Making Sense Of 'Homo Sapiens'

Homo sapiens is a biological classification. On biological grounds (DNA), humans and chimpanzees belong to the same genus, just as horses and asses, which are less closely related, belong to the same genus. This means that, on biological grounds, Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus are more accurately classified as Homo troglodytes and Homo paniscus. 

It follows from this that all human ancestors since the split with chimpanzees are also of the same genus. This means that, on biological grounds, Australopithecus Afarensis, Australopithecus Africanus, etc. are more accurately classified as Homo Afarensis, Homo Africanus, etc.

By the same token, since Homo sapiens sapiens successfully interbred with Homo neanderthalensis, on biological grounds, Neanderthals belong to the same species as Homo sapiens, and are more accurately classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.

Making Sense Of Infinity

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, infinity is a quality: limitlessness. An infinite amount is a limitless amount, not a specific number. To treat infinity as a number is to misconstrue a quality as a quantity.

Making Sense Of Energy And Entropy

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, energy, which is interchangeable with mass (persistence), can be understood as the potential for a process (change) to unfold and the instantiation of that potential.

By the same token, entropy can be understood as a degradation of the potential for a process to unfold, so that as entropy increases, the potential for a process to unfold decreases, resulting in less order in a system whose order depends on the unfolding of processes. Like all potential, entropy is quantified in terms of probability.

Making Sense Of Light

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the wave-particle duality of light (and electrons) can be understood in terms of instantiation, with wave as potential, and particle as instance.

For example, in the 'double slit' experiment, the wave model of light provides the potential locations of a photon, quantified in terms of probability, while the particle model provides the actual locations of photons, quantified in terms of frequency.

The interference patterns on the detector sheet are the frequencies of actual photons, in accord with the probabilities of potential photons. In the 'single slit' experiment, all photons are detected in the one most probable location, beyond the single slit. In the 'double slit' experiment, actual photons are detected in frequencies that reflect the interacting waves of probability that quantify the potential of the system.

Wave crests of light measure the most probable location of a photon, and wavelength is the spatial distance between the two most probable locations in a train of photons. Frequency is the number of probability peaks per time interval. Different probability peak frequencies are construed as different colours, within the visible spectrum.

Without the distinction between potential and actual, wave-particle duality leads physicists to mistake potential states of Schrödinger's cat for actual states (alive and/or dead) and potential universes for actual universes.

Making Sense Of Time

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the single dimension of time can be understood as circumstances of the unfolding of processes: location and extent (duration or frequency).

On the model of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, intervals of time, the distance between two temporal locations, are not uniform across the Universe, but are either relatively contracted or expanded (dilated). On the one hand, the cosmological expansion since the Big Bang is the ongoing relative contracting of time intervals. On the other hand, the presence of matter has the effect of relatively expanding time intervals — not "curving" time — with the distance between temporal locations increasing with relative proximity to the centre of mass. (The limiting case is the singularity of a black hole, which is the expansion of time intervals to ∞.)

To relate this to the unfolding of processes, a useful example is the ticking process of a clock. If time intervals are relatively contracted, then there is less time between successive ticks, which means that the clock is ticking relatively faster, which means that all processes are unfolding relatively faster. If time intervals are relatively expanded, then there is more time between successive ticks, which means that the clock is ticking relatively more slowly, which means that all processes are unfolding relatively more slowly.

The gravitational expansion of time entails that someone at sea level ages relatively more slowly than someone on a mountain top, since all their biological processes unfold relatively more slowly than the person further from the Earth's centre of mass. It also entails that there is no unfolding of processes at the singularity of a black hole, since a process would take an infinity of time to unfold.

For clear thinking, it is important to distinguish time from the processes that measure and are measured by it. For example, time doesn't run relatively faster or slower, processes do; time (like space) doesn't flow, processes do.

Time differs from the three dimensions of space in an important way: there is locomotion in space, but not in time. It is possible to travel from one spatial location to another, but not from one temporal location to another. To "travel" from 1pm to 2pm is merely to endure for one hour. That is, the notion of time travel derives from a category error: that time is precisely the same type of dimension as space.

Making Sense Of Space

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the three dimensions of space can be understood as circumstances of the unfolding of processes: location and extent (the distance or interval between locations).

On the model of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, intervals of space, the distance between two locations, are not uniform across the Universe, but are either relatively expanded or contracted. On the one hand, the cosmological expansion since the Big Bang is the ongoing relative expanding of spatial intervals, the distance between locations. On the other hand, the presence of matter has the effect of relatively contracting spatial intervals, with the distance between locations decreasing with relative proximity to the centre of mass. (The limiting case is the singularity of a black hole, which is the contraction of spatial intervals to 0.)

The constant acceleration of a falling body due to gravity is explained by the constant contraction of spatial intervals with proximity to the centre of mass of the two bodies. As spatial intervals contract, more and more of them are traversed by the falling body, such that the distance travelled for a given unit of time — the velocity of the object —increases at a constant rate.

The direction of gravitational attraction to the centre of mass of the two bodies is explained by the fact that, unless acted upon by an external force, a moving body always takes the shortest trajectory between two locations: the geodesic. Because spatial intervals are contracted in the direction of the centre of mass of the two bodies, the shortest distance, for each spatial interval, is in the direction of that centre of mass.

The trajectory of an orbiting satellite is perpendicular to the direction of gravitational attraction, but the shortest spatial intervals are always in the direction of the centre of mass of the two bodies, and it is this that accounts for its curved trajectory. That is, gravity is not the curvature of space, but the contraction of space that results in curved trajectories of bodies through space.

(In the 'rubber sheet' model that is used to explain gravity, the relative contraction of spatial intervals is misleadingly represented as a deepening deformation of the sheet — that is, as an additional dimension instead of variation in the dimensions of space.)

Making Sense Of Science

Science can be understood as fulfilling the cosmological function of mythology. Joseph Campbell (1988) identifies four basic functions of mythology:

1. mystical: 'realising what a wonder the universe is, and what a wonder you are, and experiencing awe before this mystery';
2. cosmological: 'the dimension with which science is concerned – showing you what shape the universe is, but showing it in such a way that the mystery again comes through';
3. sociological: 'supporting and validating a certain social order'; and
4. pedagogical: 'how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances'.

With modern science, the principal means of creating meanings of meanings shifted from lexical metaphor to grammatical metaphor.

Making Sense Of Religion

The existence of religion can be understood as a direct result of the emergence of language (i.e. human consciousness). This can be explained as follows.

On Halliday's model, with the emergence of language and the stratification of linguistic content into meaning and wording, a metaphorical relation between meaning and wording became possible. This has the effect of creating symbolic (Token-Value) relations at the level of meaning — meanings of meanings — thereby expanding the overall meaning potential of language.

The earliest deployments of metaphor were lexical, rather than grammatical, because words are the least abstract dimension of language. This created the rich mythic symbolism of the world's religions, including the personification of material phenomena as gods, which amounts to a reconstrual of the natural world as intersubjective.

But even the restrictions of lexical metaphor can yield profound intellectual insights. For example, in Hindu symbology, the Universe is reconstrued as a mental projection (dream) of the God Vishnu, and in Abrahamic symbology, as a verbal projection of the Creator (God said "Let there be light. …"). That is, in both traditions, 'the world' is reconstrued as meaning that is projected by the creator of meaning. In this symbology, the creator god represents language as meaning potential, and an individuation of the creator god, a soul, represents an individuation of meaning potential, the consciousness of an individual human.

A scientific approach to religion is to try to understand it; a religious approach to religion is to denounce it as an abomination. The symbology of religious traditions potentially provides rich insights into the evolution of human consciousness.

Making Sense Of Human Consciousness

On the model of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, human (higher-order) consciousness is the symbolic processing made possible by language: mental and verbal, and the content of consciousness is the content plane of language: meaning (semantics) and wording (lexicogrammar).

The relation between consciousness and the content of consciousness is projection, which is the relation between different orders of experience. The content of consciousness is second-order experience with respect to the process of consciousness itself.

Each act of consciousness is an instance of symbolic processing, mental or verbal, and each projection is an instance of the content of consciousness, meaning or wording (spoken, signed or written text).

The content of consciousness is organised according to metafunction:

• content as the construal of experience (ideational),
• content as the enactment of social relations (interpersonal),
• content as coherent and relevant (textual).

Because every human language is a collective phenomenon that is individuated differently in each human, the content of consciousness is a collective phenomenon that is individuated differently in the ontogenesis of each human.

Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection provides an epistemologically-informed and scientifically-testable model of the material substrate that makes human consciousness possible.

Making Sense Of What We Perceive

What we perceive is meaning construed of experience of the meaningless. Interpreting Edelman's extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection from the perspective of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, this involves an identifying relation between the meanings of somatic perceptual semiotic systems and the social semiotic system of language.

On this model, the identity encodes the meanings of language by reference to perceptual systems:

the meanings of somatic semiotic perceptual systems	realise	the meanings of social semiotic linguistic systems
Identifier Token	Process	Identified Value

and decodes the meanings of perceptual systems by reference to the meanings of language:

the meanings of somatic semiotic perceptual systems	realise	the meanings of social semiotic linguistic systems
Identified Token	Process	Identifier Value

That is, what we perceive are perceptual meanings, construed of the meaningless domain, interpreted in terms of the meanings of language. On this model, members of other species do not perceive what humans perceive, since their perceptual meanings are not interpreted in terms of the meanings of language.

Making Sense Of The Emergence Of Language

According to Halliday, language is differentiated from all other semiotic systems by being constituted by a stratified content plane (the 'signified' of Saussure's sign), such that semantics is realised by lexicogrammar, and it was this stratification of the content plane that created modern humans. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 25):

This stratification of the content plane had immense significance in the evolution of the human species – it is not an exaggeration to say that it turned Homo ... into Homo sapiens. It opened up the power of language and in so doing created the modern human brain.

The semiotic means through which this stratification could come about is suggested by the model of metaphor in Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory.

As Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288) explain, the deployment of metaphor involves an internal stratification of semantics, in the sense that a lower level token (metaphorical meaning) realises a higher level value (congruent meaning).

By the same token, in the emergence of language from protolanguage, the content plane becomes stratified when a lower level token (lexicogrammatical wording) comes to realise a higher level value (semantic meaning).

It is this prior emergence of a lower level token (lexicogrammar) on the content plane that makes possible the emergence of lower level tokens (metaphors) on the semantic stratum, and it is these lower level tokens on the semantic stratum that enormously expand the meaning potential of language, as demonstrated by the use of lexical metaphor in the reconstruals of meaning in the field of mythology, and the use of grammatical metaphor in the reconstruals of meaning in the fields of science.

Making Sense Of Reality

Axiom 1: Immanence: All meaning is within semiotic systems

Axiom 2: Semiotic systems distinguish between a non-semiotic domain and a semiotic domain.

Axiom 3: Within the semiotic domain, the semiotic system of language distinguishes between a material-relational domain and a mental-verbal domain.

Axiom 4: It is the mental-verbal domain (the process of consciousness) that construes experience of the non-semiotic domain as the meaning of the semiotic domain.

∞

In this view, 'reality' is identified with the semiotic domain: the outer material-relational ± the inner mental-verbal. For example,

Galilean science is concerned with the outer material-relational domain ('primary qualities') rather than with the inner mental-verbal domain ('secondary qualities'); and

in Cartesian philosophy, the certainty of the existence of the inner mental-verbal domain (cogito) guarantees (ergo) the existence of the outer material-relational domain (sum).

∞

To be clear, this does not mean that the domain outside meaning (e.g. what is construed as 'cancer') "does not exist", but that to think or say that anything exists is to transform the meaningless into meaning (e.g. a material world).