0098 Zizek ends chapter one with a section on the transition from agnosticism to pure difference.  Oddly, the transition seems to be both transcendent and ontological.  Two triads stand out. One crosses from normal context₃ to actuality₂.  That goes with “Christian”.  One crosses from actuality₂ to potential₁.  That goes with “atheism”.

But, Zizek’s configuration is not theological, it is true₁ materialism₁, where materialism₁ blurs synthesis₁ with the actuality of thesis [in tension with] antithesis₂.

0099 Here is a picture.

0100 The theological and ontological “causations”… er… the primary and secondary causation inherent in the category-based nested form… fades into the background.  Here is another instance of parallax.  As one looks at the foregrounded nested form, transcendence and ontology shift around in the background.

Yes, this is very much in tune with Zizek’s gestalt shifts.

0101 To me, it seems that Zizek always writes with something else in mind.  That style goes with one type of parallax, where one changes location while viewing the same object and the background changes as well.  So, the viewer looks at the same thing (in the foreground), yet the appearance of the thing changes (with the background).

So, what am I looking at in the foreground?

Oh, it must be the petit objet a, that is [wealth and power].

0102 How can this be, when [wealth and power] is a [substance], a contiguity… a “causality”, if you accept the term… between what is capital and what is social?

0103 Of course, everyone speaks of wealth and power, but I ask, “Where is the referent?  What is there to picture or point to?”

Oh, it must be that… um… contiguity?

0104 Maybe I should be asking, “If the inquirer focuses on [wealth and power], and [wealth and power] looks different depending on whether the background constellates as either Christ₃ or a Relativist One₃, then why the hell do I not even register the real elements of capital & accumulation, as well as of social & exercise of order?”

0105 Oh, I suspect that Lacan has a word for that.

Plus, I suspect that the word, in French, is “jouissance”.

Here is a picture.

0106 I ask one of my students, “What do you want?”

The little psychopath replies, “All I want is wealth and power.”

Then, the old British gentleman in the back of the lecture hall mutters, “That one will go far.”

In a certain way, Lacan cuts to the chase.  There are only two smoldering parts to the above figure.  They appear red in the following depiction.

0107 I don’t want to sound cynical, but ontological matter [and] form_2c is existentially contingent.  Christ_3c can be knocked from his throne by any interloper bold enough to say, “I am the one who stands above all worldly jurisdictions.”  Just ask King Henry VIII of England, before the moment when he is cast into hell for all eternity.  Henry₃ does a fine job in displacing Christ₃ and replacing the Lord₃ with a Protestant One₃ ruling over an overcast island surrounded by a turbulent sea.

Is that when the madness that is Great Britain begins?

Uh oh, the old guy with the cane in the back of the room is about to speak.

He reeks of wealth and power.

The little psychopath is all ears.

0108 Can anyone imagine a British version of Slavoj Zizek?

Or, maybe I should ask, “Can anyone imagine a re-telling of British history from Zizek’s point of view?”

That would be a tale of a system_3c, run by the One Who Relativizes All Jurisdictions_3c.

It would be a yarn about [wealth and power]_2c and jouissance_1c, Lacan’s designation for the potential of ‘synthetic truth’_1c.

How could it not be a story of sovereign self-justification?

How could it not be staged in the city of London?

0109 Chapter two is titled, “Why Lacan is not a Buddhist”.

Zizek claims that the preceding discussion (D) reflects the discipline of Lacanian psychoanalysis and (E) does not coincide with Buddhism, despite apparent similarities.

0110 Similarities?

Allow me to draw some more associations between Lacan’s terminology and the perspective-level category based nested form (that this examiner uses to structure this look at Zizek’s book).

0111 A Big Other_3c brings an {objet a (corresponding to matter) [contiguity] objet a (corresponding to form)}_2c into relation with jouissance_1c, designated as the potential for ‘truth and synthesis’_1c (or should I say, “the potential of a synthetic truth_1c“?).

0112 The normal context_3c seems to go with the Big Other_3c and the relativist one_3c.  Both exclude Christ_3c and offer [a petit objet a] that confirms the realness of the thing itself_2c (that is, an objet a).

0113 The substance of the actuality_2c, the petit objet a, is like a clue that indicates that both the matter and the form of objet a_2c are present.  Perhaps, I may associate objet a_2c to a noumenon and the petit objet a to its phenomena, if the association could sustain scrutiny.  It cannot, of course.

Well, to start, objet a is like a thing, composed of matter and form, that is an object of interest because the [substance]_2coffers clues that say, “This_2c is the object that you are looking for.”

0114 Objet a_2c cannot make sense, because it_2c refuses to be grasped by natural philosophy, which regards it_2c as something similar to Aristotle’s hylomorphe.  It_2c is.  And, it_2c is not.  After all, why label both matter and form with the same term, objet a?   Is Lacan working with explicit abstraction?  Or is he conjuring an act of implicit abstraction? The objet a_2c is a hook on a string.  The [petit objet a]_2c is a squirming worm.

0115 The Big Other_3c holds the fishing rod.  Jouissance_1c is a mighty hunger.

Is there a word for this sport?

0116 Louis Althusser calls it “interpellation”.

Jesus calls it “fishing for men”.

0117 Framed in this way, the red colors are like fishing flies, skimming the surface, yet attached to the line and pole of an expert fisherman.

No wonder Buddhists see similarities with their doctrines.

The system_3c is an illusion_2c fishing for human desire_1c.

So, the question is, “What does the Buddhist fail to see?”

The Buddhist regards every aspect of the above category-based nested form as an illusion, even the jouissance, the desire.

And, the Buddhist is correct.

So, let me pause, and brew a pot of tea.

0118 Is our karmic burden to grasp to acquire and find ways to exercise order?  The Buddhist monk begs for alms and food.  The Buddhist tradition exercises order, softly, in pragmatic approaches.  Buddhists coach those who suffer from excess jouissance_1c.  They offer subtle resistance to the relativist one_3c who personifies the system_3c.  Let go your illusions.  Stop suffering.

Then, according to Zizek, the Buddhist tradition goes on to codify the appearances (the diverse petit objet a) that are not spiritual beings, but rather contiguities within things_2c, that seductively whisper, “This is the objet a that you are looking for.”

The apparently spiritual entities (petit objet a) are influential and attractive. They constellate modes of acquisition and exercises of order (objet a).  Who would not be drawn into their intrigues?  So, strict boundaries are set.  Buddhists are not fools.

Buddhist institutions appear hopelessly formalized, hierarchical, and stagnant, in the same way that a river stays within its boundaries, knows where it is going and where it has been, and never seems to get anywhere.  But, look at the eddies that shimmer on the surface.  Buddhism flows without moving.

0119 The crux of Zizek’s configuration, [wealth and power], is an illusion.

But, Zizek says, “Not so fast.”

0120 Consider the clay pot in which I brew my tea.

Yes, this clay pot was thrown on a potter’s wheel.

Does this serve as a metaphor for Zizek’s configuration?

The normal context of the rotating system of a potter’s wheel_3a brings the actuality of {the acquisition of clay [wealth and power] shaping of pot as an imposition of order}_2a into relation with the potential of ‘truth and synthesis’_1a, that is, jouissance_3a.

0121 Why the subscript “a” instead of “c”?

The subscript “a” denotes firstness, with respect to level.  The above category-based nested form belongs to the content level.  In contrast, the subscript “c” denotes thirdness, with respect to level.  Zizek’s configuration belongs to the perspective level.

0122 So, I ask, “Does the petit objet a of [wealth and power] accrue to the content level, in this instance?”

Well, wealth can go with knowing how to acquire the clay and shape a pot on a potter’s wheel.  So can power.  But, this [wealth and power] is a mundane, imaginary attractor, compared to the celestial, symbolic lure of [wealth and power] on the perspective level.

0123 Yet, a Buddhist may respond, “This illusion of wealth and power actually offers an imaginary lure.  Consider the one who throws a pot with the intention… the fixation… that the pot is not for making tea, but to be sold at a certain price.  Then, does your petit objet a of [wealth and power] accrue to the level_b that situates the throwing of the clay_2a?”

0124 That is a very good response, here is the situation level, where a transaction occurs.

0125 The normal context of a transacting system_3b, such as a bazaar_3b, brings the dyadic actuality of {the price of a thrown clay pot [wealth and power] the demand for the manufactured pot}_2b into relation with the potential of ‘truth and synthesis’_1b, that is, situation-level jouissance_1b.

The price of the pot_2b goes with acquisition.  The price_2b is like a thesis.  Whether there is any demand at a certain price associates to an exercise of order_2b.  Indeed, in English, the term, “to place an order” signifies a demand and constitutes a transaction.  The order_2b depends on whether the quality_2b of the product is worth the price_2b.

To me, that means that the situation-level petit objet a_2b, [wealth and power]_2b, has become [transaction]_2b.

0126 Is that an illusion?

If it is, then this illusion stands as one of the foundational laws of economics.

0127 So it does, says the Buddhist economist.

The normal context of a market_3b brings the actuality of the dyad_2b, {price [transaction] quality}_2b, into relation with the potential of ‘voluntary exchange’_1b.

However, price_2b and quality_2b, the objet a, are illusive qualities that delusional Western economists turn into variables for their nonsensical equations.

Plus, the market_3b and the jouissance of voluntary exchange_1b are self-reinforcing constructs that lead to suffering.

0128 Did I pay too much for this pot in which I am brewing my tea?

Yes, I am stewing about that.

Perhaps, I need to let it go.

0129 Back to that law of economics that falls into the lap of a Buddhist economist, while playing with Zizek’s configuration.

Does Buddhism or does Zizek’s configuration account for this law?

Don’t ask me.

I am busy preparing a scenario to distract the reader from the question.

0130 In our current Lebenswelt… I have to throw in the German term for “living world” to show that this is serious… if I fixate, not so much on making high-quality clay pots, but in manufacturing so many clay pots as to attain wealth and power, then I hire a machine or a robot to accomplish the task without illusions… er… with singular intent.

On the content level, the contiguity between acquisition_2a and the exercise of order_2a is mechanically specified, using scientific models for clay and angular momentum.

On the situation level, the real clay pots that my corporation manufactures with no imaginary components_2a command a certain price_2b, due to demand in a market_3b that operates on voluntary exchange_1b.  Quality_2b can be defined as the price_2b at which a transaction takes place.  And so, I may begin my calculations, comparing quality_2b to the actual production costs of the specified product_2a.  The larger the difference between quality_2b and production costs_2a, the closer I get to wealth and power for each transaction.

0131 Hmmm. Does this sound Buddhist in any way?

Or am I missing something?

0132 I guess that I am missing the trade-off within the transaction_2b.

Also, I am missing the oneness of jouissance and the potential of voluntary exchange_1b.

0133 That brings me to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  The conclusion is obvious after reading Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Professor Michael Tomasello worked for many years at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.  Parts of the commentary appear in Razie Mah’s blogs for January through March, 2024.

0134 Jouissance_1b is about desire, under conditions where trade-offs are real.  Desire is hidden within the possibility of ‘voluntary exchange’_1b. My desire is not only for quality.  I ask, “Will it satisfy my demands?”  I want a good clay pot for making tea.  I also am interested in a “reasonable” price.  So, desire pertains to the objet a, which is composed of the matter of price and the form of quality.  [Transaction] is the contiguity between price_2b and quality_2b.

[Transaction] is like a substance that makes price_2b and quality_2b real.

[Transaction] is a situation-level petit objet a.

0135 Where does the jouissance of voluntary exchange_1b come from?

Uh oh, am I going to talk about human evolution?

Is this type of jouissance a human adaptation?

0136 Michael Tomasello offers an insight.  Once our distant ancestors are bipedal, in the ecology of mixed forest and savannah, individuals find that they cannot walk, bring the kids, and forage for the needed calories.  So, rather than individually foraging, they adopt collaborative foraging.  They start working in teams, in order to take advantage of opportunities that are not available to individuals.

For example, after a big rain in Africa, edible mushrooms sprout on the edges of certain dung heaps.  These are not available to an individual Homo erectus.  Why?  Being out in the open is dangerous and, after a dozen or so mushrooms, the interloper has eaten enough.  Abundance is available to a team carrying crudely manufactured baskets.  A team, numbering 15, employs a certain degree of labor specialization, such as lookout, gatherer and organizer.  That helps.  In short order, the team gathers enough to feed… not only the team… but the entire band.  The band numbers 50.

0137 In this example, pertinent to over 600,000 years ago, obligatory collaborative foraging_3b is the normal context for the team.  Voluntary participation reflects jouissance_1b, as the potential of ‘situational truth and synthesis’.  The truth is that mushrooms sprout at certain locations on the savannah after a big rain.  The synthesis is that every member of the team has acquired knowledge about these mushrooms, which are edible and which should be avoided, plus habits that pertain to keeping a lookout for predators and the ability to throw a rock accurately, plus a certain know-how that keeps everyone on task and tracks how full the baskets get.

0138 The actuality involves a [trade-off].  Acquiring mushrooms requires effort and risk.  The quantity and quality of the mushrooms is the reward.

0139 Yes, this looks very much like a transaction.  It also plays out as an implicit abstraction.  This is how foraging happens in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  The above figure portrays a species-specific adaptation.

In our current Lebenswelt, the corresponding “economic law” is codified as an explicit abstraction and formulated into some sort of equation.  In this regard, the Buddhist has a point.  The codified version is like an illusion.  The illusion is a trap filled with apparently spiritual beings that say, “This is the objet a that you are looking for.”  Are you looking for price?  Or, are you more focused on quality?

0140 That is not all.  The dramatic events of living in the wild are missing.  In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in,situation-level team activity is contextualized by the social-circle of the team_3c.  Plus, the team is one_3c, within a panoply of social circles.  Social circles characterize hominin society.  In this regard, see Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Can I go so far as to say the following?

The mushrooms growing around steaming wet turds_2a, the gathering of the mushrooms by a team on the open savannah_2b and the sharing of those mushrooms with friends and family_2c work in tandem.  One flows into the other in a virtual category-based nested form.  The flow illuminates an evolutionarily deep expression of Zizek’s configuration, as shown in the following figure.

0141 Here is a picture of the perspective-level that virtually contextualizes the situation-level of obligatory collaborative foraging_3b.

0142 Notice, that the contiguity is not [wealth and power].  It is [indirect reciprocity], the expectation that, in giving now, one will later receive a return.  The [transaction] of our current Lebenswelt supports [direct reciprocity]_2c, the expectation that I give now and immediately get something in return. 

[Direct reciprocity]_2c? 

Doesn’t that sound like [wealth and power]_2c?

Nothing is given without an expectation of return?

Nevertheless, in our current Lebenswelt, [indirect reciprocity]_2c offers an alternate label for [wealth and power]_2c. And, Christ_3c raises the ante with [altruism]_2c, which is giving with no expectation of return.

Surely, these are illusions.

But, they are also adaptations.

0143 Does this explain why Lacan is not a Buddhist?

0144 Perhaps, the mushroom is not an illusion.

The normal context of a turd in the warm African rain_3a brings the actuality of {a place for fungus to grow [sexual reproduction] mushroom grows and spawns spores}_2a into relation with a jouissance that hominins learn to anticipate_1a.  The mushrooms growing around turds are content that inspires a team to initiate collaborative foraging.  The hominins recognize that the warm rain inspires the matter of turds on the savannah to form mushrooms.  They do not know how.  But, the synthesis_1a of the following nested form is enough to inspire a team to organize a harvest.

0145 The three levels of [mushroom sexual reproduction]_2a, [trade-off]_2b and [indirect reciprocity]_2c eventually select for specialized cognitive modules after innumerable (although occasional) activations of the mushroom-gathering team_3c.

Yes, the natural jouissance of mushrooms_1a rewards survival enough that specialized modules evolve that allow hominins to rapidly identify edible mushrooms (as opposed to poisonous), to assess whether the rains are right for mushroom harvest, and to celebrate the joys of munching on mushrooms with family and friends.

They also select for a cultural adaptation: a team that seems to know the ways of mushrooms_3c.  The team is specialized.  Individuals are not.  There are no individual specialists.  There are only team members who remember what happened in prior excursions and know whether to call the team into action.

0146 This all takes place without speech.

In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, hominins practice protolinguistic hand-talk, at first in teams (say, 1.8 to 0.6 million years ago), then linguistically in communities (say, 0.6 to 0.2 million years ago) and then with the addition of speech as an adornment (say, 0.2 to 0.008 million years ago).  Homo sapiens practices a dual-mode way of talking called “hand-speech talk” for two hundred-thousand years before the first singularity.

Manual-brachial word-gestures of hand talk picture or point to their referents. Word use involves implicit abstraction.  Implicit abstraction applies to icons and indexes, two of Peirce’s natural signs.  It also operates with symbols, taking advantage of the fact that symbols differ from one another.  Remember that Ferdinand de Saussure’s definition of language is two arbitrarily related systems of differences.  When icons and indexes become more and more distinct, they become more and more easy to recognize. Easy recognition is a hallmark of symbols.

0147 In contrast, the speech-alone words of our current Lebenswelt allow, even promote, explicit abstraction.

Speech-alone words can label anything and everything.

Labels set the stage for explicit abstraction.

Here is Lacan’s terminology applied to all three of the nested forms depicted above.

This figure almost looks as derivative as the market_3b formulation (point 0129).

It applies directly, to the perspective-level of an interscope, less directly, to the situation-level and indirectly, to the content-level.

0148 What does this imply?

Does jouissance_1x turn the wheel of desire?  Does objet a_2x rotate upon the axis of [petit objet a]_2x?  Does a normal context_3x frame the wheel of desire?

Plus, does speech-alone talk play a crucial role in labeling all of these elements, in such a fashion that the entire nested form is no longer an expression of “an adaptation”, in the biological sense of the term.

Yes, the implicit abstraction of the category-based nested form is an adaptation that our ancestors could not image and indicate using hand talk.  However, speech-alone talk facilitates explicit abstraction.  Every element gets a label.  We naturally grant that a manual-brachial word gesture has a referent that precedes the gesture word.  After all, hand-talk pictures and points to its referents.  What happens when a label precedes its referent and makes it seem that the referentexists independently of its purely relational structure?

0149 A Buddhist may open the Bible to the third chapter of Genesis and laugh.

0150 The normal context of the garden of Eden_3c brings the actuality of the dyad {the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is forbidden [substance] a fixation on eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil}_2cinto relation with the jouissance of Adam and Eve_1c, influenced by ‘the various suggestions made by a speaking serpent ‘_1c.

Surely, the serpent cannot practice hand or hand-speech talk.

The Buddhist’s chuckle makes jest of Lacan’s terminology.

Objet a is both the command not to do it (as matter) and the fixation to do it (as form).

The [substance] is precisely the ontological realness that the Buddhist strives to transcend.

0168 One of the benefits of chapter two, establishing that Lacan is not a Buddhist, is the appearance of the three-level interscope in this examination. 

Two e-works may assist in appreciating the interscope: A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.  Both are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0169 If I step back and summarize, then the following diagram captures many of my associations.  The figure contains a perspective-level category-based nested form and a virtual nested form in the category of secondness.

As far as this examiner is concerned, the perspective level is what Zizek configures.  The perspective level is full of symbols (that is, labels that are explicit abstractions).  So, I purloin Lacan’s term, “symbolic”, as an additional banner for the perspective level.

Remember, Christ_3c can be excluded by a Relativist One_3c, who stands outside the jurisdictions found on the situation and content levels.  When that happens, the perspective-level potential changes from ‘truth and synthesis’_1c to ‘synthetic truth’_1c.

The situation level receives Lacan’s term, “real” for an additional banner.

The content level employs Lacan’s term, “imaginary” for an additional banner.

0170 Chapter three turns to quantum mechanics.  Quantum mechanics offers scientific proposals about what is going on when Newtonian mechanics does not provide good models.  Quantum mechanics applies to molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons and other subatomic particles.  For one difference, energy is no longer continuous.  It gets quantized.  Plus, the quantized energy is embodied by a tiny thing that is both particle and wave.

0171 For example, in a carbon atom, the nucleus (consisting of 6 positively charged protons and 6 noncharged neutrons) behaves mostly like a particle.  A single positively-charged tiny pin-sized thing stands in the center of the atom.  Because mass relates to energy and energy relates to wavelength, the nucleus is small because bigger mass means shorter wavelengths.

Meanwhile, lighter, negatively charged electrons “orbit” the carbon nucleus as standing waves.  Electron orbits are three-dimensional standing waves, that can be occupied by two electrons, because each electron has a magnetic moment, and these magnetic moments may couple like a pair of bar magnets. “Spin up” couples with “spin down”.

0172 Zizek locates quantum mechanics in a shift between appearance (a measurement of a particle or wave, depending on the apparatus) and the natural – unmeasured – habitus of the nanoscopic thing itself (which gets reduced to either a particle or a wave by our scientific measurements).

0173 I ask, “Does appearance or measurement (in the reality of science) call to mind the term, ‘materialism’, even though the data supports highly mathematical constructs of wave forms that call to mind the term, ‘idealism’?”

Many chemists imagine that the wave-functions of the second energy level for carbon are more real than the first natural-philosophical abstraction of the thing itself.

0174 Yes, the modern chemist triumphally replaces the noumenon with a model based on its phenomena.

Say what?

A mathematical model of the electron in an orbital stands for what is in the chemist’s judgment.

 0175 Zizek argues that a correct reading of quantum mechanics opens the way to “materialism”, that is, “a doctrine of the material”.  Or, something like that.

Of course, ‘something’ is out of kilter with quantum mechanics, because the model, which is imaginary, is regarded as more relevant to inquiry than the thing itself, which is real, because the habitus of these tiny particle/waves ends up getting annihilated by our real scientific measuring apparatuses.

This is like the heroic investigator who proclaims, “In order to ascertain the reality of the situation, we had to destroy the situation itself.”

0176 Happily, for me, but not in the Buddhist sense of the word, Zizek never encountered the Peirce-based description of science, formulated in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  The Positivist’s judgment tells me something about models and things themselves.

A judgment is a triadic relation consisting of three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.  Of course, a well-trained philosopher will gag on these labels.  But, this concerns science, so the three elements are empty slots that are filled in through the synthetic process of association and implication, which is precisely how Zizek (as a wildly successful Lacanian psychoanalyst) operates.

When all three elements are filled in and assigned a unique category, the judgment becomes actionable.  The actionable judgment unfolds, according to the categorical assignments, into a category-based nested form where thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness.

0177 Here is a picture of the Positivist’s judgment.

0178 A positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with the dyad, {the thing itself [cannot be objectified as] its observable and measurable facets} (what is,firstness).

Note how each element is assigned to one of Peirce’s categories.

0179 The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.  Since natural philosophy includes both physics (material and instrumental causations) and metaphysics (formal and final causations), natural philosophy is excluded.  That is what normal contexts do.  They exclude, complement and align with other normal contexts.

0180 The empirio-schematic judgment is a triadic relation that is imbued with secondness.  What does that imply?  A judgment is considered to be actual?  A specialized disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).

Yeah, that seems totally actual.

0181 Finally, the dyad, {a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena}, does not contain two real elements, it only contains one thing that is considered from two points of view.

A theologian speaks of the thing itself being constituted as matter and form.  Matter and form are distinct real elements.  So, {matter [substance] form} belongs to secondness.

In contrast, a scientist speaks of phenomena as the foundation for scientific inquiry.  Phenomena are the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon.  But, phenomena cannot objectify their noumenon, even though both terms label the same entity.  The observable and measurable facets of an entity cannot objectify the thing itself. 

What is of the Positivist’s judgment is popularly labeled, “Kant’s slogan”.

For the theologian, the matter and the form of the noumenon are distinct, real elements. 

For the scientist, the thing itself is irrelevant for building models. Only its phenomena are relevant.

0182 An actionable judgment unfolds on the basis of its categorical assignments.

Here is a picture of the resulting nested form.

The normal context of the positivist intellect₃ brings the actuality of the empirio-schematic judgment₂ into relation with the possibility that ‘a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena’₁.

0183 Zizek asks, “How can reality itself be wrong?”

Perhaps, ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment is a good place to start.

0184 The empirio-schematics of quantum mechanics says that… as far as science is concerned… all we can do is observe and measure phenomena.  The model, based on data, is enough to hold the scientist’s interest.

Zizek responds by asking whether there is more to quantum phenomena that what our scientific measuring devices allow us to see.  Can there be hidden variables that may theoretically be measured, if only we could devise the apparatuses to measure the phenomena?

Who knows?

0185 Well, there is Bell’s theorem.  Bell’s theorem provides a criteria concerning the likelihood that another measurement apparatus could exist that would reveal a hidden variable.

For example, a metal-plate apparatus detects a photon (a quantized particle of light) as a particle.  An interferometer detects a photon as a wave.  Do the data correlate to such an extent as to rule out a third apparatus based on phenomena that does not classify light as either particle or wave?

0186 Well, it turns out that the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to scientists who observe that photons can be entangled.

Entangled?

It is as if one machine in an airport issued two identical decks of cards.  Then, the two decks are given to two peoplewho are leaving the airport to totally different destinations.  Upon arrival, the person is instructed to go to the hotel bar, shuffle the deck, and have the bartender randomly select one card.  Then, the person calls in the identity of the selected card to a tabulator at the university near the airport.

0187 Of course, this study has been criticized as a scam to pay for drinks to university employees going to conferences around the world.  Please ignore such petty accusations.

0188 What do they find?

When the card from one deck, say in Barcelona, is first selected, and say, turns out to be the queen of spades, then the card from the other deck, say in Moscow, turns out to be any card other than the queen of spades.

After continuing the experiment for years, the observation never changes, even though each deck is perfectly identical at the moment of manufacture.

0189 Of course, this is impossible.  But, the story gives a taste of spooky at-a-distance measurements of the polarization (wave-property) of photons, emanating from one source and travelling in opposite directions at the speed of light.

But, I ask, “Why does Zizek bring up highly technical contemporary research in physics in order to establish his point? Why not rely on quantum mechanical concepts that have been around for decades?  Aren’t they strange enough?”

0190 Consider a chemistry experiment as the apparatus.

I start with carbon that has been atomized in a vacuum.  With respect to the outer orbitals, four electrons enter in the configuration of 2s²2p₃² (two electrons in spherical 2s and two electrons, in the three degenerate 2p orbitals).  Now, I slowly leak in some H₂ (gas), which immediately reacts as four hydrogen atoms (1s¹).  I observe a gaseous chemical product, CH₄, consisting of 8 electrons in the outer carbon orbitals and four hydrogen nuclei (H⁺) hanging within four degenerate orbitals centered on the carbon and occupied by electrons.

0191 Here is a picture.

Atomic carbon has four second-level orbitals that are not fully occupied with electrons.

Methane’s carbon has four degenerate second-level orbitals that are fully occupied with electrons.  Plus, methane has four hydrogen nuclei, each perched in its own fully occupied electron orbital.

0192 Every atom gets what it wants.

The carbon atom ends up with the satisfaction of four outer orbitals, configured as a hybridization of one 2s and three 2p into four 2sp₃ orbitals.  These four outer orbitals contain 8 electrons, two for each orbital.  The positively charged carbon nucleus is symmetrically surrounded with negatively charged electron waves.

Each hydrogen atom ends up with two electrons, which would fills its 1s orbital.  But, now the 1s orbital has given way to the carbon’s 2sp₃ orbital.  Each positively charged hydrogen nucleus is surrounded by a three-dimensional blanket of negative charge.

Plus, every negatively charged electron is magnetically paired in a standing wave.  Every electron occupies a stable orbital around a positively charged nucleus.

0193 Now, three issues arise (G, H, I) from the fact that the reaction pictured above converts into the following two-level interscope.

First (G), models of phenomena occupy the content-level actuality, rather than the thing itself.  The carbon atom_2a is already not the thing itself.  It_2a is an imaginary three-dimensional picture of the thing itself.

Second (H), on the situation level, a chemical apparatus_3b serves as a normal context.  So, the observed actuality_2b is already contextualized.  The apparatus_3b is not part of the system that is under investigation.  Yet, the content_2a cannot be situated_1b without it_3b.

Third (I), the previous two issues offers clues as to why quantum mechanics is relevant to Zizek’s big picture.  The noumenon is already veiled by a model that accounts for its phenomena.  Phenomena, in turn, objectify, not the noumenon, but the model.

And, I may add (I’) a note that the noumenon, the natural habitus of the thing itself_2a, even as reconfigured as a model_2a, is annihilated when measurement occurs.

The reagents are gone.  The products remain.

0194 The Real annihilates the Imaginary.

0195 Doesn’t that last point sound dramatic?

Well, the measurement of photons in the field of quantum physics is no different.

Once a photon is registered by a measuring apparatus, it_2a is toast.

For example, the natural habitus of a photon is to fly as a superposition of states and waves_2a.  A particular scientific apparatus will collapse the superposition in the process of making the measurement.  In other words, the photon is annihilated (or its habitus is forever changed).

0196 Here is a picture.

0197 On the content level, the normal context of what it is_3a brings the actuality of a superposition of states or waves_2ainto relation with the potential of the thing itself_1a.  The fact that I characterize the photon_2a as a superposition of waves_2a means that I, the investigator, have already replaced the noumenon_2a with an imaginary of what the noumenon must be_2a.

On the situation level, my imaginary_2a as phenomena_1b serves as matter to yield a form, a quantum measurement_2bmade by my measuring apparatus_3b.

0198 But, the realist in the back of the room shifts uneasily, saying, “Don’t you have it backwards?  Shouldn’t the content-level actuality_2a be labeled ‘real’ and the appearance that is conveyed by the measurement be labeled ‘imaginary’_2b?”

0199 Yes and no.

Yes, surely, the noumenon is more real to the natural philosopher.

No, phenomena are more real to the quantum physicist, because observations and measurements of phenomena belong to the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness, in the Positivist’s judgment) and Peirce’s category of secondness characterizes the realm of actuality.  In contrast, the noumenon (part of what is, firstness, in the Positivist’s judgment) associates to the realm of possibility.

Secondness (the realm of actuality) is more “real” than firstness (the realm of possibility).

0200 Contrary to Zizek’s discussion, the fact that the natural philosopher chooses the noumenon_2a and the quantum physicist chooses its phenomena_1b to receive the label, “reality”, does not mean that we have to choose between space and time.  Rather, it means that we have to choose between the noumenon and its phenomena.

Well, which would I choose as the noumenon, space or time, or both, or neither?

Clearly, the quantum mechanical equations that model the standing waves of electrons around nuclei in atoms and molecules rely on both space and time as variables.  Those variables go into equations that model data based on phenomena, not the thing itself.  So, one might wonder about the status of space and time.  Are they transcendentals or ontologicals?  

0201 Certainly, space and time are not divine.  But, they are not “not divine”, either.  They are used in models that may veil the noumenon, so that a model (veiling its noumenon) [can be objectified as] its phenomena.  Surely, that veiling makes what is of the Positivist’s judgment more palatable.

The other option is called “Copenhagen orthodoxy”.  Niels Bohr (1885-1962), one of the physicists involved in the founding of quantum mechanics, read the writings of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).  So, he had a feeling that, as far as science goes, the noumenon is off limits.  So, his solution looks like the following.

0202 Zizek agrees with later commentators, who say that this is the worst option imaginable.

But, Zizek has a caveat.

It could be worse.

0203 What about better?

Well, this examination already has made an advance, by labeling the content-level as the home to the imaginary noumenon.  Here, the term “imaginary” does not suggest make-believe.  Rather, the term means that the noumenon is to be approached as an image.

All sensations are like images.

Yes, for the most part, a sensation means that ‘something is present’.  This is precisely how the natural philosopher encounters things.  Things are dyadic actualities of matter [substance] form.  Is that not like an image?

If matter is not present, then form is does not register with the sensorium.

0204 So, it makes no sense to place a sign over the imaginary and noumenon level that says, “This is not scientific, so please disregard.”