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.
0053 I can get away with anything if I can find the right words. Call me a smooth talker.
Every one of us is infected with this potential. We are sinners before we are conceived. Let us not strain under the illusion that we can sort out the voluntary from the involuntary, knowledge from ignorance, or freedom from slavery. Speech-alone talk produces a privation rarely seen in the natural world. My spoken words can tell me whatever I want to hear.
0054 That is just the beginning.
My own self-justification3b seals my commitment2c to free-nihilation3c
I3c decide what makes sense3c, not the One Who Gives, Without Us Knowing Why3c.
Then, I expect3a someone else to agree1a with my blather2a.
0055 The sacrament of baptism contests this mystery of iniquity. Grace flows into human nature. A spiritual battle is already engaged before my arrival.
The mystery of iniquity starts to unfold when I come up with ‘something’ objective1b, without attention to the rules of reason and the divine law1c. At first, the objective1b sets aside the suprasubjective1c, by not admitting to the intersubjective1b.
I decide what makes sense3c.
0057 Isn’t this the nature of concupiscence? Why should I worry about right reason or Yahweh’s law? I’m going to hang out with Cupid. Cupid likes me. Cupid agrees with me.
After a phantasm2b of deliciously-worded2a desire2b becomes habitual, self-justification3b strains towards the intersubjective1b. For self-deception1b to become openly regarded, it must first become intersubjective.
So, I, a self-deceiver3b, search out a team that will judge2c my privation2b as virtuous and true. Let my intersubjective2bhabit find an accommodating suprasubjectivity1c. Yes, I may join the club. I may join the secret society that does not pay attention to some aspect of the rule of reason or the divine law1c, then justifies the consequences2a.
In fact, our common intersubjective privation2b reflects a self-congratulating fullness of suprasubjective being2c. Our good is obvious to anyone who is “educated”. We all love one another and despise the uneducated morons, don’t we?
0058 We blather2a in production of our subjective agreement1a.
Are we really free to choose1b?
Or, am I forgetting something1c?
0059 There are privations in things and events2a, including speech-alone talk2a.
There are privations in phantasms2b, losing the balance between judgment2c and speech2a.
0060 In sections four and five, Kanzelberger pulls more threads through the loops of Poinsot’s scholasticism and Peirce’s postmodernism. He does so well, that I continue in parallel, like a harmony to his melody.
0061 I turn to privation of judgment2c.
Consider an example.
0061 Crooked lawyers love the sin of omission. They love to omit the evidence that would cause them to lose the case. This love is justified by the doctrine of total satisfaction for the client. The crooked lawyer does not serve justice. The crooked lawyer serves only his client, even when his client is guilty as charged.
In the domain of morals, the doctrine of total client satisfaction stands in opposition to an oath to serve justice. Lawyers take an oath to serve justice. This doctrine deprives the oath of its merit. Evil is a privation of good.
Legal theory contextualizes a lawyer’s cupidity, even as the lawyer’s exploits defy the attainment of justice.
0061 Is there a hierarchy here?
Crime is what happened3a. A trial is what is happening3a. Victory in court is what it means to me3b. Someone really depraved constructs the legal process that permits it all3c.
There is a hierarchical difference between a corrupt lawyer3b, who objectifies what is happening3a in the pursuit of total victory for his client1a, and a legal theorist3c, who formulates the consensus of what is legally permissible1c. Legal theorists3c fashion suprasubjective entities, concocting law-determining judgments2c that alter, tweak, nudge, correct and re-configure the intersubjectivity2b within which a moral agent3b signifies. Legal theorists3c alter the machinery of justice2c. Evil ex academia1c.
The well-educated cutting-edge legal theorist3c offers norms2c that may oppose the rule of reason and the divine law1c, just as parody opposes tragedy. The projection of alternate meaning into words1c, such as “client interests”, “service”, “mandates” and so on, mocks the hard-won projection of true meaning1c, where the client’s interests do not outweigh justice and true justice ultimately furthers the interests of us all, including the client.
Alternate legal theories2c cannot endure in the absence of the original truth of justice1c. There are two types of immoral actors. The practitioners of concupiscence2b, like crooked lawyers, struggle with self-justification1c. The self-justified2c, like opportunistic legal theorists, strain to defy right reason and divine law1c. They offer better alternatives2c. They3coffer them2c in droves. A multitude of alternatives2c swarm with betterness.
Kanzelberger writes, “Purposeful evil is not a matter of ignoring the moral context of courses of action, but a semiotic disorder involving… a fictive construction… that functions as… an imagined future.”
0064 You mean, like that approaching cloud of legal locusts?
Imagine a world where the rule of reason2c and the divine laws1c are partially, then totally, eclipsed by a swarm of organizational objectives2c, each declaring its own righteousness1c, each supported by its own theoretical imperatives1c and each relying on the power of the state to enforce its dictates.
Imagine a world where certain words1a are made flesh2a, and this winged flesh2a fills the air with what is happening3a, so that all things and events2a actualize theory-distorted subjectivities1a.
Imagine a world where our phantasms2b are not grounded in truth, but in the projection of meaning2b into once truth-filled speech-alone words2a.
0065 Surely, we have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good an evil.
0066 Kanzelberger writes, “Moral evil is a dark image. It weaves a web that bewitches its author, then ensnares others.”
But, the author and the ensnared do not necessarily stand on the same level.
0067 Natural evil makes no sense. Natural evil is privation of the subject.
Moral evil makes sense. Moral evil is privation in phantasms. We selectively use word-symbols deprived of their fullness. We seek agreement1a, not wisdom1c.
Metaphysical evil defies moral sense, by willfully projecting its own relations between what is and what ought to be2c, into spoken words2a, which cannot image or indicate on their own.
0068 Imagine a nest, full of duly-appointed avian-philic crooked lawyers, passing a law decreeing the latest innovation of their premier legal theorist. All cats are to be banished from the sovereign realm, because they are symbols of human maliciousness and cruelty.
Here is a brood worthy of Kanzelberger’s philosophical consideration.
0069 Kirk Kanzelberger joins Thomas Aquinas with a basic acknowledgment: Evil is a privation of a good.
He then considers natural and moral evil.
In moral evil, he locates a semiotic disorder, in addition to a privation.
He considers the nature of the sign, as formulated by Charles Peirce.
0070 He publishes his argument in a journal worthy of the reader’s support.
Reality: A Journal for Philosophical Discourse
0071 My comments are not so different. They thread through both Peirce and Poinsot. They pass through the two loops brought to light by John Deely.
Yet, the are different, in that they offer diagrams based on Peirce’s categories.
0072 Typically, Razie Mah’s comments are published in the smashwords website and carried by a variety of e-book vendors.
Start with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.
Add A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
That is all that is needed to introduce oneself to the interscope of social construction.
Figure 09
0073 The three-level interscope appears in the chapter on meaning in the masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”.
The three-level interscope plays a role in A Primer on the Individual In Community.
The three-level interscope serves as a model of langue, in Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us: Language and Evolution.
0074 All these works are available at the smashwords website.
So concludes this look at Kanzelberger’s foray into both Aquinas and Peirce, concerning reality and the nature of privation.
0032 Here is a mirror picture of Hardin’s argument.
0033 Ah, the current narrative of human evolution cannot account for a twist. All written origin stories of the ancient Near East depict a recent creation of humanity.
What does that imply?
Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
Surely, the phenomena of the Developed Neolithic tell us as much. Once the towns of the Uruk period arise in the Tigris and Euphrates River delta, there is no looking back. Civilization begins.
0034 So, we can pose a question to the origin stories of the Ancient Near East.
What makes civilization possible?
They tell us that humans are recent creations by the gods.
0035 What does this imply?
The manufacture of humans by newly differentiated gods indicates that the ancient scribes and storytellers could not see beyond a certain point in the past. They could not see into the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. I call this time horizon: the first singularity.
The evolutionary sciences do not see what is right in front of them.
0037 First, there are two origins depicted in Genesis. The Creation Story covers Genesis 1:1-2.3. The stories of Adam and Eve start at Genesis 2.4.
Both comport with the style and content of ancient Near East texts.
0038 Second, those in Abraham’s tradition treat both origin stories as real.
The Creation Story justifies the Sabbath as a day of rest, as codified by Moses.
The stories of Adam and Eve, in contrast, suddenly come into the limelight when St. Paul connects the Jewish revelation, fulfilled in Christ, to all humanity, all the way back to Adam. Adam is where Jews and Gentiles converge.
0039 What does this imply?
The Bible conveys the noumenon of a recent prehistoric change, the first singularity, that alters the course of human evolution.
0040 There are two origin stories in the Bible.
Perhaps, to evolutionary scientists, the leisurely day-to-day development in Genesis One is a better analogy to the origin of our world and ourselves, than the bizarre abrupt manufacturing scenes in the stories of Adam and Eve.
At the same time, the surprising fairy-tale construction of Adam and Eve testifies that the evolutionary scientists miss a crucial turn of events. All the written origin myths of the ancient Near East concur with the stories of Adam and Eve. Humans are recent creations by the divine.
0041 Does Jeff Hardin call for new models of human evolution in light of both science and the Bible?
I suspect he does.
He does not go so far as to call for a new empirio-schematic judgment.
0048 What about the transition toour current Lebenswelt?
Is there a way that theological anthropology and the anthropology of civilized folk move together?
0049 Here is an interpretation of the Bible.
The fact that all written origin stories of the ancient Near East point to a recent creation of humans implies that the scribes and storytellers cannot see beyond a certain point in time, say 7821 years ago. Adam and Eve are fairy tale figures standing at the portal of our current Lebenswelt.
0050 Here is a corresponding novel approach to evolutionary science.
Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. The transition is called the first singularity. The first singularity begins with the appearance of the first speech-alone talking culture, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. At this time, all other cultures practice hand-speech talk.
Hand-speech talk?
Speech is added to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.
By the time the first singularity initiates, hand-speech talk has been practiced for 200,000 years.
The transition from hand-speech talk to speech-alone talk is simple. Drop the hand-component. But no-one ever thinks of doing so, since hand talk grounds words in the natural sign qualities of icons and indexes. Plus, humans have been enjoying hand-speech talk for countless generations.
0051 So how does the Ubaid culture do it?
By accident. At the start of our current interglacial, the Persian Gulf is dry land, settled by two two unrelated hand-speech talking cultures, one land-loving Neolithic and one coast and river-loving Mesolithic. A significant and rapid rise of the sea marks the start of our current interglacial. The Persian Gulf fills with water, pushing the two cultures together.
The cultures join into one. They develop a pidgin from the two very different languages. After a few generations, the pidgin turns into a fully linguistic creole. The hand-component of hand-speech talk is lost. Sumerian is the first speech-alone language.
Sumerian is a linguistic isolate. It is unrelated to any family of spoken languages.
0052 The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk are very different from hand-speech talk. Hand-speech talk facilitates constrained social complexity. Speech-alone talk fosters unconstrained complexity.
That is the science in a nutshell.
0053 Three series are devoted to the first singularity at the smashwords website.
The most direct is Crystallizations of the Fall, containing two articles: The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, plus Comments on Original Death and Original Sin: Romans 5:12-19. Skeptical science types should start here.
The most accessible is A Course on An Archaeology of the Fall, containing the namesake masterwork and an instructor’s guide. Accompanying literature includes the early chapters of Genesis, chapter 5 of Paul’s letter to the Romans and Sura 5. This is the best path for students and teachers. This course is designed as a seminar. Read and discuss.
Implications and further commentaries are located in the series Reverberations of the Fall. Theologians should consider this series first. Original sin is relevant, again. But, here, I am getting ahead of myself.
0054 So far, The Human Niche covers the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
An Archaeology of the Fall covers the first singularity.
In both these exercises, theological and biological anthropology move together, without violating the Positivist’s construction of what is.
What about our current Lebenswelt?
The first singularity initiates our current Lebenswelt.
Speech-alone talk spreads, through mimesis, to adjacent hand-speech talking cultures, on the basis of marginal differences of wealth and power.
0055 Why is the Ubaid wealthier and more powerful than surrounding hand-speech talking cultures?
Speech-alone talk works on symbols, while hand-speech relies on icons and indexes (even though language itself consists in two related systems of differences, that is, symbolic orders). Speech-alone talk can name parts, irrespective of wholes. In hand-speech talk, a part may name the whole. Consequently, speech-alone talk facilitates specialized languages, which supports labor and social specialization.
The Ubaid has more wealth and power because it is further along a path of labor and social specialization.
0056 But, isn’t there a problem with speech-alone words that is not present in hand-speech talk?
Yes, in hand-speech talk, the gesture-word pictures or points to its referent. So, of course, the word and referent go together.
In speech-alone talk, we innately anticipate that a spoken word pictures or points to its referent. But, a speech act does not picture or point to anything.
What happens next?
We project meaning, presence and message into a spoken word. Then, we construct an artifact that serves as a referent and validates the projected meaning, presence and message. As long as the projection-validation works, the artifact is salient, and serves as a referent.
0057 Perhaps, the reader sees a problem with this arrangement.
Indeed, Augustine’s depiction of original sin only scratches the surface of the fallen character of our current Lebenswelt. Some Reformed traditions have a more precise term: total depravity.
If a person is able to construct an artifact that validates the meaning, presence and message that “he” projects onto a spoken word, then what is to stop “him” from um… creating and taking advantage of a situation?
Welcome to our current Lebenswelt, where our own spoken words allow us to name our own “realities”.
0058 Here is another pairing of Biblical interpretations and a new approach to the human sciences.
