Semiosis and Human Understanding
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When we consider that “modern” (according to the OED) means “being in existence at this time; current, present”, while “to exist” is to have a duration that begins when our existence begins and ends when our existence ends, and “this time” depends throughout that duration on our interaction with our physical surroundings—an interaction (largely unconscious) without which our existence could not sustain itself, the conclusion is forced upon us that there is no other world than a “transmodern world”, i.e., the world through which each of us passes our duration with the marks of that passage inscribed at every moment upon our bodies and psyches so as to weave a web that bears for all time the story of our existence, such as it was — a story for those to see provided only that they figure out how to read the signs. Human understanding consists in just that ability to discover the passage of being in time.