The ostensive is the fundamental component of all speech forms (even the declarative is an “ostensive at a distance”), meaning that all language use is naming the center, or as Gans has put it, “every word is the name-of-God.” Naming is always pointing back to an origin; whenever you use a name, you are commemorating whatever scene in which that name was first conferred, asserting that the center being named is the “same” as it was on the commemorated scene. All names conferred after the name-of-God point to a previous name, because at some point the imperatives coming from the center as-named-by the previous name failed, and a new name for the center had to be produced through the declarative, in order to represent what was previously going unrepresented. The negative ostensive, which constitutes the proto-declarative, is a negative imperative response to an “inappropriate” imperative, ending the awaiting taking place and naming the object’s absence, while itself being nothing more than the original name of the object, modified by an operator of negation. This “citationality” of naming, and thus language itself, is its most important component. The more we understand names as “citations” of previous names, ultimately leading back to the originary name of the center (regardless of whether that origin was the origin or, say, the origin of a discipline), the closer imperative relation we have to that center, understanding exactly what name must be used so that the center remains constant amidst changing scenic conditions. I think this concept of naming is synonymous to Adam’s concept of “selving”:
to be a self is to be the same as you were in some other situation where you were also that self. Instead of looking for some “deep” or metaphysical foundations of selfhood (like a soul), we can just direct our attention to the ways in which selves are maintained across time and space. Through names, for example—or social security numbers. Such inquiries can be as far ranging and differentiated as we need them to be, and anyone might embody various selves, recognized in varying ways for different purposes and “addresses” (and we might start talking about “meta-selves”). And maintaining ones selving requires doing things to continue constructing those forms of sameness in a sea of differences, which is to say mere likenesses, juggling a whole set of reference points—hence “selving”
The reason I’d argue that “naming” might be a more precise description of “selving” is that, as said by Adam himself, selving “returns us to language as fundamentally ostensive.” Sameness is a concept which specifically applies to the center – names (signs) only work insofar as we recognize ourselves to all be naming (pointing to) the same center. Names (ostensives) work to selve the center under similar scenic conditions, but once the scenic conditions have changed enough so that the name fails, a new name must be produced in order to further selve the center so that it remains constant.
Our default position as language users is, and always will be, to name things. We started by naming the center and have been trying to do that ever since - any time signs fail, a breakdown of linguistic presence becomes imminent, and representing the center requires the generation of new ostensives (new names) out of the higher speech forms (the imperative and declarative). Again, new ostensives are directly, necessarily, traceable back to a previous ostensive which failed, and ultimately back to the originary sign. The originary sign named the center, but new ostensives name the scenic conditions in which that center holds constant. A way of thinking about this is that all language use is constructing a “Big Name,” which could be imagined as a “cumulative ostensive” which represents the center in only the ways it holds constant across space and time, under maximal scenic resolution. Every new name aims to hold the center constant amidst any future scenic transformations, and refines the “Big Name” by commemorating the specific scenic conditions in which a previous name failed. A complete “Big Name” would provide complete representation of the center - a unique sign would exist for every possible scenic configuration, at any resolution. Disciplines, then, are engaged in the continuous construction and inspection of the “Big Name” (hence the appeal of a “theory of everything”). This is why, nowadays, such an extreme emphasis is placed on citationality. The first new name simply “pointed” back to a scene in which the originary sign failed (it was likely very similar to the originary sign itself), but as our scenic resolution and network of names grows, the path we trace back to the origin becomes much less clear. A chemist might find that the unexpected behavior of a specific molecule was caused by a specific atom with some different configuration of protons and neutrons, which he names “X’s law,” but how does he ensure other chemists know that what he is doing is, in fact, the same “chemistry” that Antoine Lavoisier was doing? By making it as explicit as possible that the new names he has produced are traceable back to the origin – today, that looks like a single research paper citing hundreds of other papers, where individual sentences may include citations to multiple different papers, and anything that is not cited is subject to intense scrutiny under disciplinary-specific rules. In mathematics, a proof for “X’s Theorem” may be explicitly based on “Y’s Theorem,” but is expanding it in a way to account for things that the existing theorem was previously unable to account for. Examining “Y’s Theorem,” we would find it is based upon an even more elementary “Z’s Theorem.” Following this path of origins, we would eventually reach the most basic “units” of propositional logic, very close to the origin of the discipline.
As generative anthropologists, it would make sense for us to be the ones who exemplify naming. But that would entail having the infrastructure in place in order to do so – the disciplines have foundational texts, governing bodies, educational infrastructure, research programs, etc. Adam has taken a first step towards this with an originary grammar of the center, which gives us a basis for a more formalized science of the human. The idea behind his project has been fundamental to my learning: any term should be able to be reduced to the fundamental “units,” or “invariants,” that we have at the origin. At the simplest level, this means understanding the imperative as a misplaced ostensive, the declarative as a negative ostensive naming the center’s absence (ostensive at a distance), etc. Then, being able to reduce terms like “scene” to articulations of those modes. With this in mind, our project of naming within GA would become one of continuously renaming or modifying existing names so that they’re more explicitly traced back to an originary grammar of the center. We might be able to produce a very precise definition of “scene” using the invariants, but then we’d have to ask ourselves about the term “scene” itself, imagining ways in which the name might fail: “scene” invokes the image of actors performing a script, which might lead to misinterpretations like “a scene closes before the next one starts.” A project I’ve taken up is a “GA Wiki,” which, like a normal wiki, aims to provide precise definitions along with the range of ways in which terms are used, primarily through inter-referential links. Starting at a term like “scene,” readers would be able reduce it to an articulation of the speech modes, learn the reasoning for why we call it a “scene,” where we use “scene” instead of “event,” etc. In an operational form, the wiki and similar projects will serve as a resource for future GA scholars (maybe even a future “GA review board” which would review GA-oriented research) to ensure that our naming is always, as explicitly as possible, leading back to the origin, the originary grammar of the center.
If you'd want help with the wiki here's a good resource to refer to, as well. This was one of the projects our 'NRx 3.0' scene did accomplish reasonably well. The only problem with it was not being updated all that much.
https://theglossary.home.blog/2020/06/27/postliberal-diction-study/
I have some gripes with some of the Promethean Idealist portion, and studied enough to where I think it should be expanded in different, more comprehensive directions--but that's just me. You can check the GA portion, there should be citations there as well. You can either put suggestions in there or just continue to build your own 🤷♂️.
It may be better to have a separate specifically GA wiki, for people who think the absolutist and arya-mystic sections are fluff and unnecessary.
These are the same guys who did the formatting and organization of the wiki, too: https://51ststate.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=profile_page