1181 What about hominins?

Here is my picture of the same comparison for human ancestors.

1182 I see alterations in the second nested form.

1183 In the category of firstness, I see ‘cognition and culture’ instead of only ‘cognition’.  What does this imply?  The social circles that (as British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, notes) seem to constellate in factors of three (family 5, intimate friends 5, team 15, band 50, community 150, mega-band 500, tribe 1500) are being selected for.  Natural selection operates on both individuals and social circles.

1184 In the category of secondness, the convergent driver of hominin evolution includes interventional sign-relationsand the divergent driver is the same as for animal adaptive behaviors₃.

From prior examinations, I know that the biosemiotic noumenal overlay, the thing that is common for all biological processes, consists of semiotic agency and the interventional sign-relation.  If that is so, then interventional sign relations construct semiotic agency for the animals, too.  Only, for animals, the construction is not as obvious as for humans.

1185 In the category of thirdness, the question arises, “Why is the normal context of human adaptive behaviors₃ not the same as animal adaptive behaviors₃?”

Hominins somehow take advantage of (not through cognition, per se, but through the evolution of human cognition) the opportunities (and dangers) afforded by the actuality of the interventional sign-relation as a purely relational structure.

Animals take advantage of interventional sign-relations as practical relational structures.

1186 Here is the comparison.

1187 Now, many theorists of evolution will substitute material-sounding terms for interventional sign-relations, such as “cooperation”, “culture”, “niche construction” and so on.  But, these terms only show how crucial biosemiotics is for inquiry into mammalian (especially human) evolution.

1188 All biological process have the biosemiotic noumenal overlay in common.

Semiotic agency passes from a real initiating event_2a (SV_s) to information_2b (SO_s [referent^b] SV_e) to goal_2c (SO_e).

Then, there is a bridge to the interventional sign-relation within the goal_2c, when action is taken as if the goal is attainable.  The dyad for goal_2c is {SO_e [concept^c] SV_i}_2c.

1189 The SV_i stands for the SO_i in regards to the SI_i.

When this nested form is reified (brought from thirdness into secondness), the SI_i serves as the contiguity between two real elements, the SV_i as matter and the SO_i as form. 

This is precisely the reification of the interventional sign-relation located in the biosemiotic noumenal overlay.

Note the dotted gray circle.  That is the topic at hand.

I ask, “Does the interventional sign-relation “construct” semiotic agency?”

1190 The SI_i stands at the heart of the interventional sign-relation.  On the content-level, it sounds like this.  The normal context of what is happening_3a operates on the potential of ‘something’ happening’_1a.  Now, imagine [SI_i] as a [substance] in the biosemiotic noumenal overlay.

For animals, the dyad is {address environmental (and ecological) opportunities and challenges_2c (SV_i) [what is happening_3a: possibility of ‘something’ happening_1a (SI_i)] a sign-element that bridges to semiotic agency_2a (SO_i)}. 

1191 So, does the environment or the ecology [construct] the semiotic agent?

Hmmm.  How about an distraction?

There is still the concept^c, such as the contiguity between “spiders have venom and they bite” (the goal_2c of avoiding bites, SO_e) and an actual spider on one’s leg (the present danger, SV_i, that will engage the agent’s attention).  This version of Frege’s corner 2c bridges from semiotic agency to the interventional sign-relation.

Notice that the spider is an agent and so is the hominin.

1192 Once the concept^c is in play, another substance, [SI_i] enters the picture and labels (more or less) what is happening_3a in regards to the possibility of ‘something’ happening_1a.  Here, a spider on the thigh (SV_i) stands for my intention to not let it bite me (or is it the spider’s intention to bite me?) (SO_i) in regards to my intervention (as opposed to the spider’s) (SI_i).

1193 Now, this is where a dramatic and a literary choice needs to be made.  Do I depict what happens next as another round of semiotic agency or do I say, “Go ahead and act out your interventional sign, because that is the way that nature rolls.”?

Maybe, I can ask Daisy.

1194 Here is a picture of what I am talking about.

1195 What about rhetoric?

The spoken word, “cognition”, would say, “Go another round.”

The spoken words, “innate response”, would say, “Finish the job.”

1196 The biosemiotician has more than one way to depict the interventional sign-relation.

1197 The dyadic actuality of the biosemiotic noumenal overlay is good for empirio-schematic research.

If I ask, “What gives rise to phenomena and what needs to be modeled?”, then the answers are fairly obvious.

The spider on thigh and who intends what? gives rise to phenomena.

[What is happening and the potential of something happening] needs to be modeled.

1198 Frege’s triangle offers another way to engage in biosemiotic inquiry.  This triangle portrays reified sign-relations, just like the biosemiotic noumenal overlay, but in a geometric, spiral of triangles.  The architecture is like a winding staircase with three steps per whirl.

1199 What if a hominin in the social circle of a team is a semiotic agent?

There is still a concept^c, such as the contiguity between traditional use of iconic and indexal hand-talk words as a manner to convey information (SO_e) and the manual-brachial gestures, [image SPIDER][point to THIGH][facial expression of DISTRESS] (SV_i).

1200 Surely, the goal_2c of the signer is to issue a warning.

The hand-talk statement_2c (SV_i) stands for a warning_2a (SO_i) in regards to a normal context that is similar to what is happening_3a operating on the potential of ‘something’ happening_1a (SI_i).

1201 Next there is a contiguity between SO_i (as matter) and SV_s (as form).  Frege’s label, [symbol^a], corresponds to the [substance] of the dyadic actuality on the content level.

When the signer makes the hand-talk statement, all the members of the team can see it.  But, the signer offers an additional clue.  The signer is looking at one particular team member.  And, this team member has a spider on his thigh.

At the time of the statement, everyone on the team engages in an ongoing activity.  Say, shaking ripened fruit from a tree.  So, the warning is not exactly in line with the task at hand.

1202 Nevertheless, each member of the team is a symbol (a sign whose object is based on convention) simply because each member is different from any other member of a team.  The team is the system of a system of differences or the order of a symbolic order.  The team is the convention, so to speak.

So, the comment comes from an elder who is more aware that spiders can appear during this particular collaborative activity.  Perhaps, I can say that the elder stands for someone who is aware of the safety of others.  But, there is no hand-talk gesture word that images or points to the explicit abstraction of “safety”.

1203 Nevertheless, the protolinguistic hand-talk of hominins living between the start of bipedality and the domestication of fire (3.5-0.8Myr) has hidden symbolic operations working beneath the obvious iconic and indexal manual-brachial word-gestures.  The manner in which a spider is pantomimed in [image SPIDER] varies, but only one particular gesture becomes habitual, that is, conventional.  The way that the signer has eye contact with the signee when he signs [image SPIDER] then [point to thigh] has all the hallmarks of grammar.  It is a symbolic operation.  Finally, [facial expression of DISTRESS] may be on its way to being stylized, but at the moment, forget convention!

The goal_2c is to warn.

1204 In section 18.4, titled “Anchors of Meaning: External Semiotic Representation and the Disembodiment of the Mind”, explores the interventional sign-relation, without knowing what the interventional sign-relation is.  

Instead, the author frames a discussion in terms of current research into cognitive niches.

An external representation (such as a word-gesture in hand talk) can be accessed and modified in different cognitive niches (such as different teams within a band of Homo erectus) because the hand-talk word is anchored as an icon or index of a referent.

In this way, hominins extend their “minds” into the Umwelt and turn it into a Lebenswelt of hand-talk words.

1205 The author labels the use of hand talk words by teams in obligative collaborative foraging, “abduction manipulation”.

The label is as funny as it is true.

If [symbol^a] images [concept^c], then every interventional sign-relation asks, “Guess what I’m thinking?”

That question is pure abduction manipulation.

1206 For an example, in Figure 18.3, the author offers a diagrammatic representation that calls to mind Aristotle’s demonstration of how the geometry of triangles may be intuitively abstracted.

Even the slaves of ancient Greece can follow the diagram.

Compare that to the following presentation of Frege’s triangle.

The two triangles are not so different.  Both manipulate abduction.

1207 The last half of section 18.4 discusses the disembodiment of the mind.

Semiotic agency (purple lines) embodies the mind.

The interventional sign-relation (orange line) is like a mind, disembodied.

Along those lines, there are some late moderns who assert that our current Lebenswelt is a simulation.

I wonder, “Are they communing with the orange line?”

1208 Speaking of communing with orange lions, the author offers a work of Paleolithic art dating to around thirty-thousand years ago.  It is orange.  But, that is not the salient feature.  It’s shape is half-man (bottom portion) and half-lion (top portion).

1209 I wonder, what is the story behind the lion-man Paleolithic artifact?

The Upper Paleolithic of Europe begins after humans evolved (around 200,000 years ago).  The continuity between 200,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago is strong, but advances in tool-use, resilience to different ecologies, and creativity in spiritual awareness are remarkable.  Spiritual awareness?   It’s just another term for “disembodied mind”.  That lion-man, carved from ivory and stained orange from years of resting in soil, embodies a “disembodied mind”.

1210 That means that the lion-man is an agent, capable of semiotic agency, and its owner is an agent, capable of semiotic agency. 

So, what is the owner up to?

1211 Well, I need to go back more than 170,000 years before the 30,000 year old artifact to explain.

After the domestication of fire, starting 800,000 years ago, hand-talk, once confined to the social circle of teams, becomes an activity in its own right, as cooking becomes more communal (one fire, one cookout per band) and shooting the breeze after a nice meal becomes routine.  Hand-talk adapts and becomes linguistic.

Linguistic hand-talk offers an opportunity not available to proto-linguistic hand-talk.  One can make grammatically correct counter-intuitive statements.  Even though every gesture-word is sensible, because it pictures or points to its referent, when combined to make a grammatically correct statement, a new type of mental construction (or “cognitive space”) becomes possible. 

See the chapter of meaning in How to Define the Word “Religion”, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

1212 The figure of lion-man precisely captures the counter-intuitive nature of nonsensical hand-talk statements.  The lion part pictures a lion.  The human part pictures a human.  Each part is perfectly referential.  But, the artifact makes no sense at all.

1213 Soon after the the domestication of fire, the Neanderthals and Denisovans speciate as hominins practicing fully linguistic hand-talk.  They are not the only hominins that thrive on the fact that the cognitive spaces opened by fully linguistic hand talk are good at organizing all social circles, including very large social circles such as the community (150), the mega-band (500) and the tribe (1500).

These larger social circles cannot gather for long, because large meetings are opportunities for disease.  So, they develop cultural practices that are useful for rapid recognition and social synchronization.  One of these practices is singing.  Singing is a powerful semiotic tool for both recognition and synchronization.  Sexual selection for better singing follows.  The vocal tract comes under voluntary neural control.

1214. Then, a little over 200,000 years ago, the voice is added to hand talk (as an adornment) with the speciation of Homo sapiens.  Hand-speech talk is born, along with the semiotics of adornment.  The Paleolithic period that followsslowly discovers what adornment can do.  And, equally slowly, the speech aspect of hand-speech talk takes on a life of its own.

Around 50,000 years ago, humans migrate into ice-age Europe.  They occasionally breed with Neanderthals.  How can this happen?  Humans are still predominately practicing hand talk.  Their speech is an adornment.

By 30,000 years ago, humans have not bred with Neanderthals for thousands of years, even though many carry Neanderthal genes.  Why?  Perhaps, the occasional presence of the hand-talking Neanderthals inspire the humans to speak more, to cultivate their vocal adornments by exploring the semiotic capacity of speech in the milieu of hand talk.  The Neanderthals cannot speak.  They can try to imitate what the humans are doing.  But, their vocal tracts are not under the same degree of voluntary control.

Hmmm.  Extinction looms.

See Comments on David Reich’s Book (2018) Who We Are and How We Got Here, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

1215 The Upper Paleolithic lion-man is fashioned as an artifact, an agent, with a mind.  Obviously, a piece of ivory does not have a mind, so the modern scientist must call what the lion-man exhibits, “a disembodied mind”.

1230 Now, back to evolution.

May I use the same technique for my examination of evolution?

May I pass from thirdness (M) to secondness (N), then add a twist (O)?

1231 I start with neodarwinism as an intersection (M).  The single actuality₂ may be individual₂, species₂ or genus₂.

The intersection consists two triadic relations, even though the single actuality₂ um.. belongs to secondness.

Here is a picture.

1232 Yes, adaptation_2H is not the same as phenotype_2V.

Not only that, each actuality_2b belongs to a situation-level nested form.

Here is the two-level interscope for adaptation_2H.

1233 In previous examinations, the term, “niche” is a point of contention.  Does the term have a clear technical definition?  Or does “niche” suggest “whatever adaptations are adapting to”?

Surely, a technical definition is implied by the above figure.

A niche_1b is the potential_1b of an actuality of the adapting species_2a.

1234 This introduces another point of contention.

Does the niche have to consist of purely material conditions, whether environmental or ecological?  The answer is no, even though, for almost all species, the niche is the potential of ‘something’ in the environment or the ecology.  The most obvious exception is our own genus, the Homo genus, whose niche is the potential of triadic relations.

Triadic relations are immaterial beings that entangle the material world.  So, a scientist, working under the presumption of the positivist intellect (metaphysics is not allowed), has a difficult time because observations and measurements follow only the entangled material world, rather than the significant observable and measurable facets of the thing itself.

The biosemiotic noumenal overlay changes the game in that respect.  Phenomena consist of sign-vehicles and sign-objects that would be rejected by the modern positivist intellect because they are imbued with formal and final causalities.

1235 As for the potential of triadic relations, consider the e-book, The Human Niche (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

1236 Here is two-level interscope for phenotype_2V.

1237 Hmmm, what is going on with the genotype_1b?

Like “niche_1b“, “genotype_1b” labels a potential: the potential_1b of DNA_2a.  The cellular apparatus for translating DNA into proteins is a complicated arrangement.  Nevertheless, scientists currently have a fairly coherent story for how a DNA world supports a RNA world and a RNA world translates into a protein world.  The phenotype_2b manifests in the protein world.  Proteins get cellular processes done.

1238 Natural historians say, “Consider the adaptation_2H.”

Geneticists say, “Consider the phenotype_2V.”

The two-level interscopes of adaptation_2b and of phenotype_2b have one thing in common.

Both express all the elements of the specifying sign-relation. 

1239 For the natural historian, an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a (SV_s) stands for an adaptation_2b(SO_s) in regards to natural selection_3b operating on a niche_1b (SI_s).

For the geneticist, DNA_2a (SV_s) stands for a phenotype_2b (SO_s) in regards to body development_3b operating on the genotype_1b (SI_s).

1240 Now, I wonder whether I can repeat the same trick as the one performed at the very start of Semiotic Agency (N).

1241 The above figure expresses two styles of triadic relations, the specifying sign-relation and the two-level interscope.  There are two real elements, the content- and situation-level actualities, and they look like a dyad.  The situation level holds one real element, which I associate to matter (or esse_ce, being [substantiating]).  The content level holds the other real element, which I associate to form (or essence, [substantiated] being}.

1242 Why the associations?

That is how the actualities appear in the above figure.

Content-level form (SV_s) stands for situation-level matter (SO_s).  This is like the appearance of a shape (SV_s) standing for the presence of matter (SO_s) in regards to a situation-level normal context_3b operating on the possibility of ‘situating content’_1b (SI_s).  Or, this is like a sensation_2a (SV_s) standing for a perception_2b (SO_s) in the normal context of what it_2ameans to me_3b operating on the potential_1b of situating content_2a (SI_s).

1243 What else do I see?

I see the situation-level normal context_3b and its potential_1b folding into the contiguity between matter (SO_s) and form(SV_s).

Here is a picture.

Surely, this diagram associates to the S&T noumenal overlay, but separately for adaptation_2b and phenotype_2b.

1244 Adaptation_2b looks like information_2b.

1245 Phenotype also looks like information_2b.

1246 Both these figures represent incomplete pictures of semiotic agency, because there are no exemplar sign-relations.

Both tell me how incomplete neodarwinism is, as a model for biological systems.

Natural historians may be satisfied with the way that darwinism fits.

Geneticists may be satisfied with the way that the “neo” of neodarwinism fits.

1247 Why don’t most biologists want to talk about “niche” or “genotype”?

Well, the real elements, SV_s and SO_s, are obvious.

How does one model what needs to be accounted for (the contiguity, SI_s) using observations and measurements of the phenomena of the real elements (SV_s and SO_s)?

Well, natural historians and geneticists are doing research everyday.  They encounter this issue. But, they do not have a complete image of semiotic agency that directs the inquirer.

They do not have an exemplar sign-relation.

1248 Why is this lack of exemplar sign-relation salient_3c((1c))?

Section 3.1 of chapter 3 of Semiotic Agency says that the human individual has three major components: a body (J), cognition (K) and a niche (L).

1249 What does that (J, K, L) tell me?

1250 Take a look at Figure 3.1, which portrays each component in a cut and paste manner.

1251 Surely, the human body (J) corresponds to phenotype_2b as the sign object of a specifying relation.

In section 3.2, the author discusses the human body (J) in terms of subagency.

That is fine, because subagency models [body development_3b operating on the genotype_1a].  Current research in a variety of disciplines related to genetics is relevant.

1252 The niche (L) corresponds to adaptation_2b as the sign-object of a specifying sign-relation.

In section 3.4, the author says that the human niche (L) includes the environment (as well as ecology), human artifacts, semiotic factors (such as information and communication) and social conditions.

Yes, but what about triadic relations?

1253 The author goes on to wrestle with different approaches to the term, “niche”.  Each approach tries to model [natural selection_3b operating on the potential_1b of an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a].  But, no approach identifies the one actuality_2a that accounts for convergent evolution among all hominin species.

Yes, I am talking about triadic relations.

See The Human Niche, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

1254 The author raises the idea of a “cognitive niche”, which brings me to cognition (K).

Section 3.3 discusses human cognition (K) in terms of subagents.

1255 There are mental modules devoted to sensation, perception, memory, integration and action.  They are heterogeneous.  They may be called “cognits” because they knit cogs.  Surely, mental modules and “cognits” are neural… I mean… cognitive adaptations.  Several chapters in Semiotic Agency are devoted to these topics.

Section 3.5 covers periods of human life in terms of age-related phenotype_3V (J), adaptation_2H (L) and cognition (K).  This section rounds off the idea that the human has three components.

1256 Cognition (K) corresponds to the union of both phenotype_2H (J) and adaptation_2V (L) when it comes to human agency.

And, that is very curious.

1257 The issue of the salience_3c((1c)) of the exemplar sign-relation is not raised.

Why is this issue important to me?

Do I see an opportunity?

1258 I see that a living being is an intersection between adaptation_2H and phenotype_2V.

I also notice that, when placed into the purely relational structure of semiotic agency, the specifying sign-relation for both adaptation_2b and phenotype_2b lack exemplar sign-relations.

1259 So, I wonder, does the intersection of neodarwinism provide complementary exemplar sign relations for the specifying sign-relations of natural history and genetics?