0001 Philosophers enamored of Aristotle and Aquinas tend to make distinctions. So, what happens when such philosophers wrestle with modern science as it confronts the realness of apparently irreducibly complex systems, such as um… hydrogen-fuel cells and the Krebs cycle, which serves as the “fuel cell” for eukaryotic cells?
On the surface, Tabaczek fashions, yet does not articulate, a distinction between… hmmm…
0002 Consider a sentence, found on page 273 of Emergence, midway in the final chapter, seven, saying (more or less), “I hope that my re-interpretation of downward causation and emergent systems, in terms of old and new Aristotelianism, will help analytical metaphysicians sound more credible to scientists and philosophers of science, who employ, analyze and justify methodological reductionism.”
….what?
Philosophers of science and analytialc metaphysicians?
0003 Philosophers of science attempt to understand the causalities inherent in the ways that each empirio-schematic discipline applies mathematical and mechanical models to observations and measurements of particular phenomena. In terms of Aristotle’s four causes, their options are few. Science is beholden to material and efficient causalities, shorn of formal and final causation. So, they end up going in tautological circles. What makes a model relevant? Well, a model accounts for observations and measurements of phenomena. What are phenomena? Phenomena are observable and measurable facets of their noumenon. What is a noumenon?
Ugh, you know, the thing itself.
If I know anything about the Positivist’s judgment, then I know this. Science studies phenomena, not their noumenon.
Everybody knows that.
Except, of course, for those pathetic (analytical) metaphysicians.
0004 …what?
A noumenon and its phenomena?
0005 Tautologies are marvelous intellectual constructions.
In a tautology, an explanation explains a fact because the fact can be accounted for by the explanation. For modern science, mathematical and mechanical models explain observations and measurements because observations and measurements can be accounted for by mathematical and mechanical models.
Scientific tautologies are very powerful. Important scientists ask for governments to support their empirio-schematic research in order to develop and exploit such tautologies… er… technologies. Philosophers of science tend to go with the flow, so they end up employing, analyzing and justifying the manners in which mathematical and mechanical models account for observations and measurements, along with other not-metaphysical pursuits. One must tread lightly. First, there is a lot of money on the line. Second, the positivist intellect has a rule. Metaphysics is not allowed.
0006 …hmmm…
Does Tabaczek offer a way out of the rut of not-metaphysics, without noticing that the rut is what distinguishes scientific inquiry from experience of a thing itself? Aristotle will tell me that the rut is not the same as the world outside the rut. The scientific world is (supposedly) full of mind-independent beings. Ours is a world of mind-dependent beings.
0007 …aha!
Now, I arrive at the yet-to-be-articulated distinction between what science investigates and what we experience.
For the modern philosopher of science, models are key. Disciplinary language brings mathematical and mechanical models into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena.
For the estranged modern metaphysician, the thing itself is key. The thing itself, the noumenon, gives rise to diverse phenomena, facets that are observable and measurable.
Consequently, the distinction that Tabaczek does not name looks like this.
0149 In chapter five, Tabaczek starts to develop the noumenal side of his mirror, beginning with dispositions and powers. Tabaczek wants to use these terms interchangeably. Perhaps, it is better to regard them as two contiguous real elements, where the contiguity is [properties].
Disposition [property] power is a hylomorphe that is slightly different than Aristotle’s hylomorphe, matter [substance] form. Even though they differ, they both belong to Peirce’s category of secondness.
To me, Peirce’s secondness opens the door to expressions of causality that reflect Aristotle’s hylomorphe in so far as they have the same relational structure.
Currently, no modern philosopher views Aristotle’s hylomorphe as a prime example of Peirce’s category of secondness.
How so?
As soon as a modern philosopher recognizes the point, then he or she becomes a postmodern philosopher.
Labels can be slippery.
0150 In chapter six of Emergence, Tabaczek introduces forms and teleology (that is, formal and final causes). The operation of these causes within the category-based nested form has already been presented.
0151 In chapter seven, Tabaczek labors to apply his dispositional metaphysics to Deacon’s formulation of dynamical depth. Perhaps, the results are not as coherent as the application found in this examination, but his efforts are sufficient to earn him his doctorate in philosophy.
Amen to that!
0152 Overall, Emergence is a testimonial to the resilience of a graduate student who completes his doctorate in philosophy of science without knowing that the model and the noumenon are two (apparently competing) illuminations within the Positivist’s judgment.
0153 Why doesn’t he know?
Well, no one knows, because philosophers of science are not paying attention the traditions of Charles Peirce or of Jacques Maritain. As noted in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy, Maritain uses the scholastic tool of three different styles of abstraction to paint a picture of science displaying the structure of judgment. Peirce’s semiotics and categories clarify Maritain’s painting by resolving two integrated yet distinct judgments: the Positivist’s judgment and the empirio-schematic judgment.
Plus, another reason why no one knows is because philosophers of science still think that the positivist intellect is alive. All laboratory scientists obey the dictate of the positivist intellect. Metaphysics is not allowed. So, if well-funded scientists are correct, then philosophers of science must project what is for the Positivist’s judgment from science into their own image in Tabaczek’s mirror. They do not realize that Tabaczek inadvertently de-defines the positivist intellect by not getting the Positivist’s memo and regarding a noumenon as the thing itself and its phenomena as manifestations of dispositions [properties] power.
0154 Say what?
Tabaczek’s “dispositional metaphysics” disposes with the positivist intellect by vaporizing the relation of the Positivist’s judgment and condensing what ought to be (the empirio-schematic judgment) and what is (the noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena) as two distinct illuminations. Both enter secondness. Two hylomorphes stand juxtaposed. In Tabaczek’s mirror, each hylomorphe sees its own image in the other.
0389 The book before me published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The question? What makes humans unique? The approach is scientific. Humans think differently than great apes, their closest biological kin. One way to understand that difference is to observe and measure the cognitive capacities of human newborns and infants, as well as the cognitive abilities of adult great apes.
This book belongs to a decades-long arc of inquiry by the author. During much of this time, Michael Tomasello serves as co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. I cover two decades in my examinations. Here is the fourth book in the list.
0390 What has this semiotician found so far?
First, from the very start of his journey, the content-level of Tomasello’s vision corresponds to the situation-level of Razie Mah’s hypothesis. The ultimate human niche consists of the potential of triadic relations.
Razie Mah’s hypothesis applies the two-level interscope for Darwin’s paradigm to human evolution.
0391 First, the general Darwinian paradigm looks like this.
0392 In The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), Razie Mah proposes that the ultimate human niche1b is the potential of triadic relations.
Tomasello’s hypothesis that joint attention2b and shared intentionality2b are behavioral and cognitive adaptations to the niche of sociogenesis1b reconfigures the situation-level of Darwin’s paradigm, resulting in what I call the “Tomasello-Mah synthesis”.
0393 Yes, fortune turns her wheel. Tomasello does not know Mah’s hypothesis. Tomasello’s arc of inquiry is underway in 1999. Mah’s hypothesis first appears online in 2018. So, Tomasello configures his insight, corresponding to the situation-level of the Darwinian paradigm, as the content-level of his vision.
Tomasello’s vision offers a way to bring a phenotype (of human ontogeny2c’) into relation with a foundational adaptation (of joint attention2a’). But, according to Mah, phenotype and adaptation are two independent fields of evolutionary inquiry. One does not situate or contextualize the other. Rather, the two intersect.
Consequently, Tomasello’s vision resolves the internal contradictions of the intersection of genetics and natural history,by assigning the phenotype to the category of thirdness and the adaptation to the category of firstness, while maintaining the actuality of both.
0394 Here is a picture of Tomasello’s vision.
0395 Of course, this examination appears precisely 25 years after Tomasello’s vision is cast in 1999 AD.
His vision is maintained throughout his arc of inquiry.
Consequently, his conclusions carry an awkward emptiness. The emptiness compares to the basement of a house. The basement is dark, cool, foundational and ignored, until of course, one must seek refuge in a storm.
0396 The previous examinations of Tomasello’s works demonstrate that the house, the abode of his vision, is furnished with morality.
Tomasello can ignore the basement, haunted by immaterial beings called, “triadic relations”. Yet, in that place, where a family might store potatoes, onions, smoked meat, along with luggage and Christmas ornaments, dwells something that Tomasello may safely ignore. I call that ghost, “religion”.
0588 The Tomasello-Mah synthesis shows the ghost in the basement of the house of Tomasello’s vision.
Indeed, as this version of Darwin’s paradigm begins to haunt the entire edifice of human evolution, then Tabaczek’s housebecomes more than a house with a basement. If sociogenesis1b is the potential1b of triadic relations2a, then Tomasello’s arc of inquiry may be re-articulated using triadic relations.
0589 For example, Razie Mah’s Primer on Sensible and Social Construction may be used to re-label the eras of individual, joint and collective intentionality. Individual construction associates to the category-based nested form. Sensible construction associates to the two-level interscope, containing content and situation levels. Social construction associates to the three-level interscope, containing content, situation and perspective levels.
Here is a list of what that might look like.
0590 To continue, the re-labeled eras may be regarded in terms of the evolution of talk.
The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.
0592 Next, I would like to focus attention on the era of collective intentionality.
Here is a list depicting the timeframe.
0593 Before the era of collective intentionality, hand talk is confined team activities. Hand talk produces sensible constructions. Each team develops its own way of hand talking.
After the domestication of fire, team-tradition hand talk starts to be used generally, eventually producing fully linguistic hand talk.
The situation is very dynamic. Since cooking with fire increases the number of teams, fully linguistic hand-talk is re-appropriated for specialized use in more and more teams. Fully linguistic hand-talk influences all social circles. In some of these circles, grammatically correct, yet apparently nonsensible statements, generate social constructions that open new cognitive spaces. These novel cognitive spaces become sites for more sensible construction.
0594 The voice comes into play during community meetings (150), seasonal mega-band round-ups (500) and special occasion tribal pow-wows (1500). The voice is used for synchronization. Song brings a large gathering of hominins into synchronization. Once this cultural habit starts, then singing joins other traits in sexual selection. The voice comes under voluntary control.
0595 Most likely, the early speciations of late Homo erectus produced species that could sing and hand-talk. But, they could not speak.
Speech is added to hand-talk with Homo sapiens. Anatomically modern humans practice a dual-mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for the next two hundred-thousand years.
0596 Hand-speech talk would still be practiced by anatomically modern humans today, were it not for the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. The hypothesis of the first singularity proposes that the Ubaid is the first culture on Earth to practice speech-alone talk.
Here is a picture of the era of social construction.
0598 Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.
This brings me to the limit of Tomasello’s vision. I open the door, and step out into the realization that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. I step into the vision of Razie Mah.
0599 The arc of Tomasello’s inquiry, spanning from 1999 to 2016, opens onto three masterworks by Razie Mah. These electronic books are available at smashwords and other e-work venues. This examination relies primarily on The Human Niche, along with books contained in the series, A Course on The Human Niche. A related series is titled, Buttressing the Human Niche.
Here is a list of Mah’s masterworks.
Still, there is more.
A Commentary on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) is available at smashwords and other e-book venues. This commentary includes Mah’s blogs for January, February and March, 2024, along with an examination of Becoming Human (2019), the fifth book in a sequence of five books.
0600 My thanks to Michael Tomasello, who writes the books under examination while Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, for conducting a scientific inquiry, from which I have examined only several works.
0187 In the preface, the author notes that this book is a prequel to The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999, Harvard University Press). The question is the same. What makes humans unique? The answer is the same. Humans think differently than great apes, their closest biological kin.
In 1999, researchers in evolutionary anthropology could say, “Only humans think of other humans as intentional agents. Plus, my cat and my dog are intentional operators, as well, say nothing of the weather.”
Okay, I added the second sentence for dramatic effect.
Unfortunately, research conducted after 1999 introduces a problem. It turns out that great apes recognize intentionality in others.
Uh oh.
0188 This book is the third marker in Tomasello’s intellectual journey. I start following his trek with Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (appearing in Razie Mah’s January 2024 blog). The second marker that I examine may be found in Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2008) “Origins of Human Communication” (appearing later in the same blog for the same month).
0189 In the publication before me, A Natural History of Human Thinking (2014, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts), Tomasello explicitly abstracts three cognitive processes in order to distinguish humans from apes. The processes are cognitive representation, inference and self-monitoring. He then proposes that all three components were transformed in two key steps during hominin evolution. He labels his claims, “the shared-intentionality hypothesis”.
0190 Does this follow the trajectory set by previous works?
Here is a theme that appears in the second marker, pre-emptively modified with the above propositions in mind.
0191 This modified picture allows me to offer slogans for movements zero and one.
0072 Chapter five is titled, “Linguistic Construction and Event Cognition”. The perspective-level linguistic communication2c participates in ongoing events2a.
Tomasello claims that joint attention is the key adaptation from which subsequent adaptations proceed. Surely, the three-level interscope depicted above does not contradict this claim.
After all, the evolution of joint attention should precede the evolution of linguistic communication.
0073 However, there is a disjunction, because great apes show few (if any) tendencies that may be characterized by joint attention. Even the occasional monkey hunt by chimpanzees is best characterized by several individuals deciding to pursue the same thing at the same time. The monkey-prey is the focus of attention, but the attention is disjointed, not really coordinated.
So, there must be a period before the evolution of joint attention, where individual intentionality reigns, even when group action takes place.
0074 So, when are these eras happening?
Tomasello wants to place the evolution of joint attention before the time of Homo heidelbergensis, who appears in the fossil record between 800 and 400kyr (thousands of years ago).
To me, this makes sense only so far as this.
Homo heidelbergensis leaves traces of cultural behavior in the archeological record.
To me, such traces indicate that these hominins are in the subsequent build-on era.
So, Tomasello’s timeline may require clarification.
0075 Okay, now that I am nitpicking, I must ask, “Is there a problem with making joint attention2athe foundation of an evolutionary theory?”
Allow me to return to Tomasello’s vision.
0076 According to Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), adaptation2 and phenotype2 belong to two independent scientific disciplines: natural history and genetics. Since both belong to situation-level nested forms that rely on different potentials, one cannot situate or contextualize the other. However, this is precisely what occurs in Tomasello’s vision.
Of course, Tomasello’s vision remains a breakthrough in the framework of modern science. At least, the phenotype does not correspond to the adaptation. Instead, the phenotype2c puts culture2b into perspective. Then, culture2b virtually situates the adaptation of joint attention2a.
Yes, to repeat, the phenotype2c does not directly situate the adaptation2a. Tomasello’s vision leads upwards from joint attention2a to human culture2b and then to human cognitive development2c. Cognitive development2c puts culture2b into perspective, just as culture2b virtually situates joint attention2a.
Tomasello’s vision is truly remarkable.
0077 And, it is difficult to achieve.
This book is the start of a twenty year journey.
0078 As noted in points 0055 through 0058, the last few chapters cover the cultural (situation) and ontogenetic (perspective) levels of Tomasello’s vision. As far as I can see, these chapters labor to show how human ontogeny2c (the scientific study of human development) virtually contextualizes human culture2b (a somewhat vaguely defined term that refers to all situations where joint attention2a pertains). In the process, Tomasello must also explain how human culture2b, especially spoken language and symbolic representation, virtually emerges from and situates joint attention2a.
How ambitious is that?
0079 Here a picture of the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality (the vertical column in secondness in Tomasello’s vision, portrayed as a nested form).
The normal context of the behavior of newborns and infants2c virtually brings the actuality of spoken language and symbolic representation2binto the potential of a foundational adaptation2a.
0080 Yes, this is very ambitious, and the final three chapters of this book strain to meet the challenge. They should be read with this in mind. The last three chapters are well composed. Tomasello is an excellent writer. He is very organized. But, his exposition is like lifting a two-hundred pound octopus out of the water. As soon as one arm is lifted, a different one slides back into the murk.
0081 Plus, there is the lingering issue of natural history.
Here is a picture with Tomasello’s guesses.
Tomasello makes two associations that make no sense at all, when considering joint attention2b as an adaptation to sociogenesis1b in the normal context of natural selection3b. Sociogenesis1b is the human niche1b. The human niche1b is the potential1b of triadic relations2a. Consequently, the adaptation of joint attention2a should be marked in the archaeological record with the appearance of the Homo genus, around 1.8Myr (millions of years ago).
0082 With that in mind, I close this examination of the first step in Tomasello’s journey, scientifically exploring who we are. The next step is a book that expands and clarifies this first step. It is published nine years later.
0001 The full title of the work before me is The Tower of Babel Moment: Lore, Language, Leibniz, and Lunacy. The author is one of the wandering stars of our current age, an era when academics award more doctorates than any job market can absorb. Professors with sharp elbows occupy the few available academic positions, leaving brilliant and successful graduates, the ones with sharp minds, to find places in heaven knows where.
Farrell finds a spot on the internet, that once verdant pasture of free expression, and establishes his own scholastic exploration outside of modern institutional constraints. In short, he founds his own school. Those who listen to his voice offer remuneration. God bless all concerned.
0002 The work before me offers speculation on the nature of the titular biblical story.
Farrell proceeds by way of a spiral staircase of observations and… may I say?.. expansive “measurements”. Measurements of what? The literature of the seventeenth century? The titans of the late Renaissance? Yes, that will do.
0003 My goal in this examination is to shoehorn Farrell’s exploration into a category-based nested form composed of category-based nested forms. The interscope is elaborated in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues. Of all procrustean beds that I have at my disposal, the interscope is most accommodating.
Here is a diagram of the interscope.
0004 The method is simple. First, associate features of Farrell’s argument to elements in the above matrix. Second, discuss the implications.
Each nested form consists of four statements, the most paradigmatic of which goes like this. A normal context3 brings an actuality2 into relation with the possibilities inherent in ‘something’1. The subscripts refer to the categories of Charles Peirce. Thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness.
The nested form is fractal. An interscope is a category-based nested form composed of category-based nested forms. A two-level interscope associates with sensible construction. A three-level interscope corresponds to social construction. Note how the labels change from 1, 2 and 3 to a, b, and c.
The three-level interscope allows the visualization of virtual nested forms, composed of elements within one column. For example, the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality turns the second column into a category-based nested form,where a perspective-level actuality2c (as virtual normal context) brings a situation-level actuality2b (as virtual actuality) into relation with a content-level actuality2a (as virtual potential).
0005 Farrell opens chapter one with his personal discovery of Leonard Bernstein’s recorded lectures, titled “The Unanswered Question”. In these lectures, Bernstein discusses Noam Chomsky, who has his own unanswered questions. Chomsky, in turn, provokes Farrell to ask his own unanswered question, “How do linguists go about demonstrating linguistic universals?”
A universal may be regarded as an observable feature “measurably” appearing in all spoken languages.
0006 Phonologists find common observable features in the sounds of speech. Common sounds are attributed to the anatomy of the head and neck.
Etymologists find common observable features in closely related words in different languages. The words are similar and not identical, because they arise from isolation and drift among speaking populations, in a manner similar to biology’s slogan, “descent with modification”.
0007 The key?
Universals imply common origins. For phonologists, the universal is biological. For the linguist, the universal is… perhaps lost… in the recesses of time.
0008 A dramatic hypothesis stands against this key. A sudden change may destroy the common language of humanity. That change may be labeled, “A Tower of Babel Moment”.
0009 Years ago, Farrell proposes a wider context to this type of hypothesis. The scenario includes ancient cosmic wars and world grids. But, these are other books, and other matters, than the text at hand.
0010 So, before going on to chapter two, let me draw some associations.
On the content level, the normal context is language3a. The actuality may be called a “topology”, or a map of all spoken languages2a. The potential is that universals imply common origins1a.
The normal context of language3a brings the actuality of cross-language maps2a into relation with the potential of ‘the idea that universals imply common origins’1a.
On the situation level, the normal context is a civilizational moment3b. The actuality is the Tower of Babel (the biblical story)2b. The possibility is ‘discontinuity’1b.
The normal context of a civilizational moment3bbrings the actuality of the story in Genesis 112b into relation with the potential of a discontinuity1b that corresponds to God confounding the common language of the plains of Shinar.
0001 Let me start with an admission. In this particular examination, I am not myself. I am someone who I am not. I own a dog named, “Daisy”.
The book before me is by Daniel C. Dennett and is titled, “From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds”. The book is published by W.W. Norton (New York, London). The book wrestles with issues both philosophical and scientific. How does our world come to be? How do we come to be?
Who are we? We are people with minds. Minds intelligently design artifacts using tools of production and tools of the intellect. The first tools are handy. The second are… well… not exactly the same as “handy”.
0002 The hand grasps a tool then uses it to manipulate things. The word, “prehensile” applies. Our hands are full of prehensions. We are aware of the heft and feel of material instruments.
The mind grasps an intellectual tool with its… um… brain. Is there such a word as “comprehensile”? How about the term, “comprehension”? Once we become competent using an intellectual tool, we comprehend. We become familiar with its heft and feel.
0003 The hand is unlike the appendages of other mammals.
For example, cats and dogs only have feet. The cat uses its front feet as “paws”, in a manner similar to the way humans use their hands. Not really, because the cat’s paws cannot hold anything. The cat cannot pick up a tool. May I say that the cat’s front paws are part of the feline toolkit? Evolution builds tools right into the cat’s body. Most mammals are fashioned this way. Tools are part of their bodies.
0004 The mind serves as a metaphorical appendage, because it grasps ‘something’, and in doing so, may manipulate it. The dog, whose practical toolkit includes feet and a formidable mouth, has an advantage over the cat, in this respect. The dog’s mind grasps ‘something’ and, in doing so, manipulates humans into serving as the leader of its pack.
To me, the dog is testimony to the inhospitality of wolf “culture”, in general, and the inadequacy of wolf “leadership”, in particular. Wolf pack-leaders often behave like aristocrats, always expecting deferential treatment. They are often filled with paranoia and treachery. Yet, their followers know that they need a leader. Otherwise, there is no pack. Without the pack, there is only death.
0005 Surely, a reasonable human would serve as a more hospitable leader, especially since humans know how to get food in surprising ways. Humans give dogs food. Until, of course, starvation fills the land.
In the Fall of 2021, the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly publishes three essays on phenomenology. Each author asks, “Why does phenomenology exclude other philosophical traditions, such as Thomism, when they share similar concerns?” The essays are not only remarkable for what they say, they are also remarkable for what they do not say. None mention natural science.
Of course, this lacunae demands exploration. Edmund Husserl (1856-1938 AD) lives in the heyday of modern science. He calls for a “return to the noumenon”. He names his method, “phenomenological reduction”. So, phenomenology concerns the noumenon and its phenomena.
The series on empirio-schematics serves as a resource. The noumenon and its phenomena appear in the Positivist’s judgment, initially derived in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.
Contributions to this series are listed below, in order of production. Most are available at smashwords and other electronic book vendors. Those that appear on the blog at www.raziemah.com are noted, along with dates.
Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions” (e-article, note on blog September 2021)
Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean-Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” (e-article, note on blog October 2021
Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenology” (e-article, note on blog October 2021)
Comments on Jack Reynolds’ Book (2018) “Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science”. (e-article, note on blog March 2022)
Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (blog only, www.raziemah.com, April 2022)
0001 The book under examination is published by T&T Clark in New York, London and Dublin, carries an ISBN number: 978-0-5677-0635-5, and presents the full title of The Origin of Humanity and Evolution: Science and Scripture in Conversation.
This examination considers the book from the point of view of Razie Mah’s three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define The Word “Religion”, corresponding to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt, respectively.
Needless to say, in this volume, Andrew Ter Ern Loke is not aware of the scientific proposals offered by Razie Mah’s masterworks. His goal is to formulate a point of view whereby the role of Adam and Eve in Augustine’s Christian tradition does not contradict the modern view of human evolution, which is surpassed by Razie Mah’s corrective.
The goal of this examination is to show that Loke intimates the proposed scientific corrective, even though he is unaware of its existence.
0002 According to the back cover, in 2022, Andrew Ter Ern Loke is an associate professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. In the acknowledgements, the author thanks scientists, philosophers, a historian of science, biblical scholars and theologians for helpful discussions. Among the list is William Lane Craig, whose recent book, The Historical Adam, is reviewed in November 2022 in Razie Mah’s blog.
Loke’s book is dedicated to a computational biologist, Joshua Swamidass, who proposes a technical solution that permits all humans to descend from one male, named “Adam”, and that one “Adam” corresponds to the one mentioned in Genesis 2.4 on.
0003 Technical solution?
There are two stories of human origins in the formerly Christian West, the Christian ones are found in Genesis and the modern Western ones concern the scientific disciplines of natural history, genetics and archaeology. So the question arises, asking, “How do these match?”
They would match if “Adam” is the first human. After all, the name, “adamah”, is ambiguous, referring to humankind, the male of the species, as well as one apparently ill-fated fellow once living on an island, in a special place called, “Eden”, near the confluence of four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates.
0004 Unfortunately, the scientific discipline of genetics rules out that option. Adam and Eve are not the first pair of humans. Contemporary human population genetics shows no sharp bottleneck that would correspond to a single pair as the first humans (as proposed by Saint Augustine, over 1600 years ago, during the twilight of the Roman Empire). This lack of correspondence opens the opportunity for other technical solutions, such as the genealogical approach by Joshua Swamidass and the approach formulated in Loke’s book. Neither Swamidass nor Loke propose that Adam and Eve are the first humans. Loke designates Adam as “God’s Image Bearer” and works from there.
0005 Here is a different way to look at the issue.
Imagine a map of the Nile, running up through Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. Now, pick up a mental pencil and relabel parts of the great river.
0006 The first chapter of Genesis is the upper reaches of the southern Nile, with the great lake, named “Victoria” (to those who speak English). Genesis 2.4-10 is like the lower reaches of the northern Nile, ending in the magnificent delta. The Mediterranean is where history begins.
Imagine that there is a great waterfall between the upper and lower reaches, instead of a series of impassable rapids. Upland from the waterfall is the time of De Nile. Downland from the waterfall is the time of DeNial. The waterfall is the first singularity.
A traveler, starting at the falls, can theoretically walk in both directions, along De Nile or along DeNial. But, there is the challenge of the descent and the ascent. Looking from the top of the falls, one cannot see the bottom. Looking from the bottom of the falls, one cannot see the top. However, at either location, the traveler knows that there must be a bottom and there must be a top.
Well, the traveler does not really know for certain.
The traveler only looks down from the top or up from the bottom and makes a guess about the other realm.
0006 As if to repeat the pattern, Loke’s book takes a turn near the middle of the text, in section five of chapter five, carrying the title, “The Image of God”.
Loke writes that Adam and Eve, labeled by God as “Image Bearers of God”, are the first human beings. This does not require them to be the first anatomically modern humans or the genetic founders of all humans. Rather, the key issue is how humans are defined.
0007 It is sort of like that imaginary waterfall.
If one stands upstream, which is highland and south, human beings are defined by the scientific scenario summarized in section 5.1.
If one stands downstream, which is lowland and north, various philosophers and religious traditions offer opinions as to what humans are. Loke mentions Plato, Aristotle, Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism, Marxism, existentialism, sociobiology and contemporary philosophy. Each has a unique definition of “the human”.
The waterfall is neither upstream nor downstream. The waterfall is contiguous with both.
How does this division within continuity work?
0008 The Greimas square may assist. The Greimas square is a purely relational structure that is useful for discerning a constellation of meanings that surround a particular spoken term.
A century ago, the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure proposed that spoken language consists in two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole (French for “talk”) and langue (French for “language”). One system is external. Parolecan be scientifically observed and measured. Langue is internal, only certain changes in physiological conditions can be observed and measured.
0009 So, the question arises, “How does one define any particular spoken phrase or word?”
That is the subject of Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0010 Happily, for this examination, there is method that respects the purely relational configuration posed by Saussure.
That method is the Greimas square.
0011 Here is a picture.
0012 The focal term goes with A.
The first contrast of A that comes to mind enters B.
Then, a term that contradicts B goes into C. The term, “contradicts”, may be transliterated into “speaks against”. So, C speaks against B. Then, one finds that C complements A.
Finally, a contrast that comes to mind with C goes into D. Then, one should find that D speaks against A and complements B.
0013 The Greimas square is a probe of the terms that are adjacent to (or metaphorically “near”) a focal term (A).
0014 The following figure applies to Loke’s discussion of Adam and Eve as the first “Image Bearers of God”.
0015 We are the descendants of Adam (A), so we are heir to his title, “Image Bearer of God”.
But, there is a problem. Adam falls. So do we.
In contrast, many philosophies and traditions define who we are (B) without regard to God’s original appellation.
Speaking against the philosophers and traditionalists, Adam is the first holding the title (C), which will be passed on to the rest of humanity by means that are not genetic. So, despite all other opinion, Adam is… er, at least… was… until, you know, the unfortunate incident… the first bearer of this title. I suppose he never lost the title…
…he just made a bad decision that doomed all of subsequent humanity.
In contrast, the Biblical use of adam (technically, “adamah”) is a pun which means “earth man” or “humanity” (D).
This raises the question as to whether adam as humanity (D) contradicts (A) humans labeled as the Image Bearers of Godand complements (B) “humans” defined by philosophers and other religious traditions.
I suppose that one could argue for “yes”, as well as “no”.
0016 As it turns out, the metaphor of a map of the Nile River, altered by a number 2 pencil, also fits into a Greimas square.