Words have ancestors, Deeds have masters. If people don't understand this, They don't understand me.

pragmatic — dictated more by practical consequences than by theory or dogma — after the Collins English Dictionary.

Taken from: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I.ii.2: 405, John Locke, 1689.

Locke's observation was also made in 350 BC by Lao Tzu: The Tao that is spoken is not Tao. And recently by Alfred Korzybski in 1931: Words are not the things they represent.

words and maps

In the paper 'A Non-Aristotlean System and its Necessity for Rigour in Mathematics and Physics', presented to the American Mathematical Society in 1931, Alfred Korzybski made two observations: 'A map is not the territory', and 'Words are not the things they represent' (here highlighted in bold; italic emphases by the author).

... A) A map may have a structure similar or dissimilar to the structure of the territory. B) Two similar structures have similar 'logical' characteristics. Thus, if in a correct map, Dresden is given as between Paris and Warsaw, a similar relationship is found in the actual territory C) A map is not the territory. D) An ideal map would contain the map of the map, the map of the map of the map., endlessly. ... We may call it self-reflexiveness. Languages share with the map the above four characteristics. A) Languages have structure, thus we may have languages of elementalist structure such as 'space' and 'time', 'observer' and 'observed', 'body' and 'soul', 'senses' and 'mind', 'intellect' and 'emotions', 'thinking' and 'feeling', 'thought' and 'intuition'., which allow verbal division or separation. Or we may have languages of a non-elementalist structure such as 'space-time', the new quantum languages, 'time binding', 'different order abstractions', 'semantic reactions'., which do not involve verbal division or separation.; also mathematical languages of 'order', 'relation', 'structure', 'function', 'variable', 'invariant', 'difference', 'addition', 'division'., which apply to 'senses' and 'mind', that is, can be 'seen' and 'thought of',. B) If we use languages of a structure non-similar to the world and our nervous system, our verbal predictions are not verified empirically, we cannot be 'rational' or adjusted,. ... ,. C) Words are not the things they represent. D) Language also has self-reflexive characteristics. We use language to speak about language, which fact introduces serious verbal and semantic difficulties solved by the theory of multiordinality. ...     Alfred Korzybski, 1931.

Aristotle and Plato wrote of signs and symbols, over two thousand years ago; signs in the world of nature, and symbols in human culture. The terms semiosis, and its study semiotics, come from the Ancient Greek, semeion — 'a sign, mark, or token'.

A thousand years after Aristotle, symbols were understood to be just a type of sign; and now, semiosis is understood as the process by which any word, object, symbol, or nonverbal cue is recognized as being a sign.

Semiosis, from the greek, semio-, meaning sign, plus suffix -sis, equivalent to -ing , literally meaning sign-action, is the recognition of noumena as having significance — as being, in some form or manner, signs.

For a being, anything can be a sign. All beings are signs and, in whatever manner, make signs; these are then recognized by others. Life and semiosis are co-extensive.

Despite these simple, ancient roots, Nazi eugenicists claimed semiotics as the scientific foundation for their xenophobic ideology; but semiosis is elementary and ubiquitous, whereas xenophobia is a mental illness.

Nazi scientists believed there was a one-to-one, fixed relationship between the biological characteristics of individuals and their emergent characteristics. But organisms are not simple biological machines. Their ontogeny and emergent qualities develop as a consequence of interactions with their environment, their biological components, including DNA, only statistically approximating physical traits and racial origins. Race is a category of convenience, not an absolute class of discrete individuals.

In classifying organisms, biology often identifies patterns that seem to indicate a common underlying characteristic when in fact they do not —and vice-versa. Science can only address the behaviour of reality, especially in regard to multicellular organisms, such as human beings, through probabilistic explanations - the inferences that are made from statistical relationships that are deduced from data that has been observed.

Reality is dynamic, every moment a new beginning, a new set of initial conditions. The infinitesimal differences between this one and that which preceded it, transforms its 'final' outcomes - as chaos theory demonstrates. The future evolves through probabilistic states; deterministic approaches have no ability to predict or define it. Our choices emerge from a system of inheritance but this system is made up of cultural as well as genetic components, between which information is exchanged via complex and diverse pathways. The Nazi's simplistic belief, that race could be an absolute measure of behaviour and preference, was merely incorrect.

Science is simple and absolute, neither human nor divine. It has no need or place for faith. Faith corrupts it.

contents of n_A1pre_Chaos.php inserted into footnote 'Chaos' in e_Preface_Footnotes.php via PHP-include, - called from e_Preface.php#infoHum and A1-Footnotes.php#A14..

chaos

Chaos refers to the apparently random states of disorder and irregularity exhibited by complex, nonlinear, dynamical systems actually governed by interconnectedness, underlying patterns, and self-organization. While these systems are deterministic, their predictability is limited as it is is impossible to completely know their actual state at any point in time and the smallest difference in this from what has been assessed leads to behaviours that diverge exponentially over time from that foecasted —a characteristic often referred to as the Butterfly Effect.

Semiosis, from the greek, semio-, meaning sign, plus suffix -sis, equivalent to -ing , literally meaning sign-action; the perception of noumena as having significance — as being, in some form or manner, signs.

Noumenon, is a Greek word meaning "that which is perceived". And it is used here in that simple sense. Although Kant was the first person to use the term as a loanword, it is therefore not used here to refer to his philosophy specifically.

Kant adopted the Greek word, noumenon, to refer to the thing-in-itself so that this underlying reality might more readily be distinguished in discussion from the recognition by an observer of it that then renders it as a sign. However, whereas Kant referred to this recognition as perception — and to the perception of the thing-in-itself as a phenomenon — here the term perception is used simply to refer to a specific step in the process of biosemiosis.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe. Rene Magritte, 1929.

It seems self-evident that the initiating individuation of any being of a eukaryotic species is its conception in the fusing of the gametes that form its zygote. But this is simply the psycho-biological reality. No socio-legal choice is dictated by it — to gift rights to an embryonic individual, for instance, which supersede and erase those of the adult that is its mother.

Early ontogeny is distinguished by its relentless and inescapable force. For humans, the will and recognition of the individual dominates later development. While in the former the focus is purely experience, in the latter it is to improve the individual's status and performance.

As a placeholder for this diagram, I posted a photograph of an initial hand-drawn sketch and noticed the Post-It note in it. Although referring to another task, it seemed prescient, pointing out that my diagram is an echo of the schema of biosemiosis published over one hundred years ago by Jakob von Uexkull and that I should acknowledge this — particularly as his work was subsequently so violently embraced by the Nazis, and by their 'scientists'.

Meta-expression need not have a fixed, one-to-one correlation with its underlying biological constructs. In simpler beings, for instance, experience and perception, and meaning and expression, may be represented by two biochemical processes, or by one. Additionally, for instance in animals, perception, and meaning may be fluidly sited rather than fixed.

Inheritance here refers to cultural as well as ancestral information or knowledge.

Hormone, from the Greek, hormon, meaning 'that which sets in motion'.

from the Greek, akrasia, meaning 'loss of free will'.

See for example, A Slimy Start for Immunity?, Science, 2007, Vol 317, Issue 5838, p. 584, DOI: 10.1126/science.317.5838.584

from: Reconstructing Immune Phylogeny: New Perspectives, (authors' manuscript), Gary W. Litman, John P. Cannon, and Larry J. Dishaw, in Nat Rev Immunol., available 17 Jun 2013 in PubMed Central at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine.

see, for example:

Chimpanzees apply 'medicine' to each others, CNN, 2022.

Many species, one health., PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 10 Feb. 2015.

Embodied cognition: dimensions, domains and applications, Mirko Farina, 2020.

footnotes of n_Einstein_Translation.php included in entryNote.php, e_Einstein_HumanDelusion.php, and e_personalMeta.php.

my translation

Ein Mensch ist ein räumlich und zeitlich beschränktes Stück des Ganzen, was wir „Universum“ nennen. Er erlebt sich und sein Fühlen als abgetrennt gegenüber dem Rest, eine optische Täuschung seines Bewusstseins. Das Streben nach Befreiung von dieser Täuschung ist der einzige Gegenstand wirklicher Religion. Nicht das Nähren der Illusion sondern nur ihre Überwindung gibt uns das erreichbare Maß inneren Friedens.    Albert Einstein, 1950.

Einstein wrote the above words in ink (bold emphasis added) in a note now held in the Albert Einstein Archives, Jerusalem. The translation I have made of them, and quoted from, is made in light of the translation that appears underneath them on the note and written in another hand.

There seem to me several reasons to make another translation: to reflect the gender neutrality of the German more consistently; to echo Einstein's use of both the word delusion and illusion; and to better reflect the certitude of the note's opening argument — carried in the brevity of the original German yet somehow stunted in the translation on the note itself in English.

The translation I offer here then, supported by translations by Google on 6 March 2024, is based on that written in pencil on the original note:—

Human beings are spatially and temporally limited parts of the whole that we call "universe"; yet we experience ourselves and our feelings as separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. The striving to be free of this delusion is the only object of real religion. It is not nurturing the illusion but only overcoming it which gives that measure of inner peace which is attainable.    Albert Einstein, 1950.

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of pure religion, not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.

This translation, in pencil on the original note, became the text of the condolence letter sent from Einstein to Dr. Marcus on 12 February 1950. The first two sentences of it were then used to open the letter of condolence sent on the 4 March 1950 to Norman Salt.

delusions and illusions

Einstein spoke the refined German of the Bildungsbürgertum, a language characterized by its precision. It might the be reasonable to assume, as an inspection of Einstein's note also suggests, that his use of the word Täuschung (delusion) twice and Illusion once, was considered not careless.

 The German word Täuschung in the original note, meaning 'delusion'.

Etymologically the word delusion implies an action, a deceiving, referring here to that suffered by human beings through our consciousness, through which we perceive a deceptive appearance, the illusion of being "separated from the rest".

Technically, delusion is a belief that, though false, has been surrendered to and accepted by the whole mind as a truth; illusion is an impression that, though false, is entertained on the recommendation of the senses or the imagination. Illusion (n.), developed in Church Latin from the late 14c. onwards to mean: a "deceptive appearance".

Although I believe the translations I have found are faithful, stripped of their context quotations can lose much of their quality. Transliteration of punctuation, for instance, can result in an English that makes their authors sound coarse or uneducated; and 'grammatical transliterations' may substitute gender bias for the gender neutrality of an original.

Where I have edited translations it has been only in order to address issues of punctuation, prosody, and inference that I felt detracted from the content of the originals. The edits have been made with due diligence and, although I am not a professional translator or writer, I believe they are both faithful, and required to make the fluency, erudition, and sensibility of the originals explicit. Original texts are provided for readers to draw their own conclusions.

Footnote {delusion01a} of n_Einstein_Translation.php.

..as free-spirited and anti-bourgeois as Einstein may have appeared to be all his life, his language remained the refined German of the Bildungsbürgertum of his time, a language he mastered with virtuosity.

We recognize what we see, this is our perception, inherited then learnt from experience. We see what we expect to see, accordingly constructing and integrating the data that our eyes, and other senses are capable of recording.

Beings, here includes those that are unicellular (e.g. bacteria, archaea, and some algae); and those that are both unicellular and multicellular (e.g. slime molds) as well as those that are multicellular and, therefore, societies —cellular metasystems (e.g. humans, ants, jellyfish).

Bioemiosis proceeds through recognition — through current sense-data that a being perceives then being recognized by it; as being the same as, or belonging to the same class as, something the being has sensed or perceived before. This then is a recursive process, its first iteration (or 'base case') generating meaning by matching current sense-data and perceptions to those that have previously been recognized, recorded, embodied, and inherited.

Here embodiment refers to the biophysical expression of semiosis and to the semiosis that biophysical expression represents; and embodied cognition is then simply a description of biosemiosis.

A language is a system of arbitrary signals used to communicate information. To communicate, is to convey information through a system of arbitrary signals. Semantic means of or relating to meaning. Meaning refers to the sense or reference of an expression. To recognize, is to know something as the same as, or belonging to the same class as, something known before.

Hydrozoa show great diversity of lifestyle; some species maintain the polyp form for their entire life and do not form medusae at all Polyps of some species propagate vegetatively, forming colonies.. polymorphism occurs in colonies of some species of hydrozoans and anthozoans, the polyps being specialized for functions such as feeding, defense, and sexual reproduction.

Anthropocentrism is the belief that the human species is the central fact and final aim of a universe that should be understood therefore in terms of human experience, needs, and values.

scientism

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.    Albert Einstein.

Science is an elementary practice. Scientism is a belief. Eugenics and the Holocaust are among the brutal consequences and stark reminders of not recognizing this distinction..

We recognize what we see, this is our perception, inherited then learnt from experience. We see what we expect to see, accordingly constructing and integrating the data that our eyes, and other senses are capable of recording.

Beings, here includes those that are unicellular (e.g. bacteria, archaea, and some algae); and those that are both unicellular and multicellular (e.g. slime molds) as well as those that are multicellular and, therefore, societies —cellular metasystems (e.g. humans, ants, jellyfish).

Bioemiosis proceeds through recognition — through current sense-data that a being perceives then being recognized by it; as being the same as, or belonging to the same class as, something the being has sensed or perceived before. This then is a recursive process, its first iteration (or 'base case') generating meaning by matching current sense-data and perceptions to those that have previously been recognized, recorded, embodied, and inherited.

Here embodiment refers to the biophysical expression of semiosis and to the semiosis that biophysical expression represents; and embodied cognition is then simply a description of biosemiosis.

A language is a system of arbitrary signals used to communicate information. To communicate, is to convey information through a system of arbitrary signals. Semantic means of or relating to meaning. Meaning refers to the sense or reference of an expression. To recognize, is to know something as the same as, or belonging to the same class as, something known before.

Hydrozoa show great diversity of lifestyle; some species maintain the polyp form for their entire life and do not form medusae at all Polyps of some species propagate vegetatively, forming colonies.. polymorphism occurs in colonies of some species of hydrozoans and anthozoans, the polyps being specialized for functions such as feeding, defense, and sexual reproduction.

Anthropocentrism is the belief that the human species is the central fact and final aim of a universe that should be understood therefore in terms of human experience, needs, and values.

scientism

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.    Albert Einstein.

Science is an elementary practice. Scientism is a belief. Eugenics and the Holocaust are among the brutal consequences and stark reminders of not recognizing this distinction..