Were it not for the fact that
Sellars' endorsement of Lucretius places a premium upon the
working of 'the world', and privileges the value truth, it might
at once have been fully compatible with the Markan understanding
of discipleship as the practice entailed by the theology of
semiotic forms, acoustic semiotic forms in particular. For it is
not so much the world as the mind, whose working the evangelist
recommends to our own understanding. And given that the value
concomitant with knowing, Mark's enduring focus, is truth, there
can be no argument between the evangelist(s) and Lucretius on
this score. However, neither Lucretius' project, nor that of
Foucault, readily admits what biblical axiology construes as
pivotal to both truth and beauty, the Christological form of
value, the good, of which the soma or mind : body stands
as the final paragon, or pre-eminent exemplification. It is not
a question of choosing between values, whether those of the true
and the good, or the good and the beautiful, or the true and the
beautiful; not here at least. But rather of acknowledging their
interrelations. The categoreal paradigm posits this more
eloquently and more truthfully than anything else. It recognises
the centrality of the good in their triunity. This value alone,
equivocal as it must seem, is tantamount in transcendence to the
truth, and tantamount in immanence to beauty. It is poised as is
no other form of value to mediate between verity and beauty, as
between axiological subjectivism and axiological objectivism.
The presence in both Christological miracle stories of the same
process, transmutation, and the relationship of the events which
these depict have to the two premier sacraments of the Christian
traditions, baptism and Eucharist, fully supports the reality of
contemplative practice of the kinds advocated by all three
feeding miracle stories, and their complements, which dwell on
the theology of identity, as essentially transformative in
nature.
Since we are proceeding on the basis of several presuppositions,
these should again if only briefly, be made patent, before we
shall address the acoustic representation of both the categories
radical to the Christian and biblical doctrine of consciousness,
and the related forms or modes of intentionality. These
presuppositions are not new to the argument, but their
recapitulation will be beneficial. The first concerns the
identity of The Son, sometimes referred to as 'the second person
of the Trinity', and whom the gospel of John names the logos,
usually translated simply as 'Word'. The prologue of that gospel
reverts very noticeably to the P creation narrative, and the
further three usages of the phrase 'the next day' (John 1.29,
35, 43), and the subsequent introduction to the first messianic
miracle 'On the third day' reinforce this initial recursion to
the same narrative, underscoring its correlation with the series
of six messianic miracles of which Transformation Of Water
Into Wine is the first. Furthermore, the metaphorical use
of the leitmotifs light/darkness (1.4, 5, 7, 8, 9) throughout
the introduction to the fourth gospel amply reinforces the
ligature between its Christology and the story of beginning. The
second great Christological miracle story in the gospel of John,
and the last of the series as a whole, The Death Of Lazarus
(11.1-44), also employs the same Christological markers which
were delivered in the Day 1 and Day 4 rubrics, light/darkness
and day : night respectively.
Various claims have been made concerning the meaning of John's
identification of the Christ with 'the Word'. These generally
focus on the phenomenon of mind, reason, and those affective
aspects of consciousness which also have to do with meaning.
Indeed 'meaning' itself is an adequate synonym for the word
'word' as used here in the gospel. This epithet reinforces the
Johannine bond forged between a high Christology and the story
of creation. Various acts as well as creation by word, are
repeated throughout the seven days. The acts of God in the P
narrative are as follows: dividing one entity from its other (ldb, Genesis 1.4, 7, and implicitly
in v 9 with the gathering together into one place so that the
land may appear); naming ()rq vv
5, 8, 10); making (h#&(
vv 7, 16, 25); putting (Ntn v
17); creating ()rb vv 21,
27); and blessing (Krb vv
22, 28). These actions are spread over eight different
occasions, and none is performed every time.
Notwithstanding which, each of the six rubrics denoting actual
creative works begins with 'And God said ...' (Myihl) rm)yw Genesis 1.3, 6, 9, 11,
14, 20, 24, 26). That is, every one of the accounts of
the first six days begins with this formula. It occurs twice in
the rubrics of Days 3 and 6 (vv 9, 1, and 24, 26), since two
creative acts take place on each of these two days. This formula
thus reflects the innate structures of the text. (Similarly,
naming is an action used uniformly of all three Days denoting
(pure) transcendence, that is, of the first three Days only.
This too complies with an important structural pattern of the
narrative.) These facts sit just as well with the Markan
theological idiom as with the prologue of John, since I am
arguing that Mark's governing intentional preoccupations, those
of knowing and the will-to-believe, dovetail with those of the
gospel of John, belief and the desire-to-know. Knowing receives
its canonical instantiation in the perceptual mode acoustic
memory, and the will-to-believe in its analogue, the conceptual
form of unity space : time.
We have commented already on the link between transcendence,
being and identity. The other point central to the discussion of
immanence and intentionality here at the outset, concerns
axiology. The axiological strand throughout the creation story
is almost as prevalent as the introductory formula 'And God said
...'. The clause 'And God saw (...) that it was good'
occurs six times: bw+-yk Myhl) )ryw, Genesis 1.4, 10, 12,
18, 21, 25, by+ hnhw h#$( r#$) lk t) myhl) )ryw
v 31; LXX kai\ ei)~den o( qeo/v o(/ti kalo/n
vv 4, 10, 13, 18, and kai\
ei)~den o( qeo/v o(/ti kala/ vv 21, 25, and kai\ ei)~den o( qeo\v ta\ pan/ta, o(/sa
e)poi/hse, kai\ i)do\ kala\ li/an v
31.) It is absent from the account of
Day 2, and used of each of the two acts of both Day 3 and Day 6.
Neither of the Greek equivalents to the term 'good' - a)gaqo\n and kalo\n
- occurs in the Johannine logosode. This makes even more notable
their initial occurrences in the gospel of John in the first
messianic and Christological miracle, whose concomitant form of
value is the good. In the immanent Christology, The
Transformation Of Water Into Wine, we read:
... the steward of the feast called
the bridegroom and said to him, "Every man serves the good
wine (to\n kalo\n oi)~non) first;
and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine (to\n e)la/ssw); but you have kept the
good wine (to\n kalo\n oi)~non)
until now." (John 2.9c-11).
The other equivalent is used in the introduction
to this miracle narrative in order to emphasize the connection
between the individual disciple Nathanael and the miracle
itself. In John 21.2, we learn that Nathanael was from Cana, the
location of the miracle, which further justifies the typological
cameo given of him in relation to the episode:
Philip found Nathanael, and said to
him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the
prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good (ti a)gaqo\n) come out of Nazareth?"
Philip said to him, "Come and see." (John 1.45-46).
The other point salient to this discussion of
immanence and intentionality concerns the doctrine of imago
Dei. It occurs in both creation narratives in very
disparate terms. In the first, as the direct consequence of the
will of the Creator, but in the J narrative, as the human couple
assuming the Godlike knowledge of good and evil, in utter
disobedience to the divine will. In the Johannine prologue the
evangelist extends the filial relation of the Word and God to
those who believe. The image and likeness of God is the result
of God's adoption of those who receive the Word, '[t]he true
light that enlightens every man [that]was coming into the
world.' These are they who received, who believed in his name.
They are said to have been given 'power to become children of
God', having been 'born, not of blood nor of the will of the
flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.' (John 1.9-13). As in
the P narrative, the compatibility of the human and divine is
here viewed positively, and not as the occasion of negative
judgement.
Thus belief assumes a vital role in John's soteriology. It
functions in this contextual field indistinguishably from its
axiological identity - the good. This is the case with all
intentional modes: each is espoused by a specific form of value.
What goodness is to belief in the gospel of John, truth is to
knowing in the gospel of Mark. Belief and knowing are perfect
examples of what we mean by 'intentionality'. Each one of the
four conscious, simple, and non-hybrid forms of intentionality,
establishes the essential and specific theological intent of one
of the four gospels as grounded in a specific form of value.
Belief is central to John's own understanding, and we find it
highlighted in the last of the miracle narratives in relation to
the resurrection:
Jesus said to her, "I am the
resurrection and the life; he who believes in me ( o( pisteu/wn ei)v e)me\), though he
die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me ( o( zw~n kai\ pisteu/wn ei)v e)me\)
shall never die. Do you believe this ((pisteu/eiv
tou~to;)?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord; I believe (e)gw\ pepi/steuka) that you are the
Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world."
(John 11.25-27).
ACOUSTIC SEMEIA AND BINARY STRUCTURES OF
MIND
The numerical details contained in the three Eucharistic
miracles can best be explicated as serving the elaboration of
the theology of semiotic forms. They point to arithmetical
divisions patent within the perception of sounds and sights as
well as the innate perception of the body itself, the very means
of manifold sentience, by itself in the mode of touch. We have
already discussed the latter, the semeihaptika in
relation to the gospel of Luke. That is, we have considered the
delivery of an incipient theory of embodied cognition/conation
delivered in the twelve healing miracles in the gospel of Mark
and linked to the theological idiom of Luke. We may legitimately
think of this connection between the embodied self and the
various psychic or conative (affective) and epistemic or
cognitive (intellective) processes, as describable in terms of
intentionality; the body in the mind/the mind in the body so to
speak. The dodecadic pattern of twelve somatic-haptic signifiers
meshes with the numerical details of both stories of loaves and
fish. The pattern which may be superimposed upon the categoreal
paradigm, transcendence : immanence, is simply that of the
repeated ciphers 5-6-7, synonymously with the sequence
Transcendental-Christological-Pneumatological.
That is, the haptic semiosis, whose axiological identity was
clearly announced in both Christological miracle stories, namely
the good (kalo/v and a)gaqo/v), functions as the mediator
between the remaining values, truth and beauty, as expressed in
the acoustic and optic sentient modes respectively. The
repetition of the pentads, like that of the heptads, also
clearly demarcates the P creation story and The Apocalypse. It
distinguishes between their central theological subjects,
transcendence and immanence, as between The Transcendent and The
Holy Spirit, congruently with the three synonymous and formulaic
titles, 'beginning and end', 'first and last', 'the Alpha and
the Omega'. Thus the Transcendental and Pneumatological
Eucharistic miracle stories stand juxtaposed as summed up by the
arithmetical progression in which the hexad is the intervening
cipher, as between 'heaven and earth'. This 'and' we
should remember, is nothing if not ambivalent, a 'nest of
ambiguity'.
Mark's gospel is programmatically concerned with knowing, and
theological knowing. This theological knowing is of course
knowledge of God; but it is also necessarily knowledge of
'soul', the psyche. This same psyche accounts for more
than mere affectivity, the feeling or appetitive (conative)
aspect of intentionality. It is vital to reckoning with
cognition or knowing itself. Understanding or knowledge of the
'soul' as such, is inseparable from theological understanding,
or knowledge of God. We have determined the intentionality
native to the cast of Markan theology as the necessary outcomes
of two constituent radicals of consciousness or mind, the
aconscious conceptual radical space : time, and the conscious
perceptual radical acoustic memory. These intentional modes are
the will-to-believe and knowing respectively. 'Knowledge of God
and of the soul' would be a fair summation of Mark's evident
theological intent, that same 'soul' being the chief subject of
meta-psychology, or philosophical psychology, which in this
setting, is tantamount to Christology.
In this, he resorts to the systematic use of what would in time
become, if it was not already extant in his own day, the
acoustic semiosis. By which I mean of course the ways in which
the dodecaphonic series reveals certain key factors of the
variety of relations obtaining between the categoreal structures
of consciousness, its own ultimately general morphology, and the
resultant forms of intentionality. Resultant is a key word here,
for The Feeding Of The Five Thousand outlines the
semiotic content of acoustic memory in terms of the chromatic
twelvefold scale, and the pentatonic system - hence its use of
the pentads and the dodecad. The sevenfold scales
themselves which are indispensable to the doctrine of
intentionality, are clearly suggested not by the 'primordial'
and Transcendental miracle story, which evokes the creation
narrative and The Transcendent, but instead by the
Pneumatological narrative, The Feeding Of The Four Thousand,
which points to the end rather than the beginning of the canon,
that is, to The Apocalypse and to The Holy Spirit.
But these narratives, like the two sentient modes, acoustic and
optic, are equally foundational to the logos, that is to
human communication. Just as it is not possible to think of
words themselves in only one form, the phonetic or the graphic.
Both are essential, and both gravitate about what is
functionally as well as axiologically, their median or pivotal
point: the body as manifold of sense-percipience, and as
self-aware in terms of specifically haptic sense-percipience.
Here, in discussing the binary structures of consciousness, we
necessarily depend on the numerical data given in all three
miracle narratives. It will be possible at a later point in this
study, to distinguish between the deliveries of the two
putatively similar narratives.
Their numerical details concur in respect of the importance of
binary structures determining conscious and aconscious
processes. The figures 4 and 7 the
figures 5 and 2 are mutually
interdependent and coherent. The 4th and 7th degrees of the
sevenfold major scale are just those which are absent from the
pentatonic. The two pentatonics suggested by the duplicate fives
of the Transcendental Eucharistic miracle story, and the cipher
two, enumerating the fish, total twelve entities in all. The
same figure figure counts the baskets of remaining portions,
both factors adverting to the dodecaphonic series as a totality.
When we examine the sevenfold major scale, we find these two
sets of ciphers indicating one and the same binary. The first
set indicates this in the ascending major scale, the second, in
the descending major scale. The 4th ascending is the 5th
descending, and the 7th ascending is the 2nd descending. This
too concerns a binary form, since the dodecaphonic series both
ascends and descends; a scale - Latin 'scala' meaning
'ladder' - is used to perform the same.
In conjunction then, the two sets of numerals allude to the
existence of pentatonic and heptatonic scales, and also to the
circles of fourths and fifths. For their part, the
Christological cipher of both the first and last messianic
miracle narratives, the hexad, 6, clearly announces the
analogous form of the two narratives, the hexameron and the six
messianic miracles. In addition to which, it sits between the repeated
cipher of the Transcendental, Eucharistic miracle, and the repeated
cipher of the Pneuatmological, Eucharistic miracle, 5 and 7
respectively, in accordance with the categoreal paradigm,
transcendence : immanence.
At the fourth and seventh degrees ascending, or the fifth and
second degrees descending respectively, the same nexus in the
octave is reached. These mark the only two moments in the major,
diatonic scale where the interval of a semitone occurs. Hence
they are markers of the junction between a triad of one kind of
representative semeiacoustika and a tetrad of the
other kind. Each sevenfold major scale is composed of three
semeia representing either three perceptual radicals in
conjunction with four representing conceptual radicals, or three
representing conceptual radicals in conjunction with four
representing perceptual radicals. This 3:4 pattern was
visible in the constitution of both narrative cycles, creation
and salvation or messianic series, as an iteration of the
categoreal paradigm.
These triads of either sort articulate the determination of
intentionality as either conceptual or perceptual. The triads
are the first, second and third degrees in the ascending scale.
They may be counted in terms of the descending scale, in which
case they are 6th, 7th and 8th. But musical convention restricts
the description of degrees of the scale to its ascending form,
rather similarly to the way in which mathematics considers
magnitude. (Numbers are generally considered as positive rather
than negative integers, marking increasing magnitude.) We shall
conform to that usage here, notwithstanding the observation
already made that the figures of the Transcendental miracle
story jibe with those of its counterpart. Musical theory also
utilises a formal aspect of the dodecaphonic series which surely
is compatible with the observation that the scale both ascends
and descends, and this too involves numerical patterns to which
the narratives refer. These are the circles of fifths and
fourths. A fifth ascending is a fourth descending and vice
versa, such that we may speak of the circle of fifths and the
circle of fourths as being the same thing(s) viewed differently.
The ciphers in the miracle stories which enumerate thousands who
participated in the feedings - hence we suppose who see and/or
hear the Word, in other words, who taste what is beautiful
and/or true - are legitimately capable of this hermeneutic.
Writing has played a seminal role in the development of music,
particularly in the Christian cultures to which it was from
earliest times, an important liturgical accessory. (See Howard
Goodall, Big Bangs: 1 Notation.) This too
justifies the integration of the two narratives of miraculous
feedings with loaves and fishes, not despite, but in virtue of
their evident disparity.
(Unless otherwise stated, the use of the term 'minor (scale)'
refers to the natural minor, and not the harmonic nor the
melodic minor scale.)
Axiom 1: Conceptual : Perceptual
Let the two sixfold whole-tones
scales represent the entities taxonomised in the
creation narrative, Genesis 1.1-2.4a and the messianic
series, namely the conceptual forms and their perceptual
equivalents.
This axiom has already been put. The existence of
two evenly structured sixfold serial forms of order within the
dodecaphonic scale, the octave, consisting of both heptadic and
pentatonic scales, first alerts us to the methodical capacities
inherent in the acoustic semiosis. The six conceptual and six
perceptual radicals of mind stand in one-to-one correspondence
with one another, and therefore must occupy the same position
within their sequences. Pitch
is to be accounted for, since akin to the optic semiosis, the
dodecaphonic scale is polarised - it begins and ends. Tones
are either high or low relative to one another. The
sequences determine and are determined by the chronological
references in the texts of the miracle stories. The messianic
series must be read outwards from its epicentre. The two central
messianic miracles depict Transcendence, and must be associated
with beginning or creation. The relation of acoustic memory to
the conceptual form space : time supports the same; that is, the
acoustic semiosis itself must adequately confirm its analogue.
This will affect the hermeneutic of the cadence 7-8,
that is, 7-1, since this also signifies a beginning.
The relatively lower of the two whole-tone scales, by just one
semitone, is best fitted to represent the conceptual forms, and
the higher, to represent the perceptual forms. This arrangement
sorts the categories according to their analogous relations, and
synonymously with the optic semiosis, which employs only six
semeioptika. We shall provide the rationale for this in the
discussion of the 4-3 cadence.
Axiom 2: Conscious Cognitive : Conative
Let the major scale represent
cognitive modes of intentionality, and the minor scale
represent conative modes in the conscious order.
The relation sustained by major and 'relative
(natural) minor' is clear and distinct. Both utilise the same
seven acoustic semeia, which they order differently. We shall
elaborate the reasons for this decision as we proceed; for the
moment we note that this differential also concerns the
distinction of forms of reason, that is, cognitive or epistemic
modes, as either theoretical or practical. Theoretical cognitive
or epistemic modes are knowing simpliciter and believing
simpliciter. Practical cognitive of epistemic modes are
knowledge-of-will and belief-in-desire. Theoretical conative
modes are desire-to-know and will-to-believe. Practical conative
modes are desire and will. Practical modes of intentionality,
whether conative or cognitive, largely guide actions, hence
their characterization as practical rather than theoretical.
They are best suited to the discussion of the (meta-)psychology
of behaviour.
Axiom 3: Aconscious Cognitive : Conative
Let the major scale represent
conative modes of intentionality, and the minor scale scale
represent cognitive modes of intentionality in the
aconscious order.
Will-to-believe and desire-to-know are both
conative modes; both effect other modes supervenient upon them,
belief and knowing respectively. Unlike their conscious
counterparts however, they are not practical but theoretical,
just as belief-in-desire and knowledge-of-will are not
theoretical, but practical forms of knowing. We have already
witnessed the manner in which the aconscious appears to reverse
or controvert the conscious.
Axiom 4: Theoretical And Practical Modes Of Intentionality
It must follow axiomatically,
consequently to axioms 2 and 3, that all theoretical modes
of intentionality are represented by major scales and all
practical modes of intentionality are uniformly represented
by minor scales.
Axiom 5: Relative major and minor
in the conscious order
Let the relation of relative minor
to relative major scale in the case of perceptual
intentionality, represent that of desire to knowing in the
same species respectively, and in the case of conceptual
intentionality, that of will to belief in the same species
respectively, in the conscious order.
By species we mean here, the same radical as
occasioning both modes of intentionality. Thus haptic memory is
the occasion responsible for erotic desire just as it is for
technological rationality ('knowing'), so we may aver that this
form of desire and this form of knowing are of the same species.
The minor and major scales being 'relative' means that the
representation of these two particular forms of intentionality
in these particular occasions employ the same radicals of
consciousness, albeit in variant orders. The actual sequences
are the same in terms of their octaves. That is, neither
sequence disturbs the given serial pattern of the octave; but
they begin on different degrees of the octave. So for example,
the serial order representative of erotic desire is G minor, and
the sequence representative of technological knowing is Bb
major. G minor begins on G, Bb (B flat) begins on Bb. These two
scales are 'relative' to one another. G minor =
G-A-Bb-C-D-Eb-F-g; whereas Bb major = Bb-C-D-Eb-F-G-A-b flat.
Axiom 6: Relative major in minor in the aconscious order
Let the relation of relative major
to relative minor scale in the case of perceptual
intentionality, represent the relation of desire-to-know to
knowedge-of-will in the same species respectively, and in
the case of conceptual intentionality, the relation of
will-to-believe to belief-in-desire in the same species
respectively, in the aconscious order.
This completes the previous axiom. In the
aconscious order desire-to-know and knowledge-of-will are
relative to one another in terms of their acoustic
representation, as are will-to-believe and belief-in-desire.
Axiom 3 applies here
Axiom 7: Conscious : Aconscious
Let conscious intentional
modality be semiologically distinguished in terms of the
principle of analogy such that transitions between analogous
radicals of either kind, conceptual or perceptual, at the
first level of categoreal difference, represent conscious
forms of intentionality.
The optic semeia and the notation adopted here
makes this abundantly plain. Thus for example in the case of the
gospel of Mark one and the same semeioptikon, green
which was explicitly given in The Feeding Of The Five
Thousand as noted, represents both the conceptual form
space : time and the perceptual form acoustic memory. These are
in one-to-one correspondence, that is, analogous to one another.
Their musical notation is F and F# respectively. Thus where the
cadence occurs from F# to F, in virtue of F, denoting a
conceptual category, the transition ('transfiguration') must
represent a conscious and conceptual form of intentionality.
That is, it can only be either the mode belief simpliciter
or will simpliciter. In the case of transition from F to
F#, a transition in virtue of the latter which nominates
a perceptual radical, (a 'transformation'), the
intentional mode in question must be both conscious and
perceptual; that is, it must be either knowing or desire.
Axiom 8: Conscious : Aconscious
Let aconscious intentional modality
be distinguished in terms of the principle of analogy such
that transitions between non-analogous radicals of either
kind, conceptual or perceptual, at the first level of
categoreal difference, represent aconscious forms of
intentionalty.
This completes the previous axiom. Thus in the
case of the transition represented by E-F, semeiacoustika
denoting the perceptual radical haptic imagination and the
conceptual radical space : time respectively, and in the
transition represented by F-E, the intentional modes in
question must be both aconscious and conceptual in the first
case, and aconscious and perceptual in the second. That is, they
must be either will-to-believe or belief-in-desire in the first
instance, and either desire-to-know or knowledge-of-will in the
second. Note that the semeioptika, which are yellow for
E and green for F, similarly to the notations of the notes, E
and F, differ from one another. That is, they mark the absence
of one-to-one correspondence between the transacting radicals,
and hence aconscious modes of intentionality.
Note also that categoreal radicals which are the necessary and
sufficient conditions for conscious modes of intentionality, are
susceptible of aconscious intentionality modality and vice
versa. All six conceptual modes of intentionality are occasions
for all six conceptual radicals; and all six perceptual modes of
intentionality are occasions for all six perceptual radicals.
Canonical intentional modality, the fact that a given category
is the defining occasion for a particular form of
intentionality, is not a limiting factor vis-a-vis the
conscious-aconscious divide. Thus in the example of the
categories native to Markan theology-eschatology, acoustic
memory which is the canonical instance of knowing, a conscious
form of intentionality, may nevertheless be susceptible of the
desire-to-know, knowledge-of-will, and the hybrid intentional
mode which they form. Just so, the conceptual radical space :
time is responsible for the aconscious mode will-to-believe, yet
it may function in any of the three conscious conceptual
intentional modes: namely, will (simpliciter), belief (simpliciter),
or will-and-belief.
Axiom 9: The natures of God - transcendent 'and' immanent
Let harmonic intervals represent
the occurrence of two intentional modes of the same
polarity, conceptual or perceptual, according to God's
transcendent nature, analogously to their semiotic relation
conveyed as per relative minor and major tonalities; and let
melodic intervals represent the occurrence of single
intentional modes of the same polarity, according to God's
immanent nature, analogously to their semiotic relation
conveyed as per relative minor and major tonalities.
Intervals are of two distinct kinds. Harmonic
intervals are sounded simultaneously or in unison, whereas
melodic intervals are sounded successively, that is, according
to a temporal sequence. Musical notation
makes this alterity quite plain: melodic intervals are written
on the staff in vertical alignment, whereas harmonic intervals
are written horizontally in relation to one another. Needless to
say, I can hear one and the same interval either way; I can hear
the major third consisting of C and E as either sounding
together simultaneously, or one after the other in relatively
quick succession, either in the form C-E, which is ascending, or
in the descending form, E-C. We shall return to this difference
of the occurrence of intervals as essential to variant aspects
of actual time, and because it will immediately avail us in the
logical and theological distinction of the disparities operative
in the ciphers contained in the Pneumatological and
Transcendental Eucharistic miracle stories. We should note here
that where melodic intervals portray singular intentional modes
in time, these necessarily involve more than one such mode at a
given time. This topic reverts to the presence of cognitive
modes supervening upon conative modes; knowing simpliciter
upon desire-to-know, for example, or knowledge-of-will upon
desire simpliciter. Process philosophy frames the same
relation in terms of causal efficacy and presentational
immediacy, though it does not pay sufficient heed to final
(teleological) causation. (This is the result of bias in favour
of immanence at the expense of transcendence, readily exposed by
its elevation of the value beauty.) Desire-to-know and will simpliciter
are of the latter type; desire simpliciter and
will-to-believe are of the former type.
Not all seven tones of the major or minor scales may be sounded
in unison, that is, simultaneously and without dissonance. Since
harmony is a key factor in expounding the acoustic semiosis,
this must be taken into account. On the other hand, the
dispersion of ('white') light, its refraction into the six or so
visible hues, is emblematic of the principle of unity. Identity
is to transcendence what unity is to immanence, the defining
criterion. Taken together then, the two semioses, acoustic and
optic, are precisely mereological; they concern the dialectic of
parts and wholes, and as such, intrinsically to language. This
is already implicit in the two feeding miracle stories,
Transcendental and Pneumatological. But for the Christological
narrative, matters are otherwise. It does not appear to be
framed in terms of mereological discourse.
Conversely to the evident dissonance of the seven tones of the
scale sounding simultaneously, at least four of the five notes
which make up the pentatonic can be sounded in unison, and heard
as harmonic. This is largely attributable to the absence of
intervals in the pentatonic, the 4th and 7th,
of the major scale. Although the pentatonic and sevenfold
scales are comparable as to the existence of a triad marking the
first three degrees of the scale, the pentatonic contains no
semitones. The intervals of a semitone are vital to
understanding the role of the diatonic scales - major and minor
- as representative of intentional processes. They indicate the
two moments of transmutation, 'transformation' and
'transfiguration', between degrees which belong to the hexatonic
scales, the two whole-tone scales representing the polarities,
conceptual and perceptual.
This leaves the pentatonic system for special consideration
where the same is concerned. The two processes of change or
transmutation in the Christological miracle stories, like the
remarks concerning the ascent and descent of the Son of man in
the introduction to the first such narrative, and similar
constructs throughout the gospel of John as well as in other
texts, all allude to the relation between the two poles of
consciousness as one of change. Thus they emphatically deny any
notion of categoreal radicals as being in themselves, and of
themselves, independently of relational qualities. They
repudiate the essentialization of the categories as ultimate
structural generalities of mind. We have noted repeatedly that
change is characteristically associated with The Holy Spirit.
These observations conduce to the hermeneutic which follows
here, and in which the Pneumatological ciphers 7 and 4,
like the diatonic scales to which they refer, should be read
against the theology of immanence as this applies in the
events described in the two Christologies of the series.
Moreover, that series itself is both heptadic and tetradic as
already discussed.
If the sevenfold scale thus represents durational temporality,
change, becoming and so on, we can therefore think of
intentionality generally according to intervals of the melodic
kind. Hence we can think of processes such as knowing or belief
et al as occurring within temporal duration. We shall see
however, that something akin to the same representation of
intentionality occurs in terms of harmonic intervals. The
acoustic representation of intentionality is not exclusive to
the occurrence of melodic as opposed to harmonic intervals, as
is suggested by the common denominator, 'interval'. Harmonic
intervals are operative within the pentatonic scale, as are
melodic intervals. But the absence of the interval of a
semitone in the pentatonic system is of decisive significance.
We shall argue for the alterity between the two kinds of
intervals as fitting the variant numerical details supplied by
the two miracle narratives. The dual sevens of the
Pneumatological Eucharistic miracle story, and the dual fives of
the Transcendental Eucharistic miracle story readily suggest the
apparent difference between heptadic (sevenfold) and pentatonic
scales, and also the intimate pertinence to each of one kind of
interval in particular: harmonic in the case of the pentatonic
and melodic in the case of the sevenfold. Thus they appear to
confirm very different construals of time relative to the
structures of consciousness, and this must bear on the theology
of the logos.
The triads consisting of the first three degrees of the
(ascending) scale, contain the two junctures in the scale, where
the 7th and 4th degrees resolve to degrees 1
(or 8) and 3 respectively. They are cadences.
They articulate the only two decisive sequences which bespeak
rest. I use this last word allusively to the story of
Sabbath-Eucharist recalling what was said of either episode as
being the fourth and last member of its 'immanent' or immanent
subseries according to the recapitulation of the categoreal
paradigm, as well of course as being the seventh. The resolution
or rest, the points of settlement reached by these degrees are
just the 1st and 3rd degrees, and not the 7th
and 4th degrees of the scale themselves. These degrees,
1 and 3, in virtue of which the resolution
transpires, are in harmony with one another. They form the
interval of a major third. The 4th resolves down to the 3rd,
and the 7th, it resolves up to the 8th (also
describable as the 1st or tonic. (The first
degree is called the 'tonic' because it determines the
'tonality' of the octave.) In other words, it is in virtue of
the polarity of consciousness represented by these degrees of
the scale, 3 and 1(or 8) that the
process is either 'transfigurative', meaning a conceptual
form of intentionality, or 'transformative', meaning a perceptual
form.
The degrees 7 and 4 however, are in no wise any
the less significant for that. We have already seen that their
absence from the pentatonic scale is determinative of its
peculiar nature. Taken together, as an interval, they announce
the only instance in the major and minor sevenfold scale of a
very remarkable interval, the tritone, once called diabolus
in musica, because it was considered so dissonant. This is
the interval of augmented fourth/diminished fifth. Its
exceptional status is readily recognisable in that it appears to
supplement if not suspend, the clear binary articulated by the
two circles in opposing directions: those of fourths and fifths.
More of which we need to consider later.
Here we can resume the first binary previously discussed, that
divulged by the two whole-tone series. Such that we now find the
triad 1-2-3 marking the intentional modality in question
as either conceptual or perceptual, accordingly as the two Christological miracle narratives are centred
upon the phenomenon of transmutation.
The Transformation Of Water Into Wine clearly begins the
exposition of perceptual consciousness in its depiction
of haptic memory, and The Transfiguration
complementarily harks back to the story of the 'six days', and
so refers us to consciousness in its conceptual pole,
beginning with Day 1, as with mind itself. Thus the resolutions
or cadences 4-3 descending and 7-8 ascending must
be read in conjunction with the presentation of consciousness qua
intentionality of these two juxtaposed and radical kinds. But
this does not mean that both cadences do not play their
part in each kind.
We are now sufficiently well placed to give examples of the
representation by semeiacoustika of all four conscious,
simple forms of intentionality and their equivalent forms in the
aconscious, which are compounds. The following template which
co-ordinates the acoustic and optic semiotic forms is given as
prefatory to this, and should be consulted in the exposition
which follows.
The treble staff at the top of this diagram lists the
semeiacoustika representative of the perceptual forms, beginning
with the three non-normative radicals of virtual
transcendence, and ending with the three normative radicals of actual
immanence. The treble staff at the bottom lists the
semeiacoustika representative of the conceptual forms, beginning
with the three normative radicals of pure transcendence, and
ending with the three non-normative radicals of virtual
immanence. We see that whereas the semeiacoustika differentiate
between analogous radicals, the semeioptika do not. There are in
all twelve acoustic semeia, and only half this number of optic
semeia. The semeioptika demonstrate the analogous and
non-analogous relations sustained by conceptual-perceptual forms
just as does the musical notation adopted here. There is no
seventh semeia either acoustic or optic. Every one of the twelve
radicals represented, may function according to the meanings
inherent in the Sabbath-Eucharist. This concerns the conceptual
forms as well as their perceptual analogues given the
Sabbath-Eucharist relation, and we shall find a clear
distinction established between the two ciphers of immanence, 4
and 7 in relation to not only the distinction between
Sabbath and Eucharist respectively, but also in relation to the
suite of connected matters which each in its turns entails.
These are:
- Sabbath: Transfiguration
- Sabbath - logos asarkos - death - (Thanatos)
- identity;
- Eucharist: Transformation
Of Water Into Wine - Eucharist - logos
ensarkos - Eros - unity.
To
both of these chains of connected events, the doctrines of
intentionality and the theology of semiotic forms are
vital.
Mark
We have already affirmed the relevance to the idea of beginning
of knowing. The Feeding Of The Five Thousand answers the
description of the conceptual form space : time in the creation
story. It involves the numerals 5 and 2 for this
reason. Space, the subject of the Day 2 rubric, and space :
time, the subject of the parallel rubric in the second half of
the text, Day 5, together testify to Transcendence ('God, The
Transcendent') and equally to the creative event of 'beginning'.
The beginning of each sevenfold and pentatonic catena of
acoustic semeia, in which the triad consists of markers denoting
perceptual radicals, must then be assigned to the mode of
knowing. This follows because acoustic memory itself occasions
knowing in its canonical instance. Knowing originates in
acoustic memory; the categoreal radical is the aetiological
explicans of the intentional mode knowing, and both, along with
the value truth consequent upon the latter, characterise the
gospel of Mark. The analogous conceptual form, space : time is
the provenance of the aconscious conceptual intentional mode,
will-to-believe. Therefore this also must function vis-a-vis the
notion of beginning. That is, its acoustic representation must
conform analogically to that of knowing.
The cadences in each case are identical: that of 7-8.
This portrays them as unique in just the sense that it utilises
the octave. No other cadence is comparable in just this sense.
Fifths and thirds, both major and minor, all occur within the
octave. Only the cadence at the tonic-octave stands apart in
this respect. The specific semeia in these two sevenfold catenae
are those which begin in F# in the case of knowing, and F
(natural) in the case of will-to-believe. The scales are as
follows: F#-G#-A#-Cb-Db-Eb-F-f# for
F# major, (F#major);
and F-G-A-A#-C-D-E-f for F major,
(F major.) The only other
cadence announcing a 'transformation' from pole to pole,
conceptual to perceptual in knowing, and a 'transfiguration'
from perceptual to conceptual in will-to-believe, occur at the
third degrees of the scales: namely, the degrees A# in F# major
and A in F major. Thus F-F# and Cb-A# articulate
the cadences at I and III in F# major respectively. They
announce knowing and the desire-to-know respectively. Thus too
E-F and A#-A, cadences at I and III
respectively in F major, announce will-to-believe and belief
respectively. The two modes knowing and will-to-believe so
articulated, that is, in relation to acoustic memory and the
conceptual form space : time, are canonical instances of the
same modes. The intentional modes desire-to-know and belief in
these particular instances are not.
We can see from the two series, the meanings of the Eucharist
and Sabbath in the two sets of cadences. The absence of a seventh sign corresponding to the
Eucharist in both semioses neither eliminates from
consideration the Eucharist nor denigrates it. Instead
the theology of semiotic forms concerns only the six radicals of
either kind, perceptual or conceptual. This assists us in
explaining the similar absence of a seventh conceptual form from
the creation narrative. Each of the six conceptual radicals in
turn, takes up the significance of the Sabbath event, just as
each one of the six perceptual forms acts 'eucharistically',
that is, in terms of knowing, and desiring, and
knowing-and-desiring, in both conscious and aconscious orders of
mind, and in terms of desire-to-know and knowledge-of-will and
the hybrid formed by these, once again in both orders, conscious
and aconscious. But no pervasive, that is, ultimately general,
structure of the perceptual pole more so than acoustic memory
functions in accordance with conscious cognitive intentionality
- knowing. The justification for its characterisation as
canonical for this intentional mode stems from this fact.
The Eucharist remains the frame of reference of the all
Eucharistic miracles. They are all couched in terms of
appetition and satisfaction subsequently to the J creation
narrative, in which we found both desire and knowing not only
explicitly incorporated, but central to what the narrative seeks
to describe. The three Eucharistic miracles therefore lay the
groundwork for the Eucharist. No Eucharistic theology can afford
to neglect them. The singularity of the actual Eucharist, its
separation from the Eucharistic miracles as different both in
kind and status, promotes it as the actual occasion of which
they themselves are aspects or modes, if not parts.
Here then, the theory of value operates pari passu with
Eucharistic and Trinitarian theology, for it is clear that there can be no particular
fourth form of value, just as their is no fourth
transcendent identity. Because there is no
specific fourth form of value, there is no fourth miracle event.
Unique and identifiable values, the true, the good, and the
beautiful are distinctly Trinitarian in their formal
disposition. This means that the Eucharist stands in relation to
them as a veritable summum bonum. It represents value in
the generic. The Eucharist figures as the ground of the
Eucharistic miracles; thus the sentient mode(s) which it
betokens, osmic-gustic, lay the foundation for the unity of all
three forms of sentience. The true, the good, and the beautiful
are catalogued in the feeding miracle narratives. They are
inventories of the intrinsic and actually immanent occasions of
value, The Feeding Of The Five Thousand, The
Transformation of Water Into Wine, and The Feeding Of
The Four Thousand respectively. More than the members of
any other taxa, forms of memory are susceptible of unity, and
this qualifies the Eucharist as final, and verifies its
classification as immanent. If unity is the hallmark, the
ultimate measure of immanence, then the Eucharist must
necessarily define value in generic terms.
The Eucharist completes the doctrine of intentionality, which we
can only outline here, as the immediate task is to provide
sufficient examples of the acoustic representation of
intentionality. In order for it to rank as signifying value in
the generic sense, it must appropriate the significations of all
three modes of phenomenal sentience, acoustic memory, haptic
memory and optic memory, as to both the cognitive and conative
forms of intentionality which they generate, specifically in
their canonical instances. The theological significance of the
Eucharist lies in these instances of the same perceptual modes
of intentionality. We have already observed how systematically
Luke gives ample attention to the role of desire in the
Eucharist; desire reciprocated on both parts, that of Christ,
the paschal victim, and that of his disciples. For Whitehead,
the pertinence of desire to 'God' is the same:
He [God] is the lure
for feeling, the eternal urge of desire. His particular
relevance to each creative act, as it arises from its own
conditioned standpoint in the world, constitutes him the
initial object of desire establishing him the initial phase
of each subjective aim. (Process
And Reality: Corrected Edition, p 344)
The claim regarding the
relevance of the canonical occasion of knowing for Eucharistic
theology, has repercussions for theology itself, since the
Eucharist qua an occasion of cognitive intentionality is
certainly theology. That is to say, theology itself is to the
Eucharist, or phrasing the matter more forensically, to
osmic-gustic sentience in general, as is technological
rationality to haptic memory, or philosophical psychology to
acoustic memory. It follows then, that any Eucharistic theology
must be incorporative of knowing in its canonical manifestation.
If the Eucharist incorporates all three conscious, perceptual
forms of memory, it must likewise subsume the cognitive and
conative modes which they generate, and proportionately to their
hierarchical grading. The canonical form of knowing,
philosophical-psychology (meta-psychology), of the very kind
pursued in these pages, as in the gospel of Mark itself, and the
canonical form of desire, erotic desire, must then needs be
resolutely paramount in any Eucharistic 'theology'. We shall
pursue this topic in greater detail at a later stage, but it is
necessary to note it here.
Luke
The intentional modes idiomatic to the gospel of Mark are
both theoretical; both knowing and the will-to-believe are of
this kind. Both Lukan modes, desire simpliciter,
and belief-in-desire, are practical. Their acoustic
representation must therefore be either that of the minor
3rd or the minor 5th. The allusions of the
numerals themselves are significant here, and in this, other
factors will support them. The pentads have already been linked
with Transcendence and with The Transcendent, and the hexads
with The Son. The contours of the same hexads are immediately
triadic. We noted the occurrence of triplicities in the
Christological feeding miracle from its inception: 'On the third
day ...' (John 2.1). There is no reason to confuse this with the
association made by the creation narrative between The Holy
Spirit and Days 3 and 6, since the feeding miracles consist as a
class which clearly uses the figures 4 and 7 as
Pneumatological tokens. Moreover, there are two different
cadences at two different forms of the third degree of the
sevenfold scale: the minor and major scale. We can
systematically and consistently use the 3rds as acoustic
semeia representative of the two Christological modes, desire
and belief. Thus they formulate the coherence of intentional
modal idioms proper to the gospels of Luke and John.
We must register here that the sum total of cadences major and
natural minor scales is four. They are thus perfectly fitted to
the representation of the four modes of intentionality, whether
simple and conscious, or compound and aconscious, which bespeak
the specific theological perspectives proper to each of the
gospels. That is, the cadences are morphologically consonant
with the gospels as with the deliveries of a natural theology in
Ezekiel and The Apocalypse, affiliating each with the four
singular tipping points in the annual temporal compass. This
squares with the essential and analogous relation of conceptual
form space : time and perceptual radical acoustic memory.
Here once again, the theology of The Holy Spirit a propos of the
doctrine of intentionality arises. The four hybrid forms of
intentionality designate this identity. I have already commented
on their appositeness to the role of graphic (optic) structures
of the word as 'derivative' or 'plagal' in a sense, and the
theological status of The Apocalypse relative to that of the
taxonomical texts, Genesis 2.1-2.4a and the messianic series.
Hybrid forms of intentionality rely upon existing and
identifiable modes, which in either order, are just four in
number. In this light then, we may also understand the highly
'intertextual' fibre of that book. The gospels are the premise
upon it which rests. There is no fifth form of intentionality,
no fifth wheel so to speak, and The Apocalypse does not deal
with the biblical doctrines implemented in the stories of
'beginning and end' taxonomically, but typologically. It is no
fifth gospel. I do not mean to derogate its purpose and status
in asserting this. But clearly it performs otherwise than do the
gospels themselves, even given its own clear and purposive
integration of the messianic series and the story of creation in
the series of seven seals.
The cadential patterns thus align the Pneumatological markers, 4
and 7, with both identities, The Transcendent and
The Son. The 7-8 major cadence nominates The
Transcendent, and the 4-3 major cadence nominates The
Son. In making this observation, I stress that the enumeration
refers to major scales. The cadences in the minor scale however,
now concern us, since we are addressing the representation of
desire simpliciter and analogous belief-in-desire.
These will be equally represented by the minor third. The triad
I-II-III determines the polarity in question, and minor scales
like major scales, always consist in the ratio of 3:4. The outer
degrees of the tetrad are just those degrees of the major scale
which resolve towards I and III. Thus VII yields to I and IV
yields to III in the major scale. In the minor scale II yields
to III and VI resolves to V. These are the equivalents of VII
and IV of the major scale, thus they too are the outer members
of the subgroup of four tones as opposed to that of three. (If
we reckon these same cadences in terms of the relative
major, then 2-3 is identical with 7-8, and 6-5
is identical to 4-3.) What concern us in this case, are
the third degrees in the minor scales, upwards to which the 2nds
resolve.
The canonical instance of desire is represented by the G minor
scale; the resolution at the minor 3rd being that of
A-A#. The scale consists of G-A-A#-C-D-Eb-F-g, (G minor). (The
relative major begins with A# and uses these same tones in the
same sequence.) So the cadence here marks the exchange from a
conceptual pole to a perceptual pole, since we take A as token
of the conceptual form mind : body, and A# as token of haptic
memory. The corresponding or analogous mode in the aconscious is
F# minor, such that the third is now not A#, but A: F#-G#-A-Cb-Db-D-E-f#,
(F# minor). (The
relative major begins with A and uses these same tones in the
same sequence.) The second degree is announced by G#, the semeia
for optic memory, and the third, by A (natural), the semeia for
the conceptual form mind : body. In both cases, the acoustic
semiosis representing the canonical instance of desire simpliciter,
and that representing belief-in-desire, the cadence is measured
as the transition from the second to the third degree of the
scale, the difference between the intervals being a semitone.
Identically to the previous case regarding the Markan modes
knowing and will-to-believe, in which both were represented by
the same cadence, here the two modes proper to Luke's particular
theological orientation, also utilise one and the same cadence:
the minor third.
Matthew
The remaining cadences are of both kinds, major and
minor. These are the major third, and minor fifth. The gospels
whose theological agendas conform typologically to practical and
theoretical intentionality, John and Matthew respectively,
correlate with the description of the same according to the
axioms. They complete a coherent schema whereby the acoustic
semiosis represents the transactional relations between the two
poles of consciousness as part of the hermeneutic of the
Christological miracle narratives. We shall first deal with the
gospel of Matthew.
Once more the cadences are of the same kind, occurring at the
fifth degree of the minor scale in both representations,
conceptual and perceptual. The fifth again heralds
transcendence, commensurately with its incidence in both
narratives, creation and salvation. It very neatly recapitulates
a primary if unspoken theme of the creation, that of will. Both
modes, will simpliciter and knowledge-of-will evince the
theological programme of Matthew. The pentadic formal outline of
his gospel is generally viewed vis-a-vis Torah, and this too
supports the assignation of the minor cadences at the fifth as
the proper typification of his gospel in relation to the
doctrine of intentionality.
The canonical instance of the expression of will simpliciter
ensues from the pure conceptual form space, 'the heavens'.
Matthew alone, not infrequently uses the periphrasis 'kingdom of
heaven' (basilei/a tw~n ou)ranw~n)
as noted, synonymously with the phrase 'kingdom of God'. (The
thirty-two occurrences of this expression, and his use of the
simpler synonym, 'the kingdom', can be found listed in the
literature. For an introduction, see Jonathan T. Pennington, The
Kingdom Of Heaven In The Gospel Of Matthew. Whether or not the seven 'Kingdom
Parables' of Matthew 13 are part of the same proclivity I am
unable to judge.) This certainly squares with the
transcendental rather than immanentist, leaning of his gospel,
and its notable compatibility with Judaic thought patterns.
These facts likewise conduce to reading the acoustic semiotic of
his gospel in particular, as proposed here.
In both conceptual and the perceptual modes, the cadence at 6-5
marks the two events, transfiguration to the conceptual from the
perceptual, and transformation from the conceptual to the
perceptual. The canonical instance of the conceptual mode
engages E minor, in which the fifth degree will be Cb, the
semeia articulating the conceptual form space. Thus the E minor
scale consists of E-F#-G-A-Cb-C-D-e, (E minor). As in
all other cases of the analogous mode of the alternative
polarity, the other tonality, is only a semitone apart.
Therefore the scale of F minor places C at the 5th
degree: F-G-G#-A#-C-Db-Eb-f, (F minor).
John
The remaining cadence, the major third, corresponds
semiologically to the gospel of John, where it articulates both
belief simpliciter and desire-to-know. In the first
case, in the canonical instance, the scale is that of Cb major
(conventionally notated as B major): Cb-Db-Eb-E-F#-G#-A#-c
flat, (Cb (B)
major) ) In the second, the perceptual mode in its
canonical occasion, the C major scale situates the third at E
(natural): C-D-E-F-G-A-Cb-, (C major).
The four examples just given, are universally those
representative of the specifically canonical instances of
intentional modes, and as such, refer to the specific
theological idioms of the canonical gospels. (The four instances
of hybrid intentional modality refer to The Apocalypse.) The
same 'canonical' intervals, tonic, major third, minor third and
minor fifth, along with their semiological significations, occur
throughout the two hexatonic ('whole-tone') scales according to
the first level distinction between conceptual and perceptual
categories and their corresponding intentional modes. We refer
to the difference between the canonical and non-canonical
occasions of a mode of intentionality as that between its
essential and accidental properties. Modes in their canonical
instances, for example, desire qua erotic desire, and
knowing qua meta-psychological knowing, are just those
which express the essential properties of the thing. Acquisitive
desire, desire in the mode optic memory, as a displacement from
the radical, haptic memory, definitionally regulative
('canonical') for desire, is a degraded form of the intentional
mode desire. Technological cognition, likewise, is a
non-canonical instantiation of the mode knowing, the instance of
the mode in haptic memory rather than its rendition in the
foundational form, acoustic memory. Neither this therefore, is
its first order exemplification. These thus are said to be
accidental rather than essential instances of the same. The
discussion of canonicity in terms of accidental and essential
properties is simply another way of explaining categoreal forms,
conceptual and perceptual, as the sufficient and necessary
conditions of specific modes of intentionality.
The canonical occasions in both series, in all four modes of the
two orders, aconscious and conscious, conceptual and perceptual,
can be arranged so as to represent harmonic intervals. Thus they
are liable to consonance as signifying the transcendental rather
than immanent incidence of these same four forms. That is, they
can be arranged as harmonic intervals, in distinction from their
possible occurrence as melodic intervals. The two chords so
produced articulate the same series of degrees of the major
scale sounded in unison, 1-3-5-7: F-A-C-E, ( F major 7th
harmonic intervals) and Cb-Eb-F#-A#, (Cb
(B) major 7th harmonic intervals). These harmonics however
should be distinguished from those which pertain to the
pentatonic. The pentatonic contains intervals 1-3-5; but not as
in the major 7th, since this includes the possibility a
semitonal relation from tonic to seventh if we extend the
octave. (The way to combine as many intervals as possible
without dissonance, using the pentatonic, is to form the minor/major
seventh chord, for example G minor/major 7th which
consists of G-A#-D-F, and E
minor/major 7th which consists of E-G-Cb-D. Structural
acoustika of this kind will figure prominently in the discussion
of the 'primordial' (transcendent) nature of God in relation to
the doctrine of intentionality.) Since conative, and therefore
signified as 'practical' modes of intentionality, establish the
foundation of these intervals sounded in unison, or
simultaneously, this will suggest the viability of the
ascription of desire to what process philosophy calls 'God's
primordial nature'. In other words, the first harmonic triad is
a minor triad, not a major triad; and this will infer
the conscious perceptual mode of desire and the subsequent
knowledge-of-will, an aconscious mode; or, the conscious
conceptual, and aconscious mode, belief-in-desire, and the
subsequent conscious mode will. (That process philosophical
theology has omitted from its account the role of will
equivalently to that of desire in 'God', tells for its bias in
favour of immanence, and its neglect of an equally
transcendental perspective.)
We should note here also, the recurrence of the second level
distinction effected by the categoreal paradigm. This highlights
the presence within the first level classification of six
conceptual radicals, of the three forms of unity, which are
virtually aconscious forms of memory. Actual forms of memory,
actual perceptual radicals of consciousness, are normative for
their kind as immanent. So then, we refer to these three
aconscious conceptual categories as those of virtual
immanence or 'immanence'. Conversely the presence
of categories of virtual transcendence or 'transcendence',
within the first level classification of six perceptual
categories, that is, of the three forms of perceptual
imagination, is part of the same second recapitulation of the
paradigm transcendence : immanence. If the forms of unity, space
: time, male : female, and mind : body (soma) and their
corresponding modes of intentionality, execute functions in the
aconscious akin to those of (actual) perceptual memory in the
conscious, then so too, the forms of imagination mirror the
operations of pure conceptual forms also within the aconscious.
The cadences logically preserve this second application of the
categoreal paradigm which classes the pure conceptual forms and
perceptual imagination over and against the forms of actual
immanence (memory) and the forms of unity. For the
representation by semeiacoustika
of the corresponding intentional modes, follows suit. In the
first case, that of transcendence and 'transcendence', the
cadences resolve in virtue of the descending scale:
major 4-3 marks both belief simpliciter and
desire-to-know, and minor 6-5 represents both will simpliciter
and knowledge-of-will. Together, these are forms of
intentionality native to the theological perspectives of John
and Matthew respectively. Both occur in the descending scale.
The two sets of cadences resolving from a lower to a higher
pitch represent the intentional modes proper to the theological
idioms of Mark and Luke. In the first case these are the 7-8
cadences in major scales, which herald conscious knowing simpliciter,
and aconscious will-to-believe; in the second, they are the
cadences in the minor scale 2-3, which announce conscious
desire simpliciter, and aconscious belief-in-desire. All
four instances are resolutions in favour of the upper semeiacoustikon.
Assigning major scales to theoretical modes of intentionality,
and alternatively, minor scales to the practical modes, raises
interesting questions regarding the various emotive tenors of
each. This has been a longstanding point of comment and
contention. Any difference between minor and major is
popularly referred to as one of mood, so that the former is
often spoken of as sounding 'sad', or some such term, whereas
the latter is supposedly reckoned as 'open', or 'bright'.
Emotional valence is part of the psychology of musical
expression, and a variety of opinions argue both for and
against its interpretation along such lines differentiating
minor and major scales. (Collier
and Hubbard for example argue against it, contending
that irrespectively of the use of major or minor scales
"... whether a given sequence of notes in a musical scale is
perceived as happy or sad is determined primarily by the
direction of pitch motion and by pitch height; for scales in
both the major and minor modes of music ascending higher-pitch
sequences were rated as happier than were descending
lower-pitch sequences". Richard
Parncutt on the other hand, opts for the negative
emotional valence of the minor scales.) As interesting as
these studies are for the theology of semiotic forms,
the significant and essential difference between minor and
major sevenfold scales, is the analogy they provide for the
clear distinction between practical and theoretical modes of
intentionality. Also, the relative major-minor differential
provides an analogy for the relation obtaining between
cognitive and conative intentional modes where the
instantiation is identical. This in turn permits the
concurrence of the same modes; the hybrid forms of
intentionality, which identify the Pneumatological elements of
consciousness.
MARK AND MANTRAYANA
The discussion of the representation of intentional modality
in terms of the binary, theoretical and practical, raises the
issue of acoustic semeia as themselves practical as well as
theoretical. That is, as a contemplative means. The use of
music in religious worship is well attested across a very wide
spectrum of variant belief systems, theistic and otherwise.
But in none of these other than those traditions which have
arisen on the Indian subcontinent, has the use of sound in
general, and mantra specifically, assumed a more
potent and viable technique for development of 'mindfulness'.
(For an introduction see Mantra:
Sound Of The Infinite at Sutra Journal.)
The two traditions which are foremost in the 'technological'
application of mantra to meditative insight are those of Sanatana
Dharma and Buddhism. In Buddhist heilsgeschichte, the
third turning of the wheel is sometimes referred to as
'mantrayana', meaning the mantra vehicle, so important was the
power of meditating upon sounds both perceived and
conceptualised.
A clear association between practical intentionality and the
development of a Christian 'deity yoga' employing the semeiacoustika
thus emerges here. It would suggest the contemplative and
worshipful use of semeiacoustika as therapeutic
influences upon the kinds of processes subsumed under the
definition 'practical intentionality'. This is not to
proscribe theoretical intentionality from the same. Indeed, it
is to recommend contemplation as a necessary aspect of
theological understanding and method both. There are abundant
precedents for such an approach to both theology as well as
philosophy, inclusively of meditative praxis. (See for example
Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy
As A Way Of Life: Spiritual Exercises From Socrates To
Foucault. For an opposing view, see Cooper, John,
M., Ancient
Philosophies As Ways Of Life: The Tanner Lectures On Human
Values. He accuses Hadot of reading back into
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the classical Stoics, and 'even
earlier Platonists of late antiquity, like Plotinus in the
third century', the practice of 'devotional and spiritually
purifying exercises of all sorts', and of having
overemphasized 'the ways in which the ancient philosophies
resembled religions.') There are other means than Buddhist
practices of 'deity yoga' of implementing what is innate to
the theology of semeiacoustika. But its recourse to practical
notions of identity sorts perfectly with the uniquely
transcendental weighting of acoustic semeia.
The difference between the exposition given here of
theological-philosophical praxes involving 'mantra' and
spiritual exercises in the western Christian tradition, should
be obvious, as is the fact that they stem from the gospel
itself, not in spite of it. I have already mentioned the three
mysteries of body, speech and mind, employed in 'esoteric'
Buddhist traditions. These are more readily congenial to the
specifically Markan theological agenda as engaged, that is, as
commending the semeiacoustika in terms of contemplative
practice. The break with time-worn Christian and other
traditions which are almost exclusively reliant upon the
repetition of words, 'kyrie eleison', or 'Om mane
padme hum', for example, could barely be more overt.
Sound has an innately abstract quality, and it is just this
which reflects its Trinitarian specification as
'Transcendent'; that is, as the incarnate revelation of "The
Father". Neither tangible nor visual percepta approach it in
this respect. It thus has a significance and meaning quite
apart from any purely semantic word or phrase. Any of the
twelve tones of the dodecaphonic series exists above and
beyond the significations of a given word. Furthermore,
various 'mantra' consisting initially of tones of
the dodecaphonic series, are perceptible as analogously
re-affirming the various meanings of the miracle narratives
themselves. Acoustic semiotic sense-percipience can be
unchanging, simultaneous and ongoing, or momentary, successive
and passing, sub specie aeternitatis or sub specie
durationis; just as intervals can be harmonic or
melodic. But in either case, it does not call for the constant
repetition of the same words or phrases over time.
In the first part of what follows, I shall address the latter:
the revelatory capacity of the sevenfold scales in the
exposition of the doctrine of intentionality vis-à-vis
immanence; the way in which human and sub-human thought,
cognitive and conative modes of awareness, or intentional
processes, guarantee the realization of the three forms of
value 'on earth'. In the second, I shall then further
elaborate the pentatonic, that is, the existence of the same
in 'God', or 'in heaven', the transcendental nature of God,
the 'eternal' ordering of these same opportunities for the
actualization of those same three forms of value, as is given
by the harmonic intervals constituting the minor/major
seventh. These four of tones or semeiacoustika, formulate the
architectonic of the pentatonic system.
These remarks serve as requisite only in passing. For one
thing, the elaboration of the acoustic semiotic series as upaya
or skillful means, demands the detailed exposition of the
fundamental dichotomies between pentatonic and hexatonic,
hexatonic and heptatonic, and pentatonic and heptatonic. For
another, the clearest integration of the phonetic and graphic
forms of words which the phenomenon of language attests, means
that any full-scale exposition employ mandala, that is, a
visual representations coterminous with the acoustic semiosis.
We have thus far used the essential components of mandala,
colours and shapes, to convey some of the basic tenets of the
theology of semiotic forms. But we have not presented these in
any coherent format which combine the acoustic and optic
semiotic forms subject to the theological tenets of the
narratives. That remains a task in hand, as does the
consideration of mudra, and its integration in the
same enterprise. Mantra, mandala, and mudra
are part of one whole and esoteric means of realization of
transformation of the self; that is a means of meditative techne
which ally themselves with religious traditions espousing samsaric
eschatologies. But what should be clear from the several
epigraphs at the beginning of this brief chapter, is the
importance and usefulness of spiritual practice to any
understanding of semeiacoustika.
What then does it mean to allege for example, the F# major and
F major scales as 'Markan', or to say that E minor and F minor
on the other hand somehow semiologically represent the
'Matthean' theological idiom? I shall give a cursory example
to add flesh to the bones of such claims in order to rescue
them from the appearance of mere mystical dogmata. And in
doing so, I shall utilise the two most readily intelligible,
because Christological, components of consciousness, one of
which has already been fairly extensively explained. The
latter is haptic memory, aetiologically responsible for the
canonical occasion of desire; the other is mind, whose primary
intentional function is believing.
Resuming the prior example of the F# major scale as signifying
in its canonical occasion, the intentional mode knowing, we
see that both of these two Christological radicals occurs
since their semeiacoustika are A# (erotic desire) and
Eb ('metaphysical' belief, necessarily focused upon the
realization of the value goodness, uniquely exemplified by the
conceptual form mind). In this particular instance A#
denotes haptic memory, albeit not in its definitive, that is
not in its canonical instance or occasion, as the minor third
of the scale G minor, in which it signifies erotic desire, the
defining moment of that particular intentional mode as
generic. But it does signify something clearly related to the
same, desire-to-know. The semiological difference is expressed
as that between the minor third, representative of desire (simpliciter),
and desire-to-know, whose acoustic signification is the major
third. A# is the major third in the F# major scale,
and the minor third in the G minor scale. (These two
scales also share other semeiacoustika; namely Eb and F
(natural).)
We should note here also, the occurrences of the other
Christological category, mind simpliciter, and not soma,
or mind : body. Its semeiacoustikon is Eb. But it is
canonically expressed or instantiated as the major third,
identically with desire-to-know, the aconscious and
equally Christological form of desire, and the business of
haptic imagination. Eb occurs as major third, a
cadence, in the Cb major scale. Both scales, F# major and G
minor, both serial forms of order, contain this same semeion.
In F# it occurs as the sixth degree, and consequently lacks
any cadential status, being preceded and succeeded by the
interval of a whole tone. In the G minor scale it also occurs
as the sixth degree, from which it functions in the
resolution to the minor fifth, the degree marking the
cadence. Thus it does not itself comprise the resolution of
the cadence, although it is party to the same. I shall not
expand on this topic here, since my purpose is to give only
the briefest example. But the incidence of the semeion Eb,
like that of A# is in both cases salient.
In conjunction with this example, let us then take also the
signification of the canonical expression of will, since in
some sense, this stands in almost complete juxtaposition with
desire. Both intentional modes, desire and will, are practical
forms of 'reason'. Both that is, guide action, and govern
outcomes, in spite of their certain difference regarding the
temporalities which they circumscribe, which is due to their
polarization; the fact that will functions in terms of the
conceptual pole, and desire in terms of the perceptual
pole. In its conscious, and therefore normative order,
will is intractably tied to future temporality; the equivalent
instance of desire manifests determination relative to past
temporality. Their aconscious orders invert these ligatures,
so that will-to-believe exhibits correlation with the past,
and desire-to-know with the future.
The canonical instance of will is provided by the
transcendental category space. Its semeiacoustic
representation is Cb. (If I designate these two radicals in
their canonical instances, haptic memory-desire and
space-will, as A# and Cb respectively, instead of the more
common designations, Bb and B (natural) respectively, it is
for the reason that these preserve clarity of exposition,
conforming to the fundamental, that is, first level,
differential of conceptual and perceptual components of
consciousness.)
Now we see the occurrence of this particular category in the
F# scale, at the fourth degree in which it is party to the
cadence of the major third, though not the actual moment of
resolution of that particular cadence. We should consider the
close proximity of the fourth to the fifth degree, that is,
the closeness of the tonalities F# major and E minor, in which
latter the semeion Cb occurs in its canonical designation. So
we may say that the conceptual form space, if not the
intentional mode which it entails, somehow plays a role, and a
considerable one at that, in the desire-to-know in the
canonical exemplification of knowing, if not in desire-to-know
itself. (The canonical occasion of desire-to-know is the major
third E in the C major scale.) But remarkably Cb, (B natural),
does not and cannot occur in G minor. The whole
apparatus of that particular scale, representatively of
(erotic and canonical) desire, depends on its non-occurrence,
since what would otherwise have been the major third degree at
Cb, must necessarily be flattened, to allow for the minor
third. Thus we might say in the language of process philosophy
that both the conceptual form space and its resultant
intentional mode will, are 'negatively prehended'. In other
words, will, expressly in its canonical moment, simply lies
outside the purview of the kind of thing in question which is
desire. It does not play any recognizable role in desire in
the defining instance of that mode. Of course it does function
in various ways in other species of desire. That is, the
semeiacoustikon Cb does occur in other specific varieties of
the minor scales representing occasions of desire.
Nevertheless Cb does occur, and quite decisively, in the Eb
major scale. In this scale, that semeion, Eb announces the
category mind in its canonical function of belief, given
semiologically as the cadence resolving from fourth to
major third at that same semeion, Eb. Cb articulates the tonic
or first degree of this scale, very notably since that
category, space, and its concomitant intentional mode, will,
are readily associated with 'beginning' in the P narrative.
Interestingly also, we note that the cadence involving Cb,
invokes A#, at the 7th-8th cadence. In this particular case,
the sign A# is not itself the moment of resolution
constituting the cadence itself, but even so, is party to the
resolution at the 8th degree, or tonic, Cb. So we see quite
clearly that both components, the perceptual radical haptic
memory (A#) and the conceptual radical space (Cb), are active
in this scale, denoting canonical belief, belief in the good,
as they were too in the F# major scale, denotative of
canonical knowing, knowing the true.
This too is remarkable given the apparent fact that just what
we mean by will and desire are at such loggerheads with one
another; one is characteristically qualified by freedom, the
other by constraint. Moreover, the latter semeion, Cb,
referring to the conceptual form space, is the instance of a
cadential resolution, albeit not in conformity with the
canonical expression of the intentional mode will, which is
semeiacoustically signified as the minor fifth at Cb, but at
least with the albeit non-canonical occasion of
will-to-believe. So then, the provenance of will, its
categoreal origin, the conceptual form space, is somehow
present, or 'positively prehended', in the canonical occasion
of belief, just as is the reason, the 'logos', of
desire, haptic memory, if not actual desire itself. Of these
two categories, the more immediately relevant is the former,
since it marks the actual cadence.
There is a further compact between these two highly
contrastive entities, and their consequent intentional modes
in the canonical form of belief itself, as is inferred by
their association. For belief, the cadence or resolution of
course, is in virtue of the conceptual rather than the
perceptual category; that is, in virtue of the conceptual form
space, rather than the perceptual form haptic memory, as just
noted. For knowing however, it is the opposite. There the
cadence occurs in favour of haptic memory. The F# scale marks
the 4-3 cadence as Cb-A#, the cadence being in
virtue of A#, designating haptic memory. This confirms what we
first encountered in the J creation narrative, a relation of
some sort between desire and knowing. Thus the role of the
conceptual form space, if not its canonical entailment,
veritable will (simpliciter) itself, although certainly
will-to-believe, is to canonical belief, analogous as is the
role of the perceptual form haptic memory, if not veritable
erotic desire, its canonical entailment, although certainly
the desire-to-know, to canonical knowing. These conclusions
advert to the epistemological quandries surrounding the
relation of belief and knowing.
Evidently, the only common factor shared by the radical
categories, (conceptual) space and (perceptual) haptic memory,
is that their consequent intentional modes in their canonical
instances, will and desire respectively, are both practical
and not theoretical. (Belief and knowing are both examples of
theoretical forms of reason.) Both will and desire dominate
our human agency. This common denominator is denoted in that
both are signified by cadences in minor rather than major
scales. Regarding their disparity, we see for example, that
will is characteristically phylogenic in nature, and desire is
ontogenic. Will, as the basis of common law and so
jurisprudential rationality, just like language, relies on
public consensus. In the Torah we see as much to an
outstanding degree. Judaism itself can legitimately be
characterized in such terms: namely, the phylogenic nature of
existence, and the fundamental role of will in human
consciousness. On the other hand however, desire stands as a
function of the personal and uniquely constituted self. If we
were to seek a world 'religion' which exemplifies its scope
and value in any account of human and sub-human consciousness,
it would be esoteric Buddhisms.
In terms of the same conundrum as formulating one of the basic
antonimies of human consciousness, one of the most confounding
of aporiai of philosophical psychology, their incongruity is
equally illustrated in ostensibly opposed forms of Christian
faith: those of Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism
respectively. Like the difference between Judaism and
Buddhism these too write large the same dilemma between the
nature(s) of our existence as belonging to the whole,
phylogeny, and yet equally, separably distinct from the same,
in our individuality as this specifically given in ontogenic
being. In tandem with the fundamental disparity maintained by
conceptual and perceptual polarities which they instantiate
without remainder, this factor further emphasises their
alterity to on another.
I have chosen these two examples, those of (canonical)
knowing, and (canonical) belief, for the way in which they
posit the roles of both categories, space and haptic memory,
and the variant ways in which they invoke if not exactly
precisely employ the intentional modes which these then
entail, those of will and desire. Both categories are
contained within both intentional modes, knowing and belief. I
cannot here say the same for the resultant modes of
intentionality, will and desire, to which such containment
might allude. It is certainly apparent however, that each
varies according to the resolution of the cadence. In knowing
it consists in virtue of haptic memory, if not exactly
conscious desire; and in belief, in virtue of space, if not
precisely conscious will. What we can say irrespectively of
the 'instrumentality' of desire to knowing, and that of will
to belief, however, is that in both instances, the normative
and conscious intentional function has been converted into its
aconscious copy. If desire as such is not actually
integral to the function of knowing, then desire-to-know is,
and of a particular species or occasion which is nevertheless
related to (canonical) erotic desire itself; just so, if will
per se is equally not actually integral to belief, then
nevertheless, will-to-believe is indispensable to the same,
and that of a particular species or occasion which is
nevertheless immediately related to (canonical) will itself.
TRANSMUTATION
Cadences tell for the interpolar relation of
analogous and non-analogous categories disclosed in the
narratives of 'beginning and end', as being of ultimate
structural significance for the constitution of mind or
consciousness. Thus they further the meaning of both
Christological miracle events to which transition is central.
Cadences exist putatively or ideally in the pentatonic. There,
they mark the potential for realization of value in God's
transcendent nature. In the sevenfold scales they are
signified as accomplished, and realized rather than merely
potential, in keeping with the theology of immanence,
evinced by the figures 4 and 7. The premier
objective of this theology of immanence is exposition of the
relation of the world to God. It concerns the unity of the three
identities in God, as accomplished by human and other than human
consciousnesses, manifest in the variety of modes of
intentionality consequent upon the twelve categoreal
constituents of the same. It is the realization of the three
forms of value by living creatures in accordance with the
identity of The Holy Spirit, the giver of life, and in
accordance with the identity of The Son incarnate:
In him was life, and the life was the
light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness has not overcome it. (John 1.4, 5).
In such representations of the immanent nature of
God, the two nodes or connecting points between polarities of
mind are exhibited. The pentatonic scales also contain the triad
of tones indicative of intentionality, and the same two nodes or
moments at which the resolution of the cadence occurs, 3
and 1. But they do not contain the degrees 4
and 7. So then it is evident that the pentatonic
represents the same values as potentials, or as we may
say, sub specie aeterntiatis. There are no
semitonal intervals in pentatonic scales; nonetheless, they
consist of acoustic semeia which formulate both the major and
minor triads as harmonic rather than melodic intervals,
which at the very least, suggest the possibility of such
cadences. They also formulate the minor/major seventh,
representatively of the hybrid forms of intentionality; forms
which combine both conative and cognitive epistemic processes.
If we were to add the degrees IV and VII to their scales, we
should clearly discover the same representation of intentional
modality which is the denotative charge of the heptatonic scales
and the theology of immanence. But these degrees are just those
missing from the pentatonic, whose purpose as per the acoustic
semiosis is the disclosure of the relation of God to the world.
The sevenfold scales alone announce and reflect the
actualization of value as accomplished in the world, 'on earth'
rather than 'in heaven'.
Transference from conceptual pole to perceptual pole is conveyed
in the immanent Christological narrative, The Transformation
Of Water Into Wine. Transference from perceptual pole to
conceptual pole is conveyed in the 'transcendental' Christology,
The Transfiguration. This last episode in the miracle
series defers notably and without demur, to the story of
creation. There is no doubt as to its complementary relationship
to the first narrative of the messianic series, nor concerning
its implementation of
the conceptual pole reciprocally with that of the perceptual
pole. This of course is supported by the isomorphism of the
two narrative cycles.
Operative in the two descriptions of change or transference
between the two polarities is the reality of value. The two
narratives confirm this in their equal use of the generic term
'good' (John 2.10 - kalo\n and
Mark 9.5 kalo/n.) The generic
meaning of the term refers to value generally, and hence it
comports with the direct relationship between both
Christological events, certainly both normative Christological
events, haptic memory and the conceptual form mind, as these
are deployed in the scaraments, Eucharist and baptism
respectively. Thus the same word evokes the relationship
between Eros and Thanatos that we uncovered in
the relevant texts. That it also notably reverts to the
formulaic iteration 'And God saw that it was good' in the P
narrative goes without saying.
Since both miraculous episodes equally concern the Son, 'Son
of man', specifically, we are justified in urging that
the term 'good' be taken in its specific sense also; that is,
in keeping with the deployment of all three forms of value the
good, the true and the beautiful, in accord with an
axiological theology of the Trinity. In just this respect, it
refers exclusively to the Son, and those constituents of
consciousness which are his exemplifications: haptic
sentience, in both denominations, imagination and memory, and
the two conceptual forms, mind and soma. Transactions
between analogous radicals uniformly describable as conscious,
always involve the same value. So erotic desire enlists the
conceptual form soma in league with the perceptual
form haptic memory. It is announced by the transition from the
2nd to the 3rd degrees of the G minor scale.
Both exemplify one and the same axiological identity. Belief,
another simple mode of intentionality, in the same axiological
kind, belief premised on the conceptual form soma, is
articulated as the transition from the 4th to the 3rd
degrees of the F major scale - F-G-A-A#-C-D-E-f.
Here too there is no difference of value between the two
transacting polarities.
The same is necessarily true of the hybrid simple
modes; that is, the modes desire-and-knowing and
will-and-belief. This follows because the transition in either
case, conjunct conative desire and cognitive knowing,
or conjunct conative will and cognitive belief, occurs
at the same juncture. It differs according to whether we refer
to its conative mode or its cognitive mode. Nonetheless, these
are capable of concurrence, that is of simultaneity. So for
example, where there is non-determination as to the tonic, a
harmonic interval may announce two modes at the same time. The
chord G-A#-D-F consists of the minor G-A#-D and
the major A#-D-F. These can obtain simultaneously,
without discord. G funtions as the tonic in the conative mode,
and F functions as the tonic (8th) in the cognitive
mode. Nonetheless, they can combine in the G minor/major
seventh chord G-A#-D-F. This is a simple, or conscious mode of
intentionality, but it remains indistinct as to its definition
vis-a-vis the conative or desiderative and cognitive or
epistemic intentional modes, desire and knowing respectively
which compose it.
An example of the co-existence of will-and-belief, similarly
indeterminately, and in the same instance, involving the
kindred relation of haptic memory to the conceptual form soma,
is articulated as follows: D-F-A-C. The chord D-F-A, is
the D minor chord, with the cadence from A#, the 6th
degree to A, the 5th, representatively
of will. (This particular case signifies that mode, conscious
belief, as focused upon the body (soma), even though
the latter is inextricably an aconscious categoreal radical.
It is the occasion of a conscious form of intentionality
operative within an aconscious category.) Nevertheless it can
sound simultaneously with the F major chord, F-A-C, the second
harmonic triad of the chord in which the cadence occurs once
more from A# to A, but in which these function as from
the 4th to the 3rd degrees of the major scale
respectively. The full result then is D-F-A-C; once again is a
minor/major seventh chord. A is common to both cadences. The
four tones involved in each of these two combinations as a
whole, the first a minor and the second a major chord, can
nevertheless occur without dissonance simultaneously, as the
minor/major seventh. In all, there are five members of these
four acoustika constituing the pentatonic scale, consisting of
this grouping D-F-A-C. What is missing from both arrangements
of this scale is the tone G. Nonetheless, it is an essential
part of both. In the D minor pentatonic scale the order of the
components is D-F-G-A-C; whereas the F major pentatonic scale
consists of the sequence F-G-A-C-D. As is the case for
sevenfold scales, these two particular sequences (scales) are
'relative' to one another. F major is the relative major of D
minor, and D minor is the relative minor of F major, whether
we mean the pentatonic or heptatonic.
The same occurs with respect to
the designation of potential, transcendental, perceptual
consciousness in God. That is, minor/major seventh chords
articulate hybrid perceptual intentionality. So that G-A#-D-F
will represent the concurrence of both desire, here in its
canonical occasion of the erotic, signified by the cadence of
minor third at A#, and knowing, signified by one and
the same semeion, A#, also the cadence of leading tone
to tonic, 7-8. In the first instance the harmonic
intervals is articulated as the cadence of minor third, in the
second that of major tonic, the first degree of the scale.
Just as these can obtain separately of one another, they may
also consist simultaneously, sub specie aeternitatis.
In just which case they signal hybrid modes of intentionality,
attributable to the identity of The Holy Spirit. We should
observe in this context, the clear affiliation of that
identity in God, and the human couple, as was given in the P
creation rubrics of Day 3 : Day 6. The anthropic category
bears the clearest relevance to Pneumatological doctrine, and
to the judgement of aesthetic value. For the record I repeat
here that haptic memory as an incidence of cognitive
intentionality, that is, as an instance of knowing, rather
than desire, results in technological rationality. Inasmuch as
it is not the canonical occasion of that particular mode, it
represents a third order instance of what actual knowing is.
The first order or canonical occasion of knowing is best
describable as philosophical psychology, allowing for the full
weight of the cognate 'psyche', meaning of course, the
soul, in that term.
Major/minor seventh chords as distinct from the minor/major
seventh chord, do not reveal hybrid forms of intentionality.
So for example the major/minor seventh chord F-A-C-E
represents two particular instances of intentional forms.
F-A-C as noted, is the representation of the occasion of
belief simpliciter focused upon the category soma,
the psychophysical, the body. It signals a conceptual process.
On the other hand A-C-E is the representation of a perceptual
mode of intentionality, desire, since the minor 3rd occurs at
the semeia C, signifying acoustic imagination. There can be no
'simultaneity' of belief and desire, since they are
categoreally defined at the first level as conceptual and
perceptual respectively. Moreover the two semeia involved, A
and C, are not one and the same. The same applies to the
collateral entities in each case; namely, will-to-believe,
signified as F, and knowledge-of-will, signified as E.
Moreover, this chord, the major/minor seventh incorporates a
semitonal interval, E-F, even if it does so, beyond the
compass of a single octave beginning with the tonic at F. The
occurrence the semitone is formally proscribed in pentatonic
scales. The representation of hybrid modes of
intentionality as the responsibility of the minor/major
seventh harmonic interval is consistent and distinct in this
manner.
The same representations of the aconscious order transpire
with equal consistency. I shall not detail them here, since
they have been fully set out axiomatically. However, these
hybrid modes, both conscious and aconscous, all of which are
attributable to The Holy Spirit, pertain to the pentatonic.
The hybrid intentional modes which they articulate, whether
conscious or aconscious, will be dealt with in addressing the
pentatonic, and its characteristic disclosure of the
transcendental rather than immanent nature of God. This is of
vital importance to understanding the miracle story, The
Feeding Of The Five Thousand. But neither can its
decipherment be reckoned without due attention to the
Pneumatological feeding miracle story.
If conscious intentionality, whether it be of the conative or
cognitive form, or of their hybridisation, is
clearly marked by identity of value, then
aconscious intentionality is just as clearly signified by
axiological heterogeneity. Examples of this are as follows:
the incorporation of beauty by the good, represented by the
transition G#-A, which might be belief-in-desire (minor
II-III), or will-to-believe (major VII-VIII (I)) or their
hybrid; or yet the subsumption of the good by the true, as
represented in the case of E-F, which likewise, can be in
either of the two same modes, belief-in-desire, and/or
will-to-believe, or the third established by their hybrid. The
axioms cover all such possibilities.
The next task is to resume the manner in which these various
processes are relevant to the chains of events incorporating the
two sacraments, baptism and Eucharist, and thus the theologies
of death and Eros. Certainly the phenomena of death and
sexual love (orgasm), are patently connected with the fact of
change, to say nothing of the similitude sustained by Eros
and Thanatos themselves. But there is yet another
dichotomy or binary which the theology of semiotic forms is
obliged to assess, and to which we referred at the beginning of
this section, in connection with the theology of value: the
subject-object. This is also inevitably part of any discussion
of intentionality, from the very core of which it follows.
Intentionality wittingly or not, posits a relation between the
'object' so called of the intentional processes and the
prehending person or 'subject'. In framing these enquiries
within the contexts supplied by the three narrative cycles of
'beginning and end', we can not do better than to base matters
upon the categoreal paradigm transposed into the dialectic of
identity : unity.
This page was updated 23.04.2022.
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