07/31/25

Looking at Hugh Ross’s Book (2023) “Rescuing Inerrancy” (Part 1 of 25)

0001 The full title of the book before me is Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense (2023, Reasons To Believe Press, Covina California).  The author, Hugh Ross, is an excellent writer and a Christian scientist.  The qualifier is crucial here, because biblical inerrancy is mysteriously conjunct the modern construct of scientific inerrancy.  “Conjunct” means “stuck with”.

0002 The book has both a greek and a semitic architecture.  As noted in The Instructor’s Guide to An Archaeology of the Fall (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the two literary styles represent different types of recognition.

The greek argument presents a variety of opinions, weeds out the inadequate ones, then proclaims the one left standing, the winner.  One might call it “linear thinking”.  The greek style dominates the second half of the book (chapters 12 through 20), concluding with the proposal of a “model approach”.

The semitic style presents various rhetorical tricks, aiming to induce the reader to recognize a possibility.  Am I saying that the Bible is full of rhetorical tricks?  I suggest the reader look at the appendix of Ross’s book on that one.  Or, consider the Genesis use of the word, “day”, in the Creation Story.  The word leads to a flight of fancy, so to speak, asking the reader to recognize that the reported events are themselves, a flight of… what?… not of fancies, but of revelations… or significations… that become more and more esoteric (or hidden) even as they appear more and more exoteric (or obvious).

0003 What about Adam and Eve, fashioned from dust and rib, respectively?

Oh, they end up getting fooled by a talking snake.

0004 Christians are fine following the exoteric lessons and scratching their heads about some of the esoteric implications.

The problem is that Christians are stuck with the sciences.  Conjunct!  Science is all about truncated material and efficient causalities.  Truncated?  Scientific causalities are shorn of formal and final causation.  Formal and final causes are metaphysical (a step beyond physics) because they concern triadic relations.  It is like being able to account for all the motions (the truncated material and efficient causes) of a mechanical clock without acknowledging that the clock has a design (formal cause) and purpose (final cause)

And, the purpose has ‘something’ to do with us!

0005 The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.

So Christians are conjunct with a positivist intellect who has no idea that the purpose of the Genesis text may have something to do with us, right now, not as we once were at some time in the not-so-distant past.  The positivist intellect cannot consider that the first chapter of Genesis may be like a clock or whatever mechanical analogy one wants to use.  Is it a story designed to set the “time”?  The time of what?

Truncated material and efficient causalities cannot ideate what Christians observe (and sort of… measure, in the sense of “weighing”) in Scripture.  Christians struggle to discern what the early chapters of Genesis could possibly reveal.  Plus, those possibilities are not obvious at all.  Even a plain reading of these stories tells the inquirer, “A plain reading of this text is not enough.”

0006 The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics, published in 1982, says as much.  Ross lists the relevant articles in chapter three.

For example, in article eighteen, the convening theologians confirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatical and historical exegesis, so that Scripture is used to interpret Scripture.  Then, they reject the legitimacy of various modern quests, including postulating extra-Biblical civilizational sources, relativizing the text by comparing it to evolutionary science, demonstrating that the accounts are not “historical” in the modern sense of the word, and rejecting the Bible’s claims to authorship.

Here is a picture.

0007 I ask, “Are these theologians affirming that Genesis 1-11 confronts the reader with the possibility of ‘something’, and that ‘something’ is not obvious from a plain reading of the text?”

They say, “Look at the grammar.  Look at what the stories are saying in regards to history, in the widest sense of the term.”

0008 I ask, “Are these theologians denying that Genesis 1-11 can be assessed, compared to, and explained by scientific empirio-schematic inquiry?”

It sure looks that way.

And, that is a problem in a civilization where science appears triumphant.

07/1/25

Looking at Hugh Ross’s Book (2023) “Rescuing Inerrancy” (Part 25 of 25)

0211 This examination adds value to Ross’s project in five ways.

First, it introduces a history that encompasses the modern conundrum presented in this text.

Hugh Ross and the Reasons To Believe Team are actors in a theodrama that is at least 800 years old.

Plus, that theodrama is about to undergo a pivot that is captured in the following figure.

0212 Yes, the redemption2c offered by the party that exalts grace3c over nature3c and the protocols2c offered by the party that exalts nature3c over grace3c, are now entangled because, on the content level, the Creation Story is a sign of the evolutionary record and the Primeval History is an insider’s view of the start of our current Lebenswelt.

0212 Second, this examination offers a semiotic way to view what Ross is trying to articulate.  Theologians should be interested in sign-relations.  Scientists take sign-relations for granted.  Ross’s book is titled as if a scientific defense will rescue Biblical inerrancy.  This makes no sense unless its taken from a semiotic point of view.  Inerrancy draws the Bible, especially Genesis 1-11, into hitherto unimagined triadic relations with scientific inquiry.  The empirio-schematics of artistic concordism and the first singularity are variations of what ought to be for the Positivist’s judgment.

When, you think about it, signs tend to share certain characteristics with the term, “inerrancy”.  Every sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object in regards to its sign-interpretant.  Even if the interpretant is camouflage, the sign-relation purports to be flawless and honest in its own way.  Indeed, all signs are “inerrant” in the eyes of God.

0213 Third, this examination offers a way of appreciating how Ross’s efforts aesthetically derive from the Positivist’s and the empirio-schematic judgments.  Indeed, Ross’s project towers head and shoulder above other projects in the Venn diagram of science and religion because his aesthetics are one step away from the ways that scientists operate.

0214 Fourth, this examination offers a slightly different version of concordism than Ross.  Mah’s artistic version may assist Ross’s moderate version in future research.  In particular, I pray for a science book on the Earth’s evolutionary history to accompany Exercises in Artistic Concordism.  Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Fifth, this examination offers a wonderful endpoint, in the form of a label for the single actuality implied by the intersection of redemption2c and protocols2c.  The early scholastics knew this label well.   And now, perhaps, the following dyad will be born again.

0215 My thanks to Hugh Ross and this team at Reasons To Believe for publishing a book worthy of examination.

06/30/25

Looking at George Mikhailovsky’s Chapter (2024) “Meanings, Their Hierarchy, and Evolution” (Part 1 of 9)

1053 The text before me is chapter six of Pathways (see point 831 for book details, pages 101 through 136).  The author is one of the editors of Pathways.

1054 To me, the abstract introduces evolution writ large.

The abstract suggests that the interventional sign-relation precedes semiotic agency, as far as evolution writ large goes.  Evolution writ large includes the evolution of the inanimate universe along with the evolution of life.

1055 Before life, inanimate objects manifest only as meanings-in-themselves.  An evolving macroscopic thing may be labeled an “eventity”, which seems like a real initiating (semiotic) event2a (SVs) or an action that could be goal-directed2c (SVi).

Surely, some eventities rely on lower-level entities.  But, what about agency and subagency?

With non-human life, hierarchies of sub-agents3 operate within each living agent3 (or “holobiont”).

With human life, persons3, who are holobionts in terms of anatomy and physiology, operate as subagents within… what?… social circles?

1056 The introduction (section 6.1) starts with an observation.  The term, “meaning” is typically used in three situations.

Here is the list along with associated sign-elements.

1057 This coincidence is remarkable.  At the very start of the introduction, the author offers situational instances of “meaning” that correlate to the three sign-objects intrinsic to a three-level interscope.

The author then writes that he is interested in the first two types (the ones associated with semiotic agency) but not so much the third type (the one associated with the interventional sign relation), because this one is already well-developed in linguistic semiotics.

1058 But, there is another coincidence to note.

Recall that Peirce’s typology of natural signs is based on the categorical qualities of the sign-object.

The icon is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on the qualities of firstness, including images, pictures, unities, wholes.  The logic of firstness is inclusive and allows contradictions.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of similarity or imagery.

The index is a sign-relation whose sign object is based on the qualities of secondness, including contact, contiguity, pointing, influence, cause and effect and so on.  The logic of secondness includes the law of noncontradiction.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of indication and pointing.

The symbol is a sign-relation whose sign-object is based on the qualities of thirdness, including normal context, mediation, judgment, habit, tradition and so on.  The logics of thirdness are exclusion, complement and alignment.  A sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object on the basis of convention.

1059 Since all sign-objects belong to secondness, I can assign Peirce’s typologies on the basis of the category of the level in a three-level interscope.  Icon goes with the level of content.  Index associates the situation level.  Symbolmatches the perspective level.

1060 Here is a list of associations.

1061 I ask, “How well do the two coincidences correspond?

1062 I start with thirdness, an exemplar sign is a symbol whose sign-object, SOe, denotes a goal2c on the perspective level.  The sign-object has the qualities of both acquired habit and innate disposition.  So, the assignment of symbolworks.

1063 For secondness, a specifying sign is an index whose sign-object, SOs, denotes a symptom2b on the situation level. I suppose that corresponds to information2b.  A symptom2b virtually situates its phenomenon2a in the same way that information3b virtually situates an initiating (semiotic) event2a.  The sign-object holds the qualities of indication and pointing.  So, the assignment of index works.

1064 For firstness, an interventional sign is an icon whose sign object, SOi, denotes something that is indicated or expressed in spoken words or symbols2a on the content level.  Does that correspond to intention expressed2a (SOi)?  Or, better yet, does that correspond to an image of intention expressed2a (SOi) that is contiguous with a real initiating event2a (SVsin the dyadic content-level actuality2a?

Is the third situation for “meaning” an image that is indicated or expressed in spoken words and symbols.

Imagine that!

‘Something’ is an image.

06/20/25

Looking at George Mikhailovsky’s Chapter (2024) “Meanings, Their Hierarchy, and Evolution” (Part 9 of 9)

1137 The material that I cover in my portrayal of C1 and C2 using Frege’s triangle goes with section 6.3, titled “Potential Meanings During the Abiotic Period of the Evolution of the Universe”.

Here is a picture.

C4 (is missing because it) covers the genesis of atoms with masses greater than helium.  Technically, C4 follows C5, as written above.  Why?  Atoms with masses greater than helium are produced by nuclear fusion in stars.  The story bifurcates from the cosmic sequence to the substance sequence.  The substance sequence starts with atoms with masses greater than helium and proceeds through the emergence of life.

1138 The Frege triangles for C1 and C2 are easy compared to what follows in section 6.4 (“Evolution of Meanings in Biological Systems”) and 6.5 (“The Evolution of Meanings in Human Societies and the Relationship between Hierarchies of Substance (that is, biology) and Semantics (that is, within our current Lebenswelt)”).

Nevertheless, my exercises demonstrate the utility of Frege’s triangle in the extension of the biosemiotic interscope into all aspects of postmodern inquiry, including into abiotic noumena, the domains of physics and chemistry.

1139 There are many threads to follow in this demonstration.

The first thread is obvious.  Can this be done for all noumena listed in Table 6.2?

The answer is yes.  Once one starts a spiral, other spirals follow, and they diverge, and they coalesce, and who knows what else.

1140 The starting point of the author’s cosmos chain (C1) is obviously the Big Bang.

But, one can say that other starting points can be imagined, hence theories of the multiverse.  The multiverse consists of many universes, each with different energy, space, natural laws and constants.  Physicists can simulate these many “universes”.  Hollywood movie makers can fashion plotlines from the conceptc.  It is all very theatrical, including the name for the start of our own universe, “the first singularity”.

1141 The starting point of the author’s substantial chain (S1) is atoms, made in stellar furnaces because (up to the atomic configuration of iron) fusing atoms releases a tremendous amount of energy, enough to keep a star from falling in on itself from gravity.

Anyone who has cracked a chemistry textbook knows that there is no “first singularity” to be found in this discipline.  One can imagine that each element in the periodic table constitutes its own singularity.  Spirals diverge and coalesce in the most fantastic ways, so there is no telling which molecules are the precursors to life and which are not.

1142 This is where Frege’s terms complement Peirce’s.

Frege’s terms serve as spoken labels.  Labels are used for symbolic operations.  Symbolic operations undergird grammar (that is, language).  So, Frege’s terms point to the somewhat disturbing intimation that speech-alone talk (or a theoretical equivalent) is intercalated into semiotic agency and, by way of bridging, to significance that is outside of semiotic agency (that is, the interventional sign-relation).

Here is a picture.

1143 Peirce’s terms also serve as spoken labels.  These labels apply to the contiguities between real elements in the actualities of all interscopes.  These labels apply to something like [substance], in a contiguity between something like matter and something like form.  To a greater or lesser extent, all dyads in Peirce’s secondness pay tribute to Aristotle’s hylomorphe as an exemplar.

1144 The biosemiotic interscope reifies into the biosemiotic noumenal overlay, including both semiotic agency and the interventional sign-relation.

This chapter presents an impossible challenge.  Spirals (or hierarchies) go back to the first singularity, thirteen billion years ago.  Each spiral brings the inquirer to a new level.  Some spirals write small, others write large, but they all begin … for us … with a clot.  A pen touches paper, then moves to portray a diagram, a purely relational structure, portraying what all living things have in common.

1145 This examination recites all that has gone before.

This examination is a refutation to those who think that modern science knows enough to weave these spirals into a vision of our universe, as well as of us, the images of the one who speaks the universe into being.

1146 I say, “Diagram spirals!”

Perhaps, the author agrees and anticipates that Frege’s triangles will reveal a hierarchy… or is it?… a spirality that portrays meanings and their evolution.

06/19/25

Looking at Lorenzo Magnani’s Chapter (2024) “Anchors of Meaning” (Part 1 of 7)

1147 The text before me is chapter eighteen of Pathways (see point 831 for book details, pages 379-400).  The full chapter title is “Anchors of Meaning: The Intertwining of Signs, Abduction and Cognitive Niches”.  This chapter opens Part IV of Pathways.  The title of Part IV is “Meanings in Humans and Beyond”.  

1148 The author belongs to the Philosophy Section of the Department of Humanities at the University of Pavia, Italy.  He has a scientific affiliation as well, being a member of the Computational Philosophical Laboratory.

1149 The abstract tells a story that mirrors this examination (so far).  Biosemiotics is not only semiotic agency.  Biosemiotics encompasses semiotic agency and the interventional sign relation.  The two are bridged through the contiguities of [conceptc] and [symbola].

Human brains thrive on semiosis.  The brain generates a series of signs (specifying and exemplar) that latch onto an apparently external sign-relation (interventional) with the two contiguities of [conceptc] and [symbola].

1150 Or, should I use the word, “anchors”?

Here is the picture of the [conceptc] and the [symbola] as corners that anchor Frege’s triangle. 

[Conceptc] is the contiguity within the perspective-level actuality2c of a goal2c.

A banner wraps around the interventional sign-relation.

[Symbola] is the contiguity within the content-level actuality2a of a real initiating (semiotic) event2a.

1151 In section 18.1 (“Humans as Ecological Engineers and Chance Selectors”), the real initiating (semiotic) event2aencompasses innately anticipated systems of differences.  For, example, the infant expects to interact with persons.  Each person has his or her own face.  It’s like a system of differences (Saussure’s view) or a symbolic order (Peirce’s approach).

The family is one of the smallest social circles of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Since roles are re-enacted generation after generation within this social circle, one might think that the each person2a images an appropriate role2c.  This happens at first…

…and one sees it when an infant gets separated from its mother.

That tyke is not taking any chances.

1152 The child is born with innate expectations of the smallest social circle (SOe) [and that means] family (SVi).

Does this look like Frege’s corner 2c?

1153 If so, then the interventional sign-relation, which stands outside every agent in the family, yet is the reality in which each agent participates, follows.

Family members2c (SVi) stand for their particular social roles2a (SOi) in regards to (a normal context like) what is happening3a operating on (a possibility like) the potential of ‘something’ happening1a (SIi).

1154 Here is a diagram of the interventional sign-relation for a newborn.

1155 Is this cultural-niche construction?

If so, then who or what is constructing this niche?  Or does the niche construct itself because it exploits an opportunitythat arises from the independent actuality of sign-relations?  Just like a bat exploits acoustics to echo-locate, humans exploit sign-relations to abduct who mommy must be.

Sign-relations are immaterial beings that entangle the material.  The materiality of the family members2c (SVi) signify the manifestation of ‘home’2a (the immaterial manifestation of family belonging, SOi) in regards to the normal context of the birth of an infant3a operating on the potential of ‘a successful birth’1a (SIi).

06/12/25

Looking at Lorenzo Magnani’s Chapter (2024) “Anchors of Meaning” (Part 7 of 7)

1216 This lion-man ivory is valuable.

Why?

1217 He is an agent, with a disembodied mind.

The other agent, the human, practices hand-speech talk, and occasionally is faced with moments when consultation may be advisable.  The community faces difficulties.  What are we to do?

Let the community-leader ask the lion-man.

1218 The Neanderthal cannot do this, because Neanderthals only practice hand-talk.

The humans practice hand-speech talk.  The ivory figure cannot hand talk.  So, the lion-man must speak.

1219 At this point, I enter the terrain of a precocious book, proposing that modern consciousness rises from the ashes of the breakdown of whatever is going on when the Paleolithic community-leader is speaking to lion-man, or rather, hearing the disembodied voice of lion-man.  The book is The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind(1976), by Princeton psychologist and psychohistorian, Julian Jaynes (1920-1997).

1220 The lion-man speaks in an interventional sign-relation.

Here is a picture.

Today, lion-man would be an app on an i-phone.

1221 This example brings this examiner through section 18.5 (“Material Anchors for Conceptual Blends”) and into section 18.6 (“Conclusion”).

1222 I rest my pen.

My thanks to the author, Lorenzo Magnani, and his team at the Computational Philosophy Laboratory.  May they find a way to portray the semiotics of a world that does not compute, otherwise labeled, the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

06/11/25

Looking at Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen’s Chapter (2021) “Human Agency” (Part 1 of 5)

1223 The text before me is chapter three of Semiotic Agency (2021, book details on point 830, pages 59-94).

1224 The abstract raises the question of evolution.  The question is addressed earlier in this examination.  Points 0710 through 0752 assert that the actualities of adaptation2b and phenotype2b are not the same.  One does not situate the other.  Instead, their nested forms intersect in such a manner as to constitute a single actuality2.  Adaptation2b and phenotype2b intersect to constitute a living being2.

1225 How shall I proceed?

Semiotic Agency yields the Sharov and Tonnessen noumenal overlay by taking an interscope that is similar to the scholastic interscope for how humans think and transubstantiating it from thirdness to secondness.

In thirdness, the scholastic interscope contains the specifying and exemplar sign-relations.

1226 Here is a diagram.

In secondness, the elements from these triadic sign-relations fit into a dyad, characteristic of Peirce’s secondness.

1227 The dyad consists of two contiguous real elements, very much in tune with Aristotle’s exemplar, matter [substance] form.

The following depicts a dyad within a dyad.  Each dyad exhibits its own configuration.

For the fundament, the specifying sign, SOs is like matter, SVs is like form, and SIs is [substance].  In a sense, a form of the sign-vehicle calls forth the matter of a sign-object, in the way that say, the form of a traffic stop sign2a (SVs) calls forth the matter of stopping the vehicle2b (SOs). 

For the resonant, the exemplar sign, SVe is like matter, SOe is like form, and SIe is like [substance].  The matter of me following the rules of the road2b (SVe) stands for my successful arrival at my driving destination2c (SOe) in regards to making sense3c operating on the possibility that if everyone obeys the rules of the road then each one of us will get where we are going to1c (SIe).

1228 This dyad within a dyad performs what phenomenology claims to do, that is, identify what the noumenon must be.

The noumenon of what?

Biosemiotics.

Or, should I say, “Biosemiotics as an exercise of the Positivist’s judgment, however compromised the positivist intellect may be.”?

1229 Of course, this is a fantastic claim.  But, this examination of Semiotic Agency (see point 830 for book details) and Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (see point 831 for book details) bears me out.  Sharov, Tonnessen and Mikhailovsky set the stage for a paradigm that not only is phenomenological, but accounts for how phenomenology works.  This examination adds value by presenting the diagrams.

06/6/25

Looking at Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen’s Chapter (2021) “Human Agency” (Part 5 of 5)

1260 Say what?

Here is the intersection, once again.

1261 Yes, I can make out a configuration that looks like an exemplar sign-relation.

One version of the exemplar relation goes like this.  Information2b (SVe) stands for a goal (SOe) in regards to a normal context asking something like, “Does this make sense?”3c operating on the potential of ‘situating information’1c (SIe).

In the above diagram, information2b (SVe) is adaptation2H.  The goal2c (SOe) is the power to live as an agent.  The [contiguity] (SIe) is an intersection with the phenotype3c operating on the potentials that the phenotype provides1c.

1262 For the -darwinism version of exemplar sign-relation, the two actualities are adaptation2b (SVe) and the power to live as agent2c (SOe).  The contiguity is the normal context of an intersection with one’s phenotype3c, operating on the potentials that the phenotypes provide1c (SIe).

1263 For the neo- version of the exemplar sign-relation, the two actualities are phenotype2b (SVe) and the disposition to live as an agent2c (SOe).  The contiguity is the normal context of an intersection with one’s adaptations3c, operating on the potentials that adaptations provide1c (SIe).

1264 What do these two exemplar sign-relations tell us?

Adaptations express power?

Adaptations allow survival to the extent that the phenotype allows them?

Phenotypes express dispositions?

Phenotypes are expressed as a suite of adaptations whether the agent needs them or not?

No wonder biologists cannot “define” evolution concisely.

1265 Surely, this argument does not please the positivist intellect of the physicists and the chemists.

Biological evolution is a mystery, the intersection of two independent sciences, natural history and genetics.

But, that is not all.  I can delineate an implication for one of the contradictions inherent in biological evolution.

Phenotype is necessary for a -darwinian explanation, where “evolution” operates as an agent.  Phenotypic dispositions are inseparable from individual adaptive powers.

1266 Also, adaptation is necessary for a neo- (or genetic) explanation, where “evolution” operates as an agent.  Adaptive powers are inseparable from species-specific dispositions.

1267 Yes, I am arriving at a contradiction that cannot be resolved into either natural history or genetics.  Both of these discipline’s semiotic agency have the same agent, “evolution”.  But, what is the ‘final causality’?

1268 Here, the logics of firstness come into play.  The logics of firstness are inclusive and allow contradictions.  Evolution as an agent3 brings the actualities of adaptation and phenotype as semiotic agencies2 into relation with ‘a creative potential that evolutionary scientists regard as real’1.  But, it is unreal, because it represents a ‘final causality’ that stands beyond anything than the human can imagine.

After all, humans are evolved living beings.  What are we imaging when we try to picture this ‘final causality’?

1269 Modern evolutionary biologists may attribute the reality of the creative potential underlying evolution as an agent to matter alone, rather than matter [substance] form.

Postmodern biosemioticians may attribute the reality of the creative potential to triadic relations, such as the triadic relations reified into the matter [substance] form of semiotic agency.

1270 What does this imply?

The attribution of the biosemiotician encompasses the attribution of modern evolutionary biology.

The answer approaches the metaphysical in precisely the way that the Aristotle-tolerating positivist intellect currently uses the term, “metaphysics”, for “religious”.

The positivist intellect declares, “Religious empirio-schematic models are not allowed.”

1271 And, this raises a question, “How to define the word “religion?”

This question is the title of one of Razie Mah’s three masterworks.

More on that later.

06/5/25

A Brief Overview of What Razie Mah offers Biosemioticians in 2025 (Part 1 of 3)

1272 Biosemiotics challenges the current scientific vision of human evolution (as of 2025).

Okay, maybe I should correct that.

Razie Mah presents a challenge.  Biosemioticians can board the academic siege-apparatus at their leisure.

Leisure?

In 2010, in the book, Semiotic Animal, John Deely describes the owl of Minerva taking wing in the twilight of the modern Age of Ideas.  He, Thomas Sebeok and (no doubt) biosemiotician Alexei Sharov, know that the Third Age of Understanding comes to a close.

1273 In October 2023, Razie Mah blogs a review, titled Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010), “Semiotic Animal”.  This examination contains the scholastic interscope for how humans think.  The initial version of this interscope is developed in Razie Mah’s e-book, Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings.  The interventional sign-relation comes into view in Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2019) “The Affectiveness of Symbols”.

1274 Then, starting in July and running through October 2024, Razie Mah offers a series of examinations in his blog, including Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition”; Joesph Pieper’s book (1974) “Abuse of Language: Abuse of Power”; Vivek Ramaswamy’s book (2021), “Woke, Inc.”; Michelle Stile’s book (2022), “One Idea to Rule Them All”; and N.H. Enfield’s book (2022), “Language vs. Reality”.

These reviews, full of diagrams of the interventional sign relation and detailing its relevance to the current historical moment, are collected in three e-books, Parts 1, 2 and 3, of Original Sin and The Post-Truth Condition.

1275 The owl of Minerva lands in the dawning Age of Triadic Relations.

1276 This brings me to the question of human agency.

Section 3.6 of Semiotic Agency is titled, “Development of Human Agency in Historical Perspective”.

The authors’ story begins with the Neolithic Revolution of the Fertile Crescent, starting around 12,000 years ago, then seamlessly drifts to our own current day.  It reads as if our current Lebenswelt starts with the Neolithic archaeological period.

1277 This story of the development of humanity is not much different from the written myths of the ancient Near East, where humans are um… created… when some differentiated god places special seeds in the soil… or something like that.  These ancient myths are recorded on cuneiform clay tablets, that are preserved by their incineration in royal libraries thousands of years ago.  

Yes, incineration.

The tablets are made of clay.

The capital burns.  Clay fires to brick.  Brick lasts so long that an archaeologist can read the script of a tablet millennia later.

1278 The origin myths of the ancient Near East testify that humans are recent creations, formed from differentiated gods, for the god’s own purposes.  That sounds like our current Lebenswelt to me.  That sounds like the “Development of Human Agency in Historical Perspective”.

Why don’t civilized humans have the agency to see beyond the start of their own civilizations?

1279 Biosemiotics has an answer.  Civilized humans practice a type of semiosis that differs from the type of semiosis that their ancestors practiced.

What am I talking about?

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.

1280 Our current Lebenswelt of civilizations practices speech-alone talk.  Speech-alone talk offers the comforts of implicit abstraction (characteristic of icons and indexes) and facilitates the unexpectedly profitable rewards (and the unanticipated costs) of explicit abstraction.  Speech-alone talk can attach a label to anything.  In short, anything can become a sign-vehicle (SVs), just by speaking the label.

1281 So, what does a spoken word mean?  Is the nature of its presence merely a label?  What message does that send?  The answers to all these questions are explicit abstractions.  Spoken words facilitate explicit abstractions based on the purely symbolic-sign qualities of symbols.

1282 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in practices hand-talk (for the Homo genus) and hand-speech talk (for the species Homo sapiens).  Hand talk permits implicit abstraction.

What do I mean by “implicit abstraction”?

The diagrams in my examination of Alexei Sharov’s and Morten Tonnessen’s book, Semiotic Agency, depict purely relational structures that hominins adapted to over the course of millions of years.  The idea is mind boggling to the modern.  However, implicit abstraction accounts for modern trends, such as the appearance and success of phenomenology in a civilization prospering on empirio-schematic inquiry.

1283 One of the first items of value for the biosemiotician are works that are contained in the series, A Course on Implicit and Explicit Abstraction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

1284 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in practices only implicit abstraction.Our current Lebenswelt also practices explicit abstraction.

06/3/25

A Brief Overview of What Razie Mah offers Biosemioticians in 2025 (Part 3 of 3)

1294 Biosemiotics is born out of the tradition of phenomenology.

Biosemiotics explains of how phenomenology works in light of modern biology.

In Semiotic Agency (7821 U0′), Alexei Sharov and Morten Tonnessen effectively propose the first step of a biosemiotic noumenal overlay.  Alexei Sharov and George Mikhailovsky complete the overlay in 7824 with Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe.

The biosemiotic noumenal overlay consists in semiotic agency and the interventional sign-relation.

1295 The examination of these works has proceeded in Razie Mah’s blogs since the start of January, 2025.  The examination is not exhaustive.  But, it has been revealing.  These blogs will be collected into four books, titled Biosemiotics as Noumenon (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Of course, Razie Mah has been writing and blogging on semiotic topics for over a decade.  The blog may be found at Razie Mah’s website.  E-articles and e-books for sale are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  These works are placed in series for convenience.  A full table of contents for e-works and the blog should be available by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, a few suggestions for further research follow.

1296 For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the following should be of interest.

1297 For the twist in human evolution, the following applies.

1297 For our current Lebenswelt, there are many threads to follow.

1299 All these works pertain to chapter three of Semiotic Agency, titled “Human Agency”.

They show what biosemiotics can do.

1300 My thanks to Alexei Sharov, Morten Tonnessen and George Mikhailovsky, as well as the many contributors to Pathways, for interesting material to examine.  As noted elsewhere, all the material in these examinations, as well as in Biosemiotics as Noumenon, are available to these authors and contributors to use in their efforts to build biosemiotics as a specialization… or… maybe I should say… a “noumenalization” of what all biological processes have in common.