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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