothesis of the first singularity assists me in showing that adam as humanity (D), contrasts with Adam, the one who is created to fit the title (C), contradicts the title of “the Image Bearer of God” (A) because Adam (and really, most humanity, even today) innately thinks in terms of implicit abstractions rather than labels, and complements “human” as defined by philosophers in our current Lebenswelt (B), because speech-alone talk allows reflection and analysis not available to hand-speech talk.
0119 The stories of Adam and Eve, plus the naming of Adam as “an Image Bearer of God”, are tightly knotted word-games.
0020 Adam and Eve are commanded to obey only one rule. Do not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What can we say about the name of the fruit, rather than the name of the tree. Can the fruit be called either “intelligent” or “stupid”?
Surely, Adam and Eve would not eat a fruit called “stupidity incarnate”, because they are intelligent.
But, what about a fruit called, “intelligence incarnate”?
Surely, they would eat such an admirable morsel, if only to discover their stupidity.
0121 Once in prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945 AD) discovers a label for all the incredibly well-educated and academically certified people who bought into the charisma of the National Socialists of Germany. He calls them, “Dummheit”, too stupid for words.
The so-called “Fuhrer” has a way with words. So do his propaganda-saturated followers, with advanced degrees in symbolic enumerations, deification studies and medical codification. They are sophisticated and up to date. They know how to label people, not as image-bearers of God, but more like… bodies with tattoos. Everyone can recognize the explicit abstraction. Here are the tattoo-bearers of a God that does not recognize the Fuhrer’s authority.
0122 That is the crux. It is all about spoken words. Speech-alone words do not picture or point to their referents, like the gesture-words of hand-talk and hand-speech talk. Speech-alone talk attaches labels to all sorts of parts and wholes. These labels promote explicit abstractions, which may seem logical, yet be totally in error. Yes, spoken labels can create cognitive structures that are completely internally consistent, hence logical, hence intelligent, yet unfathomably stupid. Thus, explicit abstraction (B), the stuff of intelligence and stupidity, stands in contrast to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (A).
0123 Here is a picture of the next Greimas square.
Figure 24
0124 God labels the tree of knowledge of good and evil using speech-alone talk (A).
In contrast, speech-alone talk allows explicit abstractions (B), yielding either stupidity or intelligence.
Next, the implicit abstractions characteristic of hand-speech talk (C) contradicts the explicit abstractions potentiated by purely symbolic terms (B) and complements the idea that an adequate name for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is “intelligence” and “stupidity”.
Um… how come there are two names attached to the same fruit?
0125 Consider Adam’s implicit abstraction in the Genesis story. He implicitly abstracts a message. When put into spoken words, this message does not sound precisely intelligent. Adam says (more or less) “The woman that you made for me, she gave me the fruit and I ate.”
If I were God, I would have replied, “I gave you the title of Image Bearer of God, and you behave this stupidly?”
0126 The set-up for the drama of the Fall (D) lies in the fruit. The explicit idea that Adam and Eve will die when they eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (B) supports the implicit abstraction that the fruit is poisonous (C). The fruit (D) sets Adam and Eve up for the drama of the Fall, because it is not poisonous. Rather, the fruit (D) speaks against the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (A) in the same way that a fruit (D) causes one to ignore the tree(A), along with that ridiculous commandment.
In short, the fruit (D) is not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (A).
Rather, the fruit (D) is “intelligence incarnate”.
0169 Even though the theological implications of the coincidence between the stories of Adam and Eve and the Ubaid archaeological period of southern Mesopotamia may seem far removed from Loke’s proposal that Adam and Eve are the first ancestors to receive the label, “image of God”, the distance is not so great.
0170 First, the Lebenswelt that we evolved in associates to the creation of humans in the image of God (in the first chapter of Genesis).
Second, our current Lebenswelt associates with Adam and Eve receiving the spoken honorific, “Image Bearers of God”, and then promptly disobeying the only commandment that God gives them.
0171 Section 5.8.2 discusses an awkward difficulty that arises with Adam getting awarded the appellation, “Image Bearer of God”, that presumably passes to his sons, Cain and Abel. Okay… let me correct that… to their (at the time) only remaining son, Cain.
Cain runs away, finds a wife, then moves off to start a city. Loke wonders whether Cain’s wife is merely an animal that happens to be an anatomically modern human. Or, is she created as an image of God, yet is not aware that God could give someone the spoken honorific, “Image Bearer of God”?
0172 Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), treats the awkward issue as follows.
After Cain murders Abel, he complains to God that others (the ones without the rapidly devaluing honorific, “Image Bearer of God”) will kill him. So, God puts a mark on Cain. That mark happens to be the body paint of high-ranking warrior in the village harboring Cain’s wife-to-be.
Of course, when Cain walks into the village wearing such marks, everyone freaks out. The shaman tries to put an end to Cain, but ends up accidently killing the number one warrior in the village. Then, the shaman falls face down before Cain and Cain impetuously kills him.
In order to celebrate, Cain’s future bride (along with her team mates) take the body of the dead warrior and cook up a batch of delicious porridge. She is proud of herself and is disappointed when Cain (after realizing that the meat in the porridge comes from the dead warrior) decides to not finish off his bowl.
0173 Yes, communication in speech-alone talk can be treacherous.
Tell someone, “Get that body out of here and bring me something to eat.”, and see what gets served.
