Wanted: a purple-stripper, intellectually violate
"In my opinion, in fact, the key element in answering the question 'What is consciousness?' will be the unraveling of the nature of the 'isomorphism' which underlies meaning." - Douglas R. Hofstader Godel, Escher, Bach
Something about Heather's first post put my mind in a tizzy...I printed it out carried it around with me, searching for what it was that was bothering me. I have yet to pin it down...maybe its connected with everything of hers I have read...but I think it has something to do with this: How can the word be God? Because the word is necessarily not everything (I am thinking of the word in the sense that it is a sign, and in its sign-ness an arbitrary distinction that separates it from all other words), a word depends on its opposition to others of its kind for its very existence (And I know "the" word might be a beast quite different, but then why not "the" bubble-gum, and more to the point why write and not chew). And then of course Deconstruction complicates things, each signifier pointing to anti-signified as well as signified, but even then, those negative arrows aren't pointing to everything else, but to a finite set of anti-signifieds. And none of these arrows, positive or negative, are essential, they are arbitrary, cultural, historical, political. And then, I think, there are yet more arrows that to point to the sign itself and the thoughts that form it, not a web, but a recursive self-modifying loop. Those ones shift as we use the words, arrows that should not be ignored for their lack of solidity or their for connection to the personal, for it is on these arrows that all the others rest. Perhaps the world of these words is much like the world of our physical reality? Electrons that are but probabilities, with the potential to be everywhere at once, but more likely in certain spots? That which we touch not solid but the repulsion of invisible forces? I'm a frustrating chasm away from anything resembling coherence, but I think it's worth talking about. I know its hard enough just to write but I have the compulsion to pick at it...
"And then she kissed him on the mouth. It was one of those Russian kisses, the sort that are exchanged in that vast, soulful land at high Christian feasts, as a token and seal of love. But even as we record this kiss exchanged between a notoriously "subtle" young man and a charming, slinking, and still equally young woman, we cannot help finding in it a reminder of Dr. Krokowski's elaborate, if not always unobjectionable way of speaking about love in a gently irresolute sense, so that one was never quite sure whether he meant its sanctified or more passionate and fleshly forms. Are we doing the same thing here, or were Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat doing the same thing with their Russian kiss? But what would be out readers' reaction if we simply refused to get to the bottom of that question? In out opinion, it is analytically correct, although -to use Hans Castorp's phrase- "terribly gauche" and downright life-denying, to make a "tidy" distinction between sanctity and passion in matters of love. What's this about "tidy"? What's this about gentle irresolution and ambiguity? Isn't it grand, isn't it good, that language has only one word for everything we associate with love -from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its more sanctified forms, not is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is out sympathy with organic life, the touchingly lustful embrace of what is destined to decay -caritas is assuredly found in the most admirable and depraved passions. Irresolute? But in God's good name, leave the meaning of love unresolved! Unresolved -that is life and humanity, and it would betray a dreary lack of subtlety to worry about it."
- Thomas Mann The Magic Mountain
Perhaps God is the word if the word is love?
Praying for the crucible of argument,
Vinod
Something about Heather's first post put my mind in a tizzy...I printed it out carried it around with me, searching for what it was that was bothering me. I have yet to pin it down...maybe its connected with everything of hers I have read...but I think it has something to do with this: How can the word be God? Because the word is necessarily not everything (I am thinking of the word in the sense that it is a sign, and in its sign-ness an arbitrary distinction that separates it from all other words), a word depends on its opposition to others of its kind for its very existence (And I know "the" word might be a beast quite different, but then why not "the" bubble-gum, and more to the point why write and not chew). And then of course Deconstruction complicates things, each signifier pointing to anti-signified as well as signified, but even then, those negative arrows aren't pointing to everything else, but to a finite set of anti-signifieds. And none of these arrows, positive or negative, are essential, they are arbitrary, cultural, historical, political. And then, I think, there are yet more arrows that to point to the sign itself and the thoughts that form it, not a web, but a recursive self-modifying loop. Those ones shift as we use the words, arrows that should not be ignored for their lack of solidity or their for connection to the personal, for it is on these arrows that all the others rest. Perhaps the world of these words is much like the world of our physical reality? Electrons that are but probabilities, with the potential to be everywhere at once, but more likely in certain spots? That which we touch not solid but the repulsion of invisible forces? I'm a frustrating chasm away from anything resembling coherence, but I think it's worth talking about. I know its hard enough just to write but I have the compulsion to pick at it...
"And then she kissed him on the mouth. It was one of those Russian kisses, the sort that are exchanged in that vast, soulful land at high Christian feasts, as a token and seal of love. But even as we record this kiss exchanged between a notoriously "subtle" young man and a charming, slinking, and still equally young woman, we cannot help finding in it a reminder of Dr. Krokowski's elaborate, if not always unobjectionable way of speaking about love in a gently irresolute sense, so that one was never quite sure whether he meant its sanctified or more passionate and fleshly forms. Are we doing the same thing here, or were Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat doing the same thing with their Russian kiss? But what would be out readers' reaction if we simply refused to get to the bottom of that question? In out opinion, it is analytically correct, although -to use Hans Castorp's phrase- "terribly gauche" and downright life-denying, to make a "tidy" distinction between sanctity and passion in matters of love. What's this about "tidy"? What's this about gentle irresolution and ambiguity? Isn't it grand, isn't it good, that language has only one word for everything we associate with love -from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its more sanctified forms, not is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is out sympathy with organic life, the touchingly lustful embrace of what is destined to decay -caritas is assuredly found in the most admirable and depraved passions. Irresolute? But in God's good name, leave the meaning of love unresolved! Unresolved -that is life and humanity, and it would betray a dreary lack of subtlety to worry about it."
- Thomas Mann The Magic Mountain
Perhaps God is the word if the word is love?
Praying for the crucible of argument,
Vinod
posted by Bobby Nintendo at 11:06 PM
6 Comments:
Hot spit, Vinod! Don't you believe in magic? Or, are you saying that if we could pinpoint the electron, if we could see it still, would that be God? Careful not to turn into a pillar of salt. Which reminds me of dangerous animals. Don't look them in the eye, say the weak of pulse. But how else can we see them? And isn't one arrow truly infinite? Doesn't one arrow really point in every direction, all times, dimensions, erstwhile and anon? But let's not be too gauche, let's not use infinity like the kitchen sponge, which is just humility, have the humility to look the panther in its opaline, mind, don't play word games with savagery.
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I am certainly not saying that a still electron is God, quite the opposite, that because our mathematical conception of the electron necessitates the notion of it being everywhere in its cloud at once, the idea of it contains some notion of God. And those arrows aren't infinite, when you look at them they point to things, or else language loses its coherence, its ability to share. As soon as that arrow points everywhere it loses its meaning. What is magic but ignorance? The laziness of faith and the blindness of spectacle? And when do we not play word games with savagery? Which words of ours contain truth? What I am asking is just how God is manifest in the rules of the game we play...
I see, I see. Something reeks of checkers on a chessboard…
So, this is chew, this is chew AND write, and then spit—love isn’t the word, it’s the language, and it laps all tongues, and it’s “connected with everything of hers…
“How can the word be God?” he asks. Because “the word was God,”
It has been written, that “the if/then statement is a commitment to chance,” but even with logic, there is always a “given”.
This is not about the “rules of the game” it’s about the game, itself. Nothing is manifest in the language until the agreement—ma che dichi—Amen.
Or not—to the Modernists, then—
and the rules of your game: to pin down wings and legs
Physics is not the leap, itself, “leave the dancing to the ballerina,” he says. Yes, leave the clouds for the birds, for the sake of “common ground.” Could be, could be. Nothing against physics, or floors, as you wish, love, all you had to do was ask…
(Though it’s been done before, and surely, there will be helicopters and airplanes and other such mechanical wonders in store for us!)
Which is to say, for example, that there is this compulsion to communicate. We’re doing this blog, reading the same books, piecing together a language with which to do that. We can focus on the “compulsion,” but even in that focus, the “communication” is happening, as long as we speak the same language. As long as we have that commitment to understand. (That is, Amen, but the tedium of translation is for another breed, or another time, at least). And we can wonder at the compulsion, fine, good, I’m all eyes, but in the periphery, I can’t help but witness that we have already achieved it—
or,
“It takes two to make a thing go ri-ight, It takes two to make it outta sight…”
or,
(If we get over picking at the compulsion, though, there may be something there, something really really there, do we dare?)
and that goes for me, too.
(john: the hullaballoo (poetry) is just the bearing witness)
and speaking of Romanian poets:
Nichita Stãnescu
"Poetry"
Poetry is the weeping eye
it is the weeping shoulder
the weeping eye of the shoulder
it is the weeping hand
the weeping eye of the hand
it is the weeping soul
the weeping eye of the heel.
Oh, you friends,
poetry is not a tear
it is the weeping itself
the weeping of an uninvented eye
the tear of the eye
of the one who must be beautiful
of the one who must be happy.
From the book "Bas-Relief with Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
By any other name...
"The creative body created spirit for itself, as a hand of its will. Even in your folly and contempt, you despisers of the body, you serve your Self.
Your Self wants to perish, and that is why you have become despisers of the body! For no longer are you able to create beyond yourselves.
And therefore you are now angry with life and with the earth. And unconscious envy lies in the sidelong glance of your contempt. I do not go your way, you despisers of the body!
You are not bridges to the Superman!"
Nietzche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
"It is strange, Zarathustra knows very little of women and yet he is right about them. Is this because with women nothing is impossible!'"
"Promethea is my heroine.
But the question of writing is my adversary.
Promethea is the heroine of my life, of my imagination, of my book.
I am her champion. I fight for her, to make her right--her reality, her presence, her grandeur--prevail.
I am armed with love and care. Which is not enough.
Sometimes I need to add writing as well. Promethea is so tall. Writing helps me. I climb on her.
But writing then immediately demands to be paid, and I am not exactly sure what this payment should be.
Strange things happen: I write to come close to Promethea; I seek her better, more slowly, more closely, more deeply. But then I begin to lose the surface, the simplicity and light.
That is serious.
It can go far. It can go too far.
Other strange things happen: each page I write could be the first page of the book. Each page is completely entitled to be the first page. How is this possible?
Because this is a day-by-day book, each day, the one happening now, is the most important day. For each day I need all time.
Because we are in eternity.
We. Promethea, me, the author, H, you and you, whoever wants, whoever loves us, whoever loves."
Helene Cixious, Book of Promethea
"How strange, this word Promethea--turned into a word of my blood."
HC, Book of Promethea
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