07/5/25

Looking at Graham Langdon’s Book (2024) “The Mystery of the Navel Idols” (Part 1 of 4)

0001 The book before me is published by Archaic Lens Publishing (North Carolina). The author posts podcasts on youtube, writes on twitter, and has a website, www.archaiclens.com. The book’s subtitle is The Thread that Connects the Ancient World.

0002 The author documents navel idols that are readily identifiable to the human eye on the basis of several characteristics, as shown below.

0003 They appear at the dawn of history, in regions that will end up civilized, but before any advances in the direction of labor and social specializations. Later, the idols will associate to the Chalcolithic (the Copper Age), corresponding to the era before the Bronze Age (when copper is mixed with other ingredients to create effective weapons).

The oldest navel figure is Urfu man, recovered from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey (Anatolia) and dating to around 10,000 B.C. This is long before the end of the last interglacial. The megastructure site associates to the pre-pottery Neolithic, which comes before the pottery Neolithic. Subsequent Neolithic cultures throughout southwestern Asia will be labeled and identified on the basis of their pottery.

Also, Gobekli Tepe is not associated with a sedentary settlement, such as the contemporaneous Catal Huyuk.

0004 So, what am I saying?

Gobekli Tepe, Catal Huyuk and similar sites do not end up constellating into a tangle of unconstrained social and labor specializations, where social circles transmogrify into networks of economic and political-religious affiliations.

0005 In the section on Turkey, the author makes an interesting point. The body habitus of Urfu man appears in statuary and figurines in early civilizations around the world. The further from Gobekli Tepe, the later in time these navel idols appear.

Ironically, this point is precisely the rule of thumb held by archaeologists during the early twentieth century. The further from southern Mesopotamia, the later an early civilization forms.

0006 Coincidence?

Or is one observation swept up in the other?

0007 In the section on Turkey, the author includes a watercolor image of an awkward looking small artifact, with enormous alien-like eyes, v-neck adornment and hand on either side of navel. This clay figurine dates to around 5,000 B.C., during the copper age, according to the British Museum.

This artifact dates to 5,000 years after Gobekli Tepe.

The prehistoric cultures associated with the later artifact occur on the cusp of civilization, where the term, “civilization” is characterized by unconstrained labor and social specialization.

0008 A look at the sections on the Kosovo, Serbia and the Balkans support this association. The navel idols of the Vinca culture (5850-5750 B.C.) appear similar to the latter Turkey artifact. The Vinca culture practices farming, animal husbandry and copper smelting. A similar pattern occurs in Bulgaria. These cultures are on their way to increasing social complexity.

0009 The pattern will hold for all navel idols found to the west of the Aegean Sea. The navel idols and the Chalcolithic and other features, such as astronomy-related megalithic arrangements, spread west from southwestern Asia.

Since Gobekli Tepe is pre-pottery and pre-Chalcolithic, it cannot be the direct inspiration for the navel idol figures located the West, five millennia later. So, the old archaeologists’ saying of the early 20th century applies. Something from southern Mesopotamia sends out emissaries bearing the news of not talking with one’s hands, as well as copper manufacture and astronomy.

Indeed, it may be that the cultural efflorescence that builds Gobekli Tepe and other Anatolian sites spreads into northern, then southern Mesopotamia as the glacial climate gives way to the Wet Neolithic of southwestern Asia and northern Africa.

0010 The sea-level rise serves as a good way to demark the navel idols before pottery and copper and the navel idols after.

07/5/25

Looking at Graham Langdon’s Book (2024) “The Mystery of the Navel Idols” (Part 4 of 4)

0030 To the immediate west of Mesopotamia, the navel idols of Israel, dating to 4500-3500 B.C., look like they correspond to the first message. The Canaanite coffins of 1300-1200 B.C. look as if they are inspired by the latter message. The coffins do not contain emissaries from Mesopotamia, they contain Canaanite elites who benefitted from trends towards unconstrained social complexity.

0031 In Sardinia, the messages separate into more than one style of navel icon..

0032 Here, this examiner leaves the reader to use the speculative structure of two messages to appreciate the many navel icons that the author presents in this well-appointed art-book.

To me, the overall picture is clear for the West and for the East (as far as Eurasia is concerned).

The navel icons, as well as their speech-alone talking emissaries, are next involved in establishing a foothold in South America, but the messages are confounded with a trend already occurring in China. The same pose and adornment of the original navel icons are adopted as indications of elite status.

0033 Here is a picture.

0033 The conclusions… er… speculations of this examiner now set forth, I wonder whether the author will agree.

Of course, in this book, the author never entertains the idea that the navel icons are associated with either the bicameral mind (message 1) or the first singularity (message 2).

However, the author hints that intentional diffusion may be a reasonable explanation. The navel icons spread at the cusps of early civilizations throughout Eurasia and the Americas. Plus, there are other novel trends associated with the spread of the navel icons. These include copper metallurgy and… well… something to do with tracking celestial bodies. Oh, I should not forget v-shaped neck adornments.

0034 My thanks to the author for gathering evidence that is obvious to the eye, yet very difficult to account for. Perhaps, this examination, based on two works by Razie Mah, may assist.

08/31/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…” (Part 1 of 21)

0001 The book before me is Dr. Glenn Diesen’s contribution to Routledge’s Series, Rethinking Asia and International Relations. The text carries the full title of The Decay of Western Civilization and the Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. The series editor is Emilian Kavalski, the Li Dak Sum Chair in China-Eurasia Relations and International Studies at the University of Nottingham in Ningho, China. At the time of publication, Dr. Diesen is a Visiting Scholar at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Adjunct Research Fellow at Western Sydney University. Diesen’s research interests are in international relations, political science, international political economy and Russian studies. Say nothing of history.

0002 So… um… how does this book overlap with my interests?

I am interested in civilization. The persistent question that arises in Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall,is, “What potentiates civilisation?”

0003 Consider the hypothesis of the first singularity.

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language. Our capacities for language evolve in the milieu of hand talk. The ancestor to our own species practices fully linguistic hand talk. Very successfully, I might add. The voice is recruited to assist in synchronizing large groups (plus, a little sexual selection gets thrown in). Once the vocal tract is under voluntary neural control, speech is added to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens practices a dual-mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for over 200,000 years before the first singularity. The first singularity starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.

As the ocean levels rise at the start of our current interglacial, two hand-speech talking cultures in the then dry Persian Gulf are forced into the same territory. One is a Mesolithic fishing culture occupying the river ravines and coast. The other is a Developed Neolithic culture (agriculture mixed in with stockbreeding). These two cultures meld, forming a pidgin then a creole language. That creole language turns out to be the first instance of speech-alone talk.

0004 The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk are significantly different than hand-speech talk (and hand-talk). I won’t get into the details, but the consequences are enormous.

Hand-speech talk facilitates constrained social complexity (which, to me, calls to mind Diesen’s term, “gemeinschaft”, literally translated into the “rod of generality”, coinciding with tradition, intuition and, what modern scientists deride as “irrational thought”).

Speech-alone talk permits unconstrained social complexity. Spoken words can be used to label things that cannot be pictured at pointed to, such as the term, “gesellschaft” (another one of Diesen’s key terms, literally translated into the “rod of the journeyman”, coinciding with specialization, analysis and, what scientists misleadingly call “rational thought”).

0005 The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia starts, say, 7800 years ago, which I label 0 Ubaid Zero Prime (0 U0′ or “zero uh-oh prime”, with “uh-oh” expressed as if reacting to an accident or a mishap).

At 0 U0′, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only culture in the world practicing speech-alone talk. All the other Neolithic, Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic cultures of the time practice hand-speech talk.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk. The only (now dying) cultures that remember their hand-speech traditions are the Australian Aborigines and the North American Plains Indians. Both are losing the hand-component of their hand-speech talk, due to exposure to speech-alone talking cultures and civilizations. The receding of original justice, when all social circles work in harmony towards human flourishing in a world of signification, is nearly complete.

0006 Weirdly, that recession lies beneath the surface of recently examined books in anthropology.

Consider the following reviews, appearing in the Razie Mah blog.

Looking at Ian Hodder’s Book (2018) “Where Are We Heading?” (June 2023)Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origins” (March 2023)

08/3/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…” (Part 21 of 21)

0180 Postmodernists recoil from grand narratives.

Yet, they embrace parlor games.

Perhaps, for their amusement, they may consider contemporary figures as stand-ins for the theodrama of the second civilisational cycle just imagined.

Or, they may ridicule the concept of a Plutonic year or the relevance of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions as a clock on the Celestial Earth.

In their distraction, they ignore the grand narratives that Diesen’s time-honoring Greimas square potentiate.

Isn’t imagination what we need?

0181 In several points in this book, Diesen says that the Russian… well… even more broadly… the Eurasian resurgence needs an ideological vision that organizes gesellschaft. The same statement-of-need is found other books on contemporary international politics.

In Comments on Daniel Estulin’s Book (2021) “2045 Global Projects At War” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the commentary concludes with a sequence of interscopes that prepare a vision for the Chinese Datun, the conclusion of and the start of an opening of the Celestial Heavens (occurring in the years 2044 and 2045, respectively). This 2250 year cycle ties back to the passage of the first singularity through eastern Eurasia (now China), sometime after 1000 U0′.

The passage of the first singularity into northern Eurasia (now Russia) occurs around the same time, seeding the Kurgan culture, who tames horses and runs on wagons. Later, these migrating chiefdoms flood into western Europe and northern India in an exercise in elite dominance. The event is called “the Indo-European language expansion”.

The passage of the first singularity into western Eurasia winds through the Aegean, giving rise to late copper and bronze age civilizations. Do monuments such as Stonehenge signify the last efflorescence of hand-speech talking cultures or the adoption of speech-alone talk?

The passage of the first singularity into the Indian subcontinent initiates the settlement of the Indus floodplain, giving rise to the Harappan civilization.

The passage of the first singularity through Persia, directly east of Mesopotamia, occurs much earlier, seeding the Susa culture, which rises and then is overwhelmed by the neighboring Uruk culture. Doesn’t that sound like an original imprint for Iran, located at the crossroads of Eurasia?

0182 What am I saying?

I am interested in civilization. The persistent question that arises in Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall,is, “What potentiates civilisation?”

0183 The answer is the hypothesis of the first singularity.

This hypothesis calls for creative, interdisciplinary and altogether fantastic anthropological and archaeological inquiry into the potentiation of civilization throughout Eurasia (as well as the Americas).

What a research project!

Eurasia is home to the first civilisations, as well as early language expansions, such as the Indo-European and the Austronesian.

Eurasia is currently home to many distinct civilisations which, like Russia, are about to enter a new spring of sovereignty, as the summer of geoeconomics ends with the demise of the world’s reserve currency, shorter (and perhaps more expensive, but definitely more reliable) supply chains and respect for borders.

0184 Glenn Diesen is on target, in calling for a novel ideology, supporting neopragmatist approaches.

A research project based on the hypothesis of the first singularity responds to that call.

Likewise, Alexander Dugin is on target by envisioning a fourth political theory that is not a theory at all, but a pragmatic and tradition-cultivating being there. Dasein!

To me, nothing conveys Dasein, better than the realization that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Both Diesen and Dugin, in their own ways, call for a new imagination, one that addresses the gesellschafts of all Eurasian civilizations with a series of questions, asking, “Where does the world come from? Where do humans come from? What went wrong? What is the solution?”

0185 Today, the natural and social sciences of the West are accepted by all the Eurasian civilisations, not as absolute truths, but as methods of inquiry. They set the stage for the mind-boggling hypothesis of the first singularity. But, because of their materialist and instrumental inclinations, they never proposed the obvious. The human niche is not a material or instrumental condition.

The first tool of the intellect for our species, Homo sapiens, is hand-speech talk.

The second tool of the intellect for our species is speech-alone talk.

Ten thousand years ago, all Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures practice hand-speech talk.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

The transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt is called the first singularity.

The first singularity begins with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia and spreads on the wings of mimicry.

0185 Keep that research project in mind.

Razie Mah offers, in his blog on the date of Oct 1, 2022, “A Fantasia in G minor: A Speech Written for Gunnar Beck, MEP”. The “G” stands for Germany. The “minor” stands for its location in the grand expanse of Eurasia. The speech is intended to be read in the European Parliament, currently an expression of BG(il)Lism and vassal of… chuckle… American Judeo-Pagans. But, in this speech, the Parliament is the stage for the declaration of something more important than the identity of the hidden operators behind the destruction of gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea. Gunnar Beck needs only to stand up and give a 15 minute speech that calls for an act of imagination.

0186 My thanks to Glenn Diesen for his interesting and provocative book. I pray for his continued work in these challenging fields of inquiry.

03/31/23

Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origin” (Part 1 of 13)

0180 If David Graeber and David Wengrow’s recent book, subtitled, A New History of Humanity, is a breakthrough in postmodern anthropology, then it is so because it displays a semitic textual structure, instead of a greek textual structure.

These two styles are discussed in An Instructor’s Guide to An Archaeology of the Fall. Rather than eliminating possibilities in order to arrive at the most likely correct interpretation, these authors play literary tricks, coupling chapters one and twelve, A:A’, chapters two and eleven, B:B’, and chapters three through nine and chapter ten, C:C’.

0182 The semitic structure is A:B:C:C’:B’:A’. In Comments on David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Book (2021) The Dawn of Everything (by Razie Mah, available and smashwords and other e-book venues), the work is discussed in the pattern A:A’, B:B’ and C:C’. Notably, the bulk of the book covers the last layer, C:C’, and balances seven chapters (three through nine, C) against one chapter (ten, C’). Chapter ten is twice as long as any other chapter.

0183 Plus, chapter ten stands on its own, allowing me to place an examination in Razie Mah’s blog, with the title Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origin”. If the reader first encounters the blog, the commentary is available. If the reader first purchases the commentary, then the reader can call the blog to the attention of others.

03/15/23

Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origin”(Part 13 of 13)

0255 Graeber and Wengrow’s exploration of the dawn of everything ends with a cruel joke.

The “state”_2b, as defined by social science, cannot indirectly emerge from (and situate) righteousness_1aC, while, at the same time, manifesting the characteristics of “domination”_2a.

So, how is the contemporary left’s dream of achieving the virtues of liberty, equality and fraternity through the apparatus of the state_2b going to work?

Thus ends the third layer, C:C’, of the author’s wide-ranging exercise in the semitic textual style. The Dawn of Everythingis contemporary postmodern social science at its finest. The authors start by searching for the origins of social inequality. They end with the promise of a new history of humanity.

These authors do not know what they do not know. But they do suspect this…

0256 …A new history of the world awaits. There is a new way to describe the dawn of everything, where “everything” corresponds to “our current Lebenswelt”.

Yet, their explorations play out as a dark joke, almost as cruel as the joke that, long ago, a talking serpent plays on a naive young woman.

My thanks to the authors. My condolences as well, on more than one level.

These comments provide views that dramatically re-present the vistas intimated in David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book. Welcome to a new age of understanding: The Age of Triadic Relations.

05/27/22

Looking at Andrew Kulikovsky’s Overview (2005) “The Bible and Hermeneutics” (Part 1 of 10)

0001 The overview under consideration appears in 2005 in the Journal of Creation (volume 19(3), pages 14-20).

The article is attractive because it considers affirmations and denials that appear in The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, published in 1978 in J. Evangelical Theological Society (volume 21(4), pages 289-296).

0002 The author of the article, Andrew S. Kulikovsky, earned a Bachelors of Applied Science (in Computer and Information Science) from the University of South Australia, then a Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies and Theology from Louisiana Baptist University. His Master’s thesis was on biblical theology of creation. At the time that his overview was published, he worked for his law degree at Deakin University, Melbourne Australia.

Single quotes and italics are used to group words together.

0003 Kulikovsky starts his brief overview, titled “The Bible and hermeneutics”, with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.

0004 But, before entering that first section, I must wonder, “What is ‘hermeneutics’?”

In dictionaries, the term signifies the formal process by which an interpreter derives the author’s intended meaning.

0005 In terms of the category-based nested form, there are two actualities in hermeneutics. One actuality virtually situates the other.

The text itself_2a emerges from (and situates) the potential of the author’s intended meaning_1a in the normal context of writing_3a. An interpretation_2b virtually situates that text.

An interpretation_2b emerges from and situates the potential of the text and a hermeneutical process_1b in the normal context of proper reading_3b.

0006 The following relational structure is called a two-level interscope. Two-level interscopes are typical for sensible construction, according to A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.

0007 The text_2a in question is the Bible, particularly Genesis 1-2.3, the Creation Story, and Genesis 2.4-11, the Primeval History.

0008 I now move to the section on biblical inerrancy.

Kulikovsky recounts articles nine and twelve of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. The following table does not report the complete affirmations and denials. These are in the overview. However, I hope they are close enough.

Here is a table.

0009 Even though these statements mention the contrast between hermeneutics and scientific narrative, the focus is on the contrast between true and false (Article XII) and honesty and deception (Article IX).

The Evangelical Theological Society affirms that Genesis is true. Plus, Genesis is not deceptive.

The denials reject what others may affirm. One aspect of the denial in Article XII is particularly worthy of repetition. No scientific hypothesis about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.

In order to frame the denial in the most nuanced manner possible, I say, “If the content of a denial is affirmed, then that affirmation may negate the original affirmation. For this reason, the denial is really an affirmation that must be rejected, because it can be carried too far.”

0010 Of course, the affirmations and the denials of the Evangelical Theological Society proclaim that Biblical exegesis comes first, and stands before, purported scientific challenges. But, their very structure calls to mind a semiotic construction called the “Greimas Square”, which I won’t further capitalize, unless in a title. The greimas square is the topic of the next blog.

05/26/22

Looking at Andrew Kulikovsky’s Overview (2005) “The Bible and Hermeneutics” (Part 2 of 10)

0011 The greimas square concerns four bound elements (A1, A2, B1 and B2) and consists of four sets of statements (C, D, E and F).

Here is a picture.

0012 (C) A1 is the spoken word, element, phrase or topic under consideration.

(D) B1 contrasts with A1.

(E) A2 stands against, or “contradicts”, B1. A2 complements A1.

(F) B2 contrasts with A2. B2 stands against A1. B2 complements B1.

0013 The technical term, “contrast”, means, “is different than”, in the same way that a denial is different from an affirmation.

The technical term, “stands against” or “contradicts”, means “is distinct from”, in the same way that true (or correct) is distinct from true (or honest).

0014 If I turn the denials into affirmations that must be denied because they can be carried too far, then Articles IX and XII fit into a greimas square in the following manner.

Surely, B1 and B2 carry their affirmations too far, since they do not give priority to the inspired word of God.

In the following discussion, B1 and B2 will be modified into affirmations that do not go so far as to reject their corresponding affirmations, A1 and A2.

0015 I begin the first statement, C.

(D) Distortion and falsehood (B1) contrasts with inspiration. This speaks of false, as opposed to true. Somehow, the inspired word of God may be incorrect because the authors are fallen, just like the rest of us. So, even though they may think that they are describing real events, they are not.

Or, maybe the biblical authors have not risen to our modern standards. Scientism-ists would say that these authors have an ancient, incorrect, magical, not scientific, phenomena-based worldview. So, of course, if there is an inspired message, then it is locked in the distortion and falsehood of the worldviews of the ancient Near East.

(E) No, Genesis 1-11 is not deceptive (A2). “Not deceptive” stands against false (B1); in the same way that deceit contradicts incorrect. Honesty (A2) complements inspiration (A1). An inspired author is an honest one.

(F) Well, perhaps the honesty extends only to religious themes. That is to say, the inspired message is hidden in the smoke and mirrors of the worldviews of the ancient Near East (B2). In short, the inspired authors cannot be honest (A2) because the cultures of the ancient Near East are filled with evil and idolatry and deception. Consequently, the stories of Noah’s flood are as true as the flood narrative in the Epic of Gilgamesh. But, Utnapishtim’s flood is a clearly a fictional… er… deceptive account (B2 contradicts A1). Such fiction (B2) complements the incorrectness of the science of the ancient Near East (B1).

0016 In sum, the greimas square offers a relational structure that re-articulates the focal concept of Articles IX and XII, the divine inspiration of Genesis 1-11. The affirmations become more focused. The denials become more nuanced. Fallenness (B1) becomes entangled with the world of the ancient Near East (B1a). Plus, history and science, as moderns (B2) know them, do not exist in this world (B2a). Rather, the worldviews of the ancient Near East are fictions, about things that may be true, but we cannot know about such truth, because all we know is what the texts say.

05/25/22

Looking at Andrew Kulikovsky’s Overview (2005) “The Bible and Hermeneutics” (Part 3 of 10)

0017 The prior blog allows me to present a modified greimas square of articles nine and twelve, for the hermeneutics of biblical inerrancy.

This modification contains contrasts (B1a and B2a) that do not reject their respective affirmations (A1 and A2).

0018 So, what does modern science accomplish?

Modern science tells us that the worldviews of the ancient Near East are deceptive (B2a) and incorrect (B1a).

For example, one Sumerian origin myth goes like this.

In the beginning, the god of the waters above co-mingles with the god of the waters below. Later, the latter gives birth to the air god, who then separates the two parents. Similarly, the dome above the air is solid, just like the dome under our feet. Clearly, these statements are not scientific. The first is pure fiction (B2a). The second is incorrect (B1a).

Questions arise.

Is there a scientific hypothesis explaining why the origin stories of the ancient Near East are inherently flawed (hence, incorrect) (B1a)?

Is there a scientific hypothesis explaining why the origin myths of the ancient Near East veil what may be real historical events (hence, deceptive) (B2a)?

Here is another modified greimas square of articles nine and twelve, for the hermeneutics of biblical inerrancy.

This is what science accomplishes, as of 2005 AD.

0019 What does modern science not accomplish?

Modern science has no explanation for why particular mythological (B2a) and mechanical (B1a) constructions might have occupied the civilizations of the ancient Near East.

0020 Are scientists missing an important clue, such as what all the origin stories of the ancient Near East actually say?

The origin myths of the ancient Near East portray a recent creation of humans by a differentiated (not primordial) divinity (or divinities) (B2a).

Also, as noted in the e-work, Comments on David Melvin’s Essay (2010) “Divine Mediation and the Rise of Civilization”, the origin myths of the ancient Near East depict the potentiation of civilization through gifts from the gods (B1a).

0021 All this changes starting in 2012.

A new scientific hypothesis is proposed, accounting for why our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

The proposal is stated plainly The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace and dramatized in An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, and available at smashwords and other e-book vendors.

0022 The hypothesis of the first singularity does not reject the affirmations (A1 and A2) of the Evangelical Theological Society. Plus, the hypothesis addresses questions that modern science cannot (before 2012) wrestle with.

The first singularity explains why the myths of ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia can do not envision their own ancestry, deep in evolutionary time.

The first singularity explains why the innovations of civilization seem to just appear out of nowhere, like gifts from gods.

05/24/22

Looking at Andrew Kulikovsky’s Overview (2005) “The Bible and Hermeneutics” (Part 4 of 10)

0023 Kulikovsky’s section on biblical inerrancy opens questions of epistemology. Epistemology concerns Scripture and the problem of interpretation. Epistemology is the logos (word) of episteme (knowledge).

I have already encountered two contrasts. The first is truth versus falsehood, or correct versus incorrect. The second is truth versus deception, or honest versus deceptive.

0024 How does the talking serpent in Genesis 2:4-4 fit into this picture?

Science can prove that serpents do not speak, except, of course, for some of my old bosses and co-workers, if you catch my drift. This proof goes into B1b.

Also, the appearance of the talking serpent in the stories of Adam and Eve must be figurative, not real. But, the text depicts a real character. So, the talking serpent is a fiction… er… deception. This conjecture goes into B2b.

0025 What happens when I consider the hypothesis of the first singularity?

Well, the Genesis serpent ends up crawling on its belly. This means that it does not have hands or feet.

Also, the mythical talking serpent in Genesis misleads the naive Eve.

It does so using speech-alone talk.

0026 As it turns out, the hypothesis of the first singularity proposes that civilization is potentiated by a change in the way that humans talk, from hand-speech talk (two fully fledged ways of talking in a single language) to speech-alone talk (where hand-speech talk loses the hand component). The semiotic qualities of hand-speech and speech-alone talk are radically different. The change in semiotic qualities explains the potentiation of unconstrained social complexity.

Plus, the first culture to practice speech-alone talk is the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.

0027 Oh, suddenly, the story of the temptation of Eve makes more sense.

If the serpent has no hands, then it cannot practice hand-speech talk. Instead, the way the serpent talks makes it an exemplar of speech-alone talk (B1b).

This implies that the talking serpent is both figurative and real.

Plus, the talking serpent implies that speech-alone talk associates to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After all, that tree is the creature’s hangout.

0028 What else?

Presumably, hand-speech talk, which starts with the first anatomically modern humans over 200,000 years ago, associates to the tree of life.

0029 Yes, the semiotic differences between hand-speech talk and speech-alone talk are substantial. They are so great that the speech-alone talking serpent does not represent the traditions of hand-speech talk, characteristic of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. Instead, the serpent draws Eve into the world that God commanded her not to enter, the world-building milieu of speech-alone talk.

Oh, speech-alone talk is the defining character of our current Lebenswelt.

0030 Here is a picture of the greimas square.

Consider the sequence of blogs for January 2022, at www.raziemah.com, titled, Looking at Mark Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil”.

An Archaeology of the Fall

A Horror Story by Razie Mah

Tag Archives: civilization