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.
SaH 0017 The authors quest for a sphere of understanding. They seek the egg, so to speak, impregnated by Juri Lotman’s genius. In the interviews in chapter 2.1, Lotman is spent, although still alive. He is old. The interviewer is a youth, a personification of the metaphysical love-child born after Slavic civilization reveals herself to Lotman’s circumspection.
0018 The miracle of Lotman’s arrival in Estonia is, weirdly, recounted in the last interview (2.14) with psychologist and cultural theorist, Jaan Valsiner. As it turns out, Valsiner’s step-father was instrumental in getting Juri Lotman to Estonia after the Second World War.
0019 Jaan Valsiner demonstrates that the Tartu-Moscow’s sphere of influence is diffuse. His testimony is seconded by Paul Cobley (2.13), Terrence Deacon (2.12), Jesper Hoffmeyer (2.11) and Stuart Kauffman (2.10).
0020 The sphere becomes less diffuse in interviews with Roland Posner (2.9), Gunther Kress (2.8) and Wilfred Noth (2.7).
Notably, Noth conducts a discourse on the crucial potential of truth, as opposed to the potential of will. Indeed, the contrast between truth and will turns out to be integral to my examination of a 2017 article on Russian identity.
0021 Finally, the sphere becomes tangible with interviews with American anthropologist, Myrdene Anderson (2.6), who researched indigenous people in Sweden, Italian semiotician Paolo Fabbri (2.5), who railed against the wooly thinking that passes for “models” in contemporary humanities, and the Italian know-it-all Umberto Eco, who noted the importance of iconicity in semiotic humanity.
What?
“Semiotic humanity”?
What about semiology?
0022 Contemporary academic discourse is currently conducted with expert-coined spoken words, but these utterancescannot picture or point to their referents. Academics swim in a pool of differences… er… two arbitrarily related pools of differences. No one can tell where he or she flotates.
Flotates?
This is what happens when spoken words are placeholders in two arbitrarily related systems of differences.
0023 Finally, the interviews engage a still-living member of the original Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, Boris Uspenskij (2.2). This interview gets a full examination in the course on Semiotics and History. Uspenskij stands within the sphere that the authors aspire to understand.
0024 So, what does Razie Mah’s contribution under the banner ofSemiotics and History offer?
0025 For the diffuse sphere, these examinations will present a historical narrative of ideas in the style of diagrams of purely relational structures. In short, Peirce-inspired diagrams offer a new way to narrate intellectual history.
0026 For the almost tangible sphere, these examinations practice a method of association, followed by a discussion of the implications. The articles provide material to fill in the empty slots of relational structures. When associations are made, implications become apparent.
0027 For the sphere itself, one unexpected insight is that, as the first ascendant of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics struggles to fulfill the political mandate of the USSR (to make all fields of inquiry “scientific”), the researchers excavate the recently-buried remains of the civilization that is their subject of inquiry.
Imagine a scientific investigation of Russian language, history and literature, as a archaeological excavation into the being of Slavic civilization.
0028 Is that the same “she” that… um… you know… captured the attention of Juri Lotman?
How confounding.
0029 The next blog offers an introduction to Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.
SaH 0030 This course is a fully on-line study that appears in Razie Mah’s blog.
The course should be conducted (ideally) by a mature reader along with one novice or more, (less ideally) by two novices in collaboration and (perhaps, heroically) by a novice reader working alone.
0031 The field of home-schooling is exploding (a term associated with Juri Lotman) in America, but a wary public wants to taste the products, before committing to purchase. This online course is the first of many, I suppose, but the import for this particular exposition is obvious when considering current events.
0031 Estonia is awkwardly situated (along with the other Baltic states) between the Slavic civilization of Russia (to the east), and the Swedish, German and Polish civilizations (to the west). Estonia was part of the USSR, during the cold war; part of the West, during the American Empire’s unipolar moment; and now is about to be nudged into a Eurasian convergence, as predicted by political theologian, Alexander Dugin.
A nudge is both a danger and an opportunity, especially for the University of Tartu, with its department of semiotics, and for the University of Moscow, with its unique constellation of intellects.
0032 One of the questions asked in almost every interview in Kull’s and Velmezova’s book goes like this, “What needs to be researched by semioticians? Or, what topics of inquiry need exploration by newly certified semioticians?”
This course offer a number of suggestions, several in connection with a stunning post-scholastic discovery that may be attributed to the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.
Discovery?
Look and see.
The original articles are available online.
0033 Here is the list of examinations.
Go to the month in Razie Mah’s blog and scroll down.
0034 (1.) Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics” (December 2025, 27 blogs, points 1-376)
0035 (2.) Looking at Ekaterina Velmesova and Kalevi Kull’s Article (2017) “Boris Uspenskij…” (January 31-10, 2026, 19 blogs, points 377-641)
0036 (3.) Looking at Boris Uspenskij’s Article (2017) “Semiotics and Culture” (January 9-2, 2026, 8 blogs, points 642-743)
0037 (4.) Looking at Mihhail Lotman’s Article (2017) “History as Geography” (late February 2026, 8 blogs, points 744-840)
0038 (5.) Looking at Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2017) “Semiosphere and history” (late March 2026, 8 blogs, points 841-952)
0039 (6.) Looking at Peeter Torop’s Article (2017) “Semiotics as Cultural History” (early February 2026, 11 blogs, points 953-1104)
0040 In a little over 1000 steps, the home- or guided-schooler can find out where the Tartu-Moscow School as been (in its first ascent) and where it may be going (in its second).
SaH0001 Razie Mah offers three foundational courses that cover human evolution.
These are:
The Human Niche
(also see the four accompanying commentaries as well as the three-part Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019))
An Archaeology of the Fall
(also see the three part Instructor’s Guide, as well as The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace and Original Sin and Original Death: Romans 5:12-19)
How To Define the Word “Religion”
(also see the ten primers, starting with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction)
These courses are on sale by various electronic booksellers.
The texts are designed to be read and discussed in a seminar setting.
0002 For inquirers. educators and students would who like to try their hands at Razie Mah’s approach, Semiotics and History offers a path. This is one course consisting of many strands. Like a fiber in a rope, each strand strengthens the entire conceptual apparatus. With few execptions, each course completely appears in the blog. Some strands will have an electronic e-book component. So, don’t be afraid to make a purchase. You will find that the costs of Mah’s electronic works are reasonable.
In the following list, the date corresponds to the cover page of each strand. A strand typically covers a month.
0003 The following list extends into the future, because more strands will be added over time.
Feb 6,5, 2026
Looking at Kalevi Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova’s Book (2025) “Sphere of Understanding” (Part 1 and 2 of 3)
Feb 4, 2026
Semiotics and History: The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (Part 3 of 3)
May 30. 2026
Semiotics and History: Baroque Scholasticism
May 7, 2026
Semiotics and History: Baroque Scholasticism and Early Modernism
June 30, 2026
Semiotics and History: Early Modernism
July 31, 2026 Semiotics and History: Gnosticism in Modern America
0377 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 404-448) by two well-regarded semioticians. The full title is “Boris Uspenskij on history, linguistics and semiotics”. Kalevi Kull conducts the interviews. Ekaterina Velmezova performs translation.
The article consists of two sit-downs. The first takes place at the end of a eighth session of the Tartu Summer School of Semiotics, in August 25, 2011. The topic of the Summer School was Semiotic Modelling. The second takes place at Uspenskij’s home in Rome on May 27, 2012. The questions are based on his book, Ego Loquens: Language and the Communicative Space (2007).
0378 This examination seeks to appreciate how one of the leading figures of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, which flourished from the 1960s to the 1980s, weaves Saussure’s definition of spoken language as two arbitrarily related systems of differences, into a science-friendly inquiry into the literature of the Slavic civilization.
0379 Two arbitrarily related system of differences?
Parole (speech talk) also corresponds to the written word as well as symbolic artifacts. Parole can be observed and measured.
Langue (the machinations that automatically decode and encode speech talk) cannot be directly observed in the same way as parole. Yet, langue is there. It must be. Otherwise there is no way that someone can think before speaking, should that person choose to do so.
0380 Parole and langue are two contiguous real elements. The continuity, if placed in brackets is [arbitrarily related].
This configuration satisfies the definition of Peirce’s category of secondness, where one real element [is contiguous with] another real element. For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the two real elements are matter and form. I label the contiguity, [substance] or [substantiates], but it also could be [entangles]. Substance is typical. Entanglement is tricky.
0381 Here is a picture of the comparison between Aristotle’s hylomorphe and Saussure’s definition of language.
0382 Saussure’s definition of language appears to be scientific, because there is no substance. That is, there is no metaphysical reason for why what we think comes to be associated to what we say. So, the arbitrary relation is simply a conditioned response. A conditioned response conforms to truncated material and efficient causalities.
Another term for “conditioned response”?
How about “code” and “decode”?
0383 Okay, if that is the case, then what?
What if what we think (langue) is like matter? What if what we say (parole) is like form?
Then, the contiguity, [arbitrary relation], seems to say that we can attach any word to any thought, without structure. So, something structural would need to situate the content of a spoken word, even if that structure is a habit or a convention. Once that happens, then the hylomorphe, {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a, occupies the actuality2a on the content-level of a two-level interscope. Language2bm is the situation-level matter that induces a constellation of the content-level hylomorphe.
0384 Okay, if language2b is (by Saussure’s definition) the dyad, {langue2am [arbitrary relation] parole2af}, then how can language2b situate itself2a?
This can only happen if language2b is already participating as a situation-level category-based nested form involved in the production of statements2b.
0385 Here is a picture.
0386 It is as if the content-level actuality2a is immediately situated by a demand to substantiate a statement, as if language2b is matter and a statement2b is form.
0387 But, obviously, there is more.
The content-level actuality2a is accompanied by a normal context3a and potential1a.
So is the situation level actuality2b.
0388 For the content level, the normal context of Saussure’s semiology3a brings the dyadic actuality of {langue as matter [substantiates] parole as form}2a into relation with the potential of ‘a signified and its signifier’1a.
0389 For the situation level, the normal context of a linguistic structure (or genre or system)3b brings the dyadic actuality of {language as matter [substantiates] statements as form}2b into relation with the potential of ‘the laws of the system’1b.
0627 Today, we no longer are who we evolved to be.
What does this imply?
We can no longer be who we evolved to be.
Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0628 Today, the general ego interscope presents a purely relational structure (a suite of triadic relations) that may be processed implicitly. This is the configuration of langue, as opposed to parole.
Here is a picture.
0629 Almost all of the elements of the interscope are filled with explicit abstractions.
A trace of Aristotle’s philosophy resides in the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.Upwellings from deep within Slavic civilization breathe into explicit abstractions.
An archaeology can be seen in the structure of the content- and situation-level actualities. According to Aristotle’s hylomorphe, matter [substantiates] form. But, this Christianized pagan civilization realizes the inverse is also a thing. Form [entangles] matter.
0630 In the example, the form of a small bird entangles the matter of a young initiate.
The claim coheres with the crucial claim of Razie Mah’s book on hominin evolution, The Human Niche. Our niche is the potential of triadic relations.
The lesson appears like a banner on the perspective level.
0631 This brings me to the joke about Juri Lotman’s soulful encounter with St. Methodius.
During the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School in the USSR, structural3b semiological3a models2c are on the scientific side of the fence. The fence demarks the academic turfs of science (Marxist theory) and superstition (Christian faith, in all its diversity).
Now, the second ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School occurs as the USSA, the maven of technology without meaning,claims the mantle of science (psychometric theory) as opposed to superstition (still Christian faith, in all its diversity).
0632 Does the second ascent of TMS forgo occupation of the science side of the fence?
Or does it straddle the fence?
0633 It may sound uncomfortable, but take a look at the following sequence of perspective level nested forms.
0634 In regards to the universe of signs, Lotman challenges Marx’s paradigm.
Do material arrangements [substantiate] the human condition2cf?
Lotman begs to differ.
0635 In regards to the evolution of humanity, Peircean diagrams turn out to be useful for depicting the relational beings inherent in implicit abstraction.
Consider Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0636 In regards to the human as a semiotic animal, one must not forget that both exemplar and interventional signs intercalate in the perspective level of an interscope.
The specifying, exemplar and interventional signs appear in Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”. This sequence of blogs appears in Razie Mah’s website in October 2023.
0637 What wonderful opportunities for the second ascendance of the TMS!
0638 But, that is not the only challenge that comes from this examination of the interview with Boris Uspenskij in the early 2010s and published in Sign Systems Studies in 2017.
I suppose that there is more than one way to denote primary, secondary and tertiary modeling systems, so why not advance one more?
0639 Here is another proposal.
Consider three tiers of interscopes, with the perspective-level of each tier displaying the following nested forms.
0640 To me, this sequence of primary, secondary and tertiary modeling systems suggest that Peirce’s diagrams may assist in knitting biosemiotics and TMS together into one overarching theoretical framework.
Three tiers of interscopes works well in the chapter on presence in Razie Mah’s How To Define The Word “Religion”. So, this might be a diagram worth mulling over.
0641 I thank the interviewer, Kaveli Kull, and Boris Uspenskij for engagements worthy of examination. I thank Ekaterina Velmezova for the translation into English.
0642 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 230-248) by Boris Uspenskij (1937-present), one of the members of the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, in the 1960s through the 1980s. The full title is “Semiotics and culture: The perception of time as a semiotic problem”. The paper was originally presented as a lecture held in Madrid in 2010. Plus, the paper is based on a two-part article published under the title “History and Semiotics (the perception of time as a semiotic problem)” in 1988 and 1989.
0643 The first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics builds a fundament of semiology3a, structuralism3b and disciplinary languages3c that retain formal and final causations along with material and efficient causalities (called “exact methods3c“). The result is an actuality2c, a semiological structural model2c (SVi), that stands for a dyadic actuality2a where {the literary text2af (SOi) [entangles] a language2am of meaning, presence and message1a}.
0644 Here is a diagram of the fundament interscope.
0645 Exact methods3c?
Think of it3c as flying a probe2bm into a cloud of phenomena1c that cannot fully objectify the noumenon of a literary text2bf. This scholarly data-collector2bm extracts observations and measurements1c that will be evaluated (using exact methods) on the basis of signification3a(1a) and structure3b(1b).
0646 Semiological structural model2c?
According to the empirio-schematic judgment, a disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings a mechanical or mathematical model (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).
A parallel construction follows.
A disciplinary language of exact methods3c (relation, thirdness) brings a semiological structuralist model2c (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena1c within a literary text2bf (what is,firstness).
0647 Phenomena1c?
Phenomena are observable and measurable facets of a noumenon, a thing itself.
According to Kant’s slogan, a phrase that Kant may have never uttered but which is attributed to him in the same way that the entire Pentateuch is attributed to Moses, a noumenon cannot be fully objectified as its phenomena. A thing itself cannot be reduced to its observable and measurable facets.
0648 Language2bm?
Language2bm is the situation-level matter (as opposed to form) constituted by Saussure’s definition of language2aentering into a structure (or system)3b, such as a mother tongue3b, a genre3b, a style3b, an artistic community3b, a tradition3b, and other civilizational beings3b.
0649 Clearly, the semiological3a structuralist3b model2c aims to capture an Aristotelian expression of how language as matter2bm substantiates a literary text as form2bf.
Without the literary text2bf,a semiological structural model2c cannot coalesce because there is nothing to delimit free-floating, unanchored language from the phenomena that an inquirer is interested in. It is like matter without a form to substantiate. It’s useless.
0650 So, in the fundament interscope, language as matter2bm gives substance to the literary text as form2bf.
At the same time, the literary text as form2bf allows the entire situation-level hylomorphe2b to take a shapewhere language2bm may be regarded as phenomena.
0651 Say what?
Language2bm substantiates the literary form2bf and, at the same time, may be regarded as phenomena of the literary form2bf.
It2bm is substantiating matter2bm(esse_ce) because it virtually situates the content-level actuality2a, {langue2am[substantiates] parole2af}.
It2bm is regarded as literary phenomena by the perspective-level potential1c.
0652 The substantiated form2bf(essence) is like a noumenon and its2bf substantiating matter2bm (esse_ce) serves as its2bf observable and measurable facets (that is, its phenomena).
0732 The article concludes after the third asterisk (3).
Discussion shifts from the topic of the future to the metaphor of space.
0733 Historical consciousness discusses the future as the place that we are going.
Cosmological consciousness portrays the future as a place that we have been before.
0734 Both ways, the message1c is that the future will be a continuation of past and present.
But, what if we lived in a Lebenswelt where our hand-talk could not picture and point to these explicit abstractions?
What if we could manual-brachial gesture an arcfrom the location of the sun (or moon) towards its point of rising (past) or setting (future)?
Would these hand-talkwords testify to an implicit abstraction?
0735 What if we could not explicitly state that the normal context of space-time3c brings the dyadic actuality of {continuity in time as matter2cm [substantiates] our current Lebenswelt as form2cf} into the relation with the potential of ‘a message concerning the continuity of past, present and future’1c?
0736 Here is a picture of the interscope with that perspective-level nested form.
0737 Space is an excellent metaphor fortime.
We move through time, just as we move in space.
0738 Our motion in space is continuous, so time must be continuous as well.
Well, it must be continuous if space and motion and time are metaphors for one another.
But, one wonders.
0739 Does the perspective-level hylomorphe, {continuity in time2cm [substantiates] our current Lebenswelt2cf} apply to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Does the derivative interscope explicitly manifest in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
0740 Can one express the explicit abstractions of history, cosmology, consciousness, continuity, and space-time in hand-talk?
What is there to image or point to?
0741 It makes me wonder. Are the foundations for these explicit abstractions somehow, built into the human thing… er… being?
Matter and form?
After all, “ego loquens” means “I speak”.
But, what if our kind evolves in the milieu of hand talk?
0742 My two conclusions are obvious and open-ended.
First, Uspenskij’s work may be diagrammed using the fundament (loquens) and derivative (ego) interscopes.
Second, time is not the only semiotic problem.
0743 My thanks to Boris Uspenskij for publishing this brief, yet engaging article.
0001 If I may present my conclusion at the beginning, “I suggest the following motto: First the bauplan, then the twist.”
0002 The full title of the essay under examination is “Unpacking the Neolithic: Assessing the Relevance of the Neolithic Construct in Light of Recent Research”. The article appears in the Journal of World Prehistory (2025) in volume 38:11, pages 1-58 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-025-09198-0). The author is affiliated with the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
0003 The author’s argument follows the Greek tradition of (A) setting out prior propositions, (B) adding further information and assessments and (C) proposing one’s own solution.
Prior propositions (A) are covered in the section titled, “The Origin of the Term ‘Neolithic'”.
Further information (B) includes sections on neolithic emergences in southwest Asia and other regions, including China, Japan, eastern north America, Mesoamerica and the northwest America.
The author’s proposal (C) appears in a section titled, “Repackaging the Neolithic”.
0004 I examine each movement in the sequence A, C then B.
0005 In regards to the historical origin of the term, “neolithic” (A), the word appears in the 1850s in the context of prehistoric lithic technology. A distinction between old “paleolithic” and new “neolithic” tools reflects a fairly recent change in the human condition. The Paleolithic extends very far back into the evolution of the Homo genus. The Neolithic is fairly new and applies only to Homo sapiens. By “new”, I mean, say, starting less that 20,000 years ago.
0006 As it turns out, stone tools and fossilized bones are the most recoverable items from the distant past. So, the idea that our kind evolves will of course rely of this type of data. The implications are significant. If lithic technologies are like matter, then the archaeologist may speculate on forms of prehistorical human (or “hominid” or “hominin”) conditions.
0007 For example, the earliest paleolithic stone tools are labeled “Oldowan”. These tools can be made on the fly. If I strike one rock with another, I can fracture off a shard and expose a sharp edge. Of course, one must choose the right rocks for this trick. Plus, technique is important.
Later stone tools are labeled “Acheulean”. These stone tools are made ahead of time, by the same technique of hammering off shards to reveal an intended form that… somehow… is intrinsic to the original rock.
0008 So, what am I suggesting?
Is the actuality of matter and form intrinsic to rocks, and ancestral hominins learn to tamper with one real element (matter) in order to sculpt the other real element (form)?
0009 I am suggesting more than that.
Aristotle’s hylomorphe (hylo = matter, morphe = form) is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness. Secondness consists of (at least) two contiguous real elements. For paleolithic hominins, a rock (matter) could be sculpted into a stone tool (form). From the point of view of the archaeologist, the hylomorphic structure still applies. The question is, “How?”
Paleolithic stone-tool technology “sculpts” prehistorical human conditions.
0010 Of course, the word, “sculpts”, serves as an aesthetic metaphor for the contiguity between paleolithic technology as matter and hominin conditions as form.
0011 The challenge for nineteenth-century anthropology is clear. Propose a better, more scientific, or at least, less metaphysical, label for the contiguity.
With only geological strata, stone tools and fossilized bones as evidence, proposals were necessarily speculative. But, archaeologists continued digging, and by the 1850s could make the distinction between paleolithic and neolithic. Also, they figured out a reason for why the advance from Oldowan to Acheulean stone tools “sculpted” more advanced hominin conditions. Man was making himself.
0012 What do these evidential and rational developments suggest?
For a Peircean, secondness is the dyadic realm of actuality. Secondness is only one of Peirce’s three categories. The other two are thirdness (the triadic realm of normal contexts, judgments, signs, mediations and so forth) and firstness (the monadic realm of possibility).
Each of these categories manifests its own logic. Also, each higher numbered category prescinds from the adjacent lower category. Thirdness prescinds from secondness. Secondness prescinds from firstness. Prescission allows the articulation of the category-based nested form, as described in Razie Mah’ e-book, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.
0013 Thirdness bring secondness into relation with firstness.
A triadic normal context3 brings a dyadic actuality2 into relation with the possibility of ‘something’1.
0014 Now I can slide the above dyad into the slot for actuality2 for the category-based nested form intimated by the title of V. Gordon Childe’s 1936 book, Man Makes Himself.
0015 The slide clarifies the contiguity, paleolithic technology constellates a substance, which I label, “technique”, that manifests an essence for the conditions of evolving hominins (that is, a substantiated form).
Consequently, the appearance of a new stone tool technology indicates a change in techniques as well as a change in the essence of the prehistoric human condition.
0016 According to Childe (1892-1957), the “neolithic” label encompassed more than a change in lithic technology. The prehistoric human condition gets entangled with all sorts of other matters, including sedentary communities, economies of delayed returns, various modes of storage and so forth. A long list of material arrangements gets entangled.
0017 As it turns out, once matter substantiates form, then form can entangle other matter, which is a confounding. Here, “confounding” is a technical term, precisely labeling one form originating from one matter and entangling another matter.
Historically, a confounding is an idea that belongs to Aristotle’s tradition. It is stumbled upon long after Aristotle’s campus went out of business. It is the brainchild of the Byzantine and Slavic civilizations.
0018 Here is a picture of Childe’s confounding.
0019 The upper three lines presents the neolithic thing. Neolithic stone-tool technology [substantiates] the prehistoric human condition. The nature of the [substance] is labeled, “technique”.
The lower two lines presents the entangled matter. The [entanglement] is difficult to label, because its nature is.. well… a long list of material arrangements.
0020 A list of material arrangements appears in Table 1 of the article. Even the social components of social mechanism, magico-religious sanctions and trade can be shoved under the rug labeled, “material arrangements”.
0021 As such, the “neolithic” may serve as an adjective to a noun, “revolution”, that appeals to academics sympathetic to Marxist formulations. Yes, they are the ones who only promote academics with similar sympathies. Also, Childe was… um… a sympathizer.
The question is not about whether prehistoric folk are “communist” or “fascist”, even though these labels may apply to this or that anthropologist of the 1930s.
The question is whether the Marxist formula applies to prehistoric folk.
0022 The answer becomes obvious, when Childe’s confounding resolves into the following hylomorphic structure.
0023 The above figure depicts a Marxist version of Aristotle’s hylomorphe, {matter [substantiates] form}. Childe’s hylomorphe lasts for nine decades (that is, until the present day at the start of 2026). Man makes himself through a standard Marxist formulation. Soon, Soviet era archaeologists adopt the stance that the appearance of pottery is a hallmark of neolithic emergence. Pottery is a material arrangement. The emergence of the neolithic is a human condition.
0056 Okay, I will continue drinking my cocktail in the following exposition.
I regard the last two figures, along with the figures that appear in the article under examination.
0057 There is something in B that suggests two bauplans3. Early Neolithic Bauplan 1 marks the terminus of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. Late Neolithic Bauplan 2 denotes the start of our current Lebenswelt.
0058 Bauplan 1 looks like this.
The early Neolithic bauplan3does not permit untrammeled social and labor specializations. Rather, all social circles2m (family (5), friends (5), teams (15), bands (50), and community (150)) are optimized2f in the pursuit of the final cause of ‘settling down’1. It is the same way that different organs and organ systems are optimized for ‘settling down’ into an individual.
Details of optimization will be specific to each location (because efficient causes differ), yet produce something ‘general’, that manifests in excavation sites as varied as Catal Hoyuk and Tepe Gobekli. Domestication includes the local geography, plants and animals. Domestication may even include settlements more than a day’s walk away. Domestication may include the heavens.
0059 Once rendered in this manner, the slow, seemingly reversible, spiral into the neolithic thing2 gets depicted as thin dotted horizontal lines along the axes of arrangements versus time.
0060 The late Neolithic bauplan3 permits individual social and labor specializations. Something significant has changed. The key final cause of ‘settling down’ remains relevant. However, another key final cause cannot be ignored. The optimization of the early Neolithic somehow breaks down and the late Neolithic initiates a search for order1 that continues to this day.
0061 Here is a picture of what Bauplan 2 might look like.
0062 It is as if an individual, having been formed by a bauplan 1 gestation, gets born.
What a rude awakening.
0063 What about the timeline?
If I replace the increasing boldness of the horizontal dotted lines with a slowly rising bauplan 1 slope, and if I depict the most bold horizontal dotted lines as a bauplan 2 phase transition, then I get the following graph.
0064 What does this imply?
Obviously, bauplan 1 ends in a twist, that is, bauplan 2.
I noted this slogan at the start of my examination.
0065 Less obviously, the Neolithic revolution is not in the actuality of {material arrangements [substantiating] the neolithic condition}2.
“The Neolithic Revolution” involves a transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.
0066 Fortunately, for the author, the American Marxist academic candle is about to exhaust itself, just as the Soviet Marxist illumination did decades ago.
Yes, the crisis begins.
0067 The impending change of cognitive grounds will be at least as great as the following transition from Karl Marx (1818-1883) to Juri Lotman (1922-1993). This transition goes sigmoidal in 1989.
0068 The following hylomorphic transition is derived in Razie Mah’s blog for December 2025, titled Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”.
0069 Marx’s actuality2 is supposed to arise from the potential of scientific models1, even though the actuality2 served as doctrine, rather than a mechanical or mathematical formulation. Remember, Marx’s actuality2 conforms to the structure of Peirce’s secondness. Secondness is the realm of actuality. How easy is it to confuse this actuality with the realness of a mechanical or mathematical model? Yet, they are not the same.
0070 Lotman’s actuality2 arises from the potential of the semiosphere1, the universe of sign-relations. Semiotic arrangements are not the same as material arrangements. They are not even close.
0071 So, what am I saying?
The author senses that ‘something’ is coming and she figures out that it must concern a bauplan.
After all, bauplan is a term that is familiar to evolutionary biologists.
0072 Happily, the semiotician, Razie Mah, has already explored human evolution from the point of view of Peirce’s categories. The human bauplan is an adaptation to the niche (or the potential) of triadic relations. Plus, human evolution comes with a twist.
Here is a list of works by Razie Mah that pertain to Bauplan 1 and Bauplan 2.
0073 Surely, this is a lot to unpack. But, that is precisely what Melinda Zeder’s article calls for.
My thanks to the author for publishing this thought piece.
0001 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (44(3) (2016) pages 368-401) by two professors, Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin, hailing from Tallinn University in Estonia. The title is “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”. The subtitle is “A transnational perspective”.
0002 The abstract promises to situate the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics of the 1960s through 1980s. The article delivers more than promised.
How so?
0003 The authors sketch dynamic developments among intellectual circles within the (now former) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
0004 The term, “transnational”, indicates that there are nations within the former Soviet Union.
During this period in history, the governments of Estonia and Russia (along with Czechoslovakia and Poland) owe fealty to an empire with the title, “Socialist”, in its name.
So, “transnational” tells me that the article looks back from the present, into a past era, with the intent of portraying ‘something’ historical, without acknowledging that the “Union” and the “Socialist” descriptors no longer apply (at least, not in the way that they once did).
0005 “Transnational” applies to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, 1918-1989) as well as the upcoming… um… Eurasian convergence?
Here is a picture with three city-sites. Tartu and Moscow belong to the title. Tallinn is the location where the authors write their article. The blue is the Baltic Sea.
0006 “Transnational” steps over the boundaries depicted in black in the above figure.
Never mind the fact that the above territories reside behind, what American pundits once called, “the Iron Curtain”.
0007 Perhaps, one must appreciate an ambiguity to the term, “transnational”, given that there is another transit. This transit is in time. Or, even better, this transit is across a boundary between battles among Enlightenment gods.
Consider where the time period of 1960s to 1980s resides in the following timeline of Western civilization in the twentieth century.
Also consider the year when the article under examination is published.
Notice the boundary.
0008 The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiology constellates within one battle, as a transnational collaboration.
The TMS is remembered during another battle, which is not resolved, and so cannot be objectified as “historical”. I suppose that it can be objectified as “cultural”. Better yet, “theodramatic”.
Already, there is more to this article than meets the eye.
