0309 I wrap up with a final note on how this examination supplements Dr. Noe’s extraordinary path.
This examination opens up a grand terrain of inquiry for scholars interested in studying how our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0310 The following figure shows the interscope for speech-alone talk, colored in the same manner as the interscope for the social construction of natural science, pictured above.
0311 Compare the above figure to the interscope for hand-speech talk, developed earlier.
0312 One three-level interscope goes with our current Lebenswelt.
The other three-level interscope associates to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0313 The productive scholar takes out of his treasure something new and something old. Dr. Alva Noe brings out what is new. Art and philosophy1c potentiate aesthetic inquiry2cm in the normal context of figuring out what makes us who we are3c. This examination brings out what is old. It is an insight that is as old as the stories of Adam and Eve. Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0300 There is no reason not to draw from premodern aesthetic inquiries2cm. Indeed, it seems that art and philosophy1c fall into shadow at the onset of the modern Age of Ideas. Now, Razie Mah confronts mankind with the possibility that the human niche is the potential of triadic relations. He writes a work of art, titled, An Archaeology of the Fall. Take the figures showing the confoundings for hand-speech talk and speech-alone talk to any art museum. See how they direct one’s vision.
0301 There is plenty of reason to resist the replacement of the potential of ‘art and philosophy’1c with the potential to ‘observe and measure’1c. Scientifically oriented philosophers would have me accept that what I think2am and what I say2am entangle the mathematics and the mechanics of neurobiology. The methods and data2bf of neurobiology entangle a model2cm capable of telling what the noumenon must be2cf for me to understand what makes me who I am3c.
0302 My thanks to the author for publishing a work worthy of examination. Thank you for presenting an opportunity to add color to a text.
0001 The full title of the Work before me is Entangled: A New Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (Second Edition). The author is emeritus professor at Stanford University, California, and affiliated with the And Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey. The publisher is Wiley Blackwell (Hoboken, New Jersey). The identifier is ISBN 978 111 985 5866 (paperback).
0002 The first edition is published in 2016 and titled Studies in Human-Thing Entanglement, which is quickly followed in 2018, with Where are We Heading: The Evolution of Humans and Things (Yale University Press). This boost is examined in Razie Mah’s blog (June 30 to 16, 2023, Looking at Ian Hodder’s Book (2023) “Where We Are Heading”).
0003 The second edition (2024) involves a significant rewrite. The topic is the same, but the emphasis changes. The change is captured in the title of the first chapter, “Thinking about Things Differently (from Things to Flows)”.
0004 Section 1 of chapter 1 (S1C1) starts with the question, “What is a thing?”
For me, the question is addressed in a recent article by Mariusz Tabaczek, eliciting a response by a capable semiotician, who posted a draft in the website academia.edu titled Response to Mariusz Tabaczek’s Article (2025) “Contemporary and Classical Versions of Hylomorphism”.
0005 The response relies on the definition of “entanglement” developed in Razie Mah’s blog in December, 2025, titled Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Mikhail Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”.
0006 The term, “entanglement” stands like a mirror of the term, “substantiation”, thereby confounding the structure of Peirce’s category of secondness.
I will explain in the following points. For further introduction, consult Razie Mah’s e-works, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
0007 What is a thing?
According to Aristotle, the first step in natural philosophy is to regard a thing as matter [and] form. The brackets are there for a reason. Aristotle’s hylomorphe (hylo = “matter”, morphe = “form”) is an exemplar of Peirce’s category of secondness. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the real elements are matter and form. The contiguity, [and], is hardly adequate. So, Razie Mah purloins the much-abused term, “substance”, to replace the conjunction.
0008 Here is the result.
0009 Of course, the use of the word, “substance” (a noun), as the label for the contiguity between matter and form may be regarded as controversial. However, the act only adds a technical definition to an already discarded label. Modern thinkers have no idea what the term originally means, so they are convinced that whatever meaning that a modern assigns must be appropriate. “Substance” means whatever a modern says that it means.
What a message.
0010 The idea of entanglement comes up, because, once matter [substantiates] form, then the form may get entangled with other matter. The thing remains a thing, but now other matter becomes apparent. For Tabaczek’s review of contemporary commentaries on Aristotle’s hylomorphe, certain philosophers say that the form entangles a principle of unity.
A principle of unity becomes the entangled matter.
0011 Here is a picture.
0012 This principle of unity allows the person to regard the form as a hole… I mean, whole… as in holistically.
One might think that a principle of unity does not constitute matter. But, has that thinker ever framed a picture? That frame is confounding.
0013 Another example is found in Hodder’s research fieldwork.
Long long ago, the inhabitants of Catal Hoyuk (the anglicized version of a Turkish label) frequently plaster their walls as a solution to the undesired habits of mud-clay bricks. They tend to slump. Plaster helps control the loss of integrity that slumping entangles.
Here is a diagram.
0014 Happily, plastering the walls solved other issues as well. The text explains.
0286 From this examination, I have demonstrated that Hodder’s sociological and anthropological appreciation of “entanglement” mirrors, so to speak, a philosophical definition of a confounding. Using Aristotelian terminology, a confounding occurs when the form of a thing entangles other (non-originating) matter. Form is contiguous with two matters, one originating and one entangled. The two contiguities are “substantiation” and “entanglement”.
0287 This applies to content-level and situation-level hylomorphes. In the following figure, entanglement connects form on one level with matter on the adjacent higher level. This connection also occurs in the sign-relations isolated by scholastics of the Latin Age.
0288 Clearly, this expression of entanglement theory stands outside the Hegel-Marx Overton window.
This expression stands outside of the range of ideation among modern anthropologists in 2026.
0289 The story is even more complicated. The three-level interscope fully contains two sign-relations, the specifying and the exemplar, familiar to Latin Age scholastics. Even that is not enough.
There is one more confounding that resolves into a sign-relation. The interventional sign connects the perspective-level of one interscope with the content-level of another. What is constituted2cf in one interscope stands for matter3am in another interscope. The discovery of the interventional sign-relation completes a line of thought that started during medieval times.
0290 The Hegel-Marx approaches that the author discusses in chapters 10 and 11 (C10 and C11) need to be adjusted in order to account for phenomena regarded as observable and measurable facets of a noumenon characterized by substances, confoundings and sign-relations.
0291 The story of the emergence of Lotman’s thing is told in Razie Mah’s blog for December 2025, titled Looking at Igor Pilshchikov and Michael Trunin’s Article (2016) “The Tartu Moscow School of Semiotics” as well as follow-up examinations appearing in January through March of 2026.
0292 Juri Lotman (1922-1993) is a Soviet era academic with expertise in the arts of the Slavic civilization. He and a collaborator, Boris Uspenskij (1937-present), find that Marxist vocabulary is inadequate to discuss the phenomena of Slavic historical art production. So, they adopt semiology and structuralism in order to build models of artistic and literary productions. The models allow them to discuss Slavic art-works according to modern, scientific sensibilities.
0293 In sum, for Juri Lotman and Boris Uspenskij, Marx’s thing entangles the matter of semiotics.
0294 The confounding resolves in… what appears to me… to be the new Overton window for the social sciences for the twenty-first century.
0295 I wrap up with three noteworthy conclusions.
0296 First, Hodder’s anthropological theory of entanglement associates with Marx’s thing. Razie Mah’s hypothesis that the human niche is the potential of triadic relations associates with Lotman’s thing.
Second, despite occupying different poles of the twenty-first century Overton window, Hodder’s sociological theory of entanglement and the philosophical definition of “entanglement” as a component of a “confounding” do not exclude one another. They either complement or align.
Third, excavations at Catal Hoyuk permit the suggestion that cultural emissaries from the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia influence a change in things2a, embodiments2bf and processes2cm associated with Level VII (starting around 6600 B.C.). This suggestion is consistent with the hypothesis of the first singularity proposed by Razie Mah.
0297 Here is a summary of Razie Mah’s e-works on human evolution.
0298 My thanks to Dr. Ian Hodder for this book, as well his many collaborators. I hope that this examination adds value to his inquiries.
0841 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 335-360) by Mikhail Trunin in the School of Humanities at Tallinn University, Estonia. The full title is “Semiosphere and history: Towards the origins of the semiotic approach to history”. This particular volume is dedicated to semiotics and history.
0842 Juri Lotman (1922-1993 AD) and Boris Uspenskij (1937-present) are central characters in the first ascent of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics during the 1960s through the 1980s.
Lotman’s treatment of a semiotics of history connects to his conceptualization of the semiosphere. Of course, “semiotics” stands in the place of “semiology”.
Uspenskij’s treatment of the semiotics of history starts with the Latin phrase, “historia sub species semioticae”. The phrase transliterates (more or less) into “history as a species of semiotics”.
Or maybe, “historical under the semiotic species”.
Of course, “semiotics” stands in the place of “semiology”.
0843 Previous examinations of articles in this and other volumes of Sign System Studies provide a way to appreciate what these semiologists have in common.
0844 So, let me briefly review.
The academic development of semiological consciousness for humanities scholars starts in the Departments of Slavic languages, during the so-called “Cold War”, since the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics casts its dominant ideology as that of science. These humanities scholars begin to frame their interpretations of Slavic literature in terms of Saussure’s semiology and structuralism. After all, semiology and structuralism are scientific, aren’t they?
0845 Semiology deals with content, the relation between parole (spoken words) and langue (corresponding ideation). Technically, the relation between speech and thought is not motivated (hence the qualifier, “arbitrary”), since spoken words do not image or point to their referents. Nonetheless, civilized humans behave as if they do. But, that behavior may be attributed to grammatical structure (for a mother tongue) or a style system (for specialized discourse).
0846 Structuralism deals with how content is situated. Humans do not behave as if a spoken word is arbitrarily related to a mental act (or thought). Humans act as if words and thoughts are one thing.
Rather than attributing this behavior to an innate trait evolved under conditions where a parole (manual-brachial word gesture) images and indicates its referent (by way of the natural sign-qualities of icons and indexes, respectively), the modern scientist must attribute the behavior to truncated material and efficient causes.
In this case, the situating efficient and material causes are due to a system3b. Both mother tongue and specialized discourses3boperate on the potential of ‘laws of the system’1b.
0847 Here is a fundamental interscope containing semiology3a and structuralism3b.
0848 On the content level, the normal context of Saussure’s semiology3a brings the actuality of the dyad {langue as matter2am [substantiates] parole as form2af}2a into relation with the potential of ‘signifier and signified’1a.
Cleverly, the content-level potential1a buries the evolution of language in the milieu of hand-talk in the ambiguity of the co-existence of signifier and signified. Can a signifier exist without a signified? Of course not. They must be belong to a monad, a single element.
Can a thought about ‘something’ exist without an image or indication of that ‘something’?
Does a manual-brachial word-gesture picture or point to its referent?
0849 Ironically, both Charles Peirce (1839-1914 AD) and Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) live right before the monumental, civilization transforming battles among the enlightenment gods. Peirce focuses on the nature of signs as triadic relations. Saussure focuses on language as a thing (that is, a dyadic actuality).
0850 The above figure tells the tale. The content and situation level actualities2 are dyads, as suggested by Saussure. Normal contexts3 and potentials1 are presumed in Saussure’s tradition, but explicit in terms of Peirce’s categories.
The category-based nested form is a triadic relation. Triadic relations constitute the human niche. Hominins adapt into the potential of triadic relations.
The content-level appears to be a reasonable expression of Saussure’s semiology because it expresses a triadic relation. Not only that, but the content-level category-based nested form manifests all four of Aristotle’s causalities. The dyadic actuality, corresponding to Peirce’s category of secondness, parallels Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the home of material causes and one terminus for efficient causation.
0851 Here is a picture of the category-based nested form as a manifestation of Aristotle’s causalities. Peirce’s category of secondness contains two contiguous real elements. For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the one real element is matter. The other real element is form. The contiguity is [substantiates] or [substance].
0852 So, what does this imply?
First, Lotman and Uspenskij start out as scholars of Slavic literature in Russia, under a socialist regime, which extols its scientific credentials. Academics in literature adapt to regime incentives by adopting Saussure’s scientific approach to language. Saussure’s semiology is regarded as a scientific theory explaining the phenomena of language in our civilized world.
Second, the fundament interscope starts with Saussure’s semiology3a as a content-level nested form. The actuality2 is {langue2am [substantiates] parole2af}.
Third, the category-based nested form manifests all three of Peirce’s categories as well as all four of Aristotle’s causalities.
Fourth (and yet to be discussed), Lotman’s and Upsenskij’s treatment of history and semiology starts with the fundament interscope. Semiology characterizes a content-level interscope. History enters the picture as a literature-based situation-level form2bf.
0853 If these implications stand, then Upsenskij’s Latin title, “history as a species of semiotics”, will convert into “history as a species of literary text”.
Lotman and Uspenskij publish an article in Russian (in 1971), which is translated into English (in 1978), titled “On the semiotic mechanism of culture”.
This is followed by intense study of Vernadskij’s language of life-pressure, then the publication of Lotman’s seminal paper, “On the semiosphere”, in Russian (in 1984).
0936 The author goes to some length to distance Lotman’s concept of the semiosphere and Teilhard de Chardin’s (1881-1955) framework of Alpha-Omega Points.
Why?
De Chardin’s concept does not put the dyad, {cognition as matter2bm [substantiates] social interaction as form2bf}, into a semiological message1c. De Chardin packages this actuality2b into a theological message1c. A theological message1cdoes not comport with the TMS positivist intellect3a.
0937 Or does it1c now that the USSR no longer reigns?
That is question for another day.
0938 For this examination, I must stay with a positivist-loving message1c.
The crucial point is that culture-pressure2b is like life-pressure2b and the perspective-level model1c that is appropriate for this culture-pressure2b is esse_tially semiotic.
Esse_tailly?
Yes, esse_ce is matter substantiating and essence is substantiated form.
So, semiotic arrangements as matter2cm [substantiate] human conditions as form2cf.
0939 Here is a picture.
0940 Esse_ce is {semiotic arrangements as matter2cm [substantiating]}.
Essence is {[substantiated] human conditions as form2cf}.
0941 Do I need to note that the universe of messages1c is Lotman’s “semiosphere1c“?
0942 The semiosphere1c parallels the concept of biosphere1c.
One can say that the semiosphere1c contains the totality of individual texts and independent languages. They all relate to one another.
Why?
All texts and statements are forms2af that entangle matters of the language of meaning2am. The presence of the language of meaning2am has the potential1b of engendering the matter of cognition2bm.Cognition as matter2amsubstantiates social interactions as form2bf. These forms2bfare contextualized as messages1c. A universe of messages1cundergirds the doctrine2c that semiotic arrangements2cm substantiate human conditions2cf, in the normal context of mind theory3c.
0943 And what else?
This explanation also applies to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. See Razie Mah’s e-book, The Human Niche. The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.
0944 According to the author, Lotman and Uspenskij agree.
They also disagree.
That is the nature of intellectual discourse and discovery.
The author tells some of the story in a section titled, “How Lotman and Uspenskij influence each other”.
0945 In our current Lebenswelt,cultural studies3b (the situation-level normal context in the derivative interscope) always involve historical processes and texts2bf (situation-level actualities of the fundament interscope).
0946 How so?
The normal context of cultural processes3b brings the dyadic actuality2b of {cognition2bm [substantiates] social interaction2bf} into relation with the possibility of presence1b.
The presence1b of what?
Literary texts2af [entangling] a language of meaning2am.
0947 In the twentieth volume of Sign Systems Studies (1987), Uspenskij publishes “On the problem of the genesis of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics”.
This examination adds value by commenting on Mikhail Trunin’s 2017 review of Uspenskij’s conflation of semiotics and history.
0948 The subtitle of the twenty-fifth volume of Sign Systems Studies (1992), the last volume edited Juri Lotman, is “Semiotics and history”.
Twenty-five years later, the forty fifth volume (2017) contains a special issue on semiotics and history.
0949 Finally, in 2025, Kaveli Kull and Ekaterina Velmezova publish Sphere of Understanding: Tartu Dialogues with Semioticians. The book contains interviews with several of the figures mentioned in this article (volume 23 of Semiotics, Communication and Cognition, edited by Paul Cobley and Kalevi Kull, Walter De Gruyter, Boston/Berlin).
0950 One wonders whether the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics will find a path to a second ascent.
0951 Surely the scenery will differ.
In the first ascent, science is god and {material arrangements [substantiate] human conditions}2c.
In the second, the divine Trinity is God and {semiotic arrangements [substantiate] human conditions}2c.
0001 The full title of the article before me is “The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche: Toward an Integrated Anthropology”. The work is published in Current Anthropology (volume 57, supplement 13, June 2016, pages S13-S26; DOI: 10.1086/685684). At the time of publication, the author is a Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He has since been scooped up by Princeton.
Scooped?
Ask anyone in Human Resources what that term means.
0002 The material for this thought-piece is developed at the Center for Theological Inquiry in 2012-13, in a collaborative titled, “Inquiry on Human Nature”, and presented to a Wenner-Gren symposium in 2014.
0003 This is the time when the much-vaunted program of “niche construction” is in the Zeitgeist… er… air. The author seeks to capitalize on this extension of the evolutionary synthesis. The first extension, starting fifty years earlier, is from natural history into genetics, and is now called “Neodarwinism”.
And what does he want to invest that capital in?
An integrated anthropology.
0004 Integrated anthropology?
I suppose that anthropology is to integrate with evolutionary science.
This is precisely an interest of Razie Mah, as witnessed in his three masterworks: The Human Niche (2018), An Archaeology of the Fall (2012), and How To Define the Word “Religion” (2015).
0005 But, that is not the references that I really should be pointing to.
I should be indicating two primers, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues. These are A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
0006 Why?
The terms in the title of the work under examination associate to elements in a category-based nested form.
I associate “integration” to the normal context3.
I associate “anthropology” to the actuality2.
I associate “evolutionary science” to the potential1.
0007 The category-based nested form derives from the philosophy of Charles Peirce. It consists in four statements. The fourth is paradigmatic. A triadic normal context3 brings a dyadic actuality2 into relation with the monadic possibility of ‘something’1. The subscripts correspond to Peirce’s three categories.
0008 Here is a picture of my associations, along with how each element gets specified by the title of this article.
0009 What do these associations imply?
The human niche3 is the “integration3” of an “integrated anthropology”.
As such, the human niche3 should contextualize ethnography2 (as a specific application of anthropology2).
0010 The formal causation in these statements seems reasonable.
But, does the efficient causation seem plausible?
Does anthropology2 emerge from the potential of evolutionary science1?
Can ethnography2 situate the potential of ‘niche construction (as a case-study for an extended evolutionary synthesis)’1?
0011 The following figure distills the author’s challenge.
0163 Consequently, a pattern of domestication and entanglement is an appropriate darwinian model for the adaptations involved in discipline of ethnography.
0164 On one hand, the ethnographer is an emissary from a society with wealth and power and serves as an actuality independent of the adapting narod-folk2a.
The potential of intergroup competition1b says that fear should be the appropriate adaptation2b, in the course of natural and cultural selection3b.
0165 But this does not happen. Instead, the narod-folk3b,1b adapt by losing their fear of the ethnographer’s society2b. This is the nature of domestication.
0166 On the other hand, the narod-folk2a are the actuality independent of the adapting species for anthropologists within Western academies3b who are trained by (and train) ethnographers on the methods of mapping the cognitive spaces of narod-folk1b. The very act of mapping the cognitive spaces of a narod (whether historically given or spontaneously generated) exhibits the anthropology of substantiation and entanglement.
0167 I conclude by returning to the snarky comment at point 119 and apologizing.
Yeah, semioticians have teeth.
0168 The author notes, in the final paragraph, that the human niche is a basal framework that enables the inquirer to include the salient features, forces and processes at multiple levels of… um… organization. Surely, that description fits the idea of using the purely relational structure of the category-based nested form as a tool for inquiry. All that this examiner has done is transpose elements from the author’s argument into the empty slots of a category-based nested form.
This suggests that category-based nested forms satisfy Bourdieu’s enigmatic phrase, of “structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures”. Category-based nested forms are purely relational (triadic) structures that gather material through the intuitive use of association, followed by an exploration of the implications.
0169 My thanks go to the author of this article, who undoubtedly has published more academic literature since this work from 2016, without the value that this examination adds. Perhaps, this 2026 review may add to a re-illustration of the envisioned integrated anthropology.
0744 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 263-283) by Mihhail Lotman in the Department of Semiotics at Tartu University, Estonia. The full title is “History as Geography: In Search for Russian Identity”. This particular volume is dedicated to semiotics and history.
0745 The year is 2026. Hundreds of thousands of young men from the currently sovereign states of Ukraine and Russia are now buried in the geography of their sovereign states. The war is senseless to anyone who is not moving money or armaments. A theoretically defensive NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) covets a vulnerable ember of the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). Or is this a proxy war between the USDB (Unsuspecting Subjects Dominated by Bigilibs) and the CCP (Communist Chinese Party)?
Bigilib?
Big-government (il)liberal.
0746 Is Estonia’s geography its history?
Surely, the way the map of sovereign territories alters over the past few centuries is a sign of historical turmoil.
But, do not expect the corporate media to broadcast any information that does not comport with the interests of their clients.
You know, the ones moving money and armaments.
History appears to be irrelevant. Geography and client interests are all that matter.
The form is war.
0747 And, the most important territory to be occupied seems to be what people say.
Corporate broadcasters talk about territory. Territory establishes that we all agree upon the ideology. If we speak the same rhetoric about geography in a time of war, then we must all think the same. How obvious is that?
The hylomorphe, where what I say (as form) is substantiated by what I think (as matter), turns out to be very useful for empirio-normative domination. See Razie Mah’s three part e-book, Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0748 So, what are the interests of the citizen?
Who is the citizen?
The citizen is the subject (the empowerer) and the object (the um… “subject”) of sovereign power.
The truth serves the interests of the citizen.
0749 If truth serves the interests of the citizen, then what serves the interests of the unelected bureaucrats?
Oh, it must be the will of the citizen.
0750 Is the citizen reasonable3a,when allowing experts to decide which tidbits of what I say2afshall be ascribed to um… the citizen’s will1a?
Here is the category-based nested form.
If perplexed, consult Razie Mah’s e-books, A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
0751 I ask, “What is the author, Mihhail Lotman, searching for?”
Intellect3a conveys identity. There are two types of identity. One is potentiated by truth1a. The other is potentiated by my will1a.
Notice, that the term, “identity”, which labels myintellect3a based of the potentials of truth or my will1a, cannot be pictured or pointed to. Like all normal contexts and potentials, identity is crucial for understanding. But, what is understanding?Understanding comes when an actuality2 is placed into its proper normal context3 and potential1.
0752 Identity3a is a style of understanding. Is3a it not?
After all, it3a changes with potential1a. Does it3a not?
One cannot picture or point to identity3a.
If one searches for it3a, it3a will always prove elusive, because it3a contextualizes3 and potentiates1what I think2am and what I say2af.
0953 The article before me is published by Sign System Studies (volume 45(3/4), 2017, pages 317-334) by Peeter Torop in the Department of Semiotics at Tartu University, Estonia. This particular volume is dedicated to semiotics and history.
0002 Amazingly, this article has no subtitle.
Perhaps, I may add one: An Inquiry into the Chronotope.
0954 At first, I thought that the word, “chronotope”, coined by Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975 AD), was “chronotrope”, where “trope” is a label for a rhetorical trick that belies the complexity of things. Tropes change over time.
0955 For example, the Latin trope, “ens reale“, has been translated as “being that is real”, as well as “mind-independent being”. Add time, and the parole of the chronotrope stays the same, but the matter, the langue, shifts. “Ens reale” migrates from what the scholastics pursue in their philosophical discourses to what?… a being that is mind-independent? Does mind independence (as matter) somehow substantiate a form (that is the elusive goal of philosophical inquiry)?
0956 If I use Aristotle’s hylomorphe as an exemplar of Peirce’s secondness, I can diagram the following “chronotrope”.
0957 Peirce’s category of secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the real elements are matter and form. The contiguity, placed in brackets for proper notation, is [substance] or [substantiates]. Either noun or verb is appropriate, because the contiguity can be construed as either.
0958 Does Aristotle’s hylomorphe transmogrify, over time, into mind-independence as a real element and the term, “ens reale” as another real element?
Perhaps, mind-independence could work as matter that substantiates ens reale as form.
Or, maybe, mind-independence could associate to langue and ens reale could go with parole.
0959 I suppose that tropes can shift (in time) in awkward ways.
0960 That leaves me with Bakhtin’s term, “chronotope”.
In chemistry, the nucleus of an element contains protons and neutrons. The word, “element”, precisely labels a fixed number of protons in its nucleus. The number of neutrons may vary, resulting in different atomic masses for two different isotopes of the same element. The word, “isotope” labels a fixed number of protons (characterizing the element) and neutrons (contributing to the isotopic mass). Some isotopes have too few or too many neutrons, making the nucleus unstable and subject to radioactive decay.
0961 Here is a picture.
0962 By analogy, a “chronotope” is the same element, but its placement in time may vary.
Is that correct?
0963 Is time neutronic?
Maybe the analogy of radioactive decay can introduce time into the elemental thing by producing a confounding, in the following manner.
Yes, a confounding labels one form associated with two matters,one originating and one entangled.
0964 The problem is that radioactive decay as matter cannot resolve into a substantiation of the element as form, since it changes the elemental form by altering the miox of neutrons and protons in the atom.
Well, certainly the elemental thing, {protons and neutrons as matter [substantiate] a radioactive isotope}, is subject to decay. But, does decay itself constitute an entangled matter, especially when the occasion of radioactive decay changes the original element into another element plus a radioactive emission?
0965 In other words, if radioactive decay occupies the slot for entangled matter, then the original elemental thingchanges form upon resolution of the confounding.
1088 The final section, on cultural semiotics as semiotics of cultural history offers the trope… er… slogan… saying, “Culture is memory.”
On the fundament, the literary text2bf offers something to remember, if for no other reason than it is encoded as a text. Texts may survive to be available to the future. Parole2af is often not so lucky.
Time is cruel
So many texts have been lost. Precious few oral traditions remain intact.
The issue is twofold. The text or the oral tradition needs to survive. Also, a code for translation must be retained… or… recoverable.
This is one of the problems with the writing of ancient Mesopotamia, where there are few texts that have more than one script in a single document.
1089 Lotman spends many hours reflecting on text and code.
Some of his reflections end up in his book, Universe of the Mind.
1090 The author presents a table on Lotman and Uspenskij’s views of the temporal aspect of chronotopical analysis.
1091 Of course, the above table does not correspond to Torop’s original table2bf (fundament and derivative, Figure 1).
Perhaps, this table further develops and refines Bakhtin’s semiological structuralist model2c (Figure 2).
However, it is hard not to imagine that the above figure translates into an interscope.
1092 Say what?
1093 The Tartu-Moscow School expresses two interscopes, the fundament culminates in the semiological structuralist model2c and the derivative rises to a yet-to-be-determined perspective-level actuality2c.
1094 Bakhtin’s notes and scribbles express two interscopes as well. These two interscopes constitute two adjacent tiers within a model more expansive than the semiological2a structuralist2b model2c. The construction of Torop’s article intimates that this expanse is well worth investigating.
1095 The way that Lotman’s thing includes time shows how Torop’s tables2af entangle a language2am of presence1b(as well as meaning1a). Lotman recognizes2bmtime2af as a formal requirement of the chronotope2am and forces Torop to construct his own table (Figure 4 on page 330) as a way to situate2bf that entanglement2a.
1096 Here is a juxtaposition of the virtual nested form inthe category of secondness for the derivative interscope and Torop’s reconstruction of Lotman’s approach.
1097 A virtual nested form proceeds down a column in a three-level interscope.
Here are the columns in the realm of actuality2.
1098 In the general form of the derivative interscope, a perspective-level actuality2c (to be determined) brings the situation-level actuality of {cognition2bm [substantiates] social interaction2bf} into relation with the possibility of {a literary text2af [entangling] a language2am of meaning1a, presence1b and message1c}.
1099 For Torop’s table addressing Lotman (Figure 4), the perspective-level actuality2c of {semiotic arrangements2cm[substantiate] human conditions2cf} virtually brings the situation-level actuality of {Lotman’s recognition of time2bm[substantiates] Lotman’s thing with respect to time (as a three-level table)2bf} into relation with the content-level possibility that {Torop’s tables as text2af [entangle] the chronotope’s formal requirements2am of the normal context of the Tartu-Moscow School3a}.
1100 Oh yeah, that makes sense.
Cultural history manifests in the framework of the semiotics of the text, where the text is a representation of culture.
Bakhtin’s culture, that is.
Lotman’s culture, too.
1101 If Bakhtin’s insights are formalized as text by Torop’s tables, then Torop’s tables constitute a semiological structuralist model2c of Bakhtin’s insights2af and support the entanglement of a language2am that sounds very much like any language of interpretation.
What is the meaning1a, presence1b and message1c of the chronotope?
Lotman’s thing focuses on time and produces a variation of the fundament interscope.
Torop’s table of Lotman’s consideration of time produces a categorical stairway to a perspective-level actuality2c in the derivative interscope.
1102 Once again, what is Lotman’s thing?
Oh, yes, it is the archaeological recovery of an insight that is present… at least in potential… since the very origins of Slavic civilization.
In the beginning is the Word, and the Word as matter substantiates the human condition as form.
1103 Here is a picture.
Such is the resolution, of the confounding where history substantiates culture and culture entangles semiotics.
1104 My thanks to Peeter Torop, for putting pen to paper and for building the tables that demonstrate the fecundity and the surprising beauty of the first iteration of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics. May a second iteration follow.
