Tag Archives: interscope

07/3/24

Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition” (Part 26 of 26)

0238 Original sin?

0239 Francis Bacon (1561-1626 AD) lives at the start of the current Age of Ideas. He is a lawyer.  He accepts that lying is part of everyday life, especially in the courtroom.  He discovers that inquisitional modes of investigation force people to report in public what privately they do not hold.  In short, the inquisitorial mode of testing and observing and measuring produces what I call “phenomena”.  Courtroom phenomena do not reveal what a subject “privately” thinks.  Courtroom phenomena reveal what the subject is openly willing to disclose under inquisition.

What I privately think associates to the noumenon.

What I am willing to say associates to phenomena.

0240 What does this imply?

Just as a triumphalist scientist wants to replace the noumenon with a mathematical or mechanical model, the scientismist one wants to replace what I privately think with what the Positivist’s judgment ought to be, that is, an empirio-normative narrative.

0241 Okay, then does that mean, once I am properly credentialed, that I have bought into a lie?

Yes and no.

Yes, phenomena cannot objectify their noumenon.  If I do not testify to what I think, then I must be lying.  So, the very idea of phenomena entails, not necessarily a falsehood, but a deception.

No, phenomena can objectify a model substituting for the noumenon.  If I have successfully substituted an empirio-normative narrative for what I think, then I am always engaging in deception, even to myself.  Either that, or I am always telling the “truth” (that is, the narrative) that can be objectified as what I say.

Did I write that correctly?

0242 The Christian doctrine of Original Sin derives from a mythic account of Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve are fashioned by God in a paradise near the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.  They disobey God’s command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Okay, let me tweak the tree’s label to “the fruit of the tree of formalized knowledge1b“.  Mythically, this tree occupies the center of the Edenic garden.

The problem is not disobedience, per se, but a capitulation to a post-truth condition imposed by… what else?… a speaking snake.  Serpents must speak, because they cannot talk with their hands.

0243 Needless to say, the serpent has a variety of narratives to offer.  The fruit will allow Eve to own its beauty (the capitalist model of value2b) as well as make her wise (the socialist model of value2b).  Eve sees an opportunity1c.  She makes an actionable judgment2c.  And, the relativist one3c notches up two successes2c, since Adam is along for the ride.

So, the Fall in the Garden of Eden has a lot to do with disobedience (to God, but obedience to the serpent) and lying (to oneself by adopting the narrative of the serpent as one’s own).

0244 Saint Augustine associates the Fall to a permanent weakness called “concupiscence”, which transliterates to “con (with) cupi (Cupid) scence (the state of being)”.  The state of being with Cupid is a little more entertaining than the state of being scammed by a speaking snake.  But, the post-truth condition for each is pretty much the same.

0245 Why?

The foundational potential of the post-truth condition is the will1a.

By definition, the foundational potential of the prior condition is the truth1a.

0246 What does this imply?

Well, if Adam and Eve associate to the start of our current Lebenswelt, as proposed in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace (as well as An Archaeology of the Fall, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), then the prior truth condition must associate to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Consequently, Adam and Eve may be historical, in so far as they are fairy tale figures associated with the start of the Ubaid archaeological period of southern Mesopotamia.  The Ubaid marks the start of history (that is, our current Lebenswelt).

0247 Of course, Saint Augustine does not know this.  So, he proposes that all humanity shares in the original sin of Adam and Eve through direct descent.  All humans are subject to original sin2c because Adam and Eve are the first parents.

This turns out to be a scientific proposal.  All humans are related to an original pair of humans.  This hypothesis is debunked by modern genetics.  There is no genetic bottleneck, as would be expected for a single-pair founding our species.

0248 So, Fuller points to a post-Augustine interpretation of our current Lebenswelt as a breeding ground for the post-truth condition.  We are expected, by our inquisitors, to say only what we are publicly willing to disclose, as if that is what we are thinking.  Whenever we live up to that expectation, we deceive ourselves.  At the same time, we notch up successes2c for the relativist one3c.

On top of that, our hard-won academic credentials encourage us to utter statements based on the latest empirio-normative narratives2c, as if they2c are what we are thinking2a.

0249 Razie Mah heartily agrees.  See his blog post for January 2, 2024.

0250 Perhaps, among other things, original sin involves defying the God of Creation by publicly mouthing the normative narratives of lesser deities, relativist ones3c, who put both the human intellect3a and will1a into perspective.

The sacrament of baptism plays a role in washing away that original sin, in so far as it introduces the infant to people who offer the story of the One True God, despite the fact that the story is unbelievable, according to all relativist one-heads.

0251 That said, Fuller’s genealogy of the post-truth condition points back to the very start of our current Lebenswelt.

Here is one vista that Fuller, as a guide to the post-truth condition, allows.

0252 Each person must decide which path to follow in the fourth Enlightenment Battle.

There are two paths.

One turns the person in to a certified mask that utters empirio-normative narratives.

One turns a person into a sign-tracker on a path that leads to a sign-vehicle that does not stand for what the empirio-normative judgment is telling me to think.  This is the path of metalepsis.  If Fuller is on target, the sign-tracker will discover an interventional sign-vehicle containing both a novel doctrine of original sin (for our current Lebenswelt) and a new appreciation of the human as an image of God (for the Lebenswelt that we evolved in).

In order to appreciate original justice, one must first respect original sin.

0253 Razie Mah offers three works that reconfigure the current empirio-schematic narrative of human evolution in a way that may assist sign-trackers.  These works are titled, The Human Niche, An Archaeology of the Fall and How To Define the Word “Religion”.  These works address the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the first singularity and our current Lebenswelt.

Indeed, these works begin where Fuller’s excellent guidebook concludes.

0254 My thanks to Steve Fuller for his daring, and brief, exposition of the contemporary post-truth condition.

07/1/24

Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition

0001 On January 2, 2024, Razie Mah posts a blog challenging a Catholic podcast to take up a quest.  Re-articulate the doctrine of original sin for the forthcoming age of triadic relations.

0002 The challenge rests on four points.

0003 Here is the first point.

In the 300s AD, Saint Augustine formulates the doctrine of original sin.  In the process, he inadvertently proposes a scientific hypothesis.  All humans descend from Adam and Eve as the original pair.

Of course, Augustine has no reason to question the Genesis text in this regard.  The Bible is sacred text, a witness to God’s action in our current Lebenswelt.  The science of genetics stands 1600 years in the future.

In the 1900s, geneticists definitively debunk the idea that all humans descend from an original pair, unless that founding pair lives over 500,000 years ago.

0004 This is not the only surprise.

In the 1800s and 1900s, archaeology discovers the historical depth of the ancient Near East.  Now, the stories of Adam and Eve are listed among other origin stories of this age and location.  All these stories (with the exception of the first chapter of Genesis) depict a recent creation of humanity, which does not make sense, since humans have been around for at least 200,000 years.

Why do all the written origin stories of the ancient Near East testify to a recent creation of humans?

0005 Indeed, if Augustine were around today, he would frame the doctrine of original sin within the paradigms of the current scientific age.  Adam and Eve are not the first Homo sapiens, even though the second chapter of Genesis depicts their unique manufacture. The stories of Adam and Eve are ancient Near East mythologies.  The artisanal fashioning of Adam and Eve, as well as the talking serpent, are correspondingly mythic.  Also, the stories recorded in Genesis 2.4 through 10 concern the same start of humanity that is suggested by all other written origin stories of the ancient Near East.

0006 The problem?

What is this business about a recent start to humanity?

Why can’t the origin stories of ancient civilizations envision times significantly earlier than their civilizational foundings?

The social and biological sciences have done their utmost to portray human evolution in a way that excludes the witness of the earliest civilizations.

Does human evolution come with a twist?

Of course, it does.

0007 Why does Augustine claim that Adam and Eve are the first humans?  The book of Genesis says so.  But, once one realizes that all the origin stories of the ancient Near East point to an event horizon beyond which civilization cannot see,and that this event horizon is recent (rather than in deep evolutionary time), then the stories of Adam and Eve turn into fairy tales that address the coming-to-be of our current Lebenswelt.

0008 Before our current Lebenswelt, there are no civilizations.  There is no unconstrained social complexity.  There are no experts, or sophists, or relativist ones, or post-graduate ones.

Before our current Lebenswelt, humans live in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, which is unquestionably different than our own civilized condition.  Social complexity is always constrained.  Social hierarchies seldom contain more levels than grand-parents, parents and children.  Maybe there are specialists, like a midwife or a shaman, but there are no institutions for education in “nursing” or “medicine”.

0009 What does this imply?

Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

All the origin stories of the ancient Near East (except for Genesis One) testify to the beginning of our current Lebenswelt as the start of all humanity.  The Lebenswelt that we evolved in cannot be remembered.

The history of the ancient Near East runs deep.  Archaeologists point to the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, as the time and the place where the earliest unconstrained social complexity manifests.  Civilization is further potentiated during the Uruk archaeological period, when urbanism starts and social stratification becomes obvious.  Plus, uncanny inventions are made, such as the wheel and the use of the donkey for long-distance caravans.  Civilization is obvious at the start of the Sumerian Dynastic archaeological period.

0010 So, what do the stories of Adam and Eve depict?

In the 300s, Augustine gives a premodern answer and formulates the first doctrine of original sin.  Adam and Eve are the parents of all humans.  The taint of original sin passes from one generation to the next.

In the 2000s, Augustine’s followers will give a postmodern answer and formulate the second doctrine of original sin.  The stories of Adam and Eve are fairy tales about the start of our current Lebenswelt.  Our current Lebenswelt begins with the first singularity.

0011 Here is the second point.

If Augustine’s hypothesis that Adam and Eve are the first humans fails, then is there another relevant scenario suggested before the modern age of ideas?

Thomas Aquinas offers one, when he reflects on the state of (the literal) Adam before the Fall.  Before the incident involving the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve live in a world of original justice.  Then, after the Fall, they live in a state of original sin.

Does the state of original justice correspond to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

What was life like during the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

Did hominins live up to a recent slogan offered by the expert-driven, science-oriented and empirio-normative-dominated World Economic Forum, “You will own nothing and be happy?”

Our Paleolithic ancestors own nothing (compared to anyone in any civilization) and they are happy (in ways that we currently cannot imagine).

0012 For example, our hominin ancestors adapt to the transcendentals that are extolled by religious intellectuals and ridiculed by secular sophists.  It is as if the transcendentals are sign-vehicles that elicit adaptive sign-objects in the hominin mind, so our brains and bodies express a phenotype that serves as a sign-interpretant for those adaptive sign-objects.

Yes, our ancestors cannot label the transcendentals with spoken words.  Instead, they experience the transcendentals as adaptations.  Truth, beauty, nobility, temperance, strength, wisdom, and prudence do not have spoken labels.  They have moments of perfection in the hominin body and mind.

0013 Aquinas knows nothing about the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  So, he depicts Adam as something of a Greek philosopher, rather than someone who modern anthropologists might recognize: a hominin who owns nothing, works in teams, belongs to community, suffers ailments and danger, yet is unimaginably happy.  After all, our ancestors are who we evolved to be.

We are not so lucky.  

0014 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in holds secrets that contemporary evolutionary anthropologists cannot articulate using the disciplinary languages of the social sciences. (See Razie Mah’s blog for January through March, 2024, as well as Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  Tomasello’s technical term, “joint attention”, is an explicit abstraction that describes hominins, working in teams, being productive and having fun.  It is a mystery how they do it.  Yet, that is what hominins evolve to do.

0015 Another big secret about the Lebenswelt that we evolved in is that, unlike modern anthropologists, our hominin ancestors cannot conduct explicit abstractions.  Our hominin ancestors cannot explicitly label things or events with spoken words.  Why?  They talk with their hands.  Speech is added to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.  Then, Homo sapiens practices a dual-mode way of talking, hand-speech talk, for over 200,000 years before the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia appears, nominally 7,800 years ago, as the world’s first culture to practice speech-alone talk.

0016 Hand talk and hand-speech talk facilitate implicit abstraction.

Even when hand-talk becomes fully linguistic, explicit abstraction not possible.  Manual-brachial gesture-words are holistic.  The referent exists before the word.  The gestural-word pictures or points to its referent.

Speech-alone talk permits implicit abstraction.  It also facilitates explicit abstraction.

Spoken words label parts, distinct from the whole.  For example, the rotational motion that goes into making clay pots is explicitly abstracted with the invention of the pottery wheel.  Then, the pottery wheel is explicitly re-oriented to become the wheel of a cart.  

Spoken words exist before the referent.  Spoken words cannot picture or point to anything.  That is why the referents for spoken words exist as meanings, presences and messages in the realm of possibility.  How often do we create artifacts that validate the meaning, presence and message underlying spoken words?  How long do such validations last?

0017 The differences in the semiotics of hand talk and speech-alone talk are discussed in the opening chapters of the fictional drama, An Archaeology of the Fall.

0018 Point three follows points one and two, in so far as the mythic, as well as the historical, Adam and Eve stand at the event horizon beyond which the origin stories of the ancient Near East cannot see.  The stand at the very start of our current Lebenswelt.  They signify the first singularity.

See The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0019 The fourth and final point is this fool’s errand.  Razie Mah’s blogs for July through October 2024 offer a stumbling yet ambitious start to the quest posted on January 2, 2024.  

The sequence of presentation in the three-part e-book, Original Sin and The Post-Truth Condition, is not quite the same as the sequence of appearance in the blogs.  The blogs are sequenced for space and convenience.

The numbering of the points follows the list presented here.

0020 Fuller’s account of the post-truth condition is examined first.  This examination is foundational.

The results are applied to a book by American entrepreneur and politician, Vivek Ramaswamy, as well as a monograph on American propaganda by Michelle Stiles.

An essay by Josef Pieper on the abuse of language, reconceptualizes the application and serves starting point for a second formulation of the doctrine of original sin.  In the blog, the examination of Pieper appears between the examinations for Ramaswamy and Stiles.

By the end of Pieper’s work, a connection between the post-truth condition and original sin, deepens.

0021 But, that is not all.

An examination of a book on language and cognitive psychology shows that, in 2022, secular academics are yet to confront the hypothesis of the first singularity.  This examination stands as a warning that this hypothesis challenges both theology and science.  Theologians need to devise a post-Augustine formulation of the doctrine of original sin.  Scientists need to consider that (1) the human niche is the potential of triadic relations, as proposed in Razie Mah’s e-book The Human Niche, (2) our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, as dramatized in An Archaeology of the Fall, and (3) the semiotics of speech-alone talk is radically different than hand and hand-speech talk, as discussed in How To Define The Word “Religion”.

0022 The post-truth condition is a product of the semiotics of speech-alone talk.

The post-truth condition manifests original sin.

The end writes the beginning.

02/29/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2014) “A Natural History of Human Thinking” (Part 1 of 22)

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.

For zero, the slogan is “I work for food.”

For one, the slogan is “We work for food.”

01/31/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (Part 1 of 12)

0001 In 1999 AD, Michael Tomasello, then co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, publishes the work before me (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).

To me, this work marks the start of the author’s twenty year journey, culminating in a theory of human ontogeny, published in 2019.  The word, “ontogeny”, refers to human development and associates to the human phenotype.

0002 What interests me in Tomasello’s journey?

As noted in Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), “phenotype” and “adaptation” are not the same.  Instead, these labels apply to distinct actualities that coalesce into a single actuality.  One may call that single actuality, an individual, a species or a genus.  One may also call that single actuality, “a mystery”.

I am interested in the natural history side of the mystery of human evolution.  However, the genetic (or ontogenetic) side cannot be ignored.  Plus, natural history cannot be reduced to genetics, or visa versa

0003 Chapter one of Tomasello’s book is titled, “A Puzzle and a Hypothesis”.

Of course, a puzzle is not a mystery.  A puzzle can be resolved.  A mystery cannot.

The puzzle starts with genetics.  Geneticists have examined the DNA of chimpanzees, bonobos and humans and predict that the last common ancestor lives 6 or 7 Myr (six or seven million years ago).

In contrast, physical anthropologists (natural historians) propose the fossil record noted in the following figure.  With terminological sleight of hand, they refer to human ancestors as “hominins”, even though the old term for any bipedal primate (ape or human) is “hominid”. 

0004 Hmmm. Does the puzzle concern time?

According to genetics, the last common ancestor (LCA) between chimpanzees and humans lives 7 Myr (millions of years ago).  But, little significant shows up in the fossil record until 4 Myr.  Our lineage obviously evolves feet first.  As it turns out, starting around 5 Myr, the extent of tropical vegetation in Africa decreases due to desiccation.  Bipedality is an adaptation to mixed forest and savannah.

0005 The fossil record provides other clues, especially stone tools.

The first stone tools are Oldowan.  Oldowan stones tools are constructed on site.  They are used to scrape meat off of bone and to crack long bones (that are full of fatty marrow).

Acheulean stone tools appear later in the archeological record.  Acheulean stone tools are made beforehand and carried with some intention in mind.  They have the appearance of a giant tooth.  Notably, Acheulean stone tool technology remains unchanged for over a million years.  Innovations in stone-tools follow the domestication of fire.

0006 Surely, these two tables are puzzling.  In the first, the fossil record pertains to changes in hominin phenotypes.  In the second, the fossil record pertains to hominin adaptations, but these adaptations are not phenotypic. They are artifacts.  Are these adaptive artifacts cultural?  Are they behavioral?  I wonder, “Do the words, ‘culture’ and ‘behavior’, capture the matter and the form of these artifacts?”  It is as if an adaptation recognizes matter and generates form.

0007 What is the nature of the adaptation that maintains (and occasionally changes) artifacts, as if these artifacts are phenotypes?

Tomasello suggests that an adaptation is a novel form of social cognition.  Our lineage adapts to a new way of thinking about one another, eventually allowing sociogenesis, new styles of learning and cultural evolution.

0008 Tomasello proposes that there is one adaptation that potentiates subsequent adaptations.

Razie Mah proposes that there is one ultimate niche for our lineage.  The hypothesis is presented in the e-book, The Human Niche (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0009 Do Tomasello (in 1999) and Mah (in 2018) propose that our lineage is defined by the same adaptation… er… niche?

What is the difference between an adaptation and a niche?

To these questions, I next attend.

01/18/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (Part 12 of 12)

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 attention2a the 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 representation2b into 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.

01/17/24

Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (2008) “Origins of Human Communication” (Part 1 of 12)

0083 In 2008 AD, Michael Tomasello, then co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, publishes the work before me (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts).

This book is the second marker in Tomasello’s intellectual journey.  I start following his journey with Looking at Michael Tomasello’s Book (1999) “The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition” (appearing in Razie Mah’s January 2024 blog).  That is the first marker.

0084 The second marker starts as an academic presentation in 2006.  His Jean Nicod Lectures, in Paris, concerns his work on great ape gestural communication, human infant gestural communication and human children’s language development.  These lectures attempt to construct one coherent account of the evolution of hominin communication.

Oh, that terminology.  Where Tomasello inscribes, “human”, I say, “hominin”.

0085 From my examination at the first marker, I already have a guess about Tomasello’s vision.

Here is a picture.

0086 Note that the titles of the levels have changed.

Also note that human ontogeny2c or models of child development currently built by psychologists2c, associates to phenotypes and genetics.  Joint attention2a or models in evolutionary psychology concerning hominin cognition2a,associates to adaptations and natural history.

0087 Tomasello uses the word, “origins”, in his title.  Does this suppose that human communication may be regarded as a phenotypic trait or as an adaptation?  Or maybe, the conjunction is “and”.

In the above figure, I get the idea that the phenotype virtually contextualizes the adaptation.  But, that is not really the case.  The phenotype2b virtually situates a species’ or individual’s DNA2a.

Here is a diagram.

0088 Not surprisingly, this diagram in genetics has the same two-level relational structure as Darwin’s paradigm for natural history.

0089 What does this imply?

A mystery stands at the heart of evolutionary biology.

The adaptation is not the same as the phenotype.

Yet, together, they constitute a single actuality, which may be labeled a genus, a species or an individual.

Two category-based nested forms intersect in the realm of actuality.  It is like two streets that meet.  The intersection is constituted by both streets.  As far as traffic goes, intersections are sites of dangerous contradictions.  Traffic from one street should not collide with traffic from the other street.  I suppose that the intersection of adaptation and phenotypecarries irreconcilable contradictions as well.

0090 Perhaps, Tomasello’s vision may be resolved by considering both joint attention2a and human ontogeny2c as adaptations, even though the latter is technically, phenotypic.

I suggest this because selection is the normal context for all three levels in Tomasello’s vision.  Since natural selection goes with adaptation, the vision is one of natural history.

0091 That implies that the potentials for all three levels are like niches.

Human ontogeny2c is an adaptation that emerges from and situates the potential of human culture2b, where human culture2b is like an actuality independent of the adapting species of individuals undergoing development3c.

Human culture2b is like an adaptation that emerges from and situates the potential of joint attention2a, where joint attention2a is like an actuality independent of the adapting ways of doing things3b.

Joint attention2a is like an adaptation that emerges from and situates sociogenesis1a, where sociogenesis1a is the potential of… what?… I have run out of actualities independent of the adapting species.

0092 Here is where the foundational Tomasello-Mah synthesis enters the picture.

Ah, so here is a problem.

Tomasello’s vision of the origins of human communication conceals the actuality underlying sociogenesis1a, the potential1a giving rise to joint attention2a.  The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.

0093 What about the subscripts in the preceding paragraph?

They belong to Tomasello’s vision.

0094 This subscript business can be confusing.

To me, the concealment in Tomasello’s vision is not necessarily a drawback.  Rather, it presents an opportunity to re-articulate Tomasello’s arc of inquiry using the category-based nested form and other triadic relations.

0095 In the prior series of blogs, examining a book published in 1999, I introduced an interscope for the way humans think that derives from work by medieval schoolmen, the so-called “scholastics” of the Latin Age.

Here is a picture of the scholastic version of how humans think, packaged as a three level interscope.

12/1/23

Information on the Series: Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect

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)

10/30/23

Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”  (Part 1 of 22)

0001 The full title of Deely’s book is Semiotic Animal: A Postmodern Definition of “Human Being” Transcending Patriarchy and Feminism: to supersede the ancient and medieval ‘animal rationale’ along with the modern ‘res cogitans’.  The book is published in 2010 by St. Augustine’s Press in South Bend, Indiana.

John Deely (1942-2017 AD) starts as a Thomist interested in Heidegger and becomes a semiotician.  He becomes a really, really good promoter of the study of signs.  He writes a history of philosophy from the point of view of the revelation… or, is it discovery?.. that the sign is a triadic relation. For years, he teaches at University of Saint Thomas, Houston.  He retires, moves to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, home of St. Vincent’s College, then dies.

This examination is to be read in parallel with or after reading (and writing marginalia) in Deely’s book.  My argument may run like a dog on a long leash, compared to Deely’s argument.  But, there is reason for the analogy.  Thirteen years have passed since publication and five years since Deely’s burial, and the Age of Triadic Relations continues to manifest.

Semiotics is the study of signs.  A sign is a triadic relation.

0002 Chapter one considers a question that we ask ourselves.

Humans, what type of animals are they?

Chapter two addresses the answer.

0003 Modern philosophy starts (more or less) when Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD) presents a sensation, as an idea and an image where the object of experience directs a construct of the mind.  Consequently, he regards humans as thinking things… or the owners of thinking things (minds)… or something like that.

In terms of Peirce’s philosophy, there are two contiguous actualities, characteristic of the category of secondness.  They are an object of experience and a construct of the mind.  The contiguity (which, for nomenclature, is placed in brackets) is “directs”.

Here is a picture of Descartes’ dyadic actuality.  In Latin, the title is “res cogitans“.

Figure 01

0005 As already noted, this hylomorphic structure is coherent with Peirce’s category of secondness.  The actuality corresponds to a sensation. Sensation exhibits a dyadic character.  Sensation is like cause [and] effect or matter [substantiating] form.

There is an implicit claim that this dyad describes the way humans think.

Plus, a superior claim (not realized until Charles Peirce (1839-1914 AD) wrote about it) may be asserted.  Humans think in terms of triadic relations, such a signs, mediations, judgments and category-based nested forms.

Say what?

See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0006 With the superior claim in mind, it is no surprise that when later philosophers build epistemologies upon Descartes’ foundation, they end up shifting Descartes’ terms out of secondness, the realm of actuality, and into thirdness, the realm of normal contexts, and firstness, the realm of possibility.  

Here is a category-based nested form that sort of captures Kant’s epistemology.

Figure 02

The normal context of the mind3 brings the actuality of an object of experience2 into relation with the potential of a particular condition1. What is that condition? The thing itself [cannot be objectified as] what one sees, hears, smells, tastes or touches.

0007 So, the experience of the five senses2 becomes an object2 as it simultaneously is contextualized by the mind3 and arises from the potential of a particular condition1.  Plus, the particular condition1 is that the object of experience cannot be the thing itself1.

It sort of like saying that my image in a mirror is not me, even though I appear to be the object of experience.

0008 Welcome to modern… philosophy?… er… science?

The Positivist’s judgment formalizes the quasi-Kantian category-based nested form by thirdly, replacing the mind3 with a positivist intellect3.  The positivist intellect3 rules out metaphysics.  Secondly, the object of experience2 is replaced by an empirio-schematic judgment2, where disciplinary language (relation) brings observations and measurements of phenomena (what is) into relation with mathematical or mechanical models (what ought to be).  Firstly, the thing itselfand what one senses1 are replaced by Latin terms, the noumenon and its phenomena1.

Here is a diagram of the Positivist’s judgment as a category-based nested form.

Figure 03

0009 The implications of the conversion of Descartes’ dyadic formula for sensation to a modern quasi-Kantian nested form for how humans think are most curious.

It seems that the construct of the mind weaves a normal context3 and potential1, sort of like a spider spinning a web in the hope of catching a flying insect.  The metaphorical flying insect, is an experience2 that immediately becomes an object2as the manifestation of the realness of the normal context3 and potential1.  Plus, the object2 is inside of the observer and the thing itself1 remains (potentially) on the outside.

Similarly, for the Positivist’s judgment, the scientist weaves the normal context of the positivist intellect3 with the potential that phenomena1 may be the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon1, then waits for observations and measurements (what is) to reveal patterns that can be modeled (what ought to be) and discussed with disciplinary precision (relation between what is and what ought to be)2.  One of the oldest adages in science says, “First, observe phenomena.  Second, explain them.”

0010 What a curious implication.

It is almost as if the construct of the mind is looking for an actuality2 that fits its ideals.  And when it does, it transforms whatever enters the realm of actuality, such as an experience2 or a measurement2, into an object2 or an empirio-schematic judgment2.

10/2/23

Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal”  (Part 22 of 22)

0172 Deely concludes with a sequel concerning the need to develop a semioethics.

The meeting of the two semiotic animals in the previous blog is a case study.

Surely, that brief clash of objective worlds entails ethics, however one defines the word, “ethics”.

Perhaps, the old word for “ethics” is “morality”.

0173 Deely publishes in 2010.

Thirteen years later, his postmodern definition of the human takes on new life.  This examination shows how far semiotics has traveled, swirling around the stasis of a Plutonic publishing world where Cerebus guards the gates.  Please throw a sop to the editors in order to publish, rather than perish.  While academics guard the way to the underworld of professional success, Deely looks down from the heavens above.

And what does he say?

Humans are semiotic animals.

0174 Okay, I have to correct myself.

I don’t know whether Deely is looking down from a heavenly perch.

Surely, many will sheepishly testify to his devilish, as well as his angelic, qualities.

As a shepherd, he is always trying to lead his rag-tag flock of semioticians, explorers and Thomists.  He gets so far as to impress upon every one in his flock the validity of his claim that humans are semiotic animals.

0175 Razie Mah takes that lesson to heart and asks, “If humans are semiotic animals, then how did they evolve?”

The resulting three masterworks are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

An Archaeology of the Fall appears in 2012, followed by an instructor’s guide.

How to Define the Word “Religion” appears in 2015, followed by ten primers.

The Human Niche appears in 2018, along with four commentaries.

As it turns out, no contemporary scientist takes Deely’s claim seriously. Yet, the implications are enormous.  If humans are semiotic animals, then triadic relations must be key to understanding human evolution.

0176 This examination of Deely’s book takes that lesson one step further.

The specifying and exemplar signs step out from Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings as expressions of premodern scholastic insight.

The interventional sign steps out from Comments on Sasha Newell’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols” and establishes a postmodern life of its own.

0177 Humans are semiotic animals and how we got here shines like a revelation.

09/29/23

Looking at Appendix 1.1 in Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “The Intersection” (Part 1 of 18)

0028 This is the second blog in a series.

 Looking at Brian Kemple’s Book (2019) “Intersection” appears in Razie Mah’s blog from May 15 through 18, 2023.  In that brief examination (points 0001-0027), a technical category-based definition of the term, “intersection” is shown to mesh with the theme of Kemple’s book, whose full title is The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue (Walter de Gruyter, Boston/Berlin).

To me, that is fascinating.

0029 In this series of blogs, I examine Kemple’s appendices.

Yes, he has more than one appendix.

Plus, there are subdivisions.

0030 Appendix 1.1 is titled, “Presentative forms and the grounding of transcendence”.  My associations will draw upon A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, as well as A Primer on Natural Signs, Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings, and Comments on Newell Sasha’s Article (2018) “The Affectiveness of Symbols”.  These primers and comments touch base with Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, which is available, along with the other mentioned e-works, at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0031 The title of Appendix 1.1 contains two technical terms.

“Presentative forms” is a term coined by Jacques Maritain and literally means a form that is substantiated by its presentation, rather than by matter.  The hylomorphe is presentation [substantiates] form, rather than matter [substantiates] form.

“The grounding of transcendence” is a phrase used by Martin Heidegger.  It conveys what the presentative form accomplishes.  The presentative form accomplishes more than matter-substantiated form, because it leads to (grounds) another form, which is located at a higher categorical level (transcendence).

Figure 01

0032 Surely, this implies that presentative forms and the grounding of transcendence coincide in a particular way.  The “matter” of the presentative form associates to the adjacent lower category of its corresponding “form”. 

Is this is a general feature of presentative forms?

Well, the claim is a good working hypothesis.