Scientific Thought and Savage Thought / Predicates that Open Distance and Predicates that Close Distance - Reading Levi-Strauss's 'Mythologiques' through Deep Semantics (91_ 'Mythologiques 3: The Origin of Table Manners' - 42)

This is the 91st attempt to read Claude Levi-Strauss's 'Mythologiques' in a ”creative” and indulgent way. We are reading Part 6, 'Equilibrium,' of 'Mythologiques 3: The Origin of Table Manners'.

You can read all the previous articles from the link below.

You can enjoy (?) this article on its own, even without reading the previous ones.

Introduction

In this series of articles, I read Claude Levi-Strauss's “logic of myth” by likening it to a mandala-like structure of double four-term relations (eight-term relations) such as those Kukai describes in 'Unjigi', or rather, as the 'things' (koto) where the pulsations that make mandala-like patterns emerge like ripples resonate. as a model.

“Empirical distinctions become conceptual tools”

Levi-Strauss writes the following at the beginning of his massive work on the logic of myth.

Extracting ideas by using empirical and sensory distinctions (differentiation) as conceptual tools (in other words, superimposing differentiations to articulate meaning), and connecting these ideas (linearly chaining one-to-one static pairs of signifiers and signifieds) is 'how it is done'.

As a tentative theory to model this 'how', if we consider the pulsation (expansion and contraction) that generates and dissolves a mandala-like meaning-articulation system, it generally looks like the following.

The Algorithm (Movement) of Mythological Logic

In other words, at the end of the narrative, myth aims to draw a stable mandala-like pattern by separating Δ1 to Δ4 in Figure 1, while connecting them without being too detached or too attached, to the extent that they are not overly separated.

Δ1 to Δ4 are empirical and sensory distinctions/differentiations for us humans. For example,

Δ1 Hot / Δ2 Not hot || || Δ4 Bad / Δ3 Not bad

This is what it means. For us humanity, the 'meaningful' empirical world is almost entirely woven together using four-term relations consisting of overlapping binary oppositions as the minimal constituent unit of meaning articulation.

Now, in the diagram above, I tentatively connected 'Δ1 Hot' and 'Δ4 Bad' with an equals sign (meaning 'hot is bad'), but the orientation of this Δ4 Bad and Δ3 Not bad could be flipped. It just so happens that I, the person writing this, am currently in a hot and humid room, so I wrote 'hot is bad'; if I were writing this in a sub-zero warehouse in the middle of winter, 'hot' would have been equal to 'not bad'.

＊

As we grow up and live our lives, we vaguely think that 'hot' exists as a self-evident thing in itself, and that 'bad' also exists as a self-evident thing in itself.

Before the obvious distinctions of daily life

By the way, myth is an activity of thinking about the 'origin' of this empirical world, which is daily taken for granted and articulated with meaning as if it were natural.

For example,

1) 'Why are humans and non-human animals different?'
2) 'Why is the world divided into heaven and earth?'
3) 'Why do good and evil exist in this world?'
4) 'Why are life and death separated? (Why do people die?)'

Regarding these questions, in the modern era, there is a way of thinking about 'answers' using the methods of natural science. For 2), it could be explained by the fact that the cosmic dust of the Earth conveniently gathered to form this planet; for 1), it is the result of life trying to adapt to its environment; and 4) can also likely be explained by the convenience of cell and protein reproduction. As for 3), it is thought that there are parts that can be explained scientifically by examining human behavioral patterns and the workings of the nervous system.

By the way, it is estimated that humanity has been continuously asking these questions linguistically in some form for at least 10,000-plus years, and perhaps from 40,000, 50,000, or even 60,000 years ago.

Life/Death
Male/Female
Human/(Non-human) Animal
Heaven/Earth
Terrestrial world/Underwater (Underground) world
Light/Dark
Day/Night
Cold/Warm

For example, these distinctions, classifications, and binary oppositions must have been known empirically by humanity since ancient times (or rather, even by life forms before humanity).

Moreover, strangely enough, these opposing binaries, while being diametrically different, do not completely separate; they repeat the process of combining and separating, connecting into one, and splitting into two.

When trying to think in language about why such separation and combination of binary oppositions, or their regular alternation, exists at all, and to discuss its origin (beginning) with one's peers, the narrative of 'myth' is generated.

Scientific Thought and Savage Thought

Modern humanity attempts to 'answer' these questions with scientific thought. In other words, it converts the binary opposition in question into some kind of binary opposition that can be observed using observational technology that yields reproducible observational results.

Δ / Δ
|| ||
Δ / Δ
|| ||
Δ / Δ
|| ||
Δ / Δ
|| ||
Δ / Δ
|| ||
Δ / Δ
|| ||
...

For example, assuming there is a binary opposition between delicious ramen and bad-tasting ramen, one might explain 'what delicious ultimately means, and what bad-tasting ultimately means' by replacing it with, for example, some kind of binary opposition of the presence/absence of 'umami components' (if there are many umami components, it is delicious, and if there are few, it is bad-tasting), or by combining various measurable indicators in a more complex way (for example, combining indicators such as the amount of umami components, the amount and ratio of salt and fat, the temperature of the soup, and the resilience of the noodles) to define some value, and defining 'delicious' based on the magnitude of the number that falls into that value. In fact, since the modern era, humanity has clarified and realized the conditions for living comfortably using these methods, which is quite impressive.

Then, when ancient people, who did not have subdivided classification-type observational technology like modern people, were filled with the question of why such separation and combination of binary oppositions, or their regular alternation, exists at all, how on earth did they think about it?

* *

While people in the scientific age would answer by replacing the binary opposition of delicious/bad-tasting with the opposition of the presence/absence of 'umami components,' or the binary opposition of male/female with the difference in chromosome combination patterns—yet another opposing relationship—it seems that ancient people focused on the movement '/' from which the opposing relationship itself emerges.

← / →

What does this mean?

The movement from which the opposing relationship itself emerges

In other words, the meaningful world in which humanity lives empirically and sensuously is woven together (semantically articulated) with four-term relations, which combine two binary oppositional relationships, as the minimum constituent unit.

Δ / Δ
|| ||
Δ / Δ

For example,

Human / Animal
|| ||
Wearing clothes / Not wearing clothes

Human / Animal
|| ||
Using fire / Not using fire

Human / Animal
|| ||
Hunter / Prey

and so on. Of course, it goes without saying that there are cases where a monkey might walk around with a burning stick, or where an animal might make a human its prey and eat it.

What I want to ask now is not the scientific question of how to solidify the 'certainty' (unwaveringness, whether there are counterexamples) of this four-term relation (that is also important, but I am talking about something else now), but rather the way the '/' and '||' move.

Assuming that the four-term relation, which is the minimum constituent unit of this semantic articulation, is expressed by a combination of Δ1 to Δ4, the act of cutting and separating these Δ1 to Δ4 from a state where they cannot be distinguished to a state where they can be clearly distinguished (/), while binding them together so they do not scatter apart (||), yet balancing them so they do not stick together too much and become indistinguishable, is the movement necessary for us humans to continue to re-test the meaningful world as a meaningful world.

Therefore, 'savage thought,' which appears as myth, introduces four mediators that divide and connect Δ1 to Δ4.

/
|| ||
/

↓

β
β β
β

In the diagram above, the four βs drawn between the four Δs are the mediating terms that divide the Δs, connect them, or balance them in a state that is neither divided nor undivided.

*

Ambiguous mediating terms

In myth, the β term takes the form of, for example, a human who does not know how to use fire and pecks at the soil like a chicken, a jaguar that wears clothes and walks on two legs with a bow and arrow, a moon that transforms into a porcupine to seduce a human woman, or a human who separates their lower body from their upper body and dives into a river with only their upper body, luring and catching fish with the scent of flowing blood.

And, as you know, such things 'do not exist' in our empirical sense. It is important for savage thought to dare to verbalize this fact that they 'do not exist' empirically.

Myth aims to capture the movement of '/' before one can even distinguish whether something 'exists / does not exist' and to stabilize this. In other words, it is thinking about the 'before' stage where one can even make such distinctions as whether something exists or does not exist.

Because of this, it dares to speak of a state where two poles that should be empirically diametrically opposed, such as human/animal or prey/hunter, overlap into one and it is unclear which is which.

The offering of vomit as food in the myth of Ogetsuhime is also an example of this. Things that show a movement of amplitude that swings violently between empirically opposing poles, or things that exist in a way that is both and neither of the two empirically opposing poles, are called ambiguous mediating terms (β relative to Δ in Figure 1).

Ambiguous mediators move further away or closer together

Like kneading rice cakes, potter's clay, or pie dough, two of the four β-terms seem to be excessively joined on the first axis, while simultaneously being excessively separated on the second axis orthogonal to that axis. This "axis that causes separation" and "axis that causes conjunction" alternate at high speed.

• Any two β-terms stretch or shrink long toward the first and third quadrants

• Any two β-terms stretch or shrink long toward the second and fourth quadrants

• Two, three, or four arbitrary β-terms gather at or spread out from a single central point

In this way, vibrations (movements tracing an amplitude) that expand and contract the distance between β-terms occur.

As a certain resonance state of these vibrations, the β-terms are pulled out in four directions, and where the four β-terms are separated at an equal distance without being attached or detached (tracing a square), this pulling-out movement and the force attempting to return to the center balance. Here, the speed of expansion and contraction slows down infinitely. Thus, in the "between" of these β-terms, between the four β-terms balanced to trace a square, the four regions forming the "sides" of that β-square begin to be expanded stably and repeatedly. Here, room opens up for four regions or objects, 'that which is not that, distinguished from that which is not that' (Δ), to flicker so as to maintain their contours persistently. The Δ-terms settle there.

The meaningful world for each of us is
articulated as a combination of oppositional relationships

Here, a world meaningful to us is generated—a 'world' that can be linguistically and stably categorized, where it can be said that 'Δ1 is Δ2,' and where the various Δ-terms have already been separated and neatly arranged as individual objects. Any empirical world, and the myths that tell of the origins of the elements of that world, have this kind of logic.

Just beneath the surface of our empirical world, the movement to adjust the frequency of β and regenerate the world as a different four-term relationship by derailing it from the fleeting 'four' square of the here and now never stops moving. The meaning-articulation system that feels as if it has arranged given elements into a rigid structure, as in Figure 2 which appears in the surface consciousness of discriminative mind, is actually something like the expansion and contraction of pulsating waves (the period T[s] of periodically repeated vibrations expanding and contracting) viewed with narrowed eyes.

*

Becoming well-versed in the logic of myth makes it possible to observe how we experience the world, including ourselves, as something meaningful—the discrimination (funbetsu) that makes this possible, or the patterns of meaning articulation, emerging and disappearing in various ways. It also makes it possible to construct such methods of discrimination and meaning articulation quite consciously and freely.

Focusing on the movement that expands and contracts the distance between ambiguous mediators

The myth introduced in the previous article from 'Mythologiques 3: The Origin of Table Manners', 'M493a Menomini: The Sun Caught in a Trap (1)', is...

• β sunlight

• β the difference in the intermediate body hair above/below

• β beaver cloak with porcupine quill embroidery

• β mouse

The story was that as these four ambiguous mediators excessively combined, excessively separated, and expanded or contracted their distance, they gradually settled into a stable sense of distance—neither too close nor too far—and in the 'sides' of the four-term relationship that formed this stable, so to speak,square-like shape, various binary oppositions of the real world, which are empirically and sensually familiar to humans, stably emerged.

Let us look back at the content of 'M493a Menomini: The Sun Caught in a Trap (1)'.

Here, one tends to have their consciousness drawn to the impact of the 'terms' themselves, such as 'mouse' or 'hair that belongs to the sister who is closely connected to the brother, yet is strongly separated, located in the middle of the upper and lower body,' butregarding such'what these terms are,' and especially 'what they must be / what they must not be,'I would like to avoid being too fixated on those things.

This is because suchdistinctions of 'what it is / what it is not'only become possible after the ambiguous mediators have moved around, expanded and contracted their distance, and generated a stable binary opposition relationship and a stationary semantic articulation system.

Right now,myth is attempting to 'think'—using empirical distinctions as conceptual tools—about this transitional phenomenon that occurs before such distinctions, leading up to the pulsation of expansion and contraction and the eventual stabilization into a combined and separated four-term relationship.

In other words, when various 'terms' act as subjects, I would like to think by focusing on what kind of transformations (from predicates that speak of a combined state to predicates that open up separation, from predicates that speak of a separated state to predicates that combine) the predicates of those subjects are causing.

＊

Even if the terms are changed, the same expansion and contraction can be spoken of.

Regarding the variants of the myth above, Mr. Lévi-Strauss writes as follows.

In the variant, only the combination of four people is spoken of:
(1) father (2) mother (3) sister (4) younger brother

, and (4) the younger brother
does not split into an eldest, second, and third son
.

In other words, simply,

Older / Younger
Male / Female

It is a four-term relationship that combines these two empirical and sensory binary oppositions.

In the state of β-pulsation, where the space between empirically and sensorily opposing binary terms expands and contracts freely (while separating and combining, the various terms become one-in-many and many-in-one, neither one nor different), there is no rule that the terms must be a specific 'number' sensorily.

If you try to divide them, they divide infinitely, and if you do not try to divide them, they do not divide.

In the β-pulsation before discrimination, the distinction between being divided and not being divided, discrimination and non-discrimination, separation and combination, being many and being one, is also neither yet discriminated nor not discriminated.

Myth is trying to bring to the surface, the movement before an empirically and sensorily stable discrimination is set, in language, especially through the aspect of expansion and contraction by its predicates, and what the various subject-like things are, or how many there are or are not, does not become a major issue.

In the β-pulsation that opens up various oppositional relationships from the separation and combination of separation and combination, what the various terms that emerge as the two poles of the oppositional relationship are to the others is 'unattainable,' a feeling of being 'not quite sure but sort of understanding'. Being able to say what a subject-like thing is or is not, or how many there are or are not, is a matter that comes after discrimination has solidified.

＊　＊

Expanding and contracting between the two opposing poles of 'separation' and 'combination'

Mr. Lévi-Strauss further mentions another variant.

• A bird that moves in an oscillating manner in the intermediate region between heaven and earth.

• The terrestrial world and the underwater world at the bottom of the lake

• West and East

• Excessive connection between the sun and the trap

Similar and closely relatedempirical binary oppositions or ambiguous mediators occupying the space between the poles of empirical binary oppositions, appear in various myths, whether in this myth or that myth, and similarly show a movement that expands and contracts between separation and connection. Here, Mr. Lévi-Strauss writes as follows.

Equilibrium, that is, in order to 'create' an 'equilibrium' where the two poles in a binary opposition relationship do not connect excessively by being too close, nor separate excessively by being too far apart, maintaining a state of neither too close nor too far, mythical thought, for example,

Human / Animal

performs an 'operation' where it forces the two poles—which should normally be clearly separated in the relationship of marriage (i.e., humans and animals do not marry within human society)—into a form of interspecies 'marriage,' connecting them more than the empirical and sensory sense of distance would suggest, only to immediately set them in such excessive opposition that they are separated more violently than the empirical sense of distance would suggest. In other words, it creates an 'equilibrium' while expanding and contracting the distance between the human/animal poles. Regarding this, I would like to refer to the origin myth of Oshira-sama and the myth of the daughter who marries a snake in the Nihon Ryōiki.

Equilibrium

I will paraphrase the process leading to this equilibrium in this paper as follows.

That is, to reach an equilibrium expressed by a square (let the corners be Δ1, Δ2, Δ3, and Δ4 respectively), starting from a point where everything is concentrated, first, pull the line with β1 and β3 as poles in one direction, then pull the line with β2 and β4 as poles in a direction orthogonal to this, and by appropriately expanding and contracting these two pulling movements—that is, repeating the process of stretching them long or shrinking them short—create a flexible state where all of β1, β2, β3, and β4 can freely connect and separate. In that state, pull the four corners to form a square with the four β-terms at the corners, and open up the four regions expressed by those 'sides.' These four regions become the regions where the four-term relationship, the Δ-four terms, which are empirically and sensorily meaningful to us as living humans, each fit into place.

The expansion and contraction of separating and connecting is verbalized as the aspect of the predicate

Here, Mr. Lévi-Strauss points out that regarding groups of myths that ultimately lead to creating a similar equilibrium, if one focuses on the 'terms' (what the subject is), one can find combinations that are brilliantly reversed one after another in each myth and each variant ('Mythologiques 3: The Origin of Table Manners', pp. 453-454).

Scalp
↓
Leg

*

Cloak scorched by the sun
↓
Clothing stored to protect against bad weather

*

Decelerating the sun that is too fast to lengthen the day
↓
The sun gets caught in a trap, resulting in a world of only night

＊

Animal wives are jealous of humans and put them in danger
↓
Human sisters are jealous of their brothers and put them in danger

Similar to this series of inversions, examples are also given where a 'porcupine' changes into an 'imaginary animal,' or a 'bison' changes into an 'imaginary animal.' In regions where one cannot see the animal 'porcupine' (or bison) up close, they assign the same role (a way of moving that traces an amplitude) that the porcupine plays in regions where it exists to a completely different, imaginary animal.

Inversion.

Assuming there is an oppositional relationship between A and non-A, let us say that in one tribe, A is spoken of as something good and non-A as something bad. In another tribe, this is 'reversed,' where A is considered bad and non-A is considered good.

A / non-A
|| ||
Good / Bad

↓Inversion↓

A / non-A
|| ||
Bad / Good

When two such patterns are lined up, we inevitably ask the question, 'Is this thing called A, in and of itself, something good or something bad??'.

While this is a perfectly valid question, it forgets one important thing.

That is, for a definition, paraphrase (rephrasing the word A as the word 'good') to be possible, before that, one must first separate A and non-A = combine them into a relationship where they are mutually opposite while being separated, combine good/bad into a relationship where they are mutually opposite while being separated, this two 'combining while separating' movement must be in motion.

This is the movement denoted as '←/→' in the diagram below.

A ←/→ non-A
|| ||
Good ←/→ Bad

And the narrative of myth is precisely this: while this '←/→' is moving, it pulls the two terms, A and non-A, out from an undifferentiated state into two directions, and stabilizes the expansion and contraction movement so that the distance between these two pulled-out poles is neither too far nor too close, but just right, maintaining a steady distance. In myth, this '←/→' emerges simply through the predicate and the aspect of the predicate of the narrative.

However, since mythic narrative is also language, the predicate almost always pulls in some kind of subject-like thing. Even if one were to try to speak with only predicates without a subject, the predicate itself easily becomes a subject.

There, the myth pulls in subjects such as "scalp," "leg," "porcupine," "bison," "cloak," and "sun." These are things that stand out as one pole of an empirical and sensory binary opposition among the people who tell each respective myth.

Here, I will dare to stop myself from separating these subjects from the predicates they are directly connected to and asking what they essentially are in themselves. Instead, I will direct my consciousness toward each of the predicates that are linked to the subjects. Furthermore, I will focus on the oppositional relationship between predicates, for example, "to separate" versus "to combine," and direct my consciousness toward pairs of opposing predicates.

Predicates that open distance, predicates that close distance

For example, a "scalp" is "peeled off." From a head that is originally overly connected, something that usually does not peel off is peeled off. Here, we can see the aspect of a predicate that turns connection into separation.

For example, a "porcupine" "descends from the sky to the ground along a tree, and climbs back up from the ground to the sky along the tree." It
goes up and down between the two poles of sky and earth, which are empirically clearly separated. We can see the aspect of a predicate that connects by going back and forth between the separated poles of sky and earth.

For example, a "shoe" is "hidden, one of a pair, and cannot be found even though it should be nearby." Shoes, which are empirically connected as a set of two, are separated into right and left.

For example, a "cloak" is "scorched by the sun." The cloak, worn during the winter season when the sun is empirically weak, acts to
supplement and connect the protagonist's relationship with the "weak sun," which tends to separate. However, this reverses, and the "strong sun" connects too excessively with the protagonists, burning away the cloak that should have been between them. Here, a predicative aspect unfolds where multiple instances of connecting and separating, being one and being different, and multiple states of neither-one-nor-different overlap.

Similarly, clothing is "stored away", the "too-fast sun" is "decelerated", the sun is "caught in a trap", or "jealousy" tries to connect where things are originally separated, or tries to turn what is originally connected into separation, thereby causing a predicative aspect of the reversal of separation and connection.

*

Mythical storytelling begins by focusing consciousness on the subject, and gradually shifts the point of consciousness toward the "predicate," which verbalizes the subject's way of moving around, going back and forth, bringing closer or pushing away, and moving as if drawing an amplitude.

This predicative aspect is brilliantly manifested in the establishment of "periodicity."

Periodic movement is a movement (predicative) that goes back and forth between two poles, at a nearly constant speed, while defining nearly the same maximum and minimum values each time.

Periodic movement creates a relationship that connects two opposing poles while clearly separating them, allowing them to appear alternately.

When it comes to myths about 'liberating the sun' to counter the 'dominion of an eternal night,' one is reminded of the Japanese myth of the hiding of the sun goddess in the heavenly rock cave.

Day and night, light and darkness, summer and winter

These are the most fundamental binary oppositions that segment human empirical and sensory reality. Even such relationships are never considered given in myths. They call forth and set in motion, one after another, predicates that come and go—movements like kneading puff pastry or potter's clay, separating what is joined and joining what is separated—that gradually stretch out and delineate the binary relationship.

Language is made of an algorithm that selects one side of a differentiated binary opposition and links it to one pole of another binary opposition, but the myth-logic of savage thought captures this very algorithm of language and meaning in its simplest pattern by repurposing and appropriating (bricolage) everyday, empirical, and sensory words just as they are.

When bricolaging everyday language in this way, the more a myth belongs to a different culture, the more we are drawn to the strangeness, interest, sublimity, and impact of its 'subject' aspect, but I would like to dare to turn our gaze toward the predicate and observe in detail the movements of the predicative aspects of bodily sensations—physical movements, sensations, senses of distance, senses of motion, and the bodily sense of grasping or not grasping differences as differences—that support the foundation of human experience in the same way across various cultural boundaries.

To be continued

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