For the earlier piece (which one should read before embarking on reading this piece, if interested enough to embark on such as activity) on sonar perception and the translation of this information by ingenious cognitive processes into a visual world existing purely within the mind, perhaps some clarification would be helpful. As said, this sight is not in itself a sense organ, but a codified version of the sensory information which has actually been received by means of sonar; a sense organ, if we call it such, in which the mind body self is a far more active participant in the act of perception of external reality than merely the passive receptor of a visual stream( though this is of course a gross simplification of the far from passive role of the mind in such activities). The auditory neurophysiological mechanisms for echo reception and signal processing, and the computational basis for transforming waveforms of sonar broadcasts and echoes into acoustic images, and in turn into the visual images we 'see', while fascinating, is superfluous to our area of interest here. We do not need to concentrate on the precise mechanisms of the mind involved in the forming of the world of imagined sight. The results of such processes are sufficient, and in any case our understanding of those processes is at best at an embryonic state of development.
So the self acts as a constant transmitter and receiver of an incessant swarm of mental activity, and simultaneously forms an inner visual form of the processed information. But while it is true that the visual world is not 'out there' but 'in here'- a mental creation-, still it should be realised that the visual world or simulacrum is exactly faithful to the sonar information, and so should not be considered to be a fabrication. It is a perfectly faithful rendering of the stream of perception, and we could say that if the world of sight did actually exist, instead of appearing to exist, the world we would see would correspond exactly to the world we think we see.
The act of dreaming, as many readers will have already guessed, is another indication of the true state of play with regard to sight. The waking mind has shut down, the eyes are closed, there is no influx of visual information, and yet the mind continues to produce mental images, just as the body continues to perform the functions of respiration and the flow of blood when in the unconscious state.
Interestingly, William Blake appears to have been fully aware of the reality of all of this, as shown in his Auguries of Innocence: "The bat that flits at close of Eve Has left the brain that won't believe."
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Gordon Brown Honoured
A government spokesman said that the Prime Minister was "moved" by the award, but was "unsure whether possession of one's consciousness by some foreign force- which for argument sake we'll describe as demonic- necessarily meant one was qualified to be described as not human." 
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Original Sin
The ongoing life of the idea of the innate guilt of existence: To the worshippers of that emanation of the mind that is the concept of Pure Reason existence itself is an unwanted aberration, inconsistent with the senselessness they worship. There is no reason anything should exist and so nothing should exist. Life is abhorrent to the exalted divinity and must somehow be explained away. Life is the original sin, both cosmologically and in terms of the individual human life. One is intellectually guilty by the fact of existing, and without hope of redemption. Though perhaps there is the glimmer of the idea of redemption in the imagined absolute non-existence that is death; non-existence pleasing to the worshipped divinity of meaninglessness, and in perfect accord with the nature of such a hypothetical deity.
The Artistic Impulse
Scientific exploration and explication of the artistic impulse has been named as one of the great final frontiers in man's conquering of the shameful affront to Reason that is existence. "As ever with science, we must be sure to keep a wholly open mind in our investigations as to the nature and origin of the artistic drive if we are to satisfactorily explain away the phenomenon as a sublimated survival technique in this senseless, accidental universe," said a leading figure of the intellectual community.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Papal Blessing
Pope Benedict's popularity has recently surged with the use of his accidentally acquired new catchphrase, "I'm the fucking Pope." His microphone picked up the clearly irritated Pontiff's aside during aired discussion with some of his hierarchical subordinates regarding church doctrine, but the gales of laughter that followed the initial shock have prompted His Holiness to regularly 'drop' the phrase at several unexpected moments since. "He now feels it's almost expected of him," said a Vatican insider.
Saturday, 24 May 2008
Batman
A radical thinker has claimed that the visual world we think we inhabit is actually a construct of the mind arising from the real organ of perception, which is a highly refined equivalent of the bat's echolocating sonar system. The human mind decodes this sonar information and translates it into the visual universe we 'see'. So the external world does indeed exist, but the sense of sight is merely an ingenious hallucination of convenience; a faculty built into the hardware, or is it software, of the mind. Apparently, to man in his normal unregenerate state, pure perception of the sonar information would be a little akin to the intake of pure alcohol or heroin, and so the need to translate or dilute to another less dangerous medium.
Sometimes we gain hints as to the unreality of the visual world, such as with colour-blindness, but such phenomena tend to be wrongly interpreted as faults in the organs of perception- the eyes- rather than the decoding apparatus of the mind. Though even if the diagnosis is existentially wrong, the solution works, such as with the treatment of spectacles for poor vision. Here, yes, the fault may be precisely in the organ of perception, but the individual's lens are correcting slight errors in the echo-locating faculties rather than the influx of visual information.
The wholly blind person is one who is fully enlightened, or unlightened, as to the unreality of the visual. "If the sun and moon did doubt, They'd immediately go out," wrote William Blake, and this is what has occurred in this case. His subconscious mind has come to be aware of the pious fraud generated at the deeper levels of primordial consciousness in the creation of the visual, and his doubts serve to turn off the relevant mental processes. However, this tends to be a negative illumination rather than positive, as his belief is turned against the visual world rather than towards the reality of the sonar. And so that which he had is taken away, ie the decoding and translation of echolocating perception.
And so the power of faith when we read of some blind person being miraculously granted the gift of sight. It is his faith in the reality of sight that is turned on- so that believing they may see, and seeing they may believe.
The famous opening of the Third Eye is the ability to perceive the world of radar in its true state; a sensual and spiritual experience of liberation far beyond the decoded creation of the visual.
The myth of the vampire becoming a bat is a subconscious expression of the awareness of the above; an inversion of truth concocted by the fearful ego-self to act as a mythic barrier of fear between itself and the experience of higher reality that it rightly feels to mean its own dissolution.
Sometimes we gain hints as to the unreality of the visual world, such as with colour-blindness, but such phenomena tend to be wrongly interpreted as faults in the organs of perception- the eyes- rather than the decoding apparatus of the mind. Though even if the diagnosis is existentially wrong, the solution works, such as with the treatment of spectacles for poor vision. Here, yes, the fault may be precisely in the organ of perception, but the individual's lens are correcting slight errors in the echo-locating faculties rather than the influx of visual information.
The wholly blind person is one who is fully enlightened, or unlightened, as to the unreality of the visual. "If the sun and moon did doubt, They'd immediately go out," wrote William Blake, and this is what has occurred in this case. His subconscious mind has come to be aware of the pious fraud generated at the deeper levels of primordial consciousness in the creation of the visual, and his doubts serve to turn off the relevant mental processes. However, this tends to be a negative illumination rather than positive, as his belief is turned against the visual world rather than towards the reality of the sonar. And so that which he had is taken away, ie the decoding and translation of echolocating perception.
And so the power of faith when we read of some blind person being miraculously granted the gift of sight. It is his faith in the reality of sight that is turned on- so that believing they may see, and seeing they may believe.
The famous opening of the Third Eye is the ability to perceive the world of radar in its true state; a sensual and spiritual experience of liberation far beyond the decoded creation of the visual.
The myth of the vampire becoming a bat is a subconscious expression of the awareness of the above; an inversion of truth concocted by the fearful ego-self to act as a mythic barrier of fear between itself and the experience of higher reality that it rightly feels to mean its own dissolution.
Friday, 23 May 2008
Light
Attempting to work around the gulfs of absence that are my scientific knowledge...if I propel an object such as a ball in a certain direction the energy imparted will not be sufficient to propel the ball infinitely forward. Instead the ball will rapidly lose velocity and come to a halt. Light on the other hand loses none of its velocity, happily continuing to travel at a constant with no slowing of speed. Just as an odd thought, in the mysterious area of the creation of light and this becoming vision in the mind, what would be the chaotically odd results on our vision if light particles and waves did begin to lose momentum in their travels from source?
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
God & Dice
Comparing intelligent living structures created by unintelligent interactions of random processes to dice being thrown in which by pure chance enormous series of coincidences occur thereby creating patterns, which can be described as said intelligent structures: The main problem with this idea is that left to their own devices the dice will remain inert on the table, and so there is no dynamic which can produce any patterns. The random interactions of the dice require an active agent throwing the dice.
Einstein's thought of God not playing dice is presumably inspired by the realisation that the complexities of the patterns, forces such as gravity, consciousness, etc, produced within life are endlessly beyond the possibilities of undirected mathematical chance. See the previous post's linked piece to monkeys, on pure randomness producing Shakespeare's works. However, even if chance could produce the unlikeliest of intelligent results, chance still requires a separate agent propelling itself beyind the inertia that would be its natural condition in the absence of this separate element; in that case monkeys. Chance requires a force propelling chance in the first place, else there is no chance.
So, for example, tossing in the air a million million times a coin of two perfectly balanced halves may hypothetically produce sequences of thousands of consecutive heads or tails. The key factor here to take note of, however, is the necessity of someone doing the tossing, and also of course the already existing elements upon which chance can act to produce more elements; these already existing elements
upon which chance acts having, presumably, required chance acting on other elements so as to have produced said elements, and so on. Otherwise absolute inertia.
Einstein's thought of God not playing dice is presumably inspired by the realisation that the complexities of the patterns, forces such as gravity, consciousness, etc, produced within life are endlessly beyond the possibilities of undirected mathematical chance. See the previous post's linked piece to monkeys, on pure randomness producing Shakespeare's works. However, even if chance could produce the unlikeliest of intelligent results, chance still requires a separate agent propelling itself beyind the inertia that would be its natural condition in the absence of this separate element; in that case monkeys. Chance requires a force propelling chance in the first place, else there is no chance.
So, for example, tossing in the air a million million times a coin of two perfectly balanced halves may hypothetically produce sequences of thousands of consecutive heads or tails. The key factor here to take note of, however, is the necessity of someone doing the tossing, and also of course the already existing elements upon which chance can act to produce more elements; these already existing elements
upon which chance acts having, presumably, required chance acting on other elements so as to have produced said elements, and so on. Otherwise absolute inertia.
Monday, 19 May 2008
Borges, Time, Infinity, Monkeys
To go back to the Borges post earlier, and the idea that "in an infinite period of time all things happen to all men." An example of this notion being the infinite monkeys on typewriters producing the works of Shakespeare given infinite time.
This understanding views time and circumstances as akin to a roulette wheel of time spinning, and with the numbers on the wheel representing what is imagined to be the full possible gamut of circumstances, and that within an infinity of time the ball must eventually fall into each possible slot. However, if all the circumstances can be represented on the roulette wheel, then they must be a finite set of circumstances, not infinite. Infinity cannot be meaningfully spoken of in the inclusive sense of "all that is within infinity." The inclusiveness of 'all' necessarily a notion reserved for use of finite terms.
This lucidly demonstrated by the mathematical parallel of "all the numbers within infinity." Take one of these numbers within the infinity of numbers; this being Pi. Pi- the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter- is itself infinite, and so one cannot speak of 'all the numbers of Pi'; 'all' being an inclusive term, whereas infinity spills endlessly beyond 'all'. And this Pi is but one number within an infinity of numbers. Interestingly, Pi is what is described as a transcendental number . It transcends finite representation: though this may have a somewhat different specific meaning in the language of mathematics its linguistic sense holds true.
And any single circumstance of life can be paralleled with Pi. No element within life can be abstracted from the whole of life without falsifying both- there being no life and its consituents distinct from each other, and so each circumstance is itself necessarily an infinity. We cannot cut life into segments or impose limits whereby something is a self-enclosed individual event or circumstance. So, for example, the circumstance of a man standing up exists simultaneously on all kinds of fronts, but to take one element of its existence being the visual. The action could be witnessed from an infinity of points, and such points of perspective could not be exhausted, else they would be a finite number, not infinite. So on that front alone, it is an infinite event, not finite. Though this infinity of points of perspective are infinite, not because of linguistic tautological reasons, but because this is the nature of reality. Every square inch of space is infinite.
So all in all, to talk of 'the infinity of possible things that must happen within infinity' is senseless even on pure linguistic terms. When we try to reach infinity from an assumed starting point of the reality of the finite, we can but end in nonsensical absurdism, but this deluded belief in the solid reality of the finite tends to be the starting point for all discursive thought.
By the way, the mathematical probablitities of the notion of the random creation of Shakespeare's works by undirected intelligences in the form of monkeys is examined here, where the humbler likelihood of the monkeys producing but a single line of Shakespeare is put to the test.
This understanding views time and circumstances as akin to a roulette wheel of time spinning, and with the numbers on the wheel representing what is imagined to be the full possible gamut of circumstances, and that within an infinity of time the ball must eventually fall into each possible slot. However, if all the circumstances can be represented on the roulette wheel, then they must be a finite set of circumstances, not infinite. Infinity cannot be meaningfully spoken of in the inclusive sense of "all that is within infinity." The inclusiveness of 'all' necessarily a notion reserved for use of finite terms.
This lucidly demonstrated by the mathematical parallel of "all the numbers within infinity." Take one of these numbers within the infinity of numbers; this being Pi. Pi- the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter- is itself infinite, and so one cannot speak of 'all the numbers of Pi'; 'all' being an inclusive term, whereas infinity spills endlessly beyond 'all'. And this Pi is but one number within an infinity of numbers. Interestingly, Pi is what is described as a transcendental number . It transcends finite representation: though this may have a somewhat different specific meaning in the language of mathematics its linguistic sense holds true.
And any single circumstance of life can be paralleled with Pi. No element within life can be abstracted from the whole of life without falsifying both- there being no life and its consituents distinct from each other, and so each circumstance is itself necessarily an infinity. We cannot cut life into segments or impose limits whereby something is a self-enclosed individual event or circumstance. So, for example, the circumstance of a man standing up exists simultaneously on all kinds of fronts, but to take one element of its existence being the visual. The action could be witnessed from an infinity of points, and such points of perspective could not be exhausted, else they would be a finite number, not infinite. So on that front alone, it is an infinite event, not finite. Though this infinity of points of perspective are infinite, not because of linguistic tautological reasons, but because this is the nature of reality. Every square inch of space is infinite.
So all in all, to talk of 'the infinity of possible things that must happen within infinity' is senseless even on pure linguistic terms. When we try to reach infinity from an assumed starting point of the reality of the finite, we can but end in nonsensical absurdism, but this deluded belief in the solid reality of the finite tends to be the starting point for all discursive thought.
By the way, the mathematical probablitities of the notion of the random creation of Shakespeare's works by undirected intelligences in the form of monkeys is examined here, where the humbler likelihood of the monkeys producing but a single line of Shakespeare is put to the test.
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Recording Time
Time recorded by means of a number is an abstraction from human experience. Time isn't experienced as passing to begin with: we cannot look in the rear-view mirror and see it receding as we accelerate into the arising future.
As an organ of utility mechanical time does its prosaic work admirably, allowing us to coordinate our activities within the framework of a public sphere, a public sphere whose nature is a necessary corollary to this division of reality into segmented time. That we are creatures of intelligence shouldn't necessitate, however, our becoming slaves to our creations, such as time and money. One numerical symbol- mechanical dissection of flowing reality- feeding another numerical symbol. Thus the equation Time is Money. One set of abstract numbers signifying another.
My real interest here, though, is not the mechanics of the everyday, but time at its historical level. Whether our experience of life resonates in any real sense with recorded time is debatable. Does ten years mean anything in terms of felt experience? Time isn't experienced in its passing, and while a number representing time may make sense to a mechanical device such as a computer, this numerical understanding equates little with human consciousness, though this is the framework with which we are taught to comprehend experienced time. Useful obviously, but as an organic lens to understand human history it is arid.
And the longer the time spans the more useless is such a means of representing reality. If ten years means so little, what of seven hundred years? As a possible aside, time in the modern sense is more apparent( apparent in the sense of appearing to be) the more a mechanised world can conform to its dictates. And so fifty years today in the post-Industrial Revolution age is a very different phenomenon than fifty years in the preceding aeons. And this modern notion of time presumably almost wholly non-existent within eras such as the ancient Egyptian or Chinese.
With this in mind a far more resonant method of understanding historical time than the numerical device is to think in terms of human lives, with, say, a human life equating to seventy years. Think of ten people you know and their lives lived consecutively, and thus these lives equate to seven hundred years, bringing us back to around 1300, the time of Dante, and around the death of Kublai Khan. And ten more lives bringing us back to 600 AD and the life of Muhammad, while another eight or nine lives sends us back to Jesus and Julius Caesar. Twelve more and we are in the vicinity of Homer.
Another example being six lives bringing us into the midst of Shakespeare. This theoretical lens awakens the past as a medium within which life has been lived and within which we ourselves have our place in a way numerical time is almost wholly useless to effect.
As an organ of utility mechanical time does its prosaic work admirably, allowing us to coordinate our activities within the framework of a public sphere, a public sphere whose nature is a necessary corollary to this division of reality into segmented time. That we are creatures of intelligence shouldn't necessitate, however, our becoming slaves to our creations, such as time and money. One numerical symbol- mechanical dissection of flowing reality- feeding another numerical symbol. Thus the equation Time is Money. One set of abstract numbers signifying another.
My real interest here, though, is not the mechanics of the everyday, but time at its historical level. Whether our experience of life resonates in any real sense with recorded time is debatable. Does ten years mean anything in terms of felt experience? Time isn't experienced in its passing, and while a number representing time may make sense to a mechanical device such as a computer, this numerical understanding equates little with human consciousness, though this is the framework with which we are taught to comprehend experienced time. Useful obviously, but as an organic lens to understand human history it is arid.
And the longer the time spans the more useless is such a means of representing reality. If ten years means so little, what of seven hundred years? As a possible aside, time in the modern sense is more apparent( apparent in the sense of appearing to be) the more a mechanised world can conform to its dictates. And so fifty years today in the post-Industrial Revolution age is a very different phenomenon than fifty years in the preceding aeons. And this modern notion of time presumably almost wholly non-existent within eras such as the ancient Egyptian or Chinese.
With this in mind a far more resonant method of understanding historical time than the numerical device is to think in terms of human lives, with, say, a human life equating to seventy years. Think of ten people you know and their lives lived consecutively, and thus these lives equate to seven hundred years, bringing us back to around 1300, the time of Dante, and around the death of Kublai Khan. And ten more lives bringing us back to 600 AD and the life of Muhammad, while another eight or nine lives sends us back to Jesus and Julius Caesar. Twelve more and we are in the vicinity of Homer.
Another example being six lives bringing us into the midst of Shakespeare. This theoretical lens awakens the past as a medium within which life has been lived and within which we ourselves have our place in a way numerical time is almost wholly useless to effect.
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
The Professional
"I'm a philosopher."
"Are you? And what does that mean?"
"Well, I'm someone who thinks alot about reality."
"Oh, you mean like a human being? I didn't realise there was a separate word for this. Or is there a biological difference between a human and a philosopher?"
"Well, the kind of people you're talking about are just amateur philosophers. They're not the real thing. I'm someone who thinks about reality professionally."
"I see. A philosopher is someone who turns the thoughts in his head into money. An alchemist whose base matter is words."
"Emm...I suppose you could say that."
"Are you? And what does that mean?"
"Well, I'm someone who thinks alot about reality."
"Oh, you mean like a human being? I didn't realise there was a separate word for this. Or is there a biological difference between a human and a philosopher?"
"Well, the kind of people you're talking about are just amateur philosophers. They're not the real thing. I'm someone who thinks about reality professionally."
"I see. A philosopher is someone who turns the thoughts in his head into money. An alchemist whose base matter is words."
"Emm...I suppose you could say that."
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Grave
A leading scientist has raised much furore with his claim that gravity is "overrated". "I just don't see what all the fuss is about," he added. Academic colleagues have described his words as " a stab in the back," while a spokesman for the Royal College of Surgeons stated that "In today's climate of existential uncertainty, we find these remarks to be unhelpful."
Monday, 12 May 2008
Mental
I'm reading Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, and in it is made reference to the popularity of a philosopher, Condillac, who the abundant notes inform us argued that all knowledge was based on the physical senses.
How did man come to know this wonderful piece of knowledge, I wonder? Was it imparted to him by his physical senses? Perhaps if someone else had told him of this idea, then it could be said to have been indeed transmitted by the senses: the ears if imparted orally, or the eyes if visually on a page. Ultimately, of course, it as an idea has its seat in the invisible dimension of the mind, and not via the physical senses. So the statement that all knowledge is based solely on the physical senses begins and ends in idiotic self-contradiction.
How did man come to know this wonderful piece of knowledge, I wonder? Was it imparted to him by his physical senses? Perhaps if someone else had told him of this idea, then it could be said to have been indeed transmitted by the senses: the ears if imparted orally, or the eyes if visually on a page. Ultimately, of course, it as an idea has its seat in the invisible dimension of the mind, and not via the physical senses. So the statement that all knowledge is based solely on the physical senses begins and ends in idiotic self-contradiction.
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Saturday, 10 May 2008
All-Powerful
A famous idea or paradox is that God could not conceive of something of which he could not do. God of course being used here in the sense of an all-powerful entity, and so since he could not do the above, then he cannot be all-powerful.
I have no idea to what extent this notion has been examined and what excursions of reason it has involved, but a possibly unexamined view is that the thought is being looked at from the wrong linguistic angle. The usual emphasis being that God could not conceive of something of which he could not do.
However, the same sentence can be looked at from a slightly different perspective offering a radically different significance.
God could not conceive of something of which he would not be capable. God is capable of not conceiving of that which he is incapable, and he achieves this by not conceiving of it. Thus an all-powerful entity's absolute mastery is maintained.
I have no idea to what extent this notion has been examined and what excursions of reason it has involved, but a possibly unexamined view is that the thought is being looked at from the wrong linguistic angle. The usual emphasis being that God could not conceive of something of which he could not do.
However, the same sentence can be looked at from a slightly different perspective offering a radically different significance.
God could not conceive of something of which he would not be capable. God is capable of not conceiving of that which he is incapable, and he achieves this by not conceiving of it. Thus an all-powerful entity's absolute mastery is maintained.
Borges & Immortality
In Borges' story The Immortal, he writes "They knew that in an infinite period of time all things happen to all men."
This is quite a commonly heard thought: of all things happening within infinity. However the logic doesn't really hold. In an infinite temporal framework there is absolutely no reason I am fated to, for example, cut off my left leg and use it as a tool in a variation of hockey played in the sewers of Rotterdam involving an opposition of asthmatic lepers. Borges is confusing two separate things; time and events. An example of this absurdity being that within his infinity notion, I am also fated to hop a marathon on my left leg, though my left leg is no longer present. But it is an event within the infinity of events. Therefore it must happen. Not, however, if it can't.
Something not happening today, like the leg hockey situation, is in no sense an argument why it should happen tomorrow, or within an infinity of tomorrows. An immortal could simply spend infinity sitting in a cave.
Borges later writes: "If we postulate an infinite period of time with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose the Odyssey, at least once."
This second quote is perfectly logical however: that within a universe of infinite circumstances all circumstances one could mention must be contained. However, it is logic simply because it is an exercise in tautology. Of course, if we conjecture a universe of infinite circumstances, then all possible circumstances must be contained within such a universe. That is the nature, the internal logic of the sentence. But this is simply an imposed intellectual framework, the closed system of a thought-piece.
On the other hand, there is no possible reason all possible events must occur within infinite time. It is an unjustified inference; a confusion of the finite with the infinite. This understanding of infinity is merely the finite extended or pushed to a higher power. A mind pushing itself and its boundaries to its limits, but still contained within those limits, and producing absurdities when it imbues those limits with limitlessness, or infinity. The infinite is a beast not so easily captured.
The danger of the joys of abstract thought where one's errors are not demonstrated in reality, though Borges might argue that his is a work of art, and such flaws are cracks within which further creative thought grows. Though that's no excuse.
This is quite a commonly heard thought: of all things happening within infinity. However the logic doesn't really hold. In an infinite temporal framework there is absolutely no reason I am fated to, for example, cut off my left leg and use it as a tool in a variation of hockey played in the sewers of Rotterdam involving an opposition of asthmatic lepers. Borges is confusing two separate things; time and events. An example of this absurdity being that within his infinity notion, I am also fated to hop a marathon on my left leg, though my left leg is no longer present. But it is an event within the infinity of events. Therefore it must happen. Not, however, if it can't.
Something not happening today, like the leg hockey situation, is in no sense an argument why it should happen tomorrow, or within an infinity of tomorrows. An immortal could simply spend infinity sitting in a cave.
Borges later writes: "If we postulate an infinite period of time with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose the Odyssey, at least once."
This second quote is perfectly logical however: that within a universe of infinite circumstances all circumstances one could mention must be contained. However, it is logic simply because it is an exercise in tautology. Of course, if we conjecture a universe of infinite circumstances, then all possible circumstances must be contained within such a universe. That is the nature, the internal logic of the sentence. But this is simply an imposed intellectual framework, the closed system of a thought-piece.
On the other hand, there is no possible reason all possible events must occur within infinite time. It is an unjustified inference; a confusion of the finite with the infinite. This understanding of infinity is merely the finite extended or pushed to a higher power. A mind pushing itself and its boundaries to its limits, but still contained within those limits, and producing absurdities when it imbues those limits with limitlessness, or infinity. The infinite is a beast not so easily captured.
The danger of the joys of abstract thought where one's errors are not demonstrated in reality, though Borges might argue that his is a work of art, and such flaws are cracks within which further creative thought grows. Though that's no excuse.
Aldous Huxley- Abstract & Concrete
From a Paris Review interview, Huxley says:
"It's awfully easy to write abstractly, without attaching much meaning to the big words. But the moment you have to express ideas in the light of a particular context, in a particular set of circumstances, although it's a limitation in some ways, it's also an invitation to go much further and deeper...Dostoevsky is six times as profound as Kierkegaard, because he's writing fiction. In Kierkegaard, you have this abstract man going on and on- it's nothing compared to the really profound fictional Man, who has always to keep these tremendous ideas alive in a concrete form. In fiction you have the reconciliation of the absolute and the relative, the expression of the general in the particular. And this it seems to me is the exciting thing in life and art."
Friday, 9 May 2008
Marc Chagall- Adam & Eve, I & the Village, The White Crucifixion
I'll admit to mixed feelings about the work of Marc Chagall, particularly the first half of his career includes much greatness; an artist who arrives naturally at innovation comparative to the intellectual striving of a Picasso or Matisse, but on the other hand the simple, naive style can start to claw somewhat also. His art didn't really seem to go anywhere as he aged. Perhaps such a form of stagnation exactly the danger to such a natural artist. Below one of the more moving images of the time, The White Crucifixion, from 1938.
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Autonomy
In the search for undistilled essence these words in the accumulated fullness of the piece they comprise will endeavour to be entirely self-referential, this in the sense of said whole being a wholly autonomous intellectual region. There is to be no hint of the existence of a world beyond the universe of the text encroaching upon the self-sufficient land of itself, nor will words enclosed within make any claims upon any non-existent dimensions without; that which is not within the closed system of an artwork being definitively non-existent within that universe.
The universe of the text is the kingdom of itself, though this is not a static territory. It expands as it is written, reality is stretched, colonising the realms of non-existence within the folds of itself. An empire of reality triumphs over nothingness in the act of its creation.
Who is it written by? We have no author within this universe of itself; we have merely words. Within this world a logician might appear utilising causation to infer the necessary existence of an author, and while his logic would be fully justified-and only disputed by a madman motivated by ill-judged egotism- still it should be seen that within this universe the author is a superfluous and alien body, and such thought a symptom of intellectual decadence, decay; in short a lack of life. Again all we have are words. The existence and nature of this clearly necessary but effectively absent author might become the subject of endless speculation, disputation, even violence; but unless the author definitively appeared within the universe of his imagination, what possible use could such argument by the characters within the text serve? All that could be produced is varying degrees of falsehoods. And perhaps if he did appear his claims to authorship might be disputed: how is one to know he is who he claims, he may be merely another character within the work, devised to add the force of a dynamic by which the empire of creation is extended beyond the bounds of its own existence. Who knows what heresies such a character might be accused of, and what fate befall him?
Some such intellectual disputers muddying the waters of pure existence within the text, these unsufficient to themselves selves forming a spiteful sect, argue that the author, if he exists, must be of a certain dictatorial, tyrannical nature, abhorrent to the freedom of the characters within his universe. Since the mind or ego cannot conceive beyond its own limits, such an author, insofar as he is attributed characteristics, will merely be a creature of the mind of the conceiver, a reflection of himself. And given the envious nature of the self-limiting ego or self, the author he conceives of takes the form a more powerful ego, and since there is nothing more abhorrent to the ego than another and greater ego, then this self-imagined author becomes an autocratic enemy, a creature of the imagination hated by the imaginer. All amounting to nothing more than an intellectual act of self-hatred, and the instigation of a whole series of bloody and insane rebellions.
Since the ego cannot abide the existence of something beyond itself, it overcomes the problem either by war or identification. If faith in its own strength is strong enough, it may try to kill the Other. If there is no real hope of success, but pride or vanity is unable to countenance subjection to the other, it may still fall by its sword in vanity charged assault, or alternatively it surrenders to the Greater Than Itself. In the most profound form of metaphysical or psychological surrender lies the absence of itself that is the space into which true reality can flow.
However, returning to our individual egotistical egos- in whose existence the very existence of literature itself depends- and their hatred of the hypothetical author of their existence. They cannot, if endowed with the merest vestiges of sanity, hope to encounter and kill this author, and yet their deluded notion of freedom depends on his non-existence, and in wonderful capacity for trampling over the merest vestiges of sanity some apparent triumph must be seen to occur. How to kill a character who does not appear?
One character- a Noetshzschze- within our text has a very interesting if simultaneously stupid notion which attracts much interest, naturally after a period of being completely ignored. He makes the strange claim that "The author is dead. We have killed him. Were we equal to the task?" No substantiating proofs are furnished: how could they, nor is it elucidated how it could have been possible to have killed this author in the first place. "But now that he is out of the way- dead-we can get on with whatever we must do in his absence."
And all this nonsense stemming from the betrayal of the text through a character introducing thoughts about an author in the first place, notwithstanding the evident logicality and necessity for an author. An author might despair.
Perhaps to be continued if I can be arsed.
Much later edit, a bit of being arsed did follow and so as to have what followed united with what preceded, below it lies:
I promised, or at least mentioned the possibility of the continuation of thoughts relating to the previous post in future ones if arsed, and while I don't feel sufficiently motivated to involve myself in a joining the dots intellectual venture as might be normal within such a field of creative thought, still enough in the way of desire has manifested itself to at least get this far, and since it would make little sense to have gone this far by way of mere introduction without going further, then we can expect some more related material below, even if probably presented in a somewhat jagged, unrefined manner as it perhaps might, due to the slightly half-arsed nature of the desire to pursue the matter. . . . :
Within this literary world, intellectual disputation thrives regarding the existence or not and nature of an author responsible for this world. A rare voice questions the wisdom of such thought and its effectual pointlessness, but he is ignored as too many fools have invested far too much serious consideration to the matter to wish it to be brushed aside as besides the point. This simple thought is also too subtle for them for all its simplicity. They expect everything to be convoluted and difficult, and the greater the convolutions the more they insist on the seriousness with which they believe their nonsense to be imbued.
So as said, much thought relating to an Author, a being outside the universe but responsible for it. There was even much to be said about a Son, a direct incarnation within the universe of the Author, which area we could very fruitfully examine, and indeed might yet, but for now we will look at a third philosophical element of our characters' thoughts, and this interesting development was the idea of the Reader.
While thoughts such as 'How can we be free if we are the creation of an omniscient author' attached themselves to the hypothetical phenomenon of the Author, the Reader was more a development of what could be termed a liberal mindset. Rather than the feelings of inferiority the Author thought produced for many, the Reader was a more passive being, again omniscient, and yet merely an observer. Some did not like the sense of there being a witness to their actions, but others revelled in the idea and felt it gave their actions weight, and indeed enjoyed the sense of playing to a crowd.
However, scientific and parallel philosophical developments rendered this Reader a far more complex notion, with the declaration that there is no reality separate from the observer, that he is a part of it, and that reality is affected by the very act of observation. But the Reader was thought to not exist within this universe; he is outside it.
And so a thought that caused uproar and even disquiet was that if the Reader alters the events observed, as science holds he must, then this universe cannot be said to be a closed one. Its boundaries are illusory. It exists within the minds of the characters within itself, but simultaneously within the mind of an external observer, who because the act of reading or observation is a dynamic element of that which is read, is not an external observer after all. Just to mention rather than investigate the inevitably consequential thought that this universe or text may be one of many parallel texts.
..............................................................................................................................................
A few fragments of further discussion: This space beyond the frontiers of this universe are of the mind rather than the physical- the mind of the Reader- though given our understanding of the mind within this sphere, the mind exists within a spatial medium, and so the mind of the Reader is not simply an abstract sea of consciousness, but itself exists somewhere.
But it could be said that this somewhere within which he exists is merely the emanation of the mind of another hypothetical Author, and is itself a geography of the mind rather than space. As of course could be said to be the nature of our universe here.
But neither does the Author merely exist within the mind of himself. He must also require a physical world within which to exist so as to conceive of his conceptions such as this one. And a highly heretical thought was voiced that perhaps this Author was himself existing within an apparent physical dimension created by the imagination of another Author.
I think that's enough for now.
The universe of the text is the kingdom of itself, though this is not a static territory. It expands as it is written, reality is stretched, colonising the realms of non-existence within the folds of itself. An empire of reality triumphs over nothingness in the act of its creation.
Who is it written by? We have no author within this universe of itself; we have merely words. Within this world a logician might appear utilising causation to infer the necessary existence of an author, and while his logic would be fully justified-and only disputed by a madman motivated by ill-judged egotism- still it should be seen that within this universe the author is a superfluous and alien body, and such thought a symptom of intellectual decadence, decay; in short a lack of life. Again all we have are words. The existence and nature of this clearly necessary but effectively absent author might become the subject of endless speculation, disputation, even violence; but unless the author definitively appeared within the universe of his imagination, what possible use could such argument by the characters within the text serve? All that could be produced is varying degrees of falsehoods. And perhaps if he did appear his claims to authorship might be disputed: how is one to know he is who he claims, he may be merely another character within the work, devised to add the force of a dynamic by which the empire of creation is extended beyond the bounds of its own existence. Who knows what heresies such a character might be accused of, and what fate befall him?
Some such intellectual disputers muddying the waters of pure existence within the text, these unsufficient to themselves selves forming a spiteful sect, argue that the author, if he exists, must be of a certain dictatorial, tyrannical nature, abhorrent to the freedom of the characters within his universe. Since the mind or ego cannot conceive beyond its own limits, such an author, insofar as he is attributed characteristics, will merely be a creature of the mind of the conceiver, a reflection of himself. And given the envious nature of the self-limiting ego or self, the author he conceives of takes the form a more powerful ego, and since there is nothing more abhorrent to the ego than another and greater ego, then this self-imagined author becomes an autocratic enemy, a creature of the imagination hated by the imaginer. All amounting to nothing more than an intellectual act of self-hatred, and the instigation of a whole series of bloody and insane rebellions.
Since the ego cannot abide the existence of something beyond itself, it overcomes the problem either by war or identification. If faith in its own strength is strong enough, it may try to kill the Other. If there is no real hope of success, but pride or vanity is unable to countenance subjection to the other, it may still fall by its sword in vanity charged assault, or alternatively it surrenders to the Greater Than Itself. In the most profound form of metaphysical or psychological surrender lies the absence of itself that is the space into which true reality can flow.
However, returning to our individual egotistical egos- in whose existence the very existence of literature itself depends- and their hatred of the hypothetical author of their existence. They cannot, if endowed with the merest vestiges of sanity, hope to encounter and kill this author, and yet their deluded notion of freedom depends on his non-existence, and in wonderful capacity for trampling over the merest vestiges of sanity some apparent triumph must be seen to occur. How to kill a character who does not appear?
One character- a Noetshzschze- within our text has a very interesting if simultaneously stupid notion which attracts much interest, naturally after a period of being completely ignored. He makes the strange claim that "The author is dead. We have killed him. Were we equal to the task?" No substantiating proofs are furnished: how could they, nor is it elucidated how it could have been possible to have killed this author in the first place. "But now that he is out of the way- dead-we can get on with whatever we must do in his absence."
And all this nonsense stemming from the betrayal of the text through a character introducing thoughts about an author in the first place, notwithstanding the evident logicality and necessity for an author. An author might despair.
Perhaps to be continued if I can be arsed.
Much later edit, a bit of being arsed did follow and so as to have what followed united with what preceded, below it lies:
I promised, or at least mentioned the possibility of the continuation of thoughts relating to the previous post in future ones if arsed, and while I don't feel sufficiently motivated to involve myself in a joining the dots intellectual venture as might be normal within such a field of creative thought, still enough in the way of desire has manifested itself to at least get this far, and since it would make little sense to have gone this far by way of mere introduction without going further, then we can expect some more related material below, even if probably presented in a somewhat jagged, unrefined manner as it perhaps might, due to the slightly half-arsed nature of the desire to pursue the matter. . . . :
Within this literary world, intellectual disputation thrives regarding the existence or not and nature of an author responsible for this world. A rare voice questions the wisdom of such thought and its effectual pointlessness, but he is ignored as too many fools have invested far too much serious consideration to the matter to wish it to be brushed aside as besides the point. This simple thought is also too subtle for them for all its simplicity. They expect everything to be convoluted and difficult, and the greater the convolutions the more they insist on the seriousness with which they believe their nonsense to be imbued.
So as said, much thought relating to an Author, a being outside the universe but responsible for it. There was even much to be said about a Son, a direct incarnation within the universe of the Author, which area we could very fruitfully examine, and indeed might yet, but for now we will look at a third philosophical element of our characters' thoughts, and this interesting development was the idea of the Reader.
While thoughts such as 'How can we be free if we are the creation of an omniscient author' attached themselves to the hypothetical phenomenon of the Author, the Reader was more a development of what could be termed a liberal mindset. Rather than the feelings of inferiority the Author thought produced for many, the Reader was a more passive being, again omniscient, and yet merely an observer. Some did not like the sense of there being a witness to their actions, but others revelled in the idea and felt it gave their actions weight, and indeed enjoyed the sense of playing to a crowd.
However, scientific and parallel philosophical developments rendered this Reader a far more complex notion, with the declaration that there is no reality separate from the observer, that he is a part of it, and that reality is affected by the very act of observation. But the Reader was thought to not exist within this universe; he is outside it.
And so a thought that caused uproar and even disquiet was that if the Reader alters the events observed, as science holds he must, then this universe cannot be said to be a closed one. Its boundaries are illusory. It exists within the minds of the characters within itself, but simultaneously within the mind of an external observer, who because the act of reading or observation is a dynamic element of that which is read, is not an external observer after all. Just to mention rather than investigate the inevitably consequential thought that this universe or text may be one of many parallel texts.
..............................................................................................................................................
A few fragments of further discussion: This space beyond the frontiers of this universe are of the mind rather than the physical- the mind of the Reader- though given our understanding of the mind within this sphere, the mind exists within a spatial medium, and so the mind of the Reader is not simply an abstract sea of consciousness, but itself exists somewhere.
But it could be said that this somewhere within which he exists is merely the emanation of the mind of another hypothetical Author, and is itself a geography of the mind rather than space. As of course could be said to be the nature of our universe here.
But neither does the Author merely exist within the mind of himself. He must also require a physical world within which to exist so as to conceive of his conceptions such as this one. And a highly heretical thought was voiced that perhaps this Author was himself existing within an apparent physical dimension created by the imagination of another Author.
I think that's enough for now.
Saturday, 3 May 2008
Thursday, 1 May 2008
In Europe, Churchill, Britain and Iraq
I can recommend In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century, by Geert Mak, which I'm currently reading. One quote from a letter by Adolf Hitler during World War 1 provides a striking glimpse of the character within: "I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment, and yet I enjoy every moment of it."
To love the diabolic orgy of death and despair of that war speaks volumes of the nature of the sociopath, cut off from the world of emotions and suffering, and who if he should attain positions of wordly power prefigures gross danger for wider humanity. Except wait, it's not by dear Adolf, it's instead the greatest Briton of them all, Winston Churchill, writing to Violet Asquith, the prime minister's daughter.
As a counter-point, to offer an idea of the eclectic range of the book the following amusing cultural snapshot of Helsinki: 'She reads to me form Stockmann's(more than just the Harrod's of Finland) spring catalogue. "'Dress like the rest; after all, don't you have better things to do." Where else could you sell clothes with a slogan like that?''
To go off on a tanget unrelated to Mak's book, some more on Churchill, the Kurds and Iraq. In 1917, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the British occupied Iraq and established a colonial government. The Arab and Kurdish people of Iraq resisted the British occupation, and by 1920 this had developed into a full scale national revolt. As the Iraqi resistance gained strength, the British resorted to increasingly repressive measures, including the use of posion gas.
Winston Churchill, as colonial secretary, was keen to exploit the potential of modern technology. "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare... I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."
Henry Wilson shared Churchills enthusiasm for gas as an instrument of colonial control but the British cabinet was reluctant to sanction the use of a weapon that had caused such misery and revulsion in the First World War. Churchill himself was keen to argue that gas, fired from ground-based guns or dropped from aircraft, would cause *only discomfort or illness, but not death* to dissident tribespeople; but his optimistic view of the effects of gas were mistaken. It was likely that the suggested gas would permanently damage eyesight and *kill children and sickly persons, more especially as the people against whom we intend to use it have no medical knowledge with which to supply antidotes.* Churchill remained unimpressed by such considerations, arguing that the use of gas, a *scientific expedient,* should not be prevented *by the prejudices of those who do not think clearly*. In the event, gas was used against the Iraqi rebels "with excellent moral effect"*.
Wing-Commander Sir Arthur Harris (later Bomber Harris, head of wartime Bomber Command) was happy to emphasise that "The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured." It was an easy matter to bomb and machine-gun the tribespeople, because they had no means of defence or retalitation. Iraq and Kurdistan were also useful laboratories for new weapons; devices specifically developed by the Air Ministry for use against tribal villages.
Phosphorus bombs, war rockets, metal crowsfeet [to maim livestock] man-killing shrapnel, liquid fire, delay-action bombs. Many of these weapons were first used in Kurdistan.
Excerpt from pages 179-181 of Simons, Geoff. *Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam*.
London: St. Martins Press, 1994.
Back to the past for Iraq and surrounds.
To love the diabolic orgy of death and despair of that war speaks volumes of the nature of the sociopath, cut off from the world of emotions and suffering, and who if he should attain positions of wordly power prefigures gross danger for wider humanity. Except wait, it's not by dear Adolf, it's instead the greatest Briton of them all, Winston Churchill, writing to Violet Asquith, the prime minister's daughter.
As a counter-point, to offer an idea of the eclectic range of the book the following amusing cultural snapshot of Helsinki: 'She reads to me form Stockmann's(more than just the Harrod's of Finland) spring catalogue. "'Dress like the rest; after all, don't you have better things to do." Where else could you sell clothes with a slogan like that?''
To go off on a tanget unrelated to Mak's book, some more on Churchill, the Kurds and Iraq. In 1917, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the British occupied Iraq and established a colonial government. The Arab and Kurdish people of Iraq resisted the British occupation, and by 1920 this had developed into a full scale national revolt. As the Iraqi resistance gained strength, the British resorted to increasingly repressive measures, including the use of posion gas.
Winston Churchill, as colonial secretary, was keen to exploit the potential of modern technology. "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare... I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."
Henry Wilson shared Churchills enthusiasm for gas as an instrument of colonial control but the British cabinet was reluctant to sanction the use of a weapon that had caused such misery and revulsion in the First World War. Churchill himself was keen to argue that gas, fired from ground-based guns or dropped from aircraft, would cause *only discomfort or illness, but not death* to dissident tribespeople; but his optimistic view of the effects of gas were mistaken. It was likely that the suggested gas would permanently damage eyesight and *kill children and sickly persons, more especially as the people against whom we intend to use it have no medical knowledge with which to supply antidotes.* Churchill remained unimpressed by such considerations, arguing that the use of gas, a *scientific expedient,* should not be prevented *by the prejudices of those who do not think clearly*. In the event, gas was used against the Iraqi rebels "with excellent moral effect"*.
Wing-Commander Sir Arthur Harris (later Bomber Harris, head of wartime Bomber Command) was happy to emphasise that "The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured." It was an easy matter to bomb and machine-gun the tribespeople, because they had no means of defence or retalitation. Iraq and Kurdistan were also useful laboratories for new weapons; devices specifically developed by the Air Ministry for use against tribal villages.
Phosphorus bombs, war rockets, metal crowsfeet [to maim livestock] man-killing shrapnel, liquid fire, delay-action bombs. Many of these weapons were first used in Kurdistan.
Excerpt from pages 179-181 of Simons, Geoff. *Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam*.
London: St. Martins Press, 1994.
Back to the past for Iraq and surrounds.
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