Dwelling

"Dwelling."
"Verb or noun?"
"Verb."
"In?"
"In?"
"In what?"
"In what what?"
"Dwelling in what?"
"Dwelling in a dwelling."
"Verb followed by noun?"
"Yes."

North or South

I've always been fascinated, even obsessed, with stories of polar expeditions; with every facet of these adventures from the human element to the logistical to the scientific, and have long harboured a desire to write a fictional account of one of these expeditions - to which pole it doesn't matter, they're both the same. And so having laboured for years in silence, below an excerpt of dialogue from my finally produced work.

"It's bloody freezing!"
"It's unbelievable. I had no idea it was going to be as bad as this. John, did you have any idea it was going to be this cold?"
"Well, I knew it was going to be pretty cold, but nothing like this. I can't understand why anybody's been coming here."

This Rubbish

"This rubbish."
"What about it?"
"It's good, isn't it?"
"Yes, it certainly is good rubbish."

Scaffolding

The scaffolding was safe to use, which was a relief. There it was, crawling up all over the front and sides of the big old building. Up you could get, and up you could confidently remain. One could step with sureness onto whatever there was to be stepped onto, sure that you weren't going to come crashing.
How could you be sure? Well in the first place it looked solid enough, not that scaffolding ever looks particularly solid, but still as far as scaffolding goes it looked solid enough. But other than that, and more importantly, there was a sign, an authoritative looking one, on which was written, "Scaffolding Safe To Use."
And so a sign, and you can't go arguing with signs - or if you can it would be pointless, more in the way of a soliloquy than an argument. Interrogate all you like, all you'll get is the same monotonous statement.
But who put the sign there? Someone responsible. Yes, but who? Who is responsible? Well, whoever specifically is responsible is someone responsible, a responsible person, and by virtue of his responsibility he is responsible for ascertaining the safety of the scaffolding.
And how do we know this person is sufficiently responsible in such matters?
He has been adjudged to be so by someone else even more responsible.
So if you're going to go ascending and placing yourself atop this scaffolding, you can put your trust in how steady it all looks, the authoritativeness and accuracy of the sign, and the responsibility of those responsible for putting up the sign. You could also decide to ignore all assurances from signs and the like, and just take things in your own hands, leaving perhaps a little gathering below gathered around and debating matters.
"I don't like the look of it at all."
"Yes, but look at the sign."
"True, true, there is the sign. You can't go arguing with signs, especially ones like that."
"But who put it there?"

Sackcloth

A sackcloth, and within this sackcloth, darkness. Yes well, darkness - what else... but if we could see into this darkness, what else besides the darkness? instead of this darkness rather. Most likely, assuming something - and assuming something we must for if we assumed nothing then we wouldn't be seeing anything besides — we'd see coal. Coal is the object one is most likely to see in a sackcloth, besides or instead of darkness.

But black coal amidst a background of darkness — would we really be able to see this coal? But it doesn't have to be all impenterable darkness, does it? But if one could see it, the coal, would it really be worth seeing? But that's not a question you can go asking yourself. Imagine yourself engaged in ordinary everyday life — if you can imagine such a thing, it shouldn't be too difficult — and this fool peering over your shoulder, asking whether it's really worth seeing whatever it is you happen to be seeing at the time; providing a critical overview, an ironic commentary on the worthiness or not of all the seeing. Maybe you don't find it so hard to imagine.

But coal so: that's what you'd most likely be seeing in a sackcloth - if you could see it, if it was there to see and you weren't prevented by the darkness. If it wasn't there to see, it wouldn't matter about the darkness. And in any case, seeing is enough to be getting on with without worrying about whether it's worth seeing or not... worth seeing if it can be seen; worth seeing if it can't... You could keep yourself going an awful long time with those kind of questions. Those kind of questions and more: Is it even worth knowing it's worth seeing? How am I to know it's worth knowing it's worth seeing? - What a question.

This I see is going nowhere, or worse, it is going somewhere and the somewhere is synonymous with the going; but going isn't staying still, it's progressing, and so while it is yes going somewhere, and at any given moment that somewhere is inseparable from the going — the somewhere you've been going is precisely where you are — but even so you are still going beyond where you are and deeper into and towards and beyond somewhere else. But if you stop going there, what happens then?

You set up camp. “I'm stopping going. I'm happy with here. Yes, if I kept going that somewhere I'd be passing through would certainly be better than here, but still you can't spend all your life going… or maybe you can, but you have to stop sometime, or if not necessarily stop, you can hardly be blamed for the stopping — out of exhaustion, for a rest. Not everyone, only the very few, can keep going and going.
"And so here's good enough for me - for a while or forever, whatever. I can't be blamed. I've gone far enough. I'll pace some boundaries, make myself comfortable."
If you're going to stop somewhere, or stop going somewhere, you might as well make yourself comfortable while you're at it. It would it hardly be better, would it, to make yourself uncomfortable while you're at it?


I started off with a sackcloth and darkness and I've ended up here, however it happened. Would it have been better to have stuck with the sackcloth and the darkness? No, you have to go somewhere and so I got to here. But here is where this, if not me, stops.

Chekhov & Carver

The book of Chekhov short stories I am dipping into contains the high recommendation at the back by Raymond Carver that Chekhov is "the greatest short story writer who has ever lived", thus helpfully distinguishing Chekhov from all the great short story writers who haven't ever lived.

Coin

There was a coin worth a good bit of money - was a good bit of money. But then they changed the currency and it was worthless.

Vantage Point

They spoke of life as though it were something distinct from themselves, something they would observe from a critical distance. And so what could it be, this imaginary vantage point, but the beginning and end of their wisdom.

And You

"And you didn't like it, no?"
"No, I thought it was shit."
"Really, really. In what sense?"
"In the undiluted sense."

Space, Blank, Uninterrupted

Space, blank, uninterrupted, but then a fissure, a crack, a corridor, and down it you’re walking. So a corridor and doors, lots of doors. Open any one you choose. You might be told to get out, you might be asked to come in, you might even be told come in. But just like this – in these clothes? Yes, you’re fine as you are, or if not quite fine as you are, you’ll do. You’ll have to do. So come in as you are, for how else could you come in but as you are? Well, you could try letting on to be not as you are, to be someone else, someone fictitious, an imaginary creation, a composite of other characters, their best traits, unified in this being who walks in the door. And so in you walk - who could fail to be impressed?

So we’ll say you’re accepted as you are, this character – that is you’re accepted as you appear to be. You could hardly expect to be accepted as you don’t appear to be.
But how long do you think you could keep this going, this performance? Indefinitely? Noone knows a contrary to the appearance so why not? But mightn’t it be a bit easier, less demanding, if you hadn’t decided to unify the best traits? The only way from such a height is down. Perhaps you could instead unify the worst traits…but who would want to share a room with such a composite except maybe other similar composites? What a room! If someone who wasn’t such a character walked in what would they do to him? I’d advise him to get out quick. Take one look, mutter something about the wrong room, apologise and go.
But the chances of finding yourself in such a room are slim, and anyway, even if such a room with such a set of inmates does possibly lie at the other end of one of the doors, that’s hardly a reason to remain out there forever in the corridor.

Grand Tome

Here’s another grand tome produced, presented, placed proudly but sternly on the publisher's desk. It creaks under the weight. Another vital part of the oeuvre. I present it to the world, all fifty million fucking words of it. May the world prove itself worthy.
Fifty million - an exaggeration. Perhaps only half a million, or even less again. But anyway, either way, such credible characters, such distillations. But are we really so lacking in credible characters that another few microscopically examined bores are some invaluable addition to our lives? Perhaps if one reads enough credible characters one might become one oneself. That might be what it's all about. Either that or the sheer volume of words has a beneficial effect.
“Ah but it’s not just the sheer volume of words. It’s the order he places them in.”
Yes, there is that. But imagine if someone was to lift up this book, a manuscript rather, the spine held in the hand, and the hand gives it a good shake and down tumble all the words, shaken loose from the hundreds of pages. Imagine the effort re-assembling them.
“My God, what’s happened to my manuscript?!”
“Don’t worry about your manuscript. Your manuscript’s fine. It’s the words that were in it that’s the problem. They’re all over the place. Can you remember what order they were in?”
The author, the great man- accept that it’s a man - is dumbfounded. “The order…the order…” he mumbles. “No, no…I could never remember the precise order. At least I think not. Some sections are embedded, yes here,” pointing to the heart. “No here,” - the head. “But this was the final draft. The only one.”
Final draft? It seems all these words have been whittled down. Revised and refined. Again and again. He’s written out this whole thing several times – without killing himself! It’s amazing what man can endure.

Put To Bed

Don't see a whole lot of point in writing more stuff here so this may be the last post, not to say however that this will necessarily be the case, which is also not to say that there will be necessarily be anyone to read the announcement in the first place, in which case this could be said to be an exercise in superfluity.

Rain Again

"Rain."
"In the form of?"
"In the form of rain. What else could rain be in the form of?"
"It could be in the form of snow."
"But then it would be snow in the form of snow, not rain in the form of snow."
"Well what about hailstones? It could be rain in the form of hailstones."
"No it couldn't."

Resemblance

The world bore no resemblance to itself. That is the resemblance taken to be the world bore no resemblance to anything but itself, while the world proceeded very much as itself, unresembled. So what did those inhabiting the resemblance think they inhabited? They imagined they inhabited a world that was not a resemblance of the world but the world itself, but as said this resemblance was merely a resemblance that resembled nothing but itself.
So what did the world itself resemble? It didn't resemble anything but itself, which is to say it didn't resemble itself, for to resemble itself it would have had to be distinct from itself which it wasn't.

This It

"Is this it?"
"This what?"
"This it. Is this it?"
"Depends what you mean by this and it. If by it you mean this, then yes, this is it. But if by it you mean something other than this, then no, this isn't it. Sort out what you mean by it and this and you should be well on your way."

Hanging

Hanging was back and thriving - twice a week at half seven in the evening. There had been complaints about the initial six o clock times - this was too early, some people had to work you know, there were families to be fed and so on; and so it was graciously admitted by the relevant authorities that this was indeed a bit unfair, and after much analysis and debate, debate of analysis and analysis of debate, it was decided that seven thirty was the time most acceptable to the greatest number, and so seven thirty it became.

First there had been only the one performance per week, but it became quickly apparent that the great success of this evening warranted a second evening's entertainment, and so to the Thursday show was added a Monday one. The Monday performance eased the start of the working week, gave everyone a boost with the evening to look forward to, while Thursday's seemed to extend the boundaries of the weekend, and of course both evenings giving people something to talk about on the following morning.

It was soon apparent that demand exceeded supply in more ways that one; that the numbers of people who could reasonably be called for hanging were far from sufficient, the supply of worst criminals quickly being drained, and so qualification for the rope was made more lenient, more representative of the population as a whole - not to infer that any but those deserving would end up at the wrong end of the rope. To this end the most successful if inevitable stroke of law was to permit entrance to the roll-call to all those incarcerated under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

To provide a little background information for those ignorant enough to require such information; naturally, for reasons of state security, the State need not produce any precise evidence against any such insane ingrates as became terrorists, since such evidence could jeopardise future counter-terrorist procedures. Any qualms anyone may have had about potential miscarriages of justice by the use of such legal methods were vanquished by the State's Infallibility Decree regarding its operations in precisely such matters of State, according to which, guided by the clear thinking of Hegel amongst others, the machinery of State was incapable of producing error in matters integral to the absolute integrity of the State, for error in such matters would contradict the State's innate perfection, and so the notion of the possibility of such error a contradiction in logic.

Five "pariahs" as they were known were hanged each evening, and the means of selection a lottery: the prior evening during the nine o clock news five balls drawn from a transparent drum by some blindfolded celebrity blessed with the much lusted for task, and who would have the further pleasure of seeing his or her face, minus the blindfold, with the five numbered balls on, if not the front pages of the next days newspapers, certainly on some other page, depending a little on how bright that particular celebrity's star was shining at that moment in time. Naturally much jostling and pleading went on behind the scenes in pursuit of this task in the not unfounded belief that such exposure could but intensify or sustain one's career, or even help resuscitate a flagging flightpath; but if one's career had flagged a bit too much then it was highly unlikely one would be called forth; however insistent the begging, the producers loathe to tarnish the glitter of the occasion by association with yesterdays' faces. And as a general rule the best the forgotten could do was to remain forgotten. The present was more than enough to be getting on with without embers of the past flaring up and complicating matters.

Initially the balls were merely numbered and that was an end to it; the next evening a face and name would come to accompany the number, but this it was quickly seen was a lapse. How were the viewers to get excited by an anonymous ball and number? Firstly the method was upgraded to photographs of the selected participants being shown on the night of selection, but this rather lame improvement was soon superseded - some bright spark having done himself and his future the favour of suggesting, blindingly obvious in hindsight - that the fifteen nominees be gathered live in the studio to be direct witnesses to the drawing of the five balls, with the cameras and producer naturally able to extract television gold from the accumulated tensions; the faces most expressive of dismay or relief providing much hilarity on various programmes over the following few days. Prior to this change the amount of balls in the drum had been thirty, but it wasn't feasible to have such numbers all gathered in the studio, and anyway thirty faces starts to veer towards anonymity again - a crime against entertainment.

The idea of a quiz format of some sort was also hit on, with the selection process having a full programme to itself. Make it a full hour with phone a friend devices and so on, but to the astonishment of those involved this sure-fire winner was rejected from on high. The producer, flushed I suppose from a run of other successes, in his anger and frustration tried to argue his case, couldn't they see how successful it would be; but he was informed coldly that such a format would inevitably favour the intellectually inclined, and since these were the very people the State was most pleased to send on their way, then he could forget about any such show. There was the icy implication that one who needed this spelled out might not deserve the exalted position in television attained by said person.

However the role of such a producer, even when working within the bounds of 'news', perhaps even particularly so, needs to entertain, to keep the viewer dazzled, and so the producer, nervously and obsequiously, asked for qualification on some other points. What about short interviews with those selected for hanging? "How are you feeling now/as your ball was drawn?" However the naivety of the question again demonstrated how pure a citizen this producer really was: entertainment was simply the first and last principle of his mind, and subtleties of sensitive political matters involved access to regions of the mind alien to his knowing. And so, no, but this time even with a touch of amusement, it was explained that no such interviews could be permitted. If it were a mere matter of entertainment ( a mere matter of entertainment!), then yes of course it would be mad to deny oneself such interviews, but the world being alas what it was, these people were dissidents, perverts of thought, and so given the opportunity, now their fates absolutely decreed, one more day to live, what might such madmen say given such an opportunity? The producer, absolute in his faith in the State - so absolute it was altogether unconscious - couldn't imagine what a dissident might say, but it was all a subject of such confusion he elected, rather than find himself in even more strange waters, to remain silent.

But hanging, some exclaimed, while others merely wondered, unsure as to the wisdom of voicing their wondering; hanging, in this day and age! Surely that's uncouth, barbaric, a throwback, an insult to the present, to progress, to all we stand for - something of a composite utterance of the theme. Why not, rather than all this lynching, some method reflecting where we are now? - some use of technology of the modern kind.

But they had failed to discern that the reason behind hanging lay precisely in its very barbarism, its rawness. Man was animal after all - if one delved deep enough, though it would have been shocking to have come out and said it just like that - but animal he and she was, and the idea that the State should restrict its playing on the keys of this animal nature more or less just to that of sexual themes would have been stupidly self-restrictive when there were other such bountiful resources to be exploited, and if these lower regions were not exploited and harnessed who knows might happen the precious equilibrium of existence - strange subterranean dissatisfactions might in time begin to set in, and the delicate human eco-system begin if not to break down, to show warning signs of it.

And so to satisfy these immense ancient naked elements of being, so apparently unrestrainedly and so trustingly - trusting that is in the ability to unleash these tremendous forces and yet keep them within certain bounds, not to be overwhelmed by them - well it took great skill and knowledge, but the State hadn't declared itself infallible for nothing, knew its business. And on top of all the other virtues of hanging, the great subconscious gratitude of the citizens for this raw spectacle, coupled with pride in being entrusted with such undistilled pleasures... All this bubbled away silently in the depths. It was a stroke of genius, if only the genius of limitations, not really genius in the proper sense but more in the Hitlerian sense - an incredibly refined intuiting and knowing of the basest potentialities and regions of nature, and all this precious knowledge gained through intimate familiarity with these very regions.
These people were masters for good reason. They had capitalised on themselves, put every drop to good use, were draining the cup dry.

Rain

"Rain falling."
"Superluous."
"Superfluous rain?"
"Superfluous falling. Rain falls. You don't get the rain without the falling. The mere mention of rain establishes its falling, apart that is perhaps from the rarest climactic conditions - hurricanes and the like. And we'd never get anywhere if we had to keep taking account of the rarest of cirumstances. The most banal of sentences would become interminable."
"So I should have just said rain?"
"Yes."

First Step

Everything was held in reserve. That is to say, the first step was untaken, for once that step was taken all would be determined. Though perhaps not exactly determined, but one would have moved in a certain direction. The final destination might be uncertain but the direction of the first step could not but be certain, which is not to imply that any second and subsequent steps need be duty bound to continue on in the direction of the first. Instead the vista of movement is open, if not quite the full 360 degrees, though the taker of the steps could proceed backwards at strange angles I suppose if desired, however unlikely and awkward such movement would be.

So anyway, man is not a taut piece of string, a movement between a set beginning and end; though if you were to quibble, you could say, yes, in a certain sense he is a movement between a set beginning and end, but only in the general sense; the precise end can hardly be looked on as a direct consequence to the precise beginning; and as regards movement of the man between the two points, this could hardly be likened to the monotonous journey along a taut piece of string. Perhaps the longer one proceeded in the same direction as the preceding movement the more likely a next step could be said to follow on in the same vein, but regardless of the number of these steps likelihood is about as much as one could say, for at each step the way lies open. One can veer off if one wishes. This, that which is moving, to say it again or an approximate of it, is not a clockwork mechanism we are dealing with but something else altogether, potentially in any case. If this mover, this person, does chain himself to some kind of a clockwork mechanism, then he may indeed give the impression of being one himself, or a component of such - such a mechanism - but you can't go always trusting appearances.

So it's likely, as an hypothesis anyway, that such was the fear of the first step: a horror of an absolute fate irrevocable once set in motion; but if this were the case - that this remorseless, unswerving road must ensue, deviation impossible - then surely this could only be so because it appears to be so, is believed to be so. Man lays down his rights convinced they aren't his rights, are merely his own imaginings; but it is the lack of his rights that are really his imaginings.

And so the lack of a first step out of fear of its implications - of enslavement to all necessary subsequent steps. What was that law again? - that without some contrary force something set in motion in a certain direction would continue infinitely along that direction if not for some other force working contrary to that movement - gravity or density of air being the contrary force presumably. Something like that. But it takes more, or less, than mere gravity or air to stop a man in motion. Maybe there's even a definition in there. Man: a contrary force to his own motion. Mind: that which impedes the free movement of matter, or is it unfree movement, for what's so free about infinite movement along a straight line? I suppose someone else might claim that it is matter which impedes the free movement of mind, and someone else again that matter is merely a word used by mind, as is mind.

Pedestrians and Non-Pedestrians

"A pedestrian bridge, that is a bridge, below which water, atop which, generally, pedestrians; pedestrians in motion from one end to the other, and at each end or beginning, depending on one's visual line of attack, a person seated on the ground."
"So pedestrians traversing a pedestrian bridge bracketed by two non-pedestrians. Are they the guardians of the bridge, these non-pedestrians?"
"No, down-and-outs. Or if not down-and-outs, people giving the impression of being down-and-outs."
"Why would people want to give the impression of being down-and-out? Humility?"
"No, for money."
"What money?"
"Pedestrians might give them money if they believe them to be really down-and-outs."
"That's hardly an achievement, is it? 'I've successfully attained the status of being a down-and-out. Now reward me.' I don't see the logic there. And people really give them money?"
"Sometimes yes. Otherwise they wouldn't do it."
"And you're sure they weren't performing tricks or something?"
"No, just sitting down with a maybe a cap in front."
"And what does the cap do?"
"The cap doesn't do anything. Pedestrians might put money into it."
"Maybe the money was for the quality of the impression."
"What impression?"
"The impression of being a down-and-out."
"No, they only give money if they're convinced it isn't an impression. That he really is down-and-out."
"And they're happy with that then? 'You've convinced me. Here have some money.' I still don't get it."

Kant's Antinomies

Back to The History of Western Philosophy again, and within is written of Immanuel Kant's antinomies, of which Kant alleges four principal ones, which are imagined to be examples of mutually contradictory statements being simultaneously true; and this being known by the method of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, which is apparently of prime importance for the thought of Hegel also, and onwards to Karl Marx amongst others. What Kant's particular antinomies are is irrelevant; it is the principal or notion of mutually contradictory statements being true that is the essence of the matter. So to look at what this involves.

Two plus two equals four.
Two plus two does not equal four.

The first statement we describe as true, because meaningful language rests upon a foundation of being true, a foundation which does not even need formulating since it is the necessary and natural faith inescapably bound up with the use of language. And so the second statement is false. The two statements cannot both exist as truths. However Kant and his successors claim otherwise; that statements can contradict each other. How is this possible? Upon what would this idea of language rest?

It rests upon language and truth not being inseparable, and so the "contradictions" are not in fact contradictions but equally valid, since there is no truth which they contradict. It is to treat words as lumps of matter which can be placed in whatever order one wishes and the results are equally valid, all equally sensible or senseless. This would imply and necessitate the demolition of the entire notion of language as meaningful, since something and its contrary are alleged to both be capable of meaningful co-existence. But this meaningful co-existence is dependent on language not being meaningful but meaningless, since if it is meaningful then one cannot have coherent contradictions within that language. Language cannot be used in a self-contradictory manner and remain an instrument of truth. Such contradictions are violations of the nature of language, and will be found to be merely an erroneous use of that language. Also Kant's whole notion of the antinomy is entirely self-contradictory: an attempt to be a true statement of language, while the very statement inescapably implies that language is not true. If the antinomy is true then language is not true, and so the antinomy is not true. It is a perfectly senseless, and so unreal, use of language.

The notion of building a philosophy of truth upon the notion of the non-existence of truth is clearly ludicrous, where according to the implied logic of any sequence of words being as good or bad as any other, one could build this entire philosophy and then with a final flourish claim that the contrary to all this is also true, i.e. that it is not true - gibberish having been sanctified. However for this notion of language's meaninglessness to be sensibly be formulated in the first place requires the acceptance that language is meaningful; one is trying to use language meaningfully. So all in all Kant and his successors are trying to build an edifice upon completely self-contradictory and delusional grounds. How one could use the truth tool of language all one's life while remaining ignorant as to its essence is particularly lamentable for a philosopher.

I look at Kant's first antinomy, The World Has a Beginning in Time, here.

Shaft

Some were going up, some going down. Lifts is it? Elevators? Yes, lifts, elevators. Some up, some down; that is at the one moment, or sequence of moments rather, some would be going up, some going down. (Depending a little on the latitude we allow ourselves with that curious notion of "a moment", if we agree, controversially admittedly, to confine that word to mean a frozen instant, as in a photograph, then naturally none of these lifts would be going anywhere; they would be entirely static, frozen within that frozen moment.)

Each lift would of course vary in its direction, for a lift that merely went one way along the vertical route would quickly be rendered useless, coming to the bottom or top of the shaft and then lying there, endlessly. You could I suppose then have the employment of a subsequent lift coming down the shaft, but soon that would come to lie atop the previous, and so on until the elevator shaft is full of elevators atop each other, gridlocked; that is that that is how things would have to progress apart from a scenario of an infinite shaft, where up or down the shaft never ends and so the lift could traverse it forever, never reaching an end, there being no end to reach. But whoever heard of such a shaft? Until now probably noone.

And so given the likelihood that this was not the case here either - not that it should be entirely dismissed - then we can more than likely assume that each particular lift would sometimes be travelling downwards, sometimes upwards, but not of course in both directions simultaneously. Perhaps if you employed a mirror you could fool yourself - one eye on the mirror, one on the lift - into thinking that the lift is travelling in both directions simultaneously, but that illusion could hardly go on for long, and whether you could consciously, premeditatedly fool yourself like that is questionable. Questionable, yes, but you could perhaps fool someone else with your mirror, but again not for long if at all.

Are the lifts constantly in motion? Of course not. What kind of lift would that be? It stops at floors, lets people in or out. That's all we see of them, floors and people - that is if we limit our vision to the innards of the lift, which for now we will. It may be restricting, this limiting, but from the point of view of actually being in this lift it's most realistic. So a numbered button lights up, a stop, the door opens, someone or ones enter, presses a button, timidly perhaps - for it is hard to be at one's best when entering an already peopled lift, not to say it must be peopled - the door slides closed, and the lift moves off, or at least offers the impression of movement.

Impression? You could argue, from within the confines of this lift and the occasional vistas offered by its opening door, that it is not the lift that is moving in relation to everything else, but everything else in relation to it - everything else being the building housing the lift. Naturally the common, sane view is that it is everything else that tends to be stationary while it is the lift that is doing all the moving, but from the perspective of within the lift there is no proof of all this moving, merely a humming indicative of this moving and the opening of the door revealing a different vista than greeted one when it perhaps last opened. You were elsewhere, you're now here. How did you get here from there but by moving?

But it could just as easily - well no, not just as easily, but easiness is no barometer of truth - but it could be that it is the lift that is stationary, and the movement is the building in relation to it rather than it in the relation to the building - the other way round in other words. While you thought you were going up it was really the building that was going down, and contrarily likewise for when you thought you were going down. All very elaborate and bizarre but not wholly unlikely. Well no, again it is wholly unlikely but not entirely beyond sensible conjecture. And while we're on the subject of conjecture, it could even be argued that there is no movement at all - not of lift or building. What am I on about now? So you're in the lift - we'll assume for some reason you're a permanent fixture. You even have your meals in there if you want to know. You're in the lift, and all this sense and evidence of movement is all illusion, or not exactly illusion in the sense of the changing vistas greeting the opening of the door but an extraordinary performance, all for purposes of deception - deceiving the permanent point of perspective within the lift, which we've decided is your ongoing life.

So to begin to clarify, there is movement of sorts but not of lift or building. Both remain unmoved. So how to compare? Well, to a theatre with changing sets between scenes. We'll say there are ten floors; floor eight is the due destination, the door opens, there is or might be someone in the foreground getting in or perhaps someone within getting out, and in the background is the rest of floor eight with its various inhabitants engaged in whatever. And so the door closes and now we are heading for floor five, that is from within the lift there is the impression of moving down to floor five, the machinery of the lift is humming and there is perhaps a light queasiness in the stomach of a sensitive traveller. But hidden from the enclosed view is the most frantic activity. The inhabitants of floor eight rush for the exits, a button is pressed and some well-oiled mechanism kicks in and 'floor eight' disappears from view, upwards or downwards it matters not, and in tandem with the departure of floor eight is the emergence of floor five - whoever is responsible for this mechanism is a real artist - and from the exits rush the 'inhabitants' of floor five and take up their positions in readiness for the opening door. The lift door opens, and there just as it should be and in the most banal manner lies floor five. And soon enough you're innocently off somewhere else. And so on and on this frantic performance goes, and why? For the sake of deceiving the inhabitant of this lift as to the illusion of movement of him and his lift? It appears so. But why should that be of such interest?

Though it should, now that I think of it, be remembered that this was all a matter of conjecture in the first place; that is of the possibility of the non-movement of the lift in relation to its surrounds, and so perhaps one shouldn't get too carried away with an all too earnest conjecturing as to the why behind what is most likely itself pure conjecture. Which is not, on the other hand, to rule out this conjecture, and the least one could do having conjectured it is to treat it as the reasonable conjecture it, like any conjecture, attempts to be.

And so why? Why all this effort to fool some permanent inhabitant or point of perspective within the lift as to movement of it in relation to surrounds. I have no idea. There must be some reason presumably, and a good one it must be, or rather felt to be, to call into being all of this, and while, yes, the reason itself may be mad - and it would be hard to envisage otherwise - still it would have to be admitted that the method is exemplary.

Though I seem to remember at the beginning of this piece talking of a panorama where is seen a number of lifts, some ascending, some descending; and so, our vision then at least not constrained within the confines of a lift, there was no induced illusion of movement but instead actual movement, and so all this notioning of absence of movement is superfluous. Yes, but that was then, this was later on - I mean the confinement of perspective from within a particular lift. Perhaps the two scenes were unconnected, and even if they were, connected that is, this wider view was altogether unknown to the inhabitant of the particular lift and so of no use to him - or her, as I was, I think, describing this him or her merely as you - and so naturally the gender of this you is entirely dependent on you. I'm not going to go dictatorially demanding you be male, or female. One should always recognise one's limits, not that one should be obsessed with this recognising of limits. Most of the time it would probably turn out to be the imposing of limits rather than the recognising of them you'd be doing.

No Leg to Stand On

He had no leg to stand on and so what could he do but fall down, which is exactly what he did. What else can a man with no leg to stand on do but fall down? Well, there may be plenty he can do, but still, in this context... But, you will be wondering, if he had no leg to stand on and he went and fell down, how did he in the first place get up to this height from which he fell down? And why, knowing as he must have done, that he could not but fall down once he got up there, did he go about satisfying the how as to the getting up there?

Ah but, you might retort, the how is easy: once it's not impossible it must be merely a matter of methodology, and so all it requires, apart from its being impossibile, is the stumbling, through trial and error, intuition, or basic knowledge of some kind, onto the wheels of this methodology and following obediently in its wake to the logical destination.

So that's the how, at least in general terms, but the why. Why would he go about, whatever the methodology, getting himself up to a height from which he could only fall down? But isn't this presuming a bit much. He mightn't have considered he'd have to fall at all. He might have suspected it, even assumed it to be most likely, but still he might have possessed some sliver of hope that this falling would not have to be necessarily so.

But on the other hand he might not have cared one way or the other as to whether he'd fall down or not. It might have been purely in the way of an impartial observer that he looked on all this, simply as a matter of curiosity: would he or wouldn't he fall down. He might even have kept on getting himself back up there, even after falling, to establish precise laws of probability as to the falling or not falling.

And then again for all we know he may have even wanted to fall down. Some perversion? Perhaps but perhaps just again in the way of being scientific: the falling down may have accorded with his expectations, calculations even; and with the falling, as he's hurtling or just stumbling downwards - it may after all have just been a most humble height - he's pleased with the falling.

Lowly Nimphlot

E was an lowly nimphlot. Nimphlot e was lowly. Nonely was e an lowly nimphlot, e was the ownly lowly nimphlot, so een more lowly was e, e was.

Augustine & Time

In his Confessions, St. Augustine proposed that before creation, there was no time as we know it, “no past and no future” but simply “always the present.” So what is of interest here is essentially:

Before creation there was no time.

The very notion of there being no time before creation is self-contradictory. "Before" is a word dependent on things existing within some sequential order, and here that order is time. It then makes no sense to place a word whose specific necessary context is within time in a context you declare to be without time. If there is some kind of world or dimension without time, then of course there is no place for this timelessness occurring before something else. "Before" can only have its rightful place within the world of time. What should be said is that there is no time without creation, and since time and creation or existence are co-existent, inseparable, it is meaningless to talk of existence before creation, or as it could be rendered, existence before existence.

Russell, Berkeley, There is a House

Once again in Russell's History of Western Philosophy, here where the thoughts of George Berkeley are being examined regarding reality and perception and, skipping the preliminaries but just giving the following which Russell imagines refutes whatever Berkeley is asserting.

"There is a house which noone perceives." Whether this proposition is true or false, I do not know; but I am sure that it cannot be shown to be self-contradictory.

So here it is stated as an objective fact that there is a house which exists but is unperceived. This, to emphasise, as a piece of language, is a statement of fact, a definite assertion, and not any kind of hypothesis. And for it to be declared a fact it must be known to be so, and how is the existence of this house known to be a fact but only through observation. Without this observation or perception it cannot be a known fact. And so it makes no sense to say there is a house which is unperceived. To assert that the house is is to say it is a fact based on observation; so by stating that there is a house that is not perceived, one is stating as a fact that which one is simultaneously stating cannot be a known fact.

To say: "There is a house" isn't to make a hypothetical statement; it is to state a fact about the world of observable phenomena and which can be proven, otherwise it is not a sensible claim. For someone else to then demand proof of the existence of this house that is unperceived would in response require perception of it to attempt to make the statement of its existence rational, but then if such proof is furnished, this would then falsify the statement that the house is unperceived.

You cannot attempt to make statements of facts about observable data which simultaneously deny themselves the necessary foundation to be such statements of fact, and so, unfortunately for Russell, despite his sureness that the given line is not self-contradictory, it is precisely so - an absurd and incorrect use of language.
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Liebniz & the Struggle for Existence

In The History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell writes of Liebniz's theory "as to why some things exist and others do not."

According to this view, everything that does not exist struggles to exist, but not all possible can exist, because they are not all 'compossible'.

Firstly "as to why some things exist and others do not." To talk of 'others', as in other things, is to talk of things which exist. That is what a thing is - something which exists. It is a senseless question to ask why do things which do not exist not exist. The framing of the question is necessarily to talk of these non-existents as if 'they' do exist. There is no they to which you can refer. Some thing which doesn't exist is meaningless language; some thing being a thing which must exist.
And as for Liebniz's response to the question, being that everything that does not exist struggles to exist: he is continuing to talk of non-existence as if it were existence. For something to struggle - to struggle to exist, or struggle to climb a mountain or whatever - is for it to exist in the first place so as to be able to struggle. Only things which do exist are capable of struggle or any kind of activity.
Whatever 'compossible' means is irrelevant since everything that has gone before its appearance is nonsense, and so the 'conclusion' to, or inference of, a stream of nonsense can only be more nonsense.

The Appeal of Fascism

Vile ideologies like fascism 'work' or succeed in incarnating themselves by harnessing foot-soldiers to the developing movement. And these foot-soldiers - the necessary weight or mass without which the movement's leaders are utterly impotent - are drawn in by means of an appeal, not to the intellect or a desire for truth - though superficially this area will be dealt with - but by satisfying the two most forceful dichotomies and longings of the spirit: firstly the yearning for love and belonging, and secondly by legitimising and utilising hatred and its direct physical expression. 

As an ideology fascism is very simple: power and glorification of ego in some kind of fancy dress, so onto its successful enrolment of acolytes. Love as a force or feeling by its nature is not solitary, it brings us out of ourselves towards life beyond us, and so fascism will tap into this by pointing the individual towards the nation as the most powerful and true form of precisely this love, towards which ideal form all aspirations should be directed. In this bizarre cult, the nation is both that which is most worthy of the individual and collective mass of individuals' sense of love, but also is necessarily in itself the source of this love - while the leader and party are something of the Word made flesh. And along with this excessive and morbid focus on the holiness of patriotism is, for the active rank and file of the fascist movement, more intensely than the love of nation because less abstractly, the desire for love and belonging satisfied by the dwelling within a brotherhood of ardent fellow believers. This is the ancient tribal sense of belonging, which is of course very natural, and indeed should be satisfied healthily by society.

 The other drive satisfied is the legitimisation of hatred. The reason someone will be drawn into such blatantly toxic bodies, as fascism or communism, is that he is lacking greatly in self-worth, happiness and a sense of belonging, and thus the enormous bolstering of these facets by belonging to a strong group, united by not just beliefs but uniforms and dramatic spectacle! But beneath the exterior of such unhappy people lies - because human nature doesn't simply meekly dissolve in meek circumstances - very twisted and thwarted souls, seething with frustration and hatred which society doesn't ordinarily permit it to express; and now the fascist movement encourages precisely its expression in the most absolute physical forms directed against those external causes it can persuade itself is responsible for all this frustration and self-hatred in the first place. And thus the most ordinary and sad individuals within those SS suits are able to gain revenge, not so much on elements within life, but on life as whole. Where once they were small and inconsequential, now life quakes beneath them.

Much later edit: 

Of course all the above applies exactly to supposedly “anti-fascist” groups like Antifa, which are more or less indistinguishable from the fascists which allegedly gives them their whole reason for existence in the first place.

God, Time, Idolatry

Intellectual thoughts about God can only be emanations of the thinker of those thoughts, and so to make declarations about God is ultimately for the thinker to make himself in the form of his/her thoughts God, that is he sets the limits of God to be his/her thoughts on the matter. He deifies his own thoughts, however contrary he may imagine his intentions.

One example of this is in Russell's History of Western Philosophy, where he says that while Occam and Aquinas differed in some related notions, both "admit the universale ante rem, but only to explain creation; it had to be in the mind of God before He could create." I presume the universale ante rem to mean the idea of existence. So God conceived of existence before effecting its actual creation.

This is to make of God, the alleged absolute ground of being and from whom all emanates, a temporal being, a creature dwelling within time; and so God as an inhabitant of time is limited by the nature and constraints of that time within which He dwells. So God's behaviour is constrained by the time God created. God has somehow become submerged within creation, and is another object of creation, subservient to its nature.

So this notion of God is of a limited being, divided between thought and action by time. First God has a thought, and then later acts on the thought.
And though I wrote that God created time, within this logical framework it would seem to make more sense to say that this God is a creation of time rather than time a creation of God. And from there, that time and the God within it are, or would have to be, the creations of another higher God.

For a religion - or perhaps rather institution, for I don't see much of the humility of genuine religious feeling in intellectualising about and defining God, in fact the opposite - which devoted so much of its intellectual efforts to rooting out heresies, it's interesting to see how utterly heretical or false, in the first place, are these limited relative notions of God which the heresies contravene; and all which notions are really merely the limitations of the thinker of those thoughts, but projected onto the alleged nature of God.

To add, if people had any notion of the magnitude of what they are talking about when God , or were in some sense brought into the presence of this magnitude, utter terror would consume them, but generally we are spared such consequences. The lines in Exodus when Moses encounters the burning bush are resonant here where God tells Moses, “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”

Waiting-Room

A waiting-room, people in it, and more coming in all the time, if only at a trickle. Space must be getting at a premium. And what are they doing in there? What else - they're waiting. What else could they be doing? But they might be doing something else while they're waiting, but even so all they're doing is, it seems, encompassed within the waiting. They might, for instance, some of these inhabitants of the waiting-room, be talking to each other, but what is it they're talking about but the waiting - how long it's taking, how this is no way to be treated in this day and age, and so on. And what is it they are waiting for? Who said anything about waiting for? They're just waiting. This is a place you wait. Infinitely? Well, perhaps not infinitely absolutely, but infinitely so far. There may sometime, perhaps, come an end to the waiting, but not, so far, yet. 

 They must be fed up so, all these people waiting indefinitely, you'd think. And you'd probably be right. Though it depends, I suppose, on the mind of the person doing the waiting. If he or she gets too caught up with the idea of waiting for something - an end to the waiting - then it certainly must get tedious, extremely tedious, particularly with the absence of this end coming. If he could see people ahead of him in the queue being called forth from the waiting-room, their turn having come, then of course he too could feel hopes of a nearing end to his waiting, but no such departures arise, and so there's not much cause for such hopes. But how could it be otherwise than to be waiting for something? You can't just be abstractly waiting. Waiting isn't something that can stand in isolation, unlike say, running. You don't have to be running for something, you could be just running. Ah, but here at last we might be getting somewhere. 

What is waiting or waiting for something? It's not anything really, is it? The really bit is the standing or sitting or whatever it is you're doing while you're waiting. That's about as much as you, or an external observer at least, can say about waiting: you, the observed, are standing around or sitting, doing apparently nothing but this standing or sitting - or maybe also looking with stupid regularity at your watch and looking a bit at odds with the present as is. You're letting people know - or perhaps just yourself - you're not just some useless person standing around doing nothing. You're looking at your watch, again not just because you've got nothing else to be doing but looking at your watch, but because you're waiting for a change in circumstances of some kind, a more desirable future that you're approaching at some kind of temporal rate. You're not just here like a fool. You're implying the inferred absence of something, for example a bus. It's a kind of performance - a group of actions that create the impression of waiting. 

 And so all these people in the waiting-room - what's really going on here but they think they're waiting. That's what waiting is - thinking you're waiting. It's the thinking is the verb. So that's what must be our waiting-room. It's a waiting-room in the absolute. An existential waiting-room. Or at least it might be - it's a reasonable guess. So while you're in there waiting, there's no end to the waiting. That's what waiting is - waiting, which is to say thinking you're waiting, the same as you could be thinking you're flying or thinking you're jumping or thinking you're swimming or whatever. You might have to be a bit half-mad to be thinking those things, but that's another matter. But what if they really are waiting for something? Our man earlier, waiting for the bus: along comes the bus, on he goes - his waiting was not in vain. But his waiting had nothing to do with the bus coming on or not. His waiting achieved nothing. It was all in his head, whereas the bus - that was certainly outside his head. For our people in the waiting-room so, is there or isn't there a world of difference between waiting for something that does exist and waiting for something that doesn't? Not effectively anyway, so far. You couldn't really tell any difference between the waiting for something which really is and might but hasn't yet and may never appear, and something that isn't a something in the first place and so will certainly never appear. And given all this waiting, and the nothing but the waiting, surely they could be doing something better with their time than waiting, which is to say, as said, thinking they're waiting. So how do they get out of this waiting-room if it's all so apparently useless to be in there waiting? It's the how they got in that's more the issue - all this thinking they're waiting; and if they stopped thinking they were waiting then they wouldn't be in there in the waiting-room, for you can't be in there unless you're waiting. That's the nature of the waiting-room.

Transcendence

Can something transcend itself? Not, tautologically, while in the form of itself. The transcendence occurs by not being in the form of itself. So this transcendence cannot occur as a progression, a progression involving the movement from itself to not-itself. Transcendence cannot be something linear, a movement within time. Also if one is trying to transcend oneself, then this "oneself" is being accepted as real, the starting-point from which movement emanates, but if real how can it make any sense for reality to transcend reality?

Anselm's Ontological Argument for God

Back to Russell's History of Western Philosophy, and he mentions St Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God. We define 'God' as the greatest possible object of thought. Now if an object of thought does not exist, another, exactly like it, which does exist is greater. Therefore the greatest of all objects of thought must exist. 

According to Russell, "Clearly an argument with such a distinguished history, is to be treated with respect," having mentioned its influence on luminaries such as Liebniz, Descartes and Hegel. 

 Firstly if God can be meaningfully defined as the greatest possible object of thought, then this God is not God - that which produces all life, and within which all life truly is - but is instead merely an object or creation of human thought, and so does not autonomously exist outside of that thought. What Anselm is really trying to prove is the existence of "the greatest object of thought", which he dignifies with the name "God". However, this is before even getting to the substance of the argument; it instead being apparently the imagined uncontroversial introduction to the essential matter of whether God exists or not. 

Unfortunately, as shown, this uncontroversial introduction asserts God's non-existence by declaring God to be meaningfully capable of definition as an object of human thought. Also how could the absolute source of all being exist as an object within that being, and so again be an object of thought? Such an imagined entity may be called God, but is merely another object within existence. 

But anyway, to repeat the argument: Now if an object of thought does not exist, another, exactly like it, which does exist is greater. So the non-existence of the greatest thing is nothing to be worried at, as there will be something else exactly like it which does exist, thus satisfying the need for the existence of something greater than everything else. So to examine this a little. If something does not exist, then it is not something but nothing, and so is not an 'it'; an 'it' being necessarily something. And so if something else is exactly like nothing, then it too must obviously be nothing, and so also does not exist. 

 To go a little further with this argument: if something is exactly like something else, how could it be greater than it or different from it in any way? To be exactly like it is to not differ from it in the slightest. When using language in philosophy as a truth tool, all falls apart if words like "exactly alike" are allowed to mean something other than exactly alike; instead meaning "alot alike", or "superficially alike". So someone might say one mass-produced object- say an empty Heinz beans can - is exactly like another; but if examined through a microscope, obviously enough, they will be revealed to not be exactly alike but very definitely unique and different. The one thing exactly alike something can only be itself, and naturally it's meaningless to go talking of a substance being exactly like itself. Of course it's exactly like itself. It is itself. As for "the greatest object of thought", I have no idea what kind of parameters one is supposed to use, but what such people think they are dealing with leads back to the void, this apex of pure reason, examined earlier.

 Thought can hardly get more dangerous than when discussing God as something that can be enclosed within that thought; a dreadful false energy begins to unroll itself, and this so because this is not logic working itself out antiseptically on a blank page, but in the dynamic living medium of human minds, and with its unfolding repurcussions on into the broader physical environment.

 But in fairness to Anselm, if prizes were given for making statements that made no sense whatsover, then his here would be well rewarded.

Fumes

He was choking on the fumes.
"Fumes? He was lucky there were fumes. You could live on fumes. Fumes is something."
Yes, but he was choking on them.
"He was surviving on them more like. If you took away the fumes, what would he be left with?"

Presented

Reality was presented to them in black and white. Well no, it was presented to them in colour, but all the same, in black and white.

Order Disorder Decadence

I wrote a couple of posts ago on order and disorder, and while most of it I'd say was coherent enough, I think the description of decadence was, in being tempted by intellectual symmetry, pretty facile - what was written being: "totalitarianism (is) a manifestation of the the drive towards order at the expense of freedom, while decadence freedom, or rather a mistaken sense of freedom, at the expense of a wise order."

The overall idea was of two drives: one towards order and enclosure within structure, and the other towards freedom. The two forces in nature perfectly balance each other but yet the urge towards freedom is the superior one. You could say structure exists to facilitate freedom, not vice versa, and it is the pull towards freedom that ensures the upwards evolutionary development of structure - with organisms becoming more complex, refined and internally intelligent, and developing so precisely as manifestations of this drive towards realising a conscious freedom.

But back to decadence, where I more or less wrote that totalitarianism was a symptom of the urge towards absolute order, while decadence was a symptom of the excessive pull towards freedom. I think on the human level the movement towards freedom, if done coherently and wisely, looks after of itself the issue of structure and order. Basically: "Seek ye the kingdom and all else will follow." The issue of the personality and how to live is shaped as a by-product of immersion in, or surrender to, the greater whole, the boundless freedom into which one surrenders oneself absolutely.

Decadence rather than a strong but unwise urge towards freedom is something else. It is not too inaccurate to say that it occurs where an excess of existence within a stagnating and stultifying order leads to an atrophied sense of self, and where the urge towards freedom - which can never in a living being be wholly absent - is very weak, and what is there of it satisfies itself in wallowing in various forms of sensuality- and in themselves a form of this pull downwards into order. The urge towards freedom is just strong enough to rouse one to the expelling of some energy in return for very immediate gains, but it is all very much still life within very limited and recurrent patterns and order; perhaps even the most rigid of such patterns - patterns repeating themselves to the point of addictions. I don't think it bears any real resemblance to the notion of an excess of freedom, or freedom at the expense of order; rather that which fills the space of the movement towards freedom.

Eternal Recurrence

Reading his philosophical history, an idea, Bertrand Russell informs, of the Stoics in the person of Zeno is that of eternal recurrence, an unusual idea I've seen elsewhere described by Nietzsche; the idea of Zeno's being that at a cycle of life ends in a universal conflagration, whereupon the whole cycle repeats itself. "Everything that happens has happened before, and will happen again, not once, but countless times." I'd presumed in Nietzsche's case, the only awareness I had previously of this notion, that it was some way of trying to get people to focus on the importance of the life being lived now, and to hopefully act as an imaginative deterrent to condemning oneself to a conceived infinity of immersion in a life unworthy of oneself, so to speak. But perhaps they really are serious about this odd idea, and so to take a bit of a look at it.

Eternal recurrence purports to say that everything happening now has already happened. So this has all already happened. The key word here is 'this'. This has happened before. Well if something else has happened before, and so necessarily distinct from this, then this something else has to be as said something else, and so cannot be this. The very fact that you are talking of it as happening before means you are talking of something other than this. 'This' can only be itself exactly as it is, right now. To talk of something happening before is to introduce a 'that', i.e. something distinct from this, whereas this can only be precisely this. Also it makes no sense to talk of phenomena as if abstracted from the time element; and since one cannot effect this abstraction, then it makes no sense to talk of the same phenomena, including intrinsically the inseparable time element, occurring in a separate time.

When one examines the concept as the linguistic construct that it is, eternal recurrence of identical phenomena can only imply the present simply in its present sense. To try to talk of this recurring of previous time as though this something recurring is other than this here right now would be to defeat the concept, as then the phenomena would be different rather than identical as is necessary to the concept. And so for what is recurring to be, as is necessary to the logic, identical with what is happening, then it would have to be precisely and inseparably this, and so being precisely this cannot have occurred at a previous time, and so the recurring idea is rendered senseless. For something to be exactly like itself without the tiniest deviation is not actually to be like itself, but to actually be itself.

With eternal recurrence one is talking, or rather trying but failing to talk, of two different phenomena - something and its later exact recurrence - and progressively onwards to an endless number of different phenomena, and so these separate phenomena are not 'this'- what is now which can merely be one unseparated phenomenon - but separate phenomena, and being separate cannot be the same. Its apparent existence as an idea owes itself to people not looking closely at its actual logic, itself as meaningful language, and then seeing that the logic or the meaningfulness of the language quickly falls apart.

In essence, the word this implies something different than the word that, while the faulty language construct of eternal recurrence tries to assert this and that as referring to the same phenomena. The logic of eternal recurrence all merely leaves us with the present as is.
And so eternal recurrence is just a mad notion possessed of a certain kind of infuriating but senseless artistic merit.

Order Disorder

The elements of existence possess an intrinsic compulsion towards order but not towards an absolute order... or actually it would be better to say there is precisely this compulsion towards absolute order, but were it not countered by some contrary force, pulling towards absolute freedom, then life would end in a state of total stasis; everything compelled by this gravitational pull towards total order, and having attained this pole of centrality, all bound in a state of utter and immobile compression and so of course no further development possible.

And on the other hand without this force inwards working against the outward directed force towards freedom - and absolute freedom being freedom from all structure - life would proceed to one uniform, formless chaos, again without any possibility of development, devoid of any evolutionary dynamic. So the  life-forms which comprise life are dependent on these two forces in a dynamic relationship of creative tension.

One could certainly look at art through this lens - the tension between the movement towards structure and freedom - and sometimes, as with great late works by Goya, where the equilibrium is disturbed, and the two forces of order and chaos visibly and dangerously wrestling for dominion; this disturbance hardly surprising given the nature of Goya's genius, his personal circumstances and the nature of the political times he inhabited.

So also obviously with an individual human life. For example, if the attraction towards the centre in the form of a society's constraints is excessive and dominant over the individual's contrary drive towards absolute personal freedom, then ignorance of what this freedom constitutes will result, when this drive manifests itself, as a destructive force rather than constructive, bound up neurotically with reacting against some perceived forces which deny his freedom rather than as an independent free-working force operating along its own natural lines. Thus arise obviously enough the various forms of seemingly mindless vandalism.

This seems to be an endlessly helpful lens over all kinds of phenomena, with for instance totalitarianism a manifestation of the the drive towards order at the expense of freedom, while decadence freedom, or rather a mistaken sense of freedom, at the expense of a wise order. If anything is made an idol of, the results are going to be the collapse of the false nature of the idol in upon itself, with its faulty logic inevitably working itself out in the field of time.

Follow-up here.

Aristotle's Third Man

Again dipping into Russell's History of Western Philosophy, Russell writes that:

Aristotle advances against the theory of ideas a number of very good arguments... The strongest is that of the 'third man': if a man is a man because he resembles an ideal man, there must be a still more ideal man to whom both ordinary man and the ideal man are similar.

A problem with applying logic to gibberish is that gibberish is intrinsically illogical, but anyway...

Take the idea that 'A man is a man because he resembles an ideal man.' The only sensible portion of this is the first two words, 'a man.' It is ludicrous to say a man is a man, or a chair is a chair; the very words 'a man' or 'a chair' establish the fact of its existence as itself. And as for 'a man is a man because...'; if Plato had said: 'A man is a man because he is a man' - idiotic though it would be it would still cling to some kind of sense, but unfortunately Plato departs even from this modicum of reason and instead decides a man is a man because he resembles something else that is not a man - an ideal man, that is, an idea of a man.

So Plato's line, to be a little more clear, should read, 'A man is a man because he resembles an idea in his own head, and this idea in his own head is an idea in his own head because it is conceived of by a man, namely himself.'
He might as well say, 'A man is a man because he resembles a horse.' And at least a horse indubitably exists; you can point to one, whereas all one can point to with the words 'the ideal man' are those very words. That is as far as their independent life extends, and remove an actual man and those words remove themselves as an obvious matter of course, since words cannot exist independently of their user.

At this point Aristotle enters the arena and says that for some reason or other there would have to be a more ideal man than the ideal man. Whatever implications this is supposed to have, Aristotle, and presumably Russell, have failed to notice that 'ideal' denotes an absolute. It means a state of perfection. It makes no sense to talk of something being more ideal than an ideal, more perfect than perfection; and so Aristotle's Third Man, who is more ideal than the ideal, is merely linguistic nonsense.

People

A person and another person. Two people.
'Different?'
Different what?
'Are they two different people?'
Of course they're two different people. What other kind of people could they be?
'No, no. I mean are the two people different from the person and the other person, or are they the same two people?'
The same two people.
'Right. So the person and another person are the two people that came after them?'
There was no coming after them.
'Yes there was. You said: "A person and another person." And then: "Two people." The two people came after the person and another person.'
Okay, but they're the same two people.
'Right.'

Past & Proof

It is impossible to prove the past existed, as all one's proofs can only inhabit the present, even when, as in the case of a video recording of this past, they naturally claim to be such proofs. One's proof is still, whatever it alleges, an element of the present.
This is perhaps much more serious than might appear. The past and future are merely and ultimately words existing within the present, and the only serious intellectual or spiritual concern is immersion within this present; for example, while engaged in a 'mundane' actvities being wholly apart of whatever it is one is doing rather than one's body somewhere and one's mind off rambling somewhere else. How such mundanities become real and interesting, and the category of mundane to which they had mistakenly been condemned resulting in the most far-reaching of essentialy schizophrenic results; life divided by a scattered mind.

Flanking

One man with a sign saying stop, another with a sign saying go.
"Who the hell did they think they were?!"
I have no idea who they thought they were. All I'm saying is one had a sign saying stop, the other go.
"No, you misunderstand me. What I mean is, who did they think they were to be ordering people about, telling them whether to stop or go?"
Functionaries. People performing a function. And the nature of the function? They were flanking a machine, a machine belching out big ugly volumes of noise into the public arena.
"Why would they be flanking that? It must have been doing something other than belching volumes, surely."
It probably was. In fact if you went over to have a look, it's most likely you'd find it was digging a hole.

Where

"Sorry, could you tell me where I am?"
"I can. You're here."
"Oh I know that, I know that. I'm aware that I'm here, but what I was hoping to know, what I was wanting to find out, was where I am in relation to somewhere else."
"Where you are in relation to somewhere else? Oh I don't know. I doubt I'm the man for that at all. If you want to know where you are in relation to where you are: that's what I'm good at, that's my kind of thing; but where you are in relation to somewhere else - I'm practically useless.
"I could pretend, I could let on. I could say, 'Jesus, this is your lucky day. I'm the right man for this.' And I'd say this is where you are, point A, this is where this somewhere else is, point B, and so this is where you and the points are in relation to each other. I'd even map out for you how to get from one point to the other- A to B or the other way round.
"But all that would happen, apart from coincidence, is I'd be setting you all wrong, because I might know where you are in relation to where you are all right, but where where you are in relation to this somewhere else I wouldn't have a clue. Your coordinates would be all over the place. And on top of it all, to make it worse, I'd be fierce convincing. You'd have no doubts about these coordinates. Not even the doubt of a doubt. So away you'd go telling yourself how your luck was in, how wonderful I was, and if you'd met me earlier on in your life there's no knowing what you might have done."

Some

Some derive alot from very little. Some derive alot from alot. Some derive very little from very little, while others derive very little from alot.

Bridge

"If that big bastard of a bridge fell on top of you while you were going under it, you'd be in right trouble."
"You would. But in all likelihood it wouldn't fall on top of you while you were going under it."
"No, but that wouldn't be much consolation to you if it did."

Logical Opposites

A little further on in Russell's History of Western Philosophy, and Plato's examination and perceived refutation of universal flux is examined and criticised by Russell, though whatever their attitudes to universal flux or lack of is not the issue here  but instead what is of interest is a point within their time-stretched dialogue where is written:

Plato gets his results by applying to processes of continuous change such logical oppositions as perceiving and not-perceiving, knowing and not-knowing.

Russell describes the process of a person disappearing from view when viewed and finally not viewed in fog as a gradual process and so the logical opposites of perceiving and not-perceiving nothing like as clearly demarcated and fixed as Plato likes to assume. However, whatever they're getting worked up about is not the point here, and what I would like instead to look at is this notion of logical opposites, which may then put in focus the broader investigation as a sensible, or not, dynamic of language.

An opposite in a pure 'logical' sense is where two opposing entities perfectly balance each other out, or negate each other, leading, where the two come in contact, to a state where neither exists. Thus minus two is the opposite to plus two, and their set in motion against one another results in nought. They perfectly oppose each other; are logical opposites, i.e. are on precisely opposite sides from a definite point of demarcation, here being zero. Minus two does not exist however in reality outside of such language forms - linguistic or mathematical. You can have two of something, lets say shoes, but you cannot have minus two shoes. It's a senseless notion. So there are no opposites in a numerical descriptive sense in the world of ordinary reality.

Another notion of opposition might be black and white, but logical opposites negate each other, leading to nought or non-existence, whereas black and white coming in contact result not in nothing but grey. So they are not opposites, but simply different. Similarly, and more obviously, fat is not opposite to thin. Whether it's even meaningful to even talk of fat and thin coming into contact in the form of a kind of experimental equation is very doubtful, but even if it is permitted, this 'conflict of opposites' of fat and thin does not yield nought or the negation of the two, but something else altogether, if indeed anything. So again these are not opposites, and the same with tall and short, happy and sad, and so on. These are different, perhaps substantially different but not opposites.

And then the notion of perceiving and not-perceiving that Russell and Plato consider such logical opposites, from which acceptance they proceed with their discussion across the ages as to flux or not. I am now looking at a wall and the many other things within that visual field. It makes no sense to talk of an opposite to such experience, and the alleged logical opposition of not-seeing isn't something which occurs. There is no such phenomenon as not seeing something, or not eating, not running, etc. This is merely words without reference to anything. And also as in the mathematical example, the interaction of two logical opposites leads to nought, whereas this not-perceiving is already nought; and nought interacting with a positive does not produce nought. Instead the positive remains as it is. And since this notion of not-perceiving is nothing, a non-event, how can it be meaningful to talk of anything interacting with nothing? There is nothing to interact with. No interaction occurs.

The only sense in which it is meaningful to talk of logical opposites is in mathematics. And so whereas Plato and Russell imagine that they are having a genuine intellectual investigation of some real issue, their words instead refer to nothing; their discussion, as a dynamic of language which is of course what it can only be, doesn't actually exist as it's without meaning, and logical language without meaning is simply an unreal illusion.

I am very threadbare in my knowledge of the following, but the very notion of a conflict of opposites as a creative force, such as seems to be a notion of Hegel's, is nonsensical, as there are no such opposites apart from within mathematics, and even within mathematics where the opposites meet, the conflict or union of these opposites results not in some creative new synthesis but simply nought.

Greek Void

I've read very little of the holy edifice of Western philosophy, but am reading Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy at the moment, which seems to fit something like my needs on the subject and Russell quite an enjoyable guide. And so to the point. In the initial movements of this history, in the ancient or Greek section, the subject of the void crops up once or twice, and on I think the second substantial mention of this void, Russell quotes from Plato's Timaues: There in one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only. The earler mention was again of a void devoid of any interior substance, a space utterly devoid of anything within it. This was cogently dismissed as a concept by Parmenides: "You say there is the void; therefore the void is not nothing; therefore it is not the void." This is in itself sufficient to wholly dismiss the notion of the void, but Plato seems to have gone on undeterred, and so to expand a little on the issue. The essence of the matter is more or less a duplicate of an earlier post on death, repeated below: "Death is non-existence. Non-existence by its very non-nature does not exist. Therefore death does not exist. This might seem a mere elegant play on words, but not actually to be taken seriously. However language meaningfully used is meaningful, and there is nothing false about the given logic. But to look at it slightly differently, but heading towards perhaps the same logical destination, putting into perspective, for example, a writer who is 'obsessed with death', or simply anyone's fear of death. This is all a process of thought, and what is the nature of the thought 'death'? The language term 'death' is an idea or principle of absolute negation and inertia. One cannot be in a state of inertia while engaged in an activity. A concept is an activity of the mind. And so the very idea of death as absolute inertia contradicts its very nature as an idea, or activity in which the mind is engaged. An activity cannot produce inertia, and existentially of course activity is itself not inertia. 'Death' is an unintelligible concept: the idea that the mental substance of an idea can be devoid of substance; the idea here of death referring to a state devoid of anything, wholly lifeless. Thought, if true, is a positive emanation of energy. Energy cannot be inertia. It's a contradiction in terms." 

 In an identical way the void is non-existence, and as pointed out, non-existence doesn't exist. The void as an idea of absolute inactivity, wholly without substance, contradicts its very alleged essence as a substance in the form of an idea. But why, since Parmenides' more prosaic point is so self-evident - that a thought is a something, not a nothing, and so the void as a thought of nothing is senseless - does Plato persist with the notion of the void? Plato, in himself and also as embodying a broader view of reality, considers the world of sense perception as fallen, ultimately unreal. This is essentially the gnostic and Manichaean position regarding reality. Reality doesn't seem to conform to what - at least in a particular human mind - spiritual experience and understanding expects or desires - presumably a perfect harmony - and so reality is dismissed as debased and delusional, ultimately unreal, while the idea of this perfect harmony is praised as perfection and real. Which in turn leads towards the notion of the void. This is not to be confused with the pure mind of the Void of Eastern philosophy, which "Void" is not expected to be thought of as anything but a linguistic symbol for this pure consciousness. The Greek void by contrast is specifically a language form, an intellectual creation or form, and revels in the fact of its existence as such. Why are the likes of Plato drawn to this concept of the void as an absolute - the thought which sits atop all other thoughts, the ascendant within the mental hierarchy? It is because, as said, the world of the senses has been decided to be unreal - this in itself of course an idea, and so what is most real should partake least of all of the sensory world, and what partakes least of all being apparently an idea. Ideas are stated to be the purest of substances, and the most pure of these substances is an idea which is utterly self-referential and distinct from the debased world of external reality. And so the void: a pure self-contained idea without reference to the debased world of sense perception. Hence through the ages, and still, the exaltation of the imagined holy landscape of Pure Reason. 

So again the quote from Timaeus: There in one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only. So Plato as the extension of his worldview posits the void as the purest of substances, a wholly intellectual substance, not participating in any degree in the fallen world of sense perception. Its existence can only be inferred by the intellect, though since there is by definition nothing to suggest its being, it being wholly absence from this reality, then there is no basis to make the inference, even if the substance made intellectual sense. However as already shown, this intellectual substance doesn't make sense as it contradicts its very alleged nature as an intellectual substance or idea. It purports to be a substance devoid of any substance, which is nonsensical. In essence it amounts to saying you can think of nothing. Thinking must be about something, not nothing. Try thinking of no apple: senseless. It is all simply a matter of wish fulfilment based on a delusional notion of reality. Plato's position is simply an elegantly structured form of madness - the thoughts in one's head real, all else unreal. (I'll assume the elegance.) I'd prefer not to have to read such exasperating forms of delusion, but I suppose it's perhaps informative and necessary as to see where more recent delusional intellectual forms are coming from in which reality is allegedly enclosed, and also in relation to the intellectual history of the totalitarian state which Plato elsewhere champions. I suppose this championing is another triumph, insofar as possible, of imagined pure intellectual form over debased reality.

Socrates, Knowledge

Socrates, it is said, said that his wisdom consisted in the fact of his knowing nothing, and specifically in the knowing the fact of his knowing nothing. He was aware of his own ignorance and that this was what raised him above everyone else; that by contrast they weren't aware of their own ignorance; were labouring under the delusion of knowledge and inhabiting false certainties, and it seems to have been something of a personal mission of his to make them aware of this ignorance.

However if Socrates knew he knew nothing, then the one thing he thought he knew he didn't actually know, as to know anything, such as the knowing of nothing, is to know something, not nothing. To know one knows nothing is obviously a self-contradictory claim.
So he didn't know nothing but something, but the something he thought he knew he didn't even actually know, so in truth perhaps he was right after all: he did know nothing, or rather, he didn't know anything, not that he could know this without contradicting the not knowing of anything. So it transpires that the wisdom in which he imagined his wisdom solely to consist was delusional, imaginary. Which is ironic. And anyway, how could one know nothing? Nothing, since it doesn't exist, isn't something one could know. Knowledge involves knowledge about something, not nothing.

If someone like Socrates but a bit wiser had been around to accost him, in the manner of himself, and engage him in such a cross-examinination of his knowledge, he could have made him look a right fool.

A possibly amusing, possibly related notion:
A man was engaged in discussion with himself. He was convinced of his own madness. "I am mad," he would tell himself. "Ah but if I really was mad I wouldn't be aware of the fact. I would be convinced as to my not being mad. And so my being aware of being mad must mean I am not mad after all."
He was delighted with himself and his cunning. He had outsmarted them all.

Parentheses

He felt himself wholly a part of the times; his times. He was proud of the fact, and why wouldn't he be - this enclosure within parentheses. What could be finer than to be enclosed within parentheses? And what was within these parentheses? The times. And within the times? Him for starters.

Rising

A hot-air balloon, rising, things falling out the basket, hitting the ground, spilling everywhere, the balloon rising faster, more things go tumbling out, now limbs flailing, a man, down he goes, the balloon sails off. What on earth was that all about?

A

A story, that's the convention, isn't it? A story: things happening to some other poor bastard. Unpleasant things; things you wouldn't like to happen to you, but this other fella- that's all right. You get the confirmation of how awful everything is without having to go through the experiences yourself. Which is convenient.

History

History is a great and wonderful sentence progressing towards a full stop, they say. But the nature of the full stop, that's where they differ, some of them, and when it is that we get there. But before we go any further, how, you will ask, while they're atop the onward moving sentence, are they to know where the sentence is going? They look at the earlier part of the sentence and devise rules - of syntax or whatever - and say this is where it's headed, its inevitable destination. And who has the temerity to argue with syntax? Except they don't seem quite clear about these syntactical rules, it's complex...well no, it's simple, even a fool could understand these rules, or even devise them. But anyway, in short, economics of movement: that's what it all comes down to.

But back to the nature of the full stop and when it is that we get there. Generally it seems we're somewhere on the way to getting there, and probably about to get there, while every now and then someone claims we're already after getting there - it's just that we didn't notice we'd got there. And now that we're at the full stop what's there to do but go on as before. The full stop has been reached. What's more to be said, more of the same please. Otherwise what kind of full stop could it be?

But after a while it generally turns out not to be quite the same as before, and so it must be that we haven't got there yet after all. How are we to recognise when we have got there? When it is the same as before, reality and syntax as one.

Psychoanalyst

Psycho-Analyst: Someone who transforms the infinity of the mind into a heap of shit. He anal-ises the psyche.

Torturing Children: Bush's Legacy and Democracy's Failure

excerpt from Henry A. Giroux's forthcoming book, "Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror".
Though I wouldn't describe this as a failure of "democracy". For democracy to fail it would have to really be there in the first place.

Puddle

The great writer came to a dirty little puddle which had the temerity to block his path. He could walk around it if he wished, but he didn't wish. So his two hands, between fingers and thumb, clutched, refinely, his trouser legs a little above each knee, and keeping his eyes most closely focused on the little puddle, raising his right leg daintily, he began to step over the obstacle. Life was flowing madly all round him but his concentration was undiverted, he refused to be distracted and safely crossed over, unblemished. He later wrote a beautiful story of his adventure, conveying much if not all of the excitement and danger involved. Upon publication he was praised for his devotion to his craft, the transmutation of perilous and dirty realism into elegant form, and also the deeply polished irony, even with a hint, much to his credit, of self-mockery with which the experience had been recounted.

Steadfast

I am not one to remain through life in one firm steadfast position. How could you live a life like that?- remaining steadfast in the one position. Everyday people pass you by, on the way to work or the shops, and there you are, steadfast; and what's more, expecting to be admired for it, your perpetual immobility, your immovability - for what I suppose would be the point if you weren't observed and admired, by someone other than yourself that is. Not that you couldn't observe and admire yourself, but how could you keep that going with any sense of enthusiasm? Though then again perhaps there's some of us- I'll speak inclusively - who'd be more than glad to spend an entire life - an entire life and more if they could - just so ceaselessly observing and admiring themselves, and all with the utmost, unflagging enthusiasm. So I suppose you could have such a man standing there, steadfast, utterly; outwardly he'd look serious, stern, composed, corporeal - certainly no figure of fun to be laughed at by passers-by - but inwardly the lapping waves of rapture...

Crafted

This sentence has been crafted meticulously, written and re-written countless times. Well no, it was just written once, but I thought if I didn't highlight it in some way it might go unappreciated; fail to rise above the everyday dross and attendant inner sloth that attends all this dross, whereas now, who knows, perhaps it will be appreciated.

Room Again

The windows were shuttered off, admitted no light, and the light within the room was off - that is if there was a light. Darkness, absolute. Absolute darkness. So how did they see? It seems you imagine I am setting some kind of riddle here: how did they see in a room without light? There is no riddle. They didn't see.

Guilt

You sometimes hear - at least I think you do, perhaps you don't - of religion without the guilt. One - for it might be better to leave you out of it - should also be familiar with the phenomenon or idea of religion very much with the guilt. And there also seems a modern fondness- say in the person of writers like Beckett, Sebald, and a host of others - for guilt without the religion.

A Box

A box, empty. An empty box. Another box, Files written on the outside, containing, presumably, files - I can't say I'm interested enough to check. I'm happy - though happy is a bit strong, content rather, though even that'a a bit strong - to take it on trust, not too bothered about whether the trust is justified. What do I care if there's files in it or not? It's not my box. But anyway it's safe to assume this box does contain something, presumably files, and I remember carrying what must have been this box a distance, a short one, and it certainly did contain something, files or whatever, more than likely files; it's written on it, it means there's files inside, you don't need to check, and when those files are needed you don't need to go hunting, you just open the box and there they are, presumably.

That's what I call a box. It contains something or somethings; you open the box and there they are. But the first box, the empty one - how am I supposed to look on that? A box: something in which things are kept, carried, contained. That's a box. It shouldn't be a box otherwise. But all the empty one contains is space, and in truth that's all the box itself should be: space, that is if all it's doing is taking up space, containing space, then it would be better if it too was space, not a box. But, you will argue, it may be only half a box, so to speak, granted - a container that doesn't contain - but still, it's a kinetic box. It may some day, and almost certainly will, contain; be a box in the full sense. And, if all boxes were already boxes in the full sense, where then would we put all the stuff that needs to be put in boxes that isn't already in boxes? No, kinetic boxes are necessary, more than necessary - essential. Though come to think of it how can something be more than necessary? Essential is no more "necessary" than necessary. You need something, that's an absolute; it's necessary. You don't half need it, or kind of need it. If that's the case you need a different word, something milder, more lukewarm. You need it or you don't. Something is essential - you need it again. You don't more need it.

Lifted

A man lifted a pothole cover and called into the darkness. "Are ye all right there lads?" Nothing. "I said are ye all right in there?"
"Piss off!" came out of the darkness. "Yeah, piss off!" voiced another voice, followed by a whole chorus all affirming the same impolite directive.
"All right, all right, I was only checking. So I'll put the lid back on, will I?" Silence. "I could leave it off if ye like." The silence tensed. "I'll put it back so." And he did.
"What a fool!" he'd have heard if he could have, but of course with the lid back on he couldn't."

Duty

He felt a duty: a duty to be miserable. This was realism. And if he didn't feel miserable? forgot his duty? - got lost in some kind of happiness, some escapism... well, he would remember his duty and begin to feel guilty, which did just as well, and maybe even better.

The Point

A heated discussion:
"I don't see the point."
"But don't you see that is the point! The point is that there is no point."
"But if the point is that there is no point, then there is a point."
"Yes, I see what you mean. Ah, but if the point is that there is no point, and contrarily this means that there actually is a point, well then there is no point, as the point that there is no point is not a point after all."