Lascaux 10
– life and
language / © 2015
appendix 2016
Franz Gnaedinger
semantic leaps, ten messages: Cyclops / Argos Eye / soul and
vision / Zeus pataer / Athene
/ English fur / verbal morphospace / "stasis is
data" / dingua lingua / Welle
and Woge, purse and bag, word and voice
life and language, hunches and ideas from half a century: harvesting ideas / energy flow, rippling
space-time / religion paved the way for science / genes body mind / realm of
words / verbal equations held together by recursion / overlapping words /
solving the cultural equation
Europa (November 16-20,
2015)
semantic
leaps
(Cyclops)
Remember the formula of the conditio humana, AD TOR OC CO
Mycenaean atoroqo Greek anthropos
'human being' - toward AD bull in motion TOR right eye OC attentive mind CO,
toward the bull in motion with open eyes and focused mind, facing the bull,
taking him by the horns, coping with fate ...
While the glottal stop OC CO -oqo turned into a labial one, -opos,
the formula of the human condition became a word for the human being, anthropos.
A double formula named Europa,
originally a Syrian personification of astronomy, OIR OC CO Europa AIR OC CO
Europa - watching the place on the horizon where the moon should rise OIR with
open eyes OC and focused mind CO, and raising the arms in joy AIR when it
actually rises from the predicted place ...
OIR naming the far away place in the
east where the moon rises from accounts for Greek eurys
'wide' and Euros 'wind from the east' while OC CO turned into ops 'eye' so that
OIR OC CO became eurys-ops Europa 'the wide-glancing
one', still fairly close to the original meaning.
CO OC LOP named the organization of
a fortified settlement POL - in the middle the ruler of the attentive mind CO
surrounded by guards of the open eyes OC along the enveloping hedge or fence or
palisade or wall LOP ...
CO OC has a derivative in German
guck 'look!' going along with OC CO ops 'eye'. CO OC LOP has derivatives in kyklos 'circle' and *kwekwlos
'wheel' (consider for example the Nation of Towns in the Transural,
the circular towns evoking wheels) and in Cyclops, most famous Polyphem, Homeric symbol of Troy, his one eye the acropolis
overlooking the river plain, and his body downtown Troy VIIa
that provided protected shelter for 5,000 to 10,000 people.
A semantic leap turned CO OC LOP
into kyklos-ops kyklops
Cyclops, a giant with one single round eye in the middle of the forehead
CO OC OC
CO ops 'eye'
leaping over to and taking hold of
LOP OP ops 'eye'
(Argos Eye) tirynsas.GIF
tirynsa.JPG tirynsar.GIF
The Tiryns disc or side of the Phaistos Disc deciphered by Derk Ohlenroth can be seen as a both verbal and visual rendering
of Middle Helladic Tiryns.
A rosette marks the beginning of the
spiral text in the middle, another one the beginning of the ring text on the
margin.
The spiral covers the acropolis,
from the former Circular Building (a rosette of large blocks around the base
still extant in situ) on top of the limestone hill down to the former gate,
while the spiral text relates Zeus (in the form of Sseyr)
and shining Tiryns (emphatic Slryns) and Eponymous
Tiryns (Lord Laertes the gardener in Homer's Odyssey, lineage Zeus Arkeisios Laertes Odysseus Telemachos).
The ring covers the former palisade, while the ring text enforces the
protection the palisade provided with a banning formula of archaic power.
Moreover, the Tiryns disc offers a
perfect visualization of CO OC LOP - the ruler of the focused mind CO in the
middle, in the central field, between rosette and ear of grain (Ey in Ss Ey
R) surrounded by guards of the open eyes OC all over the acropolis,
concentrated around the gate, and placed along the enveloping palisade LOP ...
Correlation of disc and acropolis,
North at the top; in this position the head of the ruler in the middle appears
upside down; shields yellow, soldiers red ocher tirynsas.GIF
CO for the ruler of
the focused mind
OC for the guards of
the open eyes
LOP for the enveloping
palisade
The same pattern is encoded in the
shield of the Argivian soldier,
a central dot surrounded by six dots
along the circle of the rim
central
dot for the ruler of the focused mind CO
surrounding
dots for the guards of the open eyes OC
circle
for the enveloping palisade LOP
A central dot surrounded by a circle
of dots - appearing four times on the staring plaster head from Mycenae - may
have been the Argos Eye
tirynsa.JPG
The Argos Eye would have been the
emblem of a watchful union of towns in the Argolis, around Tiryns, oldest Argivian town tirynsar.GIF
We have then a fractal pattern on
three scales
large
scale - alliance of towns
middle
scale - single town
small
scale - shield
A semantic leap turned CO OC LOP
into Cyclops, a one-eyed giant, a mythological figure.
Magdalenian restored the original meaning and historical reality preserved in a
fine piece of visual language.
(soul and
vision)
SAI POL Gothic saiwala
Old English sawol sawl New
English soul compared the soul to life SAI in a well
organized settlement POL.
One aspect of this organization was
named CO OC LOP - in the middle the ruler of the focused mind CO surrounded by
guards of the open eyes OC along the enveloping hedge or fence or palisade or
wall LOP ...
This organization has a parallel in
vision: in the middle the central 'ray of vision' accompanied by the mobile
attention, surrounded by the field of vigilant attention noticing movements
along the margin of the vision field. (Latin video 'I see' derives from PAD for
the activity of feet - rays of vision going out from the eyes, exploring the
world, and bringing home what they find. Vita 'life' has the same origin:
living beings walk around, on their feet.)
Semantic leaps block the view for
the comparative method, while Magdalenian gets behind them and explores the
sense captured for example in the name of Cyclops which tells us that building
towns and organizing them well was a great achievement occupying the mind,
generating metaphors, and leaving deep impressions in the long lasting semantic
memory.
(Zeus pataer)
A double formula named the supreme
sky and weather god of the Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age
ShA
PAD TYR AS CA
DhAG
PAD TYR AS CA
ShA
for the ruler
PAD for the activity
of feet
TYR for the one who
overcomes
in the double sense of rule and give
AS for upward
CA for sky
DhAG
for able
The ruler ShA
goes ahead PAD and overcomes in the double sense of rule and give TYR up above
AS in the sky CA, the able one DhAG ... (repetition)
Among the derivatives are ShA PAD TYR Jupitter Jupiter Jovis Giove, DhAG
PAD TYR Dis pater, byname of Jupiter; TYR emphatic Middle Helladic Sseyr (Phaistos Disc, Derk Ohlenroth) Doric Sseus (Wilhelm Larfeld) Homeric
Zeus, DhAG Dios, genitive of Zeus; ShA CA DhAG CA Jahweh, rider of clouds, a storm and fertility god from
Mount Seir (!) in the Negev; ShA
PAD Shiva, and TYR CA Durga, an emanation of Shiva's wife ...
ShA PAD TYR AS CA named Giubiasco near Bellinzona in
southern Switzerland where the lovely Italian landscape of Lake Locarno goes
over into the grim scenery of the Swiss Alps, and where traders heading for the
mountains implored good weather from the sky god, while those who came from the
north and successfully traversed the alpine barrier thanked for the good
weather and the luck they had in their daring enterprise.
DhAG PAD TYR became Latin Dis pater,
byname of Jupiter, Illyrian Dei-patrous, Greek Zeus pataer, and Sanskrit dyaus pita.
In the case of the Greek form we have a semantic annexation
DhAG Dis Dei dyaus
leaping over to and taking hold of
TYR Sseyr Sseus Zeus
(Athene)
DhAG in the form of *dyeus
took over TYR Sseyr Sseus Zeus,
making the overcomer who both rules and gives TYR an able one DhAG.
Athene sprang from the head of Zeus. Homer
calls her thygater Dios 'daughter of Zeus' (Dios a
form of DhAG) already in the opening paragraph of the
Odyssey, book 1 line 10. Proto-Indo-European has *dhyg(h)ter
'daughter' going back to Magdalenian DhAG TYR for an
able overcomer.
Mythology was flexible. A mother
could become a daughter. This might have been the case with Athene
who might originally have been an emanation of the goddess of life, and then,
more specifically, the goddess of life spreading in ever more settlements along
rivers and trading routes flowing or leading toward AD one place while coming
from DA another place,
AD DA NAI Athaenae
Athene, toward AD from DA to find a good place for a
new camp NAI - to find a good place for a new camp or settlement or town on a
river or a trading route that flows or leads toward one place while coming from
another place ...
AD DA NAI Athaenae
Athene was a NAI AD DA naiad, Greek naiax genitive naiadaes, the
naiads having been water nymphs presiding over rivers and springs
flowing
water
spreading
towns
multiplying
life
AD DA NAI Athaenae
Athene protected AD DA SAI Odysseus, life SAI on a
river that flows toward AD the sea while coming from DA hills or mountains,
rivers rising and getting 'angry' when their course is being blocked, whence
Greek odyzomai 'to be angry'. Athene
protecting Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey personifies history
as the way life will take.
(English fur)
BIR meaning fur named the bear as
the furry one, also the boar, and via the emphatic doubling BIR BIR the Proto-Indo-European squirrel *werwer. Bern, the Swiss capital, is named for
the bear. Cats in the Canton of Bern are called Bora. And
bigger furry dogs Barry.
BIR accounts for Latin pella German Fell Pelz English pelt, naming felines for their pella Fell, also they furry ones, for example the cat felis. Pella shifted further to wool and weave. BIR MAN,
she working on fur BIR with her right hand MAN, became something like weave-man
then woman. (This etymology is confirmed by a Magdalenian
site on the Seine where men worked on tools and women on fur.)
BIR has derivatives in Greek byrsa 'hide, fur, leather' and English purse, maybe also in
abstract words like for, the content of a fur bag being destined for someone,
and fair, the content of the fur bags being shared in a fair manner.
BIR accounts for the six
Proto-Indo-European homonyms *bher-
*bher- 'brown' most fur is brown
*bher- 'weave, twine' explained above
*bher- seeth, bubble;
roast' cooking in a pit lined
with fur,
the hairy side outward, the leathery side inward, filled
with water,
hot stones from the fireplace rolled in, making the water
boil;
in
the case of 'roast' BIR *bher- took over PIR meaning
fire
*bher- 'strike (through), split, crack' killing and cutting up
a (furry) animal so that it can be cooked or roasted
*bher- 'carry' to carry or bear the prey, or a
fur bag filled with
various goods, also herbs and berries
*bher- '+- cure with spells and/or herbs' healing with magic furs,
also rubbing a paste of herbs and fat on a patient with a
fever
and wrapping him or her in warming furs, murmuring spells
(My fist Magdalenian test case dates
from August 2008, bear as the furry one versus bear as the brown one.)
Now for English fur, case of an
oscillation within what I call the verbal morphospace,
achieved via a semantic leap and adoption.
When BIR spread out in ever more
derivatives also of the second and third degree, and shifted to pella Fell Pelz pelt wool and
weave, the original word persisted on a deep (unconscious) level of the
semantic memory, waiting to take over a suitable word. This chance occurred
when Proto-Germanic *Fodra turned via Frankish into
French fourrer 'line with fur'
BIR meaning fur
leaping over to and adopting
*Fodra ... fourrer
'line with fur'
(verbal morphospace)
Here again the four laws of
Magdalenian, the first pair from the spring of 2005, and the second pair from
the spring of 2006
inverse
forms have related meanings
permutations
yield words around the same meme
D-words have
comparative forms in S-words
important
words can have lateral associations
Using my laws I mined a good
four-hundred words, pairs, groups of six and a dozen words, in one case a group
of six dozen words around DAI for protected area (tectiform
signs in cave art) and the comparative form SAI for life, existence (dots in
cave art, especially red ocher ones).
How does on get from a Magdalenian
word or compound to a related word in a recent language? Use the physiology of
speaking, pronounce a word or compound silently, going through all the motions
(not just moving the lips as in mouthing) but without giving voice. If you do
it normally, giving voice, the word or compound remains stable. But if you do
it silently, without giving voice, not even murmuring, the word or compound
begins to shift, and if you can reach the recent word you have in mind easily,
there is a good chance that the Magdalenian and recent forms are correlated.
From this experiment, which guided
my reconstructions for meanwhile a decade, I conclude that phonology and
semantic memory are somehow connected and work together in keeping word
language stable, fixing words within what I call the verbal morphospace
(a loan from evolutionary biology), turning inevitable phonetic shifts into
oscillations and thus maintaining a long lasting stasis (another loan from
evolutionary biology).
A word can even sink down to an
unconscious level of the semantic memory, then leap over to another word that
came close in a shifted form, adopt it, and thus return to the surface - an
ultimate oscillations demonstrated in the case of BIR and English fur.
The comparative method proceeds
backward in time, whereas Magdalenian, relying on cave art and rock art and
mobile art, makes an educated guess about a remote past and then proceeds
forward in time, switching the temporal perspective, revealing new aspects of
language, and replacing the linear determinism of alledged
sound laws from the mechanical era by a complex dynamic on a par with evolution
and development (evo devo)
in biology.
("stasis
is data")
Individuals differ from each other,
and vary from generation to generation, while species can remain stable for
very long periods of time. This phenomenon is called stasis and was the main
concern of Stephen Jay Gould- "stasis is data" (see his book on The
Structure of Evolutionary Theory).
Also words vary. The constable of Bozeat, Northamptonshire,
England, spelled the words jail and hospital as follows in around 1700: Gel and
Aspitol, Jeal and Quartridge, Jail and Hospittle, Gayll and Ostetall, Gele and Asptol, Jayl and Aspetell. Considering
such a range of spellings we can only be astonished about how stable words
commonly are. I explain it via oscillations, however these are achieved.
Oscillations may also be a useful
term in the case of biological stasis.
Remember the example of an ultimate
oscillation
BIR meaning fur
sinking down to an unconscious level of the semantic memory
then leaping over to and adopting
*Fodra ... fourrer 'line
with fur'
and resurfacing in the form of English fur
fairly close to the original BIR
Could such a thing also happen in
biology? We have a horizontal gene transfer via bacteria (and maybe also
viruses). What if horizontal gene transfers are not passive but active events,
the genome using external sources in maintaining stasis?
(dingua
lingua)
DhAG meaning able is the Magdalenian
word of the most and most varied derivatives, among them Old Latin dingua 'language' that has a cognate in English tongue, a
word also meaning language, for example in "Spanish is the loving
tongue."
Old Latin dingua
became Latin lingua 'language' accounting for French langage
'language' and langue 'tongue'.
Pronounce dingua
and lingua repeatedly and notice what the tip of your tongue does: in the
former case it moves upward, in the latter case downward. Both words are
physiologically close, which allowed a semantic leap.
Where does the l- in lingua come
from? The origin is ) or L, in the longer form )OG or
LOG for having the say, or the one who has the say. Pronounce the smacking L
given as arc ) by curving your tongue, let the tip of
your tongue glide along the palate and smack into its wet bed. Among the
derivatives of ) and )OG are Greek logos, Hebrew El
and Elohim, Arabic Allah, and now also Latin lingua
as adoption of DhAG in the form of Old Latin dingua.
DhAG took over TYR Sseyr
Sseus Zeus, while )OG took
over DhAG dingua in lingua.
(Welle and Woge, purse and bag, word and voice)
Semantic leaps require derivatives
of different words getting very close. If they don't get close enough we just
have semantic parallels. Here you are with two or even three parallels among
derivatives of BIR and PAC.
BIR meaning fur has derivatives in byrsa pella Fell Pelz pelt wool weave, also in wave and billow, and in
German Welle 'wave' - Leonardo da Vinci compared hair
to flowing water. Further derivatives of BIR are purse and burden, bags made of
hide or fur or leather, Greek byrsa 'hide fur leather',
French bourse for purse.
PAC named the horse, AS PAC Avestan aspa Sanskrit asva 'horse', upward AS horse PAC, originally small
pony-like horses used for transporting loads up a hill or mountain (while AC
PAS named the horse of the steppes, riding this animal you get everywhere PAS
in an expanse of land with water AC, whence *h1ekwos hippos equus
and Epona). PAC has derivatives in back and pack(animal) and bag - horses carrying fur bags on their
back, or hanging on both sides from their back. Now picture a herd of horses
running down a slope, their backs undulating like waves, German Woge for wave, a synonym of Welle
for wave.
Horses neigh,
they got a Sanskrit wak Latin vox
Italian voce French voix English voice, further
derivatives of PAC for horse and PEC for smaller animals and PIC for bird.
Latin verbum 'word' may derive from BIR in reference to a tambourine, from DAP
BIR, activity of hand DAP fur BIR, the rhythmic sound of a beaten tambourine
accompanying the words of a shaman or a shamans. Inverse BIR DAP may account
for English word. PAC wak vox
voice and BIR verbum or BIR DAP word are then a third semantic parallel
BIR PAC
Welle Woge
purse bag
wor(d)
voice
life and language
(harvesting
ideas)
My first scientific hunch dates from
1963, when I was fourteen years old. If I do a chore in a clever way I save
energy, so maybe intelligence and energy are correlated?
A schoolbook told us that animals
have neither reason nor language. This upset me. What is language? I decided to
answer this question on my own.
1974/75 was my seminal year, and the
beginning of my scientific work. Among the insights of that year (from summer
to summer) was a basic definition of language. Language is the means of getting
help, support and understanding from those we depend upon in one way or another
-- and every means of getting help, support and understanding may be called
language, on whatever level of life it occurs ... Word language mirrors the use
of ever more human made things, and life in an ever more artificial
environment, words naming things, and treating all entities as if they were
things. Our life requires not only language but a higher form of reasoning as
well, since what we are doing now can fall back on us much later, via ever wider
loops of things and people and things ... Sentences can be understood as
overlapping semantic sets, or as clusters of explicit and implicit verbal
equations.
In the 2010s followed the insertion
of intelligence and energy. Language in the basic sense of the above definition
is a basic feature of life, and may be considered the intelligence of life:
coordinated by language we achieve more with the same energy, or the same with
less energy.
Half a century of questions and studies
led me to the triangle of word language whose corners are
life
with needs and wishes
mathematics
as logic of building and maintaining
based
on the formula a = a
art
as human measure in a technical world
based
on Goethe's world formula
all
is equal, all unequal ...
I could never formulate my hunch
from 1963 in terms of physics, but it guides me insofar as I prefer intelligent
solutions. Another hunch dates from this year, 2015. What if the gargantuan
energy surplus of empty space (Cosmological Constant Problem, see for example
Lawrence Krauss, A Universe From Nothing, Free Press New York 2012) absorbs the
structure of matter, baryonic and
dark matter combined, including the potential of evolving, developing, and generating
life?
(energy flow,
rippling space-time)
When I do a chore in a clever way I
need less energy, so maybe intelligence and energy are correlated?
A partial confirmation of my hunch
from 1863 came from Eric Chaisson: "... for us,
information is a form of energy,
whether flowing, stored, or unrealized" (Eric J. Chaisson,
Cosmic Evolution, The Rise of Complexity in Nature, Harvard University Press
2001). Energy flow drives evolution on a cosmic scale, from galaxies (Milky
Way) to stars (Sun) to planets (Earth) to plants (biosphere) to animals (human
body) to brains (human cranium) to society (modern culture), from lower to
higher 'free energy rate density' (quantified by Chaisson)
in ever more complex structures – the latter, containing information,
then a form of energy.
Language fits in this picture.
Coordinated by language we achieve more with the same amount of energy, or the
same with less energy. Language is a highly structured means of guiding energy
flow in society.
Now for the
Cosmological Constant Problem (again). The energy of virtual particles in empty space
compared to the energy associated with all of matter (baryonic and dark) is too
large by a factor of about ten to the power of one-hundred-and-twenty (Lawrence
M. Krauss, A Universe From Nothing, Free Press New York 2012).
Matter has an equivalent in energy:
mass times the speed of light squared (Einstein).
What about the structure of matter
as encountered in particle physics? All structures we invent, struggle for,
build, implement, establish and maintain require energy, so why not also the
structure of matter? absorbing the energy surplus of
empty space?
Nothing moves faster than light in
space, while space itself expanded way faster during inflation. Can there be an
upper limit to that velocity? the speed of light times
ten to the power of sixty? velocity by which ripples
in space-time are spreading? possible means of
interstellar communication? (The great velocity was obtained by lifting
Einstein's energy-mass equation to a higher level,
fill in the mass of the universe and the energy of empty space.)
(religion paved
the way for science)
Matter as we know it accounts for
not even six per cent of the cosmos. Our picture of the universe might change
considerably once we understand dark matter, currently probed at the CERN, and
dark energy, still a deep mystery.
What is energy? Eric Chaisson: "The ability to do work or to produce
change; an abstract concept invented by nineteenth-century physicists to
quantify many different phenomena in Nature." So energy is an ability.
Greek energos
'active, working; energetic, forceful; effective, successful; fertile (of
land)' has a German translation in tchtig, from taugen 'to be fit, able'.
Magdalenian DhAG
means able, good in the sense of able. Among the very many derivatives are
Latin facere 'do, make' present in English effective,
also German taugen tauglich
tchtig, and fhig 'able'.
Most important among the derivatives
of DhAG are Greek theos thea Latin deus dea (incompatible in Proto-Indo-European, well compatible
in Magdalenian), Sumerian dingir announcing a deity,
and the name of the supreme Celtic god Dagda, the
good god in the sense of the able god (Barry Cunliffe),
from the emphatic doubling DhAG DhAG
able able.
Deities are able ones. Religion was
an early way of speaking about abilities including what we now call energy, and
thus paved the way for science.
Deities arose from worshipped
ancestors who persist in our gene pool, our genome, our
genes that are enablers. Religion can be seen as an extended phenotype: our
inner enablers give us an idea of what we might achieve in a lifetime, in a
century, in an aeon, with our body and beyond our body, via deities who are
personified abilities - more than we can realize, but envisioning the
impossible we reach out for what is possible.
Athene flew as owl or sea eagle, Hermes on
winged sandals. Flying was an ages old dream of mankind. We realized it by
building airplanes ... We think (derivative of DhAG)
and do (possible derivative of DhAG) and talk (pdoD) and teach (doD) and produce
(doD) plenty of things (doD)
that lend us abilities we know from divine (doD)
beings, often in their animal guises, projections of our inner enablers we call
genes or genome.
Why doesn't Richard Dawkins
recognize religion as extended phenotype? When reading his descriptions of the
'selfish genes' I was reminded of Greek deities in Homer.
(genes body
mind)
Language in the basic sense arises
when living beings or entities depend on each other. Body cells communicate by
exchanging photons, electrons, and molecules (consider language the vehicle and
communication the traffic). Genes depend on body and mind for their
replication, body and mind on the genes as enablers, the body depends on the steering
mind, and the mind on the sensory input of the body. We may then expect various
communications among them. How can mind and body talk to the genes? perhaps via epigenetics? I remember having read that a
signal reaches the epigenetic switches (turning on and off a gene) within two
minutes. Maybe placebos, meditation, a mother gently stroking the hurting knee
of her child, and some esoteric rituals can also work via epigenetics? But how
can the body talk to the genes?
Twenty years ago I got a bad medical
diagnosis, and fainted. I was a boy again, on a Sunday pleasure walk with my
family in the near forest, the sun slanting between the high slender trunks of
the fir trees, all very peaceful. Then I woke up, lying on the floor,
surrounded by nurses, the sun slanting between the slender vertical elements of
the store ... Why was I a boy in my dream? The answer came when I read The
Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, edition from 1989. Dawkins mentions a gene
that helps the young body but harms the old body, and suggests that we might
fool that gene into believing the body was still young ... Maybe my body did
just this? Listen, genes, this body is still young, a boy, practically, and has
a lot left to do, plenty ideas to work out, so please let it live ... All went
well. A doctor gave me two more years, meanwhile I survived
for twenty years, without a recidive, and make
the best of the time I am given.
Genes and body and mind belong
together. Separating the mind - as in the Human Brain Project - results in a
severe loss of complexity. Living neurons contain the DNA, electronic neurons
don't. Artificial brains can expand but not replace the human mind.
(realm of
words)
When we build a house we gather
wood, stones, clay, sand, ore, turn them into poles and beams and boards,
blocks and slabs, bricks and tiles, glass panes, metal sheets and tubes,
whereupon we assemble our building materials along the rules of the various
professions engaged in constructing a domicile. And when we speak or write we
form words that we combine to sentences along the rules of grammar, then, along
the rules of syntax and rhetoric, to a speech, or to paragraphs and chapters
and finally a book.
When we speak we shape the world in
such a way that our listener may be inclined to help and support us, comparable
to a farmer digging canals through which the water can't but flow and irrigate
his fields.
The more things we invent,
fabricate, form with our hands, own and use, the more words we need. Information
technology alone created some twenty thousand English words and terms.
Our material culture is the proper
realm of words, and life therein the realm of word language, although both go
beyond, naming elements of life and nature as if they were things, which
ultimately leads to a paradox. My car, my house, my computer, my clothes, my
body, my mind, my soul, my ego, my life - but who am I to whom belong my body,
mind, soul, ego, life? Wer bin ich dem mein Ich gehrt?
Neither all of the world - cosmos, universe, multiverse, ??
– nor our innermost are things that can be caged
in words (except, maybe, in the light of Magdalenian, where German Ding and
English thing derive from DhAG meaning able, turning
the divine universe and our living innermost into abilities).
Words go beyond their proper realm,
and so does the creative power of word language. When I say The sky is blue, I
take the sky and paint it blue, and when I say The sun rises, I take the sun
and make it rise in the mind of my listener ...
Words and word language going beyond
their proper realm indicate our increasing ability of conquering ever more
space and turning hostile places into habitable zones where life in its many
forms may thrive (invoking again Magdalenian DhAG
meaning able).
(verbal equations held together by recursion)
Sentences
are verbal equations, often conglomerates of implicit and explicit equations
held together by recursion.
I see a red ball rolling down the road
(I - am - a human being, awake, with open eyes)
I - am - seeing
I see
what I see - is - a ball
the ball I see - is - red
the red ball I see - is - rolling down the road
I see a red ball rolling down the road
A conspicuous
red blur gliding and bumping across my vision field attracts my mobile
attention and alerts my immobile but vigilant attention, my glance follows the
mobile attention, takes in the spot which is enlarged by the focusing mobile
attention, whereupon, very quickly, knowledge identifies the red spot as a
ball, a red ball rolling down the road. If cars drive on the road, and one must
expect a boy chasing his lost ball, I prepare myself to hold up the child, or
signal to a driver to slow down or stop entirely. The road being a potentially
dangerous zone heightens my attention from the beginning and makes me notice
the ball even more easily. First I see red and rolling, sensations (from sense) which I then identify as a rolling ball. Sensation first,
followed by the object. In my sentence the object comes first and is followed
by the sensation
the ball I see - is - red
If I
place the sensation first I have a case of emphasis
red - is - the ball I see
In a tv documentary on the Piraha (pee-da-HAN) a native man working on a boat explains
what he does. I don't remember it exactly, but it was along this pattern
I whittle at a piece of wood.
Thus it will fit.
I - am - whittling at a piece of wood
the piece of wood I whittle at - is - one that will
fit
While
the Piraha man makes the recursion in his mind,
English has it outspoken.
From
another tv documentary I learned that wild turkeys
emitting a call, for example a warning call, combine a deeper and a higher
modulation, the latter (if I remember correctly) indicating a situation, for
example what predator is approaching, and the former how to react
this or that situation (- is - occurring)
this or that predator (- is - approaching)
(you - are - one that may or should) react in this or
that way
I see
no principle barrier between animal language, simple word language, and
elaborate word language coping with a highly specialized life in a more and
more artificial word requiring not only many words but also a high level of
recursion holding together many verbal equations packed in a longer sentence
like this one.
(overlapping words)
Basically,
sentences are verbal equations
the sky - is - blue (sky) (be)
(blue) the blue sky
the sun - is - rising (sun)
(be) (rising) the rising sun
Their
mirror image are overlapping words, one of them a form of 'being' – is,
are, was, were, had been, will be, will have been, might be, hardly is, is not,
are not, and so on. (In the objectivated form of the
blue sky or the rising sun, 'being' is reduced to an implicit presence). The
sky is an imaginary dome overarching the land, or a painted sky in a cupola, or
the blue line at the top of a child's drawing; the sky by day or by night, on a
sunny day or a rainy day; the blue sky we know on our planet and the orange sky
on Mars. German Himmel means not only sky but also
heaven, heaven in the sense of paradise, the canopy of a Himmelbett
English tester bed, also a mood, or a value in the term blue chip for good
science or trustworthy stock. Words have sets of meaning that overlap in a
sentence.
Interestingly,
Piraha (pee-da-HAN) terms for color are actually
phrases, koobiai 'white' composed of ko 'eye' and obi 'clear' and ai
'be' (Daniel Everett), being clear or transparent for the eye.
Here we
have evidence for early words having been short, and for the building process
of longer words in the wake of Magdalenian (that can go further by reducing 'being'
to an implicit presence). Consider the formula of the human condition
visualized by a Minoan bull leaper, AD TOR OC CO Mycenaean atoroqo
Greek anthropos 'human being' – toward AD bull
in motion TOR right eye OC attentive mind CO, toward the bull with open eyes
and focused mind, facing the bull, taking him by the horns, coping with fate,
or (being) someone who copes with fate, a human being, AD TOR OC CO atoroqo anthropos.
(solving the cultural equation)
The Pirahas have no numbers. Living on the sweeping banks of
the Maici River in the Amazon rain forest, a basic
life in a quasi eternal present, from day to unchanging day, building modest
huts and boats, making arrows and bows, hunting and fishing for their daily
needs, they have no reason for counting. Their natural environment asks for
other abilities, for example discerning a snake from the foliage or branches or
stones or waves, and they excel at this sort of task. Their language mirrors
their simple life, a language of a few words but rich in prosody conveyed along
the five 'channels' (Everett) of speaking singing humming whistling shouting.
Their mind is well formed and adapted for their apparently happy life in their
given environment.
One day
Daniel Everett had been warned of something on the beach. But there was
nothing. He stared and stared but only saw white sand. Why did they warn him?
He was baffled for a long time. I imagine that this strange warning could
actually have been a friendly gesture of adopting him as a grown up 'child' and
giving him a proper education: watch out, even if there is nothing, thus you'll
gain our sharp and clear vision ...
Problem
solving is a question of matching complexities. Human cultures try to match our
life and specific natural environment. What abilities are needed? to what extent? in what balance? and which other abilities can be ignored and given up?
The
quest for artificial intelligence might inspire a new mathematical discipline
that ponders the above questions: mind forming in humans applied to machines.
In the framework of such a theory, the mind forming of the Pirahas
apparent in their language might be considered a pretty fine solution of the
cultural equation on their technological level and in their specific natural
environment. A demanding equation solved without numbers.
Europe got the best
from Ancient Syria (written November
16-20, 2015)
* Mes condolances
pour la France, pays de la libert, galit et fraternit,
aussi, dans l'ge de la pierre, des grottes Chauvet et Lascaux, bornes milliaires dans l'volution de l'esprit humain *
Magdalenian AD TOR OC CO Mycenaean atoroqo Greek anthropos 'human
being' was a formula for the conditio humana: toward AD bull in motion TOR right eye OC attentive
mind CO, facing the approaching bull with open eyes and a focused mind, taking
him by the horns, coping with fate.
Marie E.P. Knig
identified the magnificient bulls of Lascaux as moon
bulls, while my studies reveal that the Minoan bull leaper was a chiffre for the astronomer calculating lunar cycles.
Another formula named the astronomer king Minos and his palace Knossos, MUC NOS
SAI, bull MUC mind NOS life SAI, the journey of the moon bull calculated by the
mind as emblem of human life and existence
MUC NOS SAI Mi NO S or Mi NOS Minos
MUC NOS SAI C NOS Sos Knossos
Cyrus H. Gordon identified the
language of Linear A as Northwest Semitic. Jan Best and Robert Stieglitz
followed him. Walther Hinz, in their wake, succeeded
in deciphering Linear A tablet Hagia Triada 95. One side lists up the amount of cereals for (the
priestesses of) Dadumathe (She loved by the master),
and the other side the amount of cereals for (the priests of) Adu (Baal, later seen as Cretan Zeus). On Hagia Triada 95 and on many more
Minoan tablets appears the name Mi Nu The, which
Walther Hinz reads as wheat from mu-nu-ti-um (2200 BC), Ugaritic mnt,
and Minnit in the Bible (Ezekiel 27:17), better known
as Ebla in Syria, forty kilometers south of Aleppo, by then a fertile region
where the best wheat came from, and where also a minotaur had been worshipped,
a beast half bull half man. Mi Nu The
is an older variant of the above formula
MUC NOS SAI Mi Nu
The
and given the same way in hieroglyphic
Minoan, Linear A and Linear B – as head of a bull for MUC Mi, as visual pun of a bull leaper on feet hands feet for
NOS Nu, and as tree of life for SAI The
minos.jpg
(The legend of Minotaur covers an
elaborate lunisolar calendar)
Minotaur – half bull half man
– lived in the labyrinth of Knossos. Every ninth year king Minos had to
offer him seven virgins and seven young men. Theseus dared enter the maze,
overcame Minotaur, freed the young people, and with the help of Ariadne's
thread they found out of the complex that was built by Daidalos
whose name contains DAI for a protected area.
The labyrinth was the palace of the
astronomer king Minos at Knossos, and the legend of Minotaur encodes a
demanding lunisolar calendar held together by the
returning numbers 9 and 19
Minotaur, half bull
half man, indicates a double period
of
9 and 235 lunations
Minos impersonates 9
years
each
of the seven virgins and seven young men stand for a period
of
19 days, in all 266 days, 14 times 19 days
Theseus personifies 19
years
The 9 lunations
of Minotaur counted in the 30 29 30 mode yield 266 days
30 29 30 29 30 29 30
29 30 sum
266
that ask for the 266 days of the young
people
19 19
19 19 19
19 19 19
19 19 19
19 19 19 sum 266
The 9 years of Minos are seven
regular years of 365 days plus two leap years of 366 days, in all 3,287 days,
or 173 times 19 days.
And the 19 years of Theseus cope
with the 235 lunations of Minotaur, according to an
additive number sequence relating years and lunations
(y/l)
3/37 8/99 11/136 19/235 30/371
Ariadne's thread may symbolize this
and further number sequences (generated by another algorithm) that played a
most important role in early astronomy, geometry, and mathematics in general. I
found ample evidence for their use in Ancient Egypt and Mesotpotamia.
By the way, the kernos
in a corner of the court of the Minoan palace at Mallia
near Knossos encodes an alternative calendar based on the ratio 30/371 of the
above number sequence: a year has 11 months of 33 days, or 33 long weeks of 11
days, plus 2 and occasionally 3 more days, while 30 years have 332 continuous
periods of 33 days, in all 10,956 days, or 371 lunations.
(Syrian province of aqa
and the Gbekli Tepe
calendar)
An Egyptian papyrus (one of several
versions of the Book of the Dead, facsimile London 1899) mentions a Syrian
province by the name of aqa. This might have been the
wider region of the Gbekli Tepe
in southeast Anatolia and northern Syria. The large hill itself would
originally have been known as AC CA –– where the earth AC and sky
CA are meeting, or where they had been separated from each other in the act of
creation ... AC CA was given by two Gbekli Tepe hieroglyphs: (1) a ring for the primeval earth and the
hollow for the primeval sky (inhabited by AAR RAA NOS, he of air AAR and light
RAA with a mind NOS), and (2) by a lying H whose long horizontal bars represent
earth and sky, while the short vertical bar indicates the exchanges between
them, especially prayers for rain and the rising smoke of sacrificial fires
imploring rain (symbolized by snakes heading upward), and falling rain
rewarding the prayers and sacrificial fires (symbolized by snakes heading
downward). AC CA was personified by the Indo-European earth goddess akka (German Acker 'field'), by the Egyptian earth god
Aker, by the Biblical mother of all life Hawwa
English Eve, and, via the inversion CA AC, by the Greek earth goddess Gaia.
(10 000 BC) One version of the Gbekli
Tepe lunisolar calendar had
a month of 30 days, a year of 12 months (imagine a circle of a dozen poles) and
a basic year of 360 days (wherefrom the circle of as many degrees), add 5 and
occasionally 6 days (given by the space between a pair of central pillars) and
you have a regular year of 365 days and an occasional leap year of 366 days,
while 63 continuous periods of 30 days are 1,890 days and correspond to 64 lunations or synodic months (mistake less than one minute
per lunation, or half a day in a lifetime).
(7 000 BC) Judging by a beautiful bowl from Tell Halaf in Syria, the astronomers of that place calculated
with a period of 25 years that requires 6 leap days and has in all 9,131 days.
Five such periods are 125 years or 45,655 days or 1,546 lunations.
The Gbekli
Tepe calendar spread widely and saw many variations,
for example 30 days for the solar eye and '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64 of 30 days or a
synodic month for the lunar eye of the Egyptian Horus falcon.
(1 700 BC) Another variant are flowers of eight
petals on beautiful Kamares ware from Middle Minoan
Crete: each petal a long month of 45 days, all eight petals a basic year of 360
days, add 5 and occasionally 6 days for the tiny circle in the center and you
have a regular year of 365 days and an occasional leap year of 366 days, while
21 continuous periods of 45 days are 945 days and correspond to 32 lunations or synodic months.
(1 650 BC) Consider also the flower of eight petals
in the center of one side of the Phaistos Disc.
(Europa, originally the Syrian goddess
of astronomy)
Let us calculate the Neolithic
Syrian lunisolar calendar from Tell Halaf with ancient methods, beginning by counting lunations in the Paleolithic way
30 29 30 29 30 29 30
... days for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... lunations
15 and 17 lunations
counted that way are 443 and 502 days respectively
17 15 17 15 17 or 17 32 49 64 81 lunations
502 443 502 443 502 or 502 945 1447 1890 2392 days
And again 'Ariadne's thread'
relating years and lunations
3/37 8/99 11/136 19/235 30/371
Numbers of the Halaf
calendar: 25 years are 19 regular years of 356 days plus 2 leap years of 366
days, in all 9,131 days. Five periods of 25 years are 125 years or 45,655 days
or 1,546 lunations
19 x 365 plus 2 x 366 days are 9,131 days for 25 years
5 times 9,131 days are 45,655 days for 125 years
30 30
30 30 8 minus 3 sum 125 years
371 371 371 371
99 minus 37 sum
1,546 lunations
19 x 81 plus 7 are 1,546 lunations
19 x 2392 plus 30 29
30 29 30 29 30
are 45,655 days
(The simple yet clever methods that
sail under the radar of math-history yield amazing results. Compare them with
the actual numbers: 125 years are 45,655.248... rounded 45,655 days or
1,546.032... rounded 1,546 lunations.)
Astronomy requires not only
calculations but first of all and then again and ever again observations.
Finding the sliver of the young moon was a great challenge for the early
astronomers watching the sky with bare eyes – in fact such a challenge
that it may have accounted for English origin from Magdalenian ORI GEN, horizon
ORI young moon GEN ... The magnificent bulls in the midsummer hall of Lascaux
suggest these numbers for a lunation of alternately 30 and 29 days: young moon
3 days, waxing moon 6 days, full moon 9 days, waning moon 6 days, old moon 3
days, empty moon alternately 3 and 2 days. Now the Syrian astronomers excelled
at finding the young moon on the predicted place on the horizon, and formulated
a double compound for this challenge and achievement
OIR OC CO AIR OC CO
moon
rising from the horizon OIR
(permutation of ORI for horizon)
right
eye OC attentive mind CO
raising
the arms in joy AIR
OIR OC CO means then to look out for
the moon rising from the horizon with open eyes and a focused mind, and AIR OC
CO to raise the arms in joy when one sees the moon raise from the predicted
place on the horizon, watching it with open eyes and a focused mind ...
Remember the formula AD TOR OC CO atoroqo anthropos 'human being'.
A similar sound shift occurred in the case of the double compound
OIR OC CO Europa AIR OC CO Europa
Europa would originally have been
the Syrian goddess of astronomy, became a Phoenician princess, arrived on the
shore of Crete, and is seen in her double appearance on a famous Minoan fresco
in a small court of the palace at Knossos, flanking a bull and bull leaper, OIR
OC CO on the left side, the perfectly round neck rising as moon above the line
of the horizon defined by the sighting line of the woman watching out with an
obviously focused mind, on the right side AIR OC CO rising her arms in joy europa1.jpg europa2.jpg
And here Mi
Nu The on a Linear A tablet, Mi given as head of a
bull, Nu as visual pun of a bull leaper on feet hands feet, and The as an
abstract tree of life; Mi from MUC for bull, here the
moon bull, Nu from NOS for mind, here the mind of the astronomer, and The from
SAI for life, existence, here the human existence depending on astronomy
(providing calendars) and on the sciences in general minos.jpg
(Europe got the best from Ancient Syria)
Europa Europe is more than a name, it
is a formula of long lasting success: watch out with open eyes and a focused
mind for the moon rising above the horizon, ORI OC CO Europa, and raise your
arms in joy when you see with your open eyes and attentive mind the moon rise
from the predicted place on the horizon, ARI OC CO Europa ...
Observe the sky with open eyes and
calculate the heavenly cycles with a focused mind. Study nature and record your
findings. But know that we can only approximate the truth, neither really reach
nor own it (number sequences and other early mathematical methods provide
values around the unknown exact number, you can then choose the value that
comes handy in a given calculation and work with integers, the mistakes even
out more or less, often amazingly well, but there remains always a small or
tiny mistake).
All books have been written,
compiled and edited by human beings, even the most inspiring ones. Placing a
book above nature – that you may consider God's creation - is hubris, a
betrayal of transcendence (which is the very essence of religion), even
blasphemy in the name of craving power
We know exactly who
God is
and what He wants
He wants what we want
He is our mighty
henchman
Europe got the best from Ancient
Syria, the name Europa Europe that is a formula: study nature in all
appearances, outer and inner nature, engage in the sciences, and in art as
human measure in a technical world. Together they will overcome ideologies in
the long run, even scientific ones.
And if ancient monuments in Syria
are being destroyed, Europe's name will survive. And the spirit of Europa will
eventually overcome the pseudo-religious evil spreading in and from her ancient
homeland.
We have to do our part. A prospering
global society requires fair trade (overall balance of give and get, one word
in Magdalenian, GID) and a fair history of civilization including the one of
mathematics, logic of building and maintaining. A fair history acknowledging
all contributions to our common civilization will encourage good people all
over the world.
Appendix from late March and early
April 2016: words and compounds naming the horse / computer and hermeneutics in
the case of HomerÕs Odyssey / Human Brain Project again (hermeneutic
perspective) / computers wonÕt take over (coining a new term: phenospace)
(the horse, the
horse, the horse)
CA LAB, sky CA cold LAB, named the
winter sun horse of Lascaux, gallop and German Klepper.
CA BEL, sky CA warm BEL, named the spring sun horse, in a longer form CA BEL
IAS, healing IAS, the warm spring sun healing ailments of a long and harsh
winter, ABelios AFelios
Helios, Greek sun god with a quadriga of horses. CA
BAL, sky CA hot BAL, named the summer sun horse, Latin caballus
Italian cavallo French cheval, Spanish caballo.
Hear them run
CA LAB CA LAB CA LAB CA LAB ...
CA BEL CA BEL CA BEL CA BEL ...
CA BAL CA BAL CA BAL CA BAL ...
Magdalenian PAC named the common
horse, AS PAC, upward AS horse PAC, the horse of the first Indo-European homeland
on the banks of the Amu Darya, centered in the triangle of Termez
and Kunduz and Kurgan T'upe,
small pony-like horses used for carrying loads up the slope of a hill or
mountain, AS PAC Avestan aspa
Sanskrit asva for horse. Emphatic PAC AS AS, horse up up, named the
personified hot summer wind Afghanetz that blows from
the Aral Sea along the Amu Darya up to the Hindukush,
the winged horse Pegasos Pegasus, horse of poetry,
indicating an oral epic of the first Indo-Europeans, fragments of which might survive
in the oldest Greek mythology. The phonetically similar but semantically
different compound AC PAS, an expanse of land with water AC everywhere in a
plain PAS (here, south and north of me, east and west of me, in all five
places, Greek pas pan 'all every' pente penta- 'five') – riding this animal you get
everywhere PAS on earth AC = in the steppes of the second and third IE
homeland, in the Uralic steppes east of the Rha
Volga, and in the Pontic steppes west of the Rha Volga ... AC PAS *hekwos
Greek hippos Latin equus, also the Gallo-Roman horse
goddess Epona and Finnish hevonen
'horse'. PIE offers *hekwos hippos equus aspa asva.
Magdalenian makes a difference, AS PAC aspa asva, AC PAS *hekwos hippos equus Epona hevonen.
I consider this one of my strongest Magdalenian test cases.
TYR names the one who overcomes in
the double sense of rule and give, emphatic Middle Helladic Sseyr
(Phaistos Disc, Derk Ohlenroth) Doric Sseus (Wilhelm Larfeld) Homeric Zeus. Close derivatives of TYR abound in
Central Asia. Inverse RYT means spear thrower, archer, accounting for German
Ritter 'knight', a riding archer, for Ross und Reiter 'horse and rider', German
Ross for horse an emphatic form (analogous to TYR emphatic Sseyr),
English hoss horse.
REO means river, accounting for the Rha, modern Volga, river between the second IE homeland in
the Uralic steppes and third IE homeland in the Pontic
steppes, personified in Minoan Rheia and Greek Rhea,
mother of Zeus and Poseidon and Hades, her alter ego the Gallo-Roman horse goddess
Epona who rode a horse in lady fashion, accompanied
by a bird and a foal and a dog that evoke the emblematic animals of Zeus, an
eagle, and of Poseidon, a horse, and of Hades, a dog. The main sanctuary of Epona had been Alesia near a
spring of the river Seine, at the base of Mont Ra. Walisian Rhiannon 'horse' is a further derivative of REO,
the undulating necks of a herd of running horses evoking the waves of a rushing
river.
(computer and
hermeneutics in the case of Homer's Odyssey, part 1)
Thinking about machine condensing of
language I wondered how a computer would summarize Homer's Odyssey - could a
machine possibly come up with a hermeneutic version such as mine?
Odysseus returns home from Troy and
sleeps on the shore of Ithaca, one of the ancient names of the Peloponnese and
especially of the Argolis, land under the sky of the young Zeus bull (ITA CA
Ithaca, young bull ITA sky CA, under the sky of the young Zeus bull vs ATI
CA Attika, mature bull ATI sky CA, under the sky of
the mature Zeus bull), Ithaca surviving in the name of a relatively small
island off the Peloponnese. A long series of dreams brings him to strange
places that are - Troy, Troy again and again, blended with other places and
periods of time. In his final dream he reaches pleasant Scherie,
identified as early Troy by Eberhard Zangger. When he realizes where he is and what a lovely
place he destroyed, or will destroy in the time perspective of the Phaeakians, early Trojans, he can't help weeping. Now,
still sleeping and dreaming, he falls in a deep dreamless sleep, and arrives
home for good, body and soul reunited. On the next morning Athene,
Homeric personification of history's course, urges him to cope with the
shameless suitors of his faithful wife Penelope who personifies the land (POL
LOP Peloponnese, fortified settlement POL enveloping hedge or fence or palisade
or wall LOP, and PAS LOP Penelope, everywhere in a plain PAS enveloping
palisades or walls LOP, naming the Peloponnese as land of the fortified
settlements) – Athene urges Odysseus to cope
with those who profit from the land without meeting their obligations.
Could a computer understand symbols
and find out whether the Trojan war was for real or
just a bardic invention? It has been caused by the
abduction of beautiful Helen. How can this have incited a war? Beautiful Helen
of the white arms is a symbol, the Homeric symbol of – tin, her white
arms tin ingots, her long glittering robes she made herself the symbol of the
glittering tin ore cassitterite, and her thread the
symbol of tin wire, by then cut out of hammered tin sheet. Her husband xanthos Menelaos is the Homeric
symbol of copper, the color xanthos covering all hues
of copper ores, yellow brown red. Their daughter lovely Hermione who resembles
golden Aphrodite symbolizes bronze, alloy of copper and tin, of a golden shine
when freshly cast. Menelaos had a slave woman for a
mistress, Homeric symbol of andrasit, a mineral found
in the Troas, natural alloy of copper and zinc – zinc in enslaved form,
as it were. Their son was strong late come Megapenthes,
Homeric symbol of brass, alloy of copper and zinc, harder than bronze, arriving
late in the 'family' of metals ... While modern bronze requires five per cent
of tin, Mycenaean bronze required a dozen or even fifteen per cent, way more,
but there is no tin in Greece, Mycenaean tin came from Central Asia and was
bound to pass the Dardanelles where the Trojans laid hands on the precious
cargo, abducting Helen, as it were ...
(computer and
hermeneutics in the case of Homer's Odyssey, part 2)
Ricardo Mansilla
at the Free University of Mexico run a DNA taxonomy program on the Odyssey and
found that it combines material of at least a dozen or even sixteen bards. Very fine. This allows a better understanding of how the
epic originated. On his first 'adventure' Odysseus encounters Polyphem and on a later one a similar giant, so we can
assume that the same stories were told in several versions, varied from bard to
bard, and finally the best versions were compiled in the epic, two of them
rendering Troy as a giant.
'Much famous' Polyphem
resembled more a wooded mountain top standing alone
than a man who eats bread. His one eye was the acropolis overlooking the wide
river plain and his body downtown Troy VIIa that provided
protected shelter for 5,000 to 10,000 people. His den or cave was the harbor in
the Besik bay where foreign ships waited for
favorable winds, in the epic symbolized as goats and sheep milked by Polyphem, whereas the Achaean ships are symbolized as horses,
resting in a river mouthing north of Troy.
The early Trojans – Phaeakians dwelling on the shore of pleasant Scherie (Eberhard Zangger) - had been skilled river pilots navigating foreign
sailors through the perilous waters of the Dardanelles, protected by the most
noble gods, among them Zeus and Athene, Poseidon and
Apollo. However, in later times, they abandoned their former profession and
became a sort of pirates on land, asking high fees and tolls, and laying their
hands on the precious tin that came from Central Aisa
and was bound for Mycenae – abducting beautiful Helen of the white arms
in the Homeric symbolism.
Homer 1 of the Iliad would have
lived in the time of the first Messenian war; Homer 2
of the Odyssey in the time of the second Messenian
war, symbolized by Telemachos 'Far away war' –
far away from Troy and far away in time from the Trojan war. Both Homers
compiled their epic from ample bardic material, both
fearing for the unity of Greece: Northern Greece, Thessaly, Achilles, and
Southern Greece, Peloponnese, Agamemnon in the Iliad;
'tripod' of mainland and islands and colonies in the Odyssey. Both Homers cared
for the survival of the hopefully eternal Greek civilization, symbolized by the
immoveable bed Odysseus and Penelope built around the trunk of the olive tree
that had been planted by Lord Laertes the gardener (Eponymus
Tiryns on the Phaistos Disc as deciphered by Derk Ohlenroth and interpreted by
me). However, there is a difference: Homer 1 believes that all
is predestined by the gods, whereas Homer 2 says that we can't hold the
gods responsible for all we do.
Hermeneutics, in my opinion, is understanding from within. Computers can help us
understand from the outside, enhancing our emphatic and hermeneutic
apprehension.
Human Brain Project again (hermeneutic perspective)
The Human Brain Project –
based in Lausanne, Western Switzerland, not far from the CERN outside Geneva
– has entered its operational phase. Top scientists from all over the
world promise a perfect simulation of the entire human brain in form of a giant
electronic network.
Not even such a highly ambitious
electronic brain could cope with a real brain, as I will show you via my basic
definition of language from 1975/75. Language is the means of getting help,
support and understanding from those we depend upon in one way or another ---
and every means of getting help, support and understanding may be called
language, on whatever level of life it occurs.
All of language is motivated by
needs and wishes, ultimately by our survival instinct in combination with our
individual abilities and limitations. Coordinated by language our small and
large communities achieve more with the same energy, or the same with less
energy. Following my first scientific hunch from 1963 – energy and
intelligence being correlated – I consider language the intelligence of
life.
Things get really interesting when
we turn the above definition around: where
living beings or living entities depend on each other, there is language.
Body cells depend on each other, and they communicate by exchanging photons,
ions, and molecules. Also body and mind and genes depend on each other: the
genes on the body as its vehicle and on the mind steering the body, mind and
body on each other, and both on the genes as their enablers. We have then six
ways of internal language offered by this vantage point alone, most fascinating
the one of the mind addressing the genes via epigenetic switches turning on and
off one or another gene.
Now the human brain contains one
hundred billion neurons, each connected with one thousand other neurons –
a high complexity corresponding to a space of a dozen dimensions –,
moreover each neuron contains the full genome including epigenetics. Even if
the amazing network could be copied with electronic circuits, none of the
simulacra of a neuron contains a genome and epigenetic switches, nor does the
artificial brain have a body, let alone a survival instinct – you can
turn it on and off as any machine. This means the human brain is right from the
beginning way more complex than the one promised by the Human Brain Project.
Illusions of the impossible make the
sciences proceed and eventually achieve what is possible. On the other hand I
defend my hermeneutic work and perspective, hermeneutics being pushed to the
margin and over the edge by academe.
(computers won't take over –
coining a term: phenospace)
Reading Richard Dawkins' famous book
The Selfish Gene (second edition) I was reminded of the Greek deities in Homer
who behave in strikingly similar ways as the genes described by Dawkins do
Darwin postulated globuli carrying the hereditary biological information.
Watson and Crick discovered the beautiful double helix DNA with genetic words
of three chemical letters each, four different letters yielding 64 permutations
or words that encode life on Earth. In reconstructing the Ice Age language I
call Magdalenian –
lingua franca of shamans and shamanesses
in Eurasia – I mined a good four hundred words, most of them having three
letters or phonemes and forming permutation groups, allowing very many
compounds that were preserved in shamanic formulae, often double formulae. Can
this peculiar language be what Richard Dawkins calls an extended phenotype?
(The body is the primary phenotype, 'outprint' of the genome, while our productions that go
beyond the body are extended phenotypes.)
Genes depend on the body, so there
should occur a form of language between them. Could all of language be either
an internal or extended phenotype?
DhAG meaning able, good in the sense of
able, is the Magdalenian word of the most and most varied derivatives, among
them Greek theos Latin deus
(well compatible in Magdalenian), Sumerian dingir
announcing a deity, and the name of the supreme Celtic god Dagda,
the good god in the sense of the able god (Barry Cunliffe),
owing to the emphatic doubling DhAG DhAG able able.
Can it be that all our productions,
from language to computers, fill the space between our genes as inner enablers
and their outward projections? a space we may call phenospace?
Computers don't have their own but are part of our phenospace.
Machines increase our abilities and lend power to their owners but won't take
over. Moore's law of the doubling of data storing capacity still holds,
however, the storing velocity stagnates since 2003, communicated by Intel in
2005. In my opinion the so-called technological singularity is an extrapolation
such as the clockwork universe and Laplace's all-knowing demon of the bygone
mechanistic era. Sooner or later we come to a bend in the way of science.
Creativity loves winding roads. We
will need plenty more of that human resource for integrating ever more
technology into life and nature, task of art as human measure in a technical
world.
I know nobody who hangs computer
graphics in their bedroom. The Alpha CEO with Google in the portfolio is a
human being. Could anybody imagine a political version of AlphaGo
in the oval office? The highly demanding Chinese board game Go, recently won
4:1 by the Google machine AlphaGo against an Asian
grandmaster, has a small set of simple rules whereas the rules of the serious
political game fill libraries but still defy our penetration.
Basque and cave art basque
