uncertainty arises from not knowing what to do when there is no sufficient reason to do it.

there are two main ways one can hide from uncertainty: certainty and indifference.

certainty is the attempt to make an uncertain thing certain by giving it an answer.

for example, if one does not know whether they should pursue a relationship, they can seek certainty by asking an astrologer whether the relationship is destined to succeed.

indifference is the attempt to make an uncertain thing irrelevant by refusing to care about its answer.

for example, one deciding that love is meaningless and that there is no reason to care whether the relationship succeeds.

the two ways can be connected using žižek’s concept of parallax.

traditionally, a change in perspective is understood as an epistemological change.

for example, if one moves around a tree, the tree appears to shift position.

however, the tree itself has not moved.

the shift therefore belongs to perception, and hence, knowledge.

however, for žižek, an epistemological shift in the subject reflects an ontological shift in the object itself.

meaning, the object itself contains a gap that prevents its perspectives from being reconciled.

a canonical example is the rabbit-duck illusion.

there are two pointed things to the left, and a small 'w' shaped bump to the right.

when one focuses on the left, they see a duck.

and when one focuses on the right, they see a rabbit.

this is because the object has been drawn such that,

in the first case, the two pointed things resemble the beak of a duck, and the 'w' shaped bump resembles the back of a duck.

and in the second case, the two pointed things resemble the ears of a rabbit, and the 'w' shaped bump resembles the mouth of a rabbit.

overall, an inability to know something completely can therefore indicate that the thing itself is incomplete due to either being underdetermined or overdetermined.

this gives us two types of answers respectively.

i

epistemological answer

one’s knowledge is assumed to have a gap because the object is assumed to not have a gap.

as a result, the burden of uncertainty belongs to oneself.

to alleivate this burden, one can e.g. read, consult, predict, interpret etc.

some examples of discourses that provide these answers are,

prophecy i.e. when the future is uncertain, one consults an oracle to know what will happen.

analytic and folk philosophy i.e. one asks what the good life is and searches for a doctrine that will tell them.

self-help i.e. one asks why they are unhappy and searches for psychological explanations.

ii

ontological answer

the object is assumed to have a gap because one’s knowledge is assumed to not have a gap.

as a result, the burden of uncertainty belongs to the object.

to alleivate this burden, the object can e.g. be destroyed, be modified etc.

some examples of discourses that provide these answers are,

eschatology i.e. when the future is uncertain, one attempts to know what objects will remain and what will be destroyed by looking at their flaws.

continental philosophy i.e. one asks what the good life is and searches for objects that will provide it for them.

politics i.e. one asks why they are unhappy and searches for environmental explanations.

⠀

these two types of answers work in a cycle.

first, one searches for an epistemological answer about an object.

and when one becomes existential about it–e.g. they give up or break down when trying to understand it–one searches for an ontological answer about the object.

the ontological answer reveals new knowledge about the object, because up until that point, one did not notice that the gap was part of the object.

as a result, the old object (the one without the gap) has become a new object (the one with the gap).

with this, one searches for an epistemological answer about the new object.

overall, this property of answers can be called, answer parallacticity.

i

the ill-matched couple

Shell

The Ill-Matched Couple

“You shouldn’t worry so much about being a good person. There’s no such thing anymore.” He had lowered his voice, as though the greying pub light had narrowed to a spotlight for just the both of them…

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25 days ago · 1 like · whit_writes

this story presents a couple being separated by the type of answer they prefer.

the man corresponds to the epistemological, and the woman corresponds to the ontological.

the opening states, “You shouldn’t worry so much about being a good person. There’s no such thing anymore.”

the man resolves the contradiction of moral life by eliminating the category itself.

meaning, there is no good or bad, therefore, there is no longer a conflict between good and bad.

however, this is an epistemological answer masquerading as an ontological answer.

this is because he has not discovered that good and bad do not exist, but has adopted a position in which their contradiction no longer has to be confronted.

his next statement makes this clearer.

“To you, a joke that falls flat is a larger catastrophe than the next Mexican earthquake.”

the point is that values are epistemological.

however, the distinction between particular importance and universal importance is ontological, e.g. particulars v. universals in metaphysics.

he then attempts to resolve it by saying that there is only “better or worse.”

but “better” requires a perspective from which something can be judged better, and hence, is also epistemological.

the woman provides the opposing perspective.

she does not want the world to be transformed into a philosophical system, i.e. “I’m not in the mood for intellectual conversation”.

with this, she identifies that the man is searching for epistemological answers.

she then states she wants to talk about “art or money or love or something.”

she then describes the old woman using a plastic bag as a wallet.

this observation is epistemologically insignificant, but ontologically significant.

one reason is the old woman found that the plastic bag is inherently not that different from a wallet, since both can carry money.

however, the man cannot leave it there, e.g. “You seem dejected. Full of torpor”, and “I bet you like to cultivate your self-destruction and your self degradation.”

with this, he brings her back into the epistemological by turning her into an object of interpretation.

for example, her boredom must indicate something about her psychology, so he tells her what her boredom means.

the woman then states she wants the ordinary life of people who “sweat and laugh and drink beer.”

the people are almost indistinguishable through perception, and yet this epistemological sameness is precisely what she desires.

one reason is that it is this sameness that leads to her noticing ontological difference, i.e. noticing the repetition of their behaviors.

the man interprets this as avoidance, and she agrees i.e. “I am, aren’t I?”.

at this point, if she gave an epistemological answer, e.g. “Because there is a historical/social reason these behaviors exist”, then the cycle can start.

however, she stays in the ontological by stating her indifference i.e. “But I don’t care”.

the story therefore conveys that they are an ill-matched couple because of the difference between their answers, and because they refuse to listen to each other’s answers, thereby preventing the cycle from happening.

ii

when the gods still spoke

Rowena's Substack

WHEN THE GODS STILL SPOKE

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10 days ago · 14 likes · 12 comments · Rowena Loganathan

this piece is about the relation between god and epistemological answers.

the future is unknown, and humans want to know it to avoid risks.

roughly, god is when humans make the future state this knowledge, rather than them discovering it.

for example, “The stars had always been silent. We merely taught them how to speak.”

this is epistemological because the stars themselves do not contain the answers being sought.

instead, it is the interpretation between the stars and a collection of signs that humans have created that does.

as a result, the ontological answer that is the movement of a star is shifted into an epistemological answer e.g. it is a blessing, warning, punishment, coincidence, destiny etc.

this is one reason prophecy is particularly powerful during crisis.

for example, “People turn toward divination during chaos and moments of crisis to regain a sense of agency that has surrendered to uncertainty.”

chaos is intolerable partly because it is resistant to interpretation, due to the amount of objects involved.

prophecy shifts this to one’s knowledge e.g. war becomes destiny, illness becomes a test, and a famine becomes an omen.

because of this, the person who controls interpretation controls the reality in which others act.

for example, “Prophecy controls the narrative”, i.e. the ruler who interprets an omen controls what the omen means, and the prophet who interprets the future controls what the community expects.

however, this shift fails when gaps exist in the objects themselves.

for example, “Indirect signs require the meticulous efforts of interpretation, allowing individuals to exercise choice rather than blindly obey”.

the piece then states that these gaps hold in the modern era of prediction as well.

for example, the piece compares “Divine interpretation” with “Statistical probability”, and later, “Horoscopes. Personality tests. AI prediction”.

one instance of chaos being shifted in the modern era is having the objects interpreted as ‘factors’ and ‘variables’.

but, a prediction does not become the future merely because it predicts it, and a personality test does not exhaust the person.

however, as opposed to the ancient era, the modern era closes the cycle by acknowledging the gaps.

for example, ulrich beck’s concepts of the risk society and reflexive modernity.

hence, prophecy survives because humans are ignorant, while reality itself continues to produce situations that cannot be completely closed by knowledge, and humans acknowledge this.

iii

i don’t know, man

Ayussh

I don’t know, Man

What are you afraid of, Ayussh…

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8 days ago · 15 likes · 10 comments · Ayussh

this piece explores the tension between epistemological and ontological answers about one's self.

the speaker begins by asking what he is afraid of, followed by an accumulation of questions.

for example, “Why does every new task…”, “Why does every evidence of my success seem fickle…”, “What’s right?”, “Why am I like this?”

the speaker believes that the correct explanation would resolve the problem, and hence, they are searching for epistemological answers about themselves.

however, as they search for them, they keep running into questions that can provide ontological answers about their self, i.e. “what if every attempt to know myself better, to understand myself better, feels like exploring a maze with a dead end?”

however, he assumes that the maze has an exit, i.e. there must be a route.

for example, “I feel like he has the missing key” and “the version of you who has it all figured out already exists”.

as a result, the speaker imagines himself as a completed object hidden behind his present condition, and that it is knowledge that has gaps.

more brushes with the ontological include him wanting control and spontaneity, wanting to understand himself and wanting to stop thinking, and wanting to pursue every goal yet fearing pursuing anything.

it becomes explicit in the actor metaphor, i.e. “I feel like an actor pushed onto a stage, forced to perform without a script”.

an example of a script is given as, “Get educated, get a job, have a family — that’s the ultimate goal, they say.”

but when the speaker follows the script, he experiences another reality.

for example, “why do I feel like I’m leaving something behind when I try to move forward in this lane?”

the same life is therefore simultaneously a correct path and a betrayal of something within him.

more generally, that social life genuinely offers security while simultaneously producing alienation.

neither perspective completely cancels the other, and this creates a parallax.

this is one reason the speaker’s search for epistemological answers becomes endless.

for example, “Maybe I’m too stuck up, too dumb to see the patterns unwinding in front of me”, “I’m unnecessarily micro-analyzing every chapter”.

at the end, he starts to realise that the gap belongs to life itself, i.e. the object.

this is expressed in the final sentence, “I’m trying to understand life, without ever getting the taste of it.”

with this answer, he can get a taste of life, and as a result, it becomes a new object, and he can then get epistemological answers for it that he could not get from the old ‘life’ object.

social conditioning is the process of training an individual to behave according to the norms of their social groups.

there are two main ways to do social conditioning.

i

reinforcement

increases the frequency of a behavior.

i

positive reinforcement

an object that a subject desires is hidden.

when the subject performs a desired behavior, the object is unhidden.

for example, a parent hides a toy in a closet, and after their child cleans their room, they give the toy.

ii

negative reinforcement

an object that a subject does not desire is unhidden.

when the subject performs a desired behavior, the object is hidden.

for example, an alarm goes off, and after one wakes up, they stop it and put it aside.

ii

punishment

decreases the frequency of a behavior.

i

positive punishment

an object that a subject does not desire is hidden.

when the subject performs an undesired behavior, the object is unhidden.

for example, a guard dog is hidden behind a fence, and after a trespasser steps onto the property, one opens the gate, unhiding the dog.

ii

negative punishment

an object that a subject desires is unhidden.

when the subject performs an undesired behavior, the object is hidden.

for example, a child is playing with a phone, and after they misbehave, their parent takes the phone and hides it inside a locked drawer so they can no longer see or use it.

⠀

social conditioning makes one internalise conditioned behaviors.

internalisation is the process by which an individual accepts a norm as their own viewpoint.

as a result, social conditioning makes one believe that the conditioned behaviors are their own choices.

internalisation is maintained by one doing the acts of hiding and unhiding themselves.

for example, a child hides a toy in a closet, and after they clean their room, they take the toy.

the three pieces describe different forms of social conditioning.

the first describes social conditioning through the destruction of one’s will.

the second describes social conditioning through the destruction of one’s childlike behavior.

the third describes social conditioning through the establishment of boundaries without the destruction of one’s will.

i

the harvest of will

this poem describes a system that conditions individuals to surrender their choices until the surrender becomes indistinguishable from their own will.

the pyramid represents a hierarchy that gains power by taking choices from those below it.

the “throat that ne’er says no” continually takes from others while presenting the taking as “grace.”

this is social conditioning because the system makes the individual participate in the process by which their behavior is controlled.

the repeated refrain,

“down, and down, the will descends,”

describes the gradual reduction of autonomy.

each surrender becomes another “rung” in the tower, and each choice is converted into a “coin.”

the person’s capacity to choose therefore becomes something that the hierarchy can extract and use for itself.

the conditioning is maintained through punishment.

when the individual attempts to resist, something undesirable is unhidden.

the speaker attempts to scream, but an “older, colder” force tells them that they have only been dreaming.

as a result, the system makes resistance produce doubt, fear, and confusion.

i

positive punishment

an unwanted psychological state is hidden.

when the individual resists the system, the unwanted state is unhidden.

for example, the speaker remembers that they once had the ability to choose, but when they attempt to recover that freedom, fear awakens and the memory is treated as a dream.

the punishment teaches the individual that resistance is dangerous.

ii

negative punishment

a desired state is unhidden.

when the individual conforms, the memory of freedom is hidden.

for example, the speaker experiences the unbearable recognition that “that was not my joy,” and then “the knowing fades.”

the system therefore removes the individual’s awareness of their own loss.

the most important part of the poem is that the conditioning eventually becomes internalised.

the speaker no longer needs the system to physically restrain them.

the person who “would have run” has been “filed away.”

the individual’s former will becomes an object stored inside the system itself.

the system has therefore transformed external control into internal control.

for example, the individual forgets their former freedom, reinterprets their resistance as a dream, and continues moving even though they no longer know why.

the final stanza describes the mechanism of this internalisation.

“small surrenders” are repeated until they become a norm.

as a result, the individual eventually helps construct the tower that imprisons them.

ii

why we often lose track of our inner child

in this essay, instead of conditioning someone to obey a political or institutional hierarchy, society conditions an individual to stop behaving like a child.

the child initially possesses behaviors that are not necessarily socially approved.

curiosity, excitement, playfulness, emotional openness, trust, and wonder are natural behaviors.

as the child grows older, these behaviors become associated with negative social judgments.

phrases such as “grow up,” “don’t be a child,” and “life is not la la land” communicate that certain behaviors should no longer be performed.

the social group therefore applies punishment to childlike behavior.

i

positive punishment

an unwanted social object is unhidden.

when an individual behaves childishly, the group produces ridicule, criticism, or shame.

for example, when an adult becomes excessively excited about something, another person calls them “immature.”

ii

negative punishment

a desired social object is hidden.

when an individual behaves in a childlike manner, acceptance or social approval is withdrawn.

for example, a person becomes playful in a serious setting, and the people around them stop treating them seriously.

the person learns that being playful can cause them to lose their social standing.

the important distinction is that the social group does not need to punish the individual every time.

after repeated punishment, the individual begins to punish themselves.

as in, the individual learns to look at their own childlike behavior through the viewpoint of the group.

hence, they no longer need another person to say “don’t be a child.”

as a result, the person therefore begins hiding their own childlike behavior from themselves.

for example, they suppress their excitement, curiosity, playfulness and wonder.

however, the inner child therefore has not necessarily disappeared.

instead, the conditioned behavior has become dominant, and the essay describes this when it says that traces of the inner child still remain.

an adult can still become excited by food, travel, friendship, rain, or other ordinary experiences.

the conditioned adult behavior therefore exists alongside the unconditioned childlike behavior.

the problem is that the individual has learned to give more attention to one and less attention to the other.

the essay therefore proposes reversing the conditioning by giving attention to the suppressed behavior.

for example, instead of punishing childlike excitement, one can reinforce it.

when an individual notices their own curiosity or excitement and allows themselves to experience it, the behavior receives reinforcement.

hence, the inner child becomes stronger because it is no longer being socially punished.

iii

the gentle giant

The Permanent Machine

The Gentle Giant

A friend of mine had just brought home a new puppy, Harvey. Different breed to Sterling, similarly built though, small, still growing into himself, still working out what his legs were for. We got to talking and thought it might be good for the two of them to meet…

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6 days ago · 16 likes · 9 comments · Krish Rengaraju

this story shows that conditioning does not require the destruction of autonomy.

harvey is a puppy who does not yet know the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

sterling helps harvey in learning these boundaries.

for example, when harvey is afraid, sterling gives him space.

when harvey approaches, sterling allows him to approach.

and when harvey retreats, sterling allows him to retreat.

i

reinforcement

harvey approaches, but sterling remains calm.

harvey therefore learns that approaching sterling does not produce an unwanted consequence.

and then harvey approaches again.

the absence of an unwanted consequence increases his willingness to approach.

harvey consequently moves from fear toward confidence.

ii

punishment

eventually harvey begins biting Sterling’s ear and crosses a boundary.

sterling then corrects him.

this correction decreases the frequency of the behavior.

i

positive punishment

an object that the subject does not desire is unhidden.

when harvey performs an undesired behavior, syerling produces an unpleasant correction.

the correction communicates that biting his ear is not acceptable.

the important part is that the correction is limited.

sterling does not continue punishing harvey after the boundary has been understood.

ii

negative punishment

the interaction itself is temporarily withdrawn.

after correcting harvey, sterling walks away.

the desired object for harvey is therefore temporarily hidden.

harvey loses access to the interaction because he crossed the boundary.

the punishment ends when the behavior has been corrected.

sterling then returns to playing with harvey.

this prevents the punishment from becoming a general judgment of harvey.

meaning, harvey is not taught that he is bad, but that a particular behavior is unacceptable.

this distinction is what separates conditioning from domination.

the purpose of the correction is to establish a boundary rather than to replace harvey’s will with sterling’s will.

for example, sterling does not force harvey to approach, play or become confident.

instead, he creates the conditions in which harvey can develop those behaviors himself.

this ties into the final statement of the story: the best thing one can give someone they are developing is not the answer. it is the patience to let them find it themselves.

PancakeSushi

The Ride

A pile of planks, six stories tall…

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13 days ago · 133 likes · 25 comments · PancakeSushi

a syllogism is an argument that takes two premises and deductively infers a conclusion.

a categorical proposition is a proposition that asserts or denies that some or all of the members of one category are included in another.

a categorical syllogism is a syllogism where the premises and conclusion are categorical propositions.

the first premise is called the major premise, and the second premise is called the minor premise.

each of the premises have one term in common with the conclusion.

in a major premise, this is the major term, and in a minor premise, this is the minor term.

each of the premises also have one term in common with each other, called the middle term.

the canonical example of a categorical syllogism is,

all men are mortal.

socrates is a man.

therefore, socrates is mortal.

here, ‘mortal’ is the major term, ‘socrates’ is the minor term, and ‘men’ is the middle term.

mortality salience is the awareness that one’s death is inevitable and undeferrable.

mortality salience develops during one’s childhood in three steps,

i

around two years of age, one understands the concept of the self, and gains self-awareness.

ii

between the ages of five and ten, one understands the concept of dying, which is made up of,

i

irreversibility

the understanding that death cannot be undone.

ii

non-functionality

the understanding that all biological functions cease upon death.

iii

universality

the understanding that all organisms eventually die.

iii

after understanding the concept of self and dying, one understands the concept of mortality by applying death to oneself as follows,

all organisms are mortal.

i am an organism.

therefore, i am mortal.

⠀

the above is a categorical syllogism.

‘mortal’ is the major term, ‘i’ is the minor term, and ‘organism’ is the middle term.

the conclusion corresponds to death anxiety, which is the anxiety caused by thoughts of one’s death.

the mechanism used to avoid death anxiety is denial.

in terms of the categorical syllogism, it corresponds to denying the antecedent, which is a formal fallacy which states that,

if p, then q.

not p.

therefore, not q.

for example,

if you are a barber, then you have a job.

you are not a barber.

therefore, you have no job.

it is a fallacy because p is necessary for q, not sufficient, i.e. there can be other reasons that make q true.

mortality salience has two antecedents: the major premise and the minor premise.

i

major premise

the ‘all’ in ‘all organisms are mortal’ is a universal quantifier.

and because organisms are a posteriori, the premise is inductive.

inductive reasoning infers a universal rule–with universal referring to a population–from a set of observations, called a sample.

the major premise starts with observations of organisms dying, for example,

a squirrel died.

my grandma died.

after the sample is representative of the population e.g. it is random or diverse enough, one infers that all organisms die.

there are two ways to deny this premise.

i

denying observations of death

this method hides examples.

examples are burying corpses, moving sick and dying people into hospital wards and nursing homes, and using sanitized language for death e.g. “passed away”, “went to a better place”, “unalive”.

ii

denying induction

this method uses counterexamples.

examples are parents telling their children not to worry about dying from a disease because some people have had it and survived, and making appeals to technological and medical progress to state that current enviromental factors will not affect one as it did people in the past.

ii

minor premise

this premise is also inductive.

i

one observes their bodily functions and products, e.g. blood, saliva, hunger, excretion, sickness, aging, sex etc.

ii

one observes that organisms have the same bodily functions and products as them, i.e. creatureliness, e.g. a dog getting hunger, a crow excreting, an infected plant, pigeons having sex.

iii

with this, one infers that they are an organism as well.

some examples are medical students’ disease, cyberchondria, and secure couples going through the motions of daily life.

there are two ways to deny this premise.

i

denying observations of creatureliness

this method hides examples.

culture e.g. clothing, hygiene, rituals, hides creatureliness when one is a subject.

disgust e.g. being disgusted on looking at drool, stool, is used hides creatureliness when one is an object.

ii

denying one has the same bodily functions and products

this method uses counterexamples.

denying the former corresponds to self-esteem.

for example, accumulating wealth, discovering knowledge, creating art.

denying the latter corresponds to symbolic immortality.

for example, treating one’s body as a container for their soul, treating inputs and outputs to one’s body in terms of positive and negative energy as opposed to e.g. food and excretion.

⠀

overall, this property of death can be called, death categorical syllogismness.

‘The Ride: A Memory’ is a poem about the causes and effects of the desire to flirt with death to feel alive.

the speaker is looking at an old, wooden roller coaster.

it is completely abandoned and rotting from weather, and comparing it to chernobyl shows how empty and haunting the place is now.

they notice leftover trash, like a lost shoe, which reminds them of the people who used to be here.

“Purgatory, for the praxis of quietus” implies that an amusement park is like a waiting room (purgatory) where people go to practice (praxis) being close to death or silence (quietus).

they remember the loud noises (din), the screams, and the sound of the metal chain (”rickety click-clack”) pulling 20 riders (”souls”) up to the top of the roller coaster’s first big drop.

this describes how scary an old wooden coaster feels.

the parts feel loose, as if the ride is literally falling apart while moving, but this danger (”sounds like it’s breaking”) is actually what makes it exciting.

as the coaster slams through sharp turns, gravity throws the riders against each other, creating a shared moment of closeness (intimacy).

as the train loses speed (impulse) along the track, they realize why people ride it: they want to feel close to danger.

they are seeking a “whisper of death”—a thrill that reminds them they are alive.

the safety features are very weak, and it adds to the thrill.

while the safety harness squeezes the riders’ chest so hard it’s hard to breathe, they still enjoy the experience because while it is probable that they could get hurt or die (”brush with mortality”), it is almost certain that they will get out alive.

just before stopping, the riders’ might feel that they are safe, so the coaster probably speeds up to violate expectations for one more thrill before stopping.

the end of the ride brings the riders out of their terrifying fantasy and forcefully pulls them “back in reality”, with the brakes i.e. a key safety feature, stopping the danger (”arrests death”).

the riders are relieved it’s over (”none too soon”), having gained a few scares.

the relief in the previous stanza contradicts the pride in this one, because this is the point that they feel they were a counterexample to their creatureliness.

an irony here is this counterexample is sort of annulled by the riders acting like barbarians i.e. like creatures.

the creatureliness continues as the riders go eat cheap, terrible (”cardboard”) pizza and buy useless trinkets (”frippery”) at gift shops to remember the day they ‘conquered’ death.

the speaker snaps back to the present day, and the grand feeling of triumph, and the loud roaring noise of the coaster, are completely gone now.

this is the point at which the speaker realises that they had never really defeated death back then, but instead, they just thought they did at that point in time.

the speaker looks at the ruins, hears their young voice screaming on the ride, and it reminds them of a time in their now-dead youth when they felt brave enough to “cheat death”.

I use repetition, silence, and non sequiturs.

A Poem About Decay - Panopoly

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17 days ago · 61 likes · 26 comments · Daniil Frolov

an event is a change in a property of an entity.

for example, a lawn getting wet by rain is an event, because the entity (lawn) had one of its properties (wetness) changed.

the property of an entity can either be changed by a sartrean subject i.e. being-for-itself, or by a sartrean object i.e. being-in-itself.

probability is the difference between the knowledge of an event and the knowledge of the causality of the event.

randomness is the probability of an event where the change is done by an object.

disorder is the probability of an event where the change is done by a subject.

for example, a person is in their room and placing clothes in it.

if the person is not aware of why or where they are placing their clothes i.e. they are doing it unconsciously,

then the resulting placement of the clothes will look disordered to the person doing the act, and will look random to someone observing the person doing the act e.g. a parent.

however, if the person has a reason for placing the clothes in a certain way, e.g. they want to stack them three clothes high so that it fits in their drawer,

then the resulting placement of the clothes will look ordered to the person doing the act, and will be reasonable i.e. ‘make sense’ to someone observing the person doing the act.

a probability distribution is a function that assigns probabilities to events.

the entropy of a probability distribution quantifies the average level of uncertainty in it.

for example, both an impossible event (probability of 0) and a sure event (probability of 1) have zero entropy.

this is because the outcome of the event is completely known.

on the other hand, the uniform distribution, i.e. a distribution where every event is equally likely, has maximum entropy.

for example, a fair coin has two events, heads and tails, both of which are equally likely.

in physics, entropy is applied to physical events, where an entity’s (called a system) properties are derived from microstates, and changes are done by energy.

the ground causality of any physical event is the second law of thermodynamics.

it states that, given two regions, energy will flow such that the total entropy of both regions increase.

because of this, all physical systems maintain themselves by taking in low-entropy energy and dissipating out high-entropy energy into its environment.

the degree of this maintanence depends on a complementary flow to the flow of energy.

since energy flows such that the total entropy of both regions increase, it follows that if the system moves to regions where this can occur, it can continue acquiring energy to maintain itself.

this mobility of a system is the complementary flow, and it roughly corresponds to subjectivity.

for example, a rock cannot move on its own, and so, it can only sit and degrade over time as the environment around it reaches maximum entropy.

in contrast, a living organism continually moves around to environments that have yet to reach maximum entropy i.e. low entropy regions like good habitats and good food.

this enables it to continually acquire the energy it needs to maintain itself.

at a global level, the reason energy always flows to increase entropy is because maximum entropy corresponds to thermodynamic equilibrium.

hence, another implication of the second law is that the total entropy of the universe always increases i.e. the universe continually gets closer toward thermodynamic equilibrium.

as a result, one can assume that systems that help the universe reach equilibrium faster are favored over those that do not.

this is indeed the case, a good example being jeremy england’s dissipation-driven adaptation.

it states that living organisms that are more efficient at dissipating energy are favored over those that do not, and that this is what makes living organisms adapt.

in other words, living organisms are designed in order to maximize entropy production.

for example, the leap from nonliving entities to living entities was achieved by self-replicating molecules.

replication being a defining property of life, was favored because replication is a very efficient way to dissipate high-entropy energy.

for example, a single molecule can absorb a few photons and dissipates heat i.e. high-entropy energy.

in contrast, if that molecule makes a copy of itself, there are now two molecules absorbing photons, and hence dissipating twice the heat.

as a result, an exponentially growing population of self-replicating molecules dissipates vastly more high-entropy energy than a static blob of molecules.

given all of this, the following holds: life cannot use high-entropy energy.

in the economy, this results in two degrees that goods have.

i

rivalry

the degree by which the consumer of a good reduces the ability of another person to consume it.

a consumer consumes a low-entropy good e.g. an apple or a drink, and converts it into high-entropy waste after consumption.

as a result, another person cannot consume it, and hence, is rival.

however, when a low-entropy information-based good e.g. an article or a video is consumed, entropy mostly does not affect the copies of it (pixel degradation being a counterexample), but does affect the copy of it in the person’s mind.

for example, it can be converted into high-entropy waste e.g. one’s confusion or surface level thoughts about the article.

however, if this waste is not dissipated outside, then the good remains nonrival.

as a result, another person can consume it e.g. by sharing it.

however, if the waste is dissipated e.g. on social media, and another person consumes those instead of reading the article, then the good becomes rival.

this is because as the number of people that consume the information-based good increases, the more its visibility reduces as the waste from it increases, e.g. noise from one’s feed.

ii

excludability

the degree by which the producer of a good reduces the ability of another person to consume it.

a producer produces a low-entropy good and maintains its low entropy, i.e. inventory management, until a consumer acquires it and converts it into high-entropy waste after consumption, i.e. turnover, requiring them to buy the good again i.e. repeat sale.

as a result, the producer requires the consumer to quickly convert their goods into high-entropy waste, in order to increase inventory turnover, and hence, profits.

because of this, there are two ways inventory turnover can reduce.

i

the good becomes high entropy during storage.

one way to counter this is to use excludability to attract consumers by lowering the barrier to acquire the good.

for example, giving discounts during clearance sales.

alternatively, excludability can be used to compensate for lack of turnover.

for example, luxury perishables such as white truffles and high-end sushi are partly priced as such due to the difficulty of acquiring and storing them.

ii

the good stays low entropy during consumption.

one way to counter this is to use excludability at the supply level by producing only a limited amount.

for example, luxury watches, leather bags and jewellery.

alternatively, the good can be made such that its consumption will increase its entropy, independent of the consumer’s contribution.

the main method is obsolescence.

for example, style obsolescence states that in high fashion, while the dress itself will not expire, its social value does, due to being tied to micro-seasons.

another example is planned obsolescence, which designs products such it ceases to function after a predetermined period of time.

⠀

overall, a good is excluded when the producer wants consumers to be converting their goods into high-entropy energy, and not nature itself.

because of this, there are many goods that are non-excludable.

for example, air is non-excludable, because it is nature that spreads and stores air, so that humans can convert the oxygen in it into high-entropy energy e.g. body heat and carbon dioxide.

hence, a company cannot sell air because they cannot prevent nature from spreading air to people that do not pay them.

in contrast, a company can sell oxygenated air tanks for scuba diving, because nature cannot bring air into the ocean.

⠀

overall, these two properties result in the fourfold model of goods.

i

private good

rival and excludable.

these become high entropy on consumption, and high entropy on storage.

for example, food, clothes and cars.

ii

club good

non-rival and excludable.

these stay low entropy on consumption, but become high entropy during storage.

for example, toll roads (maintanence) and movie theatres (limited time in box office)

iii

common good

rival and non-excludable.

these become high entropy on consumption, but stay low entropy during storage.

for example, fisheries and fresh water.

iv

public good

non-rival and non-excludable.

these stay low entropy on consumption, and low entropy during storage.

for example, sunlight, language, knowledge, and national security.

⠀

in general, governments provide public goods and businesses provide private goods, with club goods and common goods generally provided by public-private partnerships.

therefore, for businesses, it is desirable to convert public goods into private goods.

excludability and rivalry are dependent upon nature’s ability to provide low-entropy energy.

because of this, a key way being formed to do this conversion is to create an alternate reality.

virtual reality is a canonical example.

for example, imagine there is a streetlight in the road.

in physical reality, if two people are standing under it, the streetlight cannot give light to only person and make it dark for the other.

this is due to nature’s laws regarding the dispersion of light.

however, in virtual reality, this exclusion can be done.

this is because virtual reality renders its nature according to its own laws.

since the code for the reality runs for each person separately, one could simply write:

if (user.hasStreetlightSubscription == true) {

render_light();

}

there are current examples of this way that are of lesser magnitude.

for example, physical public libraries lend out books for free using tax dollars, while private libraries such as kindle, scribd and jstor require monthly subscriptions.

overall, entropy as treated by the economy can be called, economized entropy.

‘Panopoly’ is a collage poem that expresses the physical, cultural, political, and psychological entropy of modern Britain.

i

Panopoly

the word ‘panopoly’ contains three concepts.

i

panoply, from the greek ‘panoplia’, meaning ‘all armor’, i.e. a grand and complete collection of things.

the poem is a panoply, because it is a grand collection of poetic forms e.g. sestina, villanelle, and pantoum.

it might also refer to the vast, historical richness of the british culture, history, and landscape that once protected and defined it, i.e. its armor.

ii

monopoly, from the greek ‘monopolion’, meaning ‘single seller’.

the main political critique of the poem is that public life in the uk has been privatized, e.g. “This land is purchased by a corporate whore”.

iii

panopticon, a concept from foucault and a device from bentham.

it is a circular prison design where all inmates can be observed by a single watchman without knowing if they are being watched.

in the poem, it is a metaphor for the modern digital surveillance state, e.g. in section ii, where citizens are trapped in digital surveillance loops, body-cam AI, and social media algorithms.

overall, panopoly states that the world is converting the entire panoply of human life, e.g. art, healthcare, nature, knowledge etc., which are all public goods, into private goods i.e. being reduced to a game of monopoly.

ii

Epigraph

a stanza by the Russian poet anna akhmatova.

anna lived through the rise of stalinism, and her work was condemned and censored by the regime, but notably, she chose not to emigrate, and remained in russia instead, to be a witness to the events around her.

so by opening panopoly with her words, it creates a historical parallel, that of britain, like historical empires before it, is undergoing a collapse, as well the speaker acting as a witness to the events around them (but in contrast to anna, at the end of the poem, they choose to leave).

“Beloved by me since childhood” establishes that the poem’s critique does not come from hatred, but from disappointed love.

this is because the nostalgia for a childhood world, i.e. a safe stable britain, makes the present state of the nation far more painful.

“December” symbolizes the winter of a civilization, i.e. the coldness, emotional numbness, and the death of public life.

And “Silence” refers to a population that has been subdued and rendered indifferent.

“My squandered inheritance is the main metaphor of this poem.

in russian, promotannym carries the connotation of an inheritance that has been recklessly spent or gambled away.

this frames the later parts which describe britain’s institutions being a historically inherited fortune that has been recklessly wasted by selling them off.

iii

A Cold Start

“Nothing comes from nothing” is an allusion to shakespeare’s king lear (”Nothing will come of nothing”), which is a play about a kingdom tearing itself apart due to the foolishness of a monarch.

the poem also subverts traditional english nature poetry, because while the “undulating hills” and “garden’s breast” sound like blake or wordsworth, it is ruined by “decaying spires” (decline of the church) and “maggoty venires” (decline of legal institutions; venire is a legal term for a panel of prospective jurors).

the assignment of tarot cards to social classes and natural goods both expresses that britain is trapped in a chaotic fatalistic game, and also sets up the use of alchemy in section iii’s quiddity poem.

the final movement makes an important point: in a decaying society, life (eros) and death (thanatos) look identical.

the reason is that when society is in decline, self-destructive behavior e.g. drinking/numbing the pain, is mistaken for living, and hence, the nation can no longer tell whether it is trying to save itself or surrender to its own death.

iv

DOOMScrolling 💀💀💀

a shift from the physical landscape of the uk to its mental landscape.

the point of the final movement of ‘A Cold Start’ is given an example in the “Sex news.Social media” block of text, as one’s mind loses its ability to feel outrage or empathy due to both the low murdochian duration of social media, and also because of its random juxtaposition of content.

v

Cuckoo For Caca

it expresses that traditional artistic inspiration (”the muse”) cannot survive in a culture dominated by screens.

this is because one’s mind, overstimulated by media, turns into a passive, unthinking “blob”.

moreover, it also expresses aesthetics being used to cover up high-entropy content i.e. waste or shit.

finally, it expresses that an individual, who is usually a mix between a public good and a private good, has now purely become a private good e.g. “narcissistic insta-****”, “(It’s all about me)”.

the privatisation happens by convincing every individual that they are at the center of their action, when in reality, it is a mix between them and the actions of others.

hence, it prevents the collective action required to fight the decay around them because they cannot organize themselves.

vi

A Confluence of Mazes

“A labyrinth of Labyrinths” is a reference to jorge luis borges, who used mazes as metaphors for the mind, time, and the universe.

a zoetrope was a nineteenth century optical toy, a spinning cylinder with pictures inside that created the illusion of motion.

and dwam is a scottish word meaning a daze, trance, or daydream.

so a “zoetropic dwam” means a spinning, dizzying trance where one thinks they are moving forward, but they are just running in circles on a carousel.

the classical greek aphorism “Know thyself” is cut off mid-sentence And know ye”, implying that self-knowledge and ancient wisdom are impossible to finish in this spinning maze.

complementing “Cuckoo For Caca” is the exchange between a hopeful creator and a mocking voice that can be taken to either be theirs or not.

cuckoo expressed that the mind cannot ask serious existential or artistic questions because it is an “unthinking blob”.

but even when it does ask, it is dismissed with childish british insults i.e. “prat” and rhymes i.e. “perch”.

moreover, complementing the point about fighting decay by collective action, is the fungicide portion.

a fungicide is a chemical that completely kills fungus, while a fungistat slows down the growth of fungus without destroying it.

hence, the voice is telling that they aren’t curing the decay of society, but just briefly slowing it down, i.e. the decay is inevitable.

the middle section highlights both the ignorance of other cultures and the impossibility of true connection.

an example of the former is that a “Bangladeshi” is a citizen of bangladesh, while its official language is bengali.

an example of the latter is the follow up japanese sentence translating to “How do you say ‘I don’t love you’ in Santhali?”, santhali being a regional language spoken in parts of bangladesh.

so the speaker originally wanted to know how to say “I love you” in japanese.

but the japanese text itself turns out to be a question asking how to say “I don’t love you” in a completely different language.

vii

The Attrition of Quiddity

attrition is the gradual destruction of something through pressure.

quiddity refers to the essence of a thing, i.e. the reality of what (quid) makes something what (quid) it is.

hence the title expresses that the poem deals with the gradual destruction of essence of the britain.

there are three formal systems used in this poem: mathematical physics, alchemy (historically used for discovering essences) and set theory.

i

the formula for the schwarzschild radius, which is the radius of a sphere in flat space that has the same surface area as that of the event horizon of a schwarzschild black hole of a given mass.

the event horizon of a black hole is the point beyond which light, the fastest entity in the universe, cannot escape.

its link to entropy is in the mapping of a radius (one dimensional) to a surface area (two dimensional), an example of the bekenstein bound.

given a finite region of space having a finite amount of energy, the bound provides the maximum amount of entropy that the region can contain.

in other words, it describes the maximum amount of information required to describe a quantum system.

and in terms of the radius of the region, the bound states that the maximum entropy in any region scales with the radius squared i.e. its surface area.

trivially states that the empty set is a subset of infinity; side note, infinity is a number, and hence it cannot be a superset, but one can easily replace it with the actual set ℵ_α​, e.g. when α​ is zero and one, it corrsponds to the size of the natural numbers and real numbers respectively.

“Circumlocution in the theatre of Zero” describes language collapsing due to the prevalence of roundabout or indirect ways of speaking about nothing (zero, which is also related to the empty set by the von neumann representation), but also the prevalence of circumlocution offices, which are organizations that waste time on bureaucracy to the detriment of its actual business.

memory is wiped i.e. “Anamnesis voided” and light glimmers like iron (♂) before being swallowed into the void of the black hole.

ii

is the basel problem, and it was solved by euler.

the problem can also be viewed as the total apparent brightness of infinite identical point light sources on the number line viewed from the origin.

apparent brightness ties to the previous poem’s use of astronomy because it is a measure of the brightness of an astronomical object.

the light references ties to the ascii art representing what looks like rays going through a convex lens.

an epicedium is a greek funeral ode, making this movement a funeral song for the element of air (🜁), the medium of breath and speech.

iii

means that sets A and B have no intersection, because it equals the empty set.

it translated to there being no bridge between the past (”Was”) and the present (”Is”).

the empyrean is the highest heaven of pure light in ancient cosmology, and is collapsing in place i.e. in situ.

and human conquest and victory are redefined as tabes, which is a medical term for the wasting away and atrophy of the brain.

iv

is heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

it states that the product of the standard deviation of the position and momentum of a particle is always nonzero, meaning total certainty is physically impossible.

in terms of entropy, it becomes the białynicki-birula–mycielski (BBM) inequality,

this is a complement to the bekenstein bound, because it gives the minimum area a quantum particle can occupy in space.

as a result, it also gives the minimum amount of information required to describe a particle, which is roughly -76 nats i.e. -110 bits.

in alchemy, the ultimate goal i.e. magnum opus, begins with a stage called nigredo, which is a period of putrefaction, blackness, and decomposition necessary before the material can be purified into gold.

but here, there is no purification into gold at the end, meaning britain is stuck permanently in the stage of decomposition i.e. rot.

v

is another formula by euler, called euler’s identity.

it is considered the most beautiful equation in mathematics because it elegantly connects the five most fundamental constants, e, i, π, 1 and 0.

but it is also used to express euler’s identity being used as the ultimate cosmic eraser, i.e. everything balances out to zero.

the prize for all existence is earth/dust (🜃), and the exit door leads directly into zero, meaning entropy consumes everything, and the universe resets to total silence.

viii

The Bow’s Lament

a shift away from abstract mathematics into personal heartbreak.

it uses geology and scottish coastline geography as metaphor for the way time, pressure, and distance erode human relationships.

“The Bow” refers to bow fiddle rock, a famous natural sea arch carved out of quartzite off the shore of portknockie.

“Laurentia and Avalonia” are ancient tectonic continents that collided over 400 million years ago, joining together to form the bedrock of britain.

the stanza compares the immense geological forces that created scotland to the emotional forces that drew two lovers together.

but while the rock remains standing as an arch, the relationship has collapsed, e.g. “nothing but a rock” and “now only silence.”

quartzite is a metamorphic rock formed when sandstone is subjected to extreme heat and tectonic pressure.

quartzite is one of the hardest rocks on earth, while sandstone is one of the softest.

similarly, the immense emotional pressure of losing their love has frozen the speaker’s passion (sandstone) into a hard, silent ache (quartzite).

the poem also follows the pantoum form, which was a malaysian poetic form adopted by western poets.

in a pantoum, the second and fourth lines of each stanza become the first and third lines of the following stanza.

and the final stanza circles back to use lines from the very first stanza.

it is apt because,

the interlocked nature of the lines mimic ocean waves i.e. those that crash continuously against the scottish sea arch.

and because it mirrors how a heartbroken mind replays a memory over and over, e.g. the fish and chips, the wind-ridden scarf.

ix

Anagnorisis Fati

anagnorisis is a term from aristotle’s theory of tragedy, referring to the exact moment when a character makes a critical discovery or realizes the shocking truth of their identity/destiny.

and fati is latin for fate or destiny.

the poem is a homage to the short story “The Circular Ruins” by jorge luis borges, in which a wizard tries to dream a man into existence to be his “son,” only to discover at the end that he himself is merely a phantom being dreamed by someone else.

the poem follows the sestina form, which consists of six 6-line stanzas followed by a 3-line envoy.

it does not rhyme, but instead relies on six specific end-words that must rotate across every stanza.

here, those words are: dying, ritual, son, gaze, spirit, books.

this rotation parallels the “Circular” portion of the title.

the twist in the poem is that while the scholar thought he was the master creator conjuring a helpless son, in reality,

the scholar himself is the created son, trapped inside the dream/ritual of an older creator, who is likely trapped in the dream of someone else before him.

it can be taken to be a generalisation of lovecraft’s azathoth, because while azathoth sits at the center of infinity, it could be ℵ₀, and for each α​, there is an azathoth.

it relates to the epigraph by serving as a metaphor for generational traps and artificial hubris.

one repeat the failed rituals of the generations before us, mistaking themselves for independent creators when they are merely repeating a pre-written script.

x

An Artist/A Fool

a parody of emily dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death”.

it creates bathos i.e. a sudden drop from the high and lofty to the absurd and low, by contrasting dickinson’s sublime vision of mortality with the mundane squalor of modern britain.

in the original, death is personified as a polite gentleman and picks her up in a horse-drawn carriage to take her on a quiet journey into eternity.

this poem replaces her (the artist) transcendent ride with a chaotic road trip with a mate named “Dave” (the fool).

xi

Extract from Hyperiana

“Hyperiana” is a reference to john keats’ epic poems “Hyperion” and “The Fall of Hyperion”.

keats wrote about the titanomachy, a war in greek mythology where the ancient, noble titans, led by saturn and hyperion, were overthrown and replaced by the younger, more ruthless olympian gods.

here, the people and history of britain are the “fallen Titans”.

overall, gives the nation a noble, tragic send-off, by mourning the loss of “great dreams,” “glory,” and “tradition”.

xii

This Cunt

a profanity-laced indictment of modern britain, and a complement to the language of “Hyperiana”, as well to the section i poem “This Country”.

the poem ironically follows the villanelle form, one of the most elegant forms in western literature.

a villanelle consists of 19 lines, made up of five 3-line stanzas and one final 4-line stanza, and two repeating refrains that alternate at the end of each stanza and join together in the final two lines.

the two refrains here are “This land is purchased by a corporate whore,” and “This country is a faded memory”.

xiii

Epilogue

dropping all the aggression, realizing there is nothing left to save, and choosing to walk away.

it begins by altering the epigraph.

first, from winter to summer i.e. “July”, but the change in season changes nothing, because abundance (munificence) cannot heal a broken system.

second, from inheritance to physical injury, because while the former is an external loss of money or culture, the latter is an internal loss e.g. “my brittle ribs”, meaning the decay is now inside them.

next, section i expressed that “Hate beguiles man’s quintessence”, meaning hate is a distraction to one’s inherent nature.

however, now it has become the inherent nature of the people of britain.

“sit ‘pon the shore” is a reference to eliot’s “The Waste Land”, and paints a picture of a helpless, pacified public sitting on the edge of an island, passively listening to the national anthem (”God Save the King”) while their country crumbles into the ocean behind them.

“The rest is silence” are the final words of prince hamlet, and expresses that art and politics have run out, entropy has won, and death has arrived.

it closes with a bluesy stanza, and it has the effect of bringing oneself down from the universal/abstract to the particular/concrete.

here, the speaker ends up treating their relationship with britain like a failed, toxic romance.

after trying to fix it, mourning it, and screaming at it, they simply break up with it.

Gathering Thoughts

The Selenophile

My Queen’s whispered light spills through my bedroom window…

Read more

21 days ago · 57 likes · 15 comments · Mademoiselle Jacinthe

there are two main ways one can hide from death while keeping death unhidden: the sublime and the erotic.

the sublime is the pleasure from contemplating a dangerous or vast entity from a point of safety.

when it is derived from the dangerousness of an entity, e.g. volcanoes and mountains, it corresponds to kant’s dynamical sublime.

when it is derived from the vastness of an entity, e.g. oceans and starry skies, it corresponds to kant’s mathematical sublime.

additionally, the point of safety is created using physical objects, e.g. glass panes and concrete walls.

for example, an ocean storm, which is both dangerous and vast, is terrifying if one is drowning in it.

however, if one is watching it from a safe distance e.g. from a cliff, then it becomes mathematically and dynamically sublime.

the erotic is the pleasure from interacting with a dangerous or vast entity from a point of safety.

when it is derived from the dangerousness of an entity, it corresponds to bataille’s discontinuity i.e. wanting to dissolve one’s bodily boundary.

when it is derived from the vastness of an entity, it corresponds to bataille’s continuity i.e. merging into something boundless.

additionally, the point of safety is created using symbols, e.g. boundaries and taboos.

for example, an orgasm is both dangerous and vast.

the dangerousness comes from the vulnerability resulting from one’s loss of self-control. for example, bataille pointed out that the french call an orgasm as la petite mort i.e. the little death.

the vastness comes both from the orgasmic high and post-orgasmic bliss, as well as from the idealization of the partner as boundless.

therefore, if the resulting vulnerability is not exploited, e.g. through open communication or safe words, then the high, bliss and boundlessness are satisfied, and the erotic is felt.

there is a common entity that contains both the sublime and the erotic: emmanuel levinas’ concept of the face.

when one encounters the face of another person, it demands two things.

i

absolute vulnerability

the first demand a face expresses is “do not kill me”.

this is because the face reveals the mortality of a person, their ability to suffer, and their nakedness i.e. unprotectedness.

an example of this demand is the trope of a cold assassin choosing not to kill someone after they see their face.

ii

absolute command

the second demand a face expresses is “you are responsible for my mortality, and should be guilty for surviving or focusing only on your survival”.

the former means that, the person who encountered the face is responsible for their death or suffering even if someone else inflicts it.

for example, in subway stations or streets, if an accident happens to someone, or a beggar walks around, and if one was avoiding looking at their faces, it implies they were avoiding the absolute command of their faces.

overall, the second demand follows from the first demand, with the consequences respectively being,

the face imposing an infinite amount of moral demands,

and the face not being indebted to any moral demands to the person looking at them.

since this is an asymmetry, levinas stated the encounter will be symmetric, both people will owe moral demands to each other when both encounter the face of the other.

he called this encounter as the face-to-face encounter, and stated that it is the basic unit of ethics.

⠀

it is these demands that create the feeling of observing or being observed by a face.

because of this, a face need not be a human face.

generally, the two demands can be projected by any entity, provided it satisfies being an erotic and sublime entity respectively.

i

erotic

projects absolute vulnerability.

this is because it is the experience of exposure, nakedness, and the dissolution of boundaries.

for example, paraphilias involving nonliving entities, such as symphorophilia, the sexual attraction to man-made accidents such as car crashes.

ii

sublime

projects absolute command.

this is because it is the experience of something so vast, powerful, and infinite that it humbles the ego.

this satisfies the latter.

the former i.e. “you are responsible for my mortality”, is satisfied when the person is aware that they have an effect on or concern for its existence.

for example, simply looking at the night sky or a mountain does not evoke the sublime.

it is the act of contemplating, i.e. looking at the entity while being concerned as to how long it will last, or being motivated to act to preserve it, that evokes the sublime.

overall, this corresponds to being hidden from death while keeping the death of the entity unhidden.

for example, in the modern world, new forms of the sublime exist, such as,

the toxic sublime, which is derived from the vast scale of pollution, e.g. the photography of edward burtynsky.

and the technological sublime, which is derived from the vast scale and power of the largest artifacts, e.g. the large hadron collider.

⠀

overall, the face combines the sublime and the erotic into a singularity.

if a human being, or any other entity, were only one or the other, ethics would break down because,

if the other were only sublime, they would be a tyrant, and hence, one would have to obey them by sacrificing their well-being.

and if the other were only erotic, they would be weak and defenseless, and hence, one would be tempted to master or destroy them.

the human face also satisfies levinas’ concept of the face.

the three main parts of a face are the nose, mouth, and eyes.

i

nose

projects absolute vulnerability.

this is because the nose is the organ of breath, and hence, maintains mortality.

additionally, it is defenseless, because unlike the eyes and mouth, it cannot close itself.

an example of this absolute vulnerability is the trope of a person being kidnapped and gagged, and only their ragged breathing is heard.

ii

mouth

projects absolute command.

this is because the mouth convey symbolic states, e.g. speaking, and emotional states, e.g. smiling.

the symbolic states convey the demand of being responsible for their mortality, because it corresponds to lacan’s statement that all demands, which are needs expressed in language, are demands for love.

the emotional states convey the demand of being guilty of surviving because they convey the physiology of a person.

additionally, while bataille stated that the mouth is involved in eroticism, e.g. through biting, it is the lips that are erotic, while the mouth is sublime, e.g. cannibalistic eroticism.

a mythological example of this is the god krishna opening his mouth to his mother, upon which she sees that the entire universe is contained in it.

iii

eyes

projects both absolute vulnerability and absolute command.

the iris project the former, and the sclera projects the latter.

hence, the ratio between the absolute vulnerability and absolute command of the eyes is proportional to the ratio between the sizes of the iris and sclera.

for example, bishojo and bishonen in anime having the iris overtake the sclera in size, and monsters and ghosts having the sclera overtake the iris in size.

⠀

overall, the degree of the sublime-erotic projected by an entity can be called its facehood.

‘the selenophile’ i.e. the moon lover, is a poem about a speaker who is affected by grief and alcoholism, turning to the moon as a lover, muse, and source of hope, and ultimately realising that their self-annihilation makes the love futile.

the poem contains two faces: that of the speaker and that of the moon.

additionally, it describes the absolute command the moon has over the speaker, and the absolute vulnerability of the speaker itself.

i

erotic

the speaker projects their needs of intimacy onto the moon by describing it in tactile and sexual terms, e.g. “whispered”, “silken, filmy air”, “aphrodisiac”.

here, the discontinuity is them being trapped in a wretched, isolated existence.

for example, “bourbon-damp tears” and “deep-gullied destitution.”

to escape this pain, they long to dissolve their ego and merge with the moon.

moreover, the speaker’s desire is explicitly linked to self-annihilation, i.e. the little death.

for example, the light of the moon acts as an “aphrodisiac,” but it operates alongside a “liquor-sodden shroud”, a shroud being a burial cloth.

ii

sublime

usually, the physical point of safety for the sublime works by the person being safe inside e.g. their home, while the danger lies outside e.g. a storm.

but here, the danger is inside the room and their own body e.g. the bourbon, the squalor, the liquor-sodden shroud.

and the physical point of safety is outside, i.e. the faraway moon.

it is this inversion that makes the moon erotic, because since the point of safety is outside, the speaker has to reach it.

this in turn combines with the sublimeness of the moon.

i

the moon is the opposite of the sun, in that the former conceals reality, while the latter exposes it.

here, daylight would expose the reality of the speaker’s room, e.g. the squalor and the empty bottles.

however, the moonlight softens this reality due to its dim glow.

moreover, it turns their room into a dreamy, “silken, filmy” atmosphere.

ii

historically, the moon has been linked to madness and trances.

for example, the words ‘lunacy’ and ‘lunatic’ come from the latin word for the moon, ‘luna’.

here, the moon acts as an “aphrodisiac” that “bewitches” the speaker.

it mimics the intoxicating effect of alcohol by drawing the speaker into a twilight state between dreaming and passing out.

as a result, the moon makes them drive deeper into their obsession.

iii

the vastness of sublime entities usually make it indifferent or cold to those lesser than it.

as a result, sublime entities are usually chosen as objects of unrequited love.

here, the moon is always present and sacred, yet entirely “faraway” and emotionally indifferent.

additionally, the speaker suffers from profound human isolation, perhaps due to heartbreak.

so, unlike a real person, the moon will never reject, judge, or argue with the speaker.

but unlike a real person, she can never lower herself from the sky to actually save them, e.g. “unheard prayers.”

because of this, the moon becomes a melancholic object, with the use of “poesy” being a reference to romantic poets, who also treated the moon as a melancholic object.

Ninjastroni

Deity Chat: Episode 7 – How Well Can Humans Know the Divine?(A Serious Comedy)

Deity Chat: Episode 7 – How Well Can Humans Know the Divine…

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2 months ago · 6 likes · 2 comments · Ninjastroni

‘deity chat: episode 7’ is a farcical play about the relationship between technology and god.

there are many relations between the philosophy of technology and the philosophy of religion.

i

birth

creation ex nihilo, creatureliness, and imago dei position god as the one who creates the universe and the organisms and humans in it, to fit god’s image.

similarly, high technology, biotechnology, and the anthropocene, position humans as the ones who are attempting to recreate the universe to fit its image.

ii

death

eschatology describes the ultimate destiny of humanity, and the realization of a divine kingdom i.e. a state of eternal peace.

similarly, the singularity describes a destiny where technology creates abundance and eliminates aging and disease.

iii

fate

idolatry, e.g. apotheosis and false gods, is the worship of physical, human-made objects or concepts as if they were god.

these idols are often created as trojan horses to bring in a specific future in the guise of being a fate brought by the idol.

similarly, technological determinism states that technology is an autonomous, self-determining force to which humans must adapt.

the persuasion for the adaptation comes from the idolization of the properties of the technology, e.g. productivity gains.

iv

habit

rituals and liturgies are habits that shape one’s disposition to fit the divine.

similarly, albert borgmann stated that daily interactions with technology function as secular liturgies.

this is because these habits shape one’s disposition to fit technology.

for example, slang that was created due to technological limitations, e.g. character limits, become a norm in face-to-face interactions.

⠀

in the beginning, flora states,

this sets the discussion between natural theology, and a collection of theologies that roughly belong to revealed theology.

natural theology is the study of god based on natural sources, such as the environment and life.

revealed theology is the study of god based on supernatural sources, such as scriptures and religious experiences.

the main difference between them is whether “god exists” is a falsifiable statement.

a statement is falsifiable if it belongs to a theory capable of describing an empirical observation that contradicts it.

science deals with falsifiable statements, and nonscience deals with unfalsifiable statements.

a good example is mach’s dictum, which states “where neither confirmation nor refutation is possible, science is not concerned”.

the main reason science deals with falsifiable statements is because it is technology that does falsification.

for example, “the sun rises in the east” is a scientific statment.

the theories that describe why this is so are the heliocentric model and the nebular theory.

these theories can also describe the falsification of this statement, e.g. “the sun rises in the west”.

this is roughly because, even though the rotation of the earth must be reversed to achieve this, since angular momentum is still conserved after this, it is valid in the theory.

this means that “the sun rises in the west” is possible in reality.

with this, it is possible to create a technology to reverse the rotation of the earth, and hence, to falsify the statement “the sun rises in the east”.

technology does falsification on a statement’s conjunctive fragments.

for example, in “(a or b or c) and (d or e)”, (a or b or c) and (d or e) are conjunctive fragments.

the utility of a technology is proportional to the number of conjunctive fragments it can falsify.

for example, a technology that can falsify “the sun rises in the east and it rises at 6:00am” has more utility than “the sun rises in the east”.

this is because the former can also change the time at which the sun rises, e.g. “the sun rises in the west and it rises at 9:00pm”.

this ties into francis bacon’s idea that usefulness is the ultimate test of truth.

he stated that if a scientist truly understands how a part of reality works, i.e. truth, they should be able to alter it to achieve a specific result, i.e. utility.

with all of this, it can be said that natural theology aims to make “god exists” into a falsifiable statement, whereas revealed theology aims to make it into an unfalsifiable statement.

this is necessary because the falsifiability of “god exists” sets the maximum limit on how much control the technology of humans can attain.

the reason is because god is also an entity that does falsification.

for example, god can do miracles, i.e. actions that falsify physical laws.

and akin to a scientist’s credibility being tied to their ability to falsfiy, a prophet’s credibility is tied to their ability to show god doing falsification.

some instances,

i

the sun standing still in the sky during a battle in the book of joshua.

the splitting of the moon in islamic tradition.

ii

the falling of manna from heaven to feed the Israelites in the wilderness.

jesus multiplying a few loaves of bread and fish to feed thousands.

iii

healing leprosy, restoring sight to the blind, making the paralyzed walk etc.

restoring the lives of the dead, such as the raising of lazarus in the new testament.

⠀

since humanity is currently not at the level of god, their technology cannot falsify all statements.

meaning, there are certain truths of the universe that humanity cannot modify.

the residue of technology’s falsification can be viewed in two ways,

theology: some examples are hubris, promethean pride, and creaturehood.

ecology: some examples are pollution, the exploitation of natural resources, and knock-on effects.

as science progresses, falsification necessarily improves.

for example, in the eighteenth century, steam engines were used in trains.

these only had an efficiency of around 2%. as a result, they polluted a lot, and wasted a lot of resources.

then, in the nineteenth century, sadi carnot developed carnot theory in order to improve the efficiency of steam engines.

he created a theoretical model of the most efficient heat engine possible, now called a carnot heat engine.

with this, the science of thermodynamics began, and many inventors learned it and realised that alternate statements had to be falsified.

at the same time, faraday and other were developing the science of electrodynamics.

and in the second half of the nineteenth century, the switch to electric trains began.

currently, most trains are electric, having an efficiency of around 90%.

however, the power plants used to generate said electricity still use steam engines, now having an efficiency of around 30%.

as a result, some trains are now being powered by electricity from solar power plants.

but these plants require large amounts of copper and other rare earth minerals, which are obtained through open-pit mining, which creates a lot of waste.

and hence, this needs to be falsified as well, and so on.

however, as technology progresses, falsification does not necessarily improve.

one reason is in the relation of truth and technology to hiddenness.

in order for something to be hidden, there needs to be something to hide.

the set of all entities that can be hidden is called reality.

truth is conformity of a truthbearer to reality.

truthbearers are mental, e.g. sentences and beliefs.

for example, a flower in a park is not true.

however, if one has a belief about how a flower should be, e.g. in a flower competition, and they find a flower that conforms to it, they can call the flower as “a true flower”.

technology is reality conforming to an artifact.

artifacts are physical, e.g. machines and buildings.

generally, technology hides, and truth unhides.

a common example is the greek definition of truth.

the greek word for truth is aletheia, which means unconcealed.

it is the antonym of lethe, which means forgetting.

technology hides through various means, e.g. automation and memory.

for example, “just set it and forget it”.

it is this hiding that reduces one’s ability to falsify.

this is because, when technology mediates reality, one hands off the burden of understanding reality to it.

as a result, if said understanding of reality is required, one does so by believing or having faith in the technology’s understanding of it.

common examples are believing indicator lights and error messages for printer or computer malfunctions.

this belief and faith is of the same type, but not of the same magnitude, as belief and faith in god.

a good example is praying to malfunctioning devices to work.

with all of this, it can be said that the technological disposition treats god as a fractal, with its subsets being the technology of humanity.

the differential for this can be called, technology god fractality.

there are many examples of this in deity chat,

i

historically, theologians have often used the most advanced technology of their era to explain the cosmos.

in the nineteenth century, the mechanical watch was one of them.

by comparing the universe to a complex watch, paley conceptualizes God as a technician.

however, as hermes points out, this metaphor limits our understanding of the divine to human terms.

this is because if god is simply a watchmaker, then god is understood through the lens of human manufacturing, reducing the divine to a mechanical function.

ii

one main farce in the play is modern technology disrupting attempts to have a serious spiritual conversation.

for example, the constraints of the microphone.

this is a good example of the hiding property of technology.

the microphone hides the complexities of recording the audio of the conversation so that the content is unhidden to the audience.

however, when it malfunctions, they have to temporarily take the place of the microphone.

as a result, the positions switch, with them hiding the content, i.e. the conversation being interrupted, and unhiding the mechanism of recording, e.g. how to place the mouth.

iii

the song about planned obsolescence is a good example of how modern consumer technology create a state of distraction and exacerbate waste.

the resulting industrial-tech landscape distances humans from the “sublime natural world”, where flora experiences awe, and replaces it with landfills.

here, technology hides the natural world through its waste and desensitization.

iv

the conversation with lyreleaf sage makes the conversation go into genetic engineering.

sage discusses laboratory experiments where researchers transferred genetic sequences from a sheep to a tomato.

this is a good example of technology blurring the boundary between the natural, i.e. divine creation, and the artificial, i.e. technology.

generally, the more axiomatic a statement, the more natural it is.

in this case, genes have been essentially axiomatic to biology, and hence to life, for centuries.

as a result, when genes are modified, it ends up feeling that it is directly modifying nature itself.

v

the end of the episode discusses william barrett’s ‘death of the soul: from descartes to the computer.

since the enlightenment, western thought has increasingly viewed both the human body and the universe as complex machines (Descartes’ view).

so as technology has progressed from simple gears to computers and gene-splicing, the human soul or sense of the divine has been increasingly mechanized.

the reality modifying property of technology is also described.

i

when flora mentions “watching the stream”, hermes asks, “how are they going to see this picture if they are looking at the water?”.

this comedic misunderstanding is an example of technology (video streaming) co-opting natural vocabulary (streams).

it is a good example for technological spaces replacing physical spaces as the primary environment for human interaction.

ii

frieda defends the human mind against being categorized as a machine by pointing out that humans can pass captcha tests.

here, technology makes humans define their existence in opposition to artificial intelligence and automation.

meaning, the ‘soul’ or ‘piety’ is defined by whatever cannot be replicated by an algorithm.

iii

conversely, lyreleaf sage discusses the pineal gland descartes’s model, describing it as the point where “all sensory input is fed into this point.”

this frames the human body as a machine that receives, translates, and responds to inputs, e.g. red and blue light or melatonin levels.

iv

at the end, it is stated that “all calculation-heavy rebuttals will have to wait.”

this relates back to josephina campbell’s quote about the infinite galaxies,

“There may be wise men... who would volunteer to count the drops of water... but no one would count those Brahmas”.

here, calculation technology is presented as a human obsession that fails when confronted with the infinite.

⠀

additionally, hermes makes the point that the synthesis of natural theology and revealed theology is technology, as given in,

frieda responds that,

one reason is that since god, as viewed from the fractal, is a technology, extended embodiment and projective embodiment are applied to god.

the general concepts are described in the below piece,

and hermes responds,

the last line describes the current state of humanity in this fractal.

communication is exhaustively composed of two types of hiddenness: retroactive and retrospective.

i

retroactive hiddenness

an entity that was hidden before the communication.

for example, take a group of friends going on a speedboat.

one friend is piloting the speedboat.

suddenly, the motor malfunctions.

nobody does anything, and after sometime, the speedboat sinks.

i

after loss

the friends are now drowning in the lake, and the pilot says “i know how to fix speedboat motors”.

what is being said is, “my ability to fix speedboat motors was hidden from all of you until now”.

since “now” is after the speedboat sank, the attributes they can give the pilot are slow, dumb, ignorant etc.

ii

before loss

in contrast, if “now” was just when the motor starts malfunctioning, the attributes they can give the pilot are savior, genius, etc.

and if the motor is fixed, the friends may say in surprise, “i didn’t know you knew how to fix speedboat motors”.

this surprise comes from the unhiding of the ability when the friends expected there was nothing to hide.

ii

retrospective hiddenness

an entity that is hidden after the communication.

for example, take the motor malfunctioning case again.

however, in this alternate case, the friends are trying to do something, and they ask the pilot, “do you know how fix the motor?”

the pilot says “no, i don’t”.

the motor is not fixed, and the speedboat sinks.

i

after loss

if the pilot now says, “i know how to fix speedboat motors”, then the attributes they will give the pilot are cunning, manipulative, evil etc.

ii

before loss

in contrast, if the pilot said back then, “yes, i know to fix them”, then the attributes they can give the pilot are dependable, good etc.

in this case, there is no surprise because the friends expect the pilot to be hiding their ability.

⠀

an insurable interest, for a person, in an entity, is when loss of or damage to it would cause the person to suffer a loss.

if a person does not suffer from the loss of the entity, they might have an incentive to intentionally cause damage to collect claims.

for example, individuals could buy insurance on strangers’ lives or property hoping for a loss to occur to collect a claim.

loss is caused by uncertainty.

uncertainty, by definition, is hidden, e.g. it cannot be predicted.

once uncertainty hits, it splits time into ‘before loss’ and ‘after loss’.

before loss is when the uncertainty is turned into risk.

meaning, one can use their ability and resources to manage the previously hidden uncertainty.

for example, the friends trying to fix the motor

after loss is when the uncertainty does not exist anymore.

meaning, one can no longer use their ability and resources to manage the uncertainty, but must instead prepare for the next uncertainty.

for example, the friends drowning.

insurable interest involves multiple parties in before loss, but only the insured in after loss.

for example, if a house is burning, both the owner and firefighters can manage the risk.

however, after it is burnt down, it is the owner that is compensated, not the firefighters.

with this, insurable interest can be generalised into being one of three other cases, depending on one’s membership in before loss and after loss.

in practice, only the first one is followed by insurance companies, but the other three cases are present among other financial companies.

i

belongs in before loss and after loss

here, one takes out insurance for their possible loss.

this corresponds to before loss retroactive hiddenness.

for example, a regular insurance contract.

ii

belongs in after loss

here, one takes out insurance for someone else’s possible loss.

this corresponds to before loss retrospective hiddenness.

betting is a good example.

iii

belongs in before loss

here, one has a possible loss and someone else takes out insurance for it.

this corresponds to after loss retrospective hiddenness.

this corresponds to ‘being bet on’, as opposed to ‘betting on’.

iv

belongs in neither before loss nor after loss

here, someone else has a loss and takes out insurance for it.

this corresponds to after loss retroactive hiddenness.

for example, this is roughly the state of being uncorrelated with someone.

⠀

the subject matter of insurance is the entity being insured e.g., a house, a person’s life.

the subject matter of contract of insurance is the insured’s financial relationship to the entity.

for example, if a house burns down, the insurer does not replace the physical house.

instead, they indemnify the insured for their financial loss resulting from the destruction of that house.

assume now that the policyholder sold the house a day before the fire.

the subject matter of insurance (the house) still exists.

however, the subject matter of the contract (the seller’s insurable interest) is gone.

therefore, no claim can be paid to the seller.

this is because insurable interest was removed.

there can be three main consequences.

i

void contract

the insurance policy is declared void from the outset. it cannot be enforced by either party.

ii

claims denial

the insurer is legally obligated to deny the claim, even if the policyholder paid premiums regularly.

iii

no return of premium

if the policy was taken out as a deliberate wager (without any insurable interest) rather than an honest mistake, the policyholder cannot recover the premiums paid.

⠀

there are two main tests to determine insurable interest.

i

legal interest test

legal interest is held by a person who has the official legal title to the property.

for example, a trustee holds the legal title to a property held in a trust and has an insurable interest in it.

under this test, a person has an insurable interest only if they have a legal interest in the entity.

for example, a nephew lives in a house owned by his elderly uncle.

the uncle has promised to leave the house to the nephew in his will, and the nephew pays for all the maintenance and insurance.

if the house burns down, under the legal interest test, the nephew may be found to have no insurable interest.

this is because because he does not yet hold legal title to the property.

ii

factual expectancy test

equitable interest is held by a person who benefits from the property, even if they do not hold the deed.

for example, the beneficiary of a trust has an equitable insurable interest in the trust’s assets because their livelihood or wealth is tied to the preservation of those assets.

under this test, a person has an insurable interest only if they have a equitable interest in the entity.

this translates to the insured having a reasonable expectation of economic benefit from the preservation of the property, or a reasonable expectation of economic loss from its destruction.

for example, the nephew does have an insurable interest, because he lives in the house, maintains it, and expects to inherit it, so the destruction of the house is an economic setback for him.

there are many ways to settle affairs.

an example is badiou’s four truth procedures: science, art, politics, love.

politics is a way of settling affairs that keeps the personal hidden.

memory is the ground for both the personal and the political.

there are two types: explicit memory and implicit memory.

explicit memory is the conscious storage and recollection of memories.

it has two types: episodic memory and semantic memory.

episodic memory is the memory of experiences that occurred at particular times and places.

for example, episodic memory can contain a specific memory of going to a particular restaurant.

the personal generally corresponds to episodic memory.

semantic memory is memory of general facts and meanings one shares with others.

in contrast, semantic memory can contain information about what a restaurant is.

implicit memory is memory that is acquired and used unconsciously.

for example, remembering how to tie one’s shoes.

with this, politics is a way of settling affairs that keeps parts of one’s episodic memory hidden.

one reason for doing this is to prevent embodied temporal nonrivalry.

embodied temporal nonrivality is proportional to the parts of episodic memory where the same person is present at the same location, or, to two people having the same part.

with this, politics is a way to avoid heartbreak.

this is because, by hiding a part of episodic memory, etn cannot be done on that part, and hence, they can’t be loved for that part.

for example, the sureness of statements in politics, extremism, binaries etc., are ways to avoid heartbreak.

the main reason people avoid heartbreak is because it takes a physiological toll on the body.

this toll comes from the loss of co-regulation that etn provided.

for example, lethargy, takotsubo cardiomyopathy, and vasovagal responses.

politics trades this physiological toll with the mental toll that comes from theory of mind.

theory of mind is the capacity to understand other individuals by ascribing mental states to them.

mental states include thoughts, beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions.

the mental toll of having to guess the mental state of another person is proportional to the hiddenness of the mental state.

for example, a person who is smiling in a relaxing environment is not hiding their happiness.

in contrast, a person who is smiling in a stressful environment is hiding their anger or sadness.

some examples of the resulting mental toll of theory of mind are frustration, anxiety, and indifference.

since politics keeps the personal hidden, it also keeps mental states hidden.

hence, it scales up the mental toll e.g. extreme anger, panic, and anomie.

this tradeoff is made only if the physiological toll outweighs the mental toll.

for example, there are cases where this tradeoff is not made, e.g. “having thick skin".

finally, when the concept of politics as a whole is questioned, it fortifies itself using the asymmetry between love and heartbreak.

love requires bilateral agreement, whereas heartbreak requires unilateral agreement.

hence, one does not have full control over whether heartbreak occurs.

the personal way to resolve this is to make the heartbreak bilateral.

if one initiates a break-up, one way is for them to feel heartbreak as well.

and if one is the one broken up with, they can hope or see that their ex is also heartbroken as well.

the political way is to keep the heartbreak unilateral, but shift the party doing the heartbreak to the opposite of who actually did it.

so, if one initiates or is the cause for a break up, the party that is stated to have done the breaking up is their partner.

for example, “actually, it was their fault that the relationship ended. i was the one holding it together”.

and if one is the one broken up with, they state that they initiated the break up.

for example, “i was the one who broke it off, because they weren't so and so, while i was”.

and when heartbreak does not occur, but politics is still questioned, this unilaterality is instilled through sayings such as, “they can bail anytime”, “it’s a dog eat dog world”, “they will exploit you when the time is right”.

with all of this, some examples of politics hiding the personal,

community: family secrets, the grey rock method, triangulation, identified patient.

business: plausible deniability, weaponized incompetence, passing the buck, loafing, passive aggressiveness.

government: lying, whataboutism, false dilemma, straw man, classified information, post-truth, gatekeeping, dog whistling, marginalization.

literature is a key way to explore the relationship between the personal and the political.

literature contains both episodic memory and non-episodic memory.

this is because it contains two levels: the literal level and the interpretive level.

the literal level is what physically happens in the narrative.

it consists of the facts, the plot, and the setting.

therefore, it corresponds to episodic memory.

for example, take a story about a young boy who refuses to discard an old, tattered blanket.

the literal level is that a child has a favorite blanket and wants to keep it.

the interpretive level is comprised of fragments that hide the events in the literary level.

the hiding is done through emotions, concepts, figures of speech, etc.

therefore, it corresponds to non-episodic memory.

for example, the blanket might represent the boy’s fear of growing up, his need for security in a changing world, or his holding onto childhood memories after a loss.

the main objective of literary analysis is to describe a text’s deeper meaning and to explain how the author uses specific literary elements to convey that meaning.

with all of this, the main objective of literary analysis is to unhide what the interpretive level hides.

now, in practice, this cannot be fully done because one cannot be sure of what the hidden personal event is.

hence, if one were to unhide and write the results at the literal level, one would need to write a multiplicity of literal sentences in order to unhide the interpretive, because e.g. there are many possible events that correspond to the same emotion.

instead, if one were to write at the interpretive level, but by using the lowest abstractions that are sufficient for the level, then only a singularity of interpretation is required to do the unhiding.

a hypostatic abstraction is such an abstraction.

hypostatic abstraction converts a predicate or predicative adjective into an extra subject.

for example, it converts “honey is sweet” into “honey has sweetness”.

this abstraction retains the degree property of adjectives, and hence, it is a variable to the subject it is attached to.

and additionally, it also has the agency property of subjects.

this gives it a continuous or infinitesimal nature.

because of this, the hypostatic abstraction becomes a differential to the subject it is attached.

this is because a differential is an infinitesimal change in a variable.

for example, if x is a variable, then an infinitesimal change in the value of x is denoted as dx.

with this, one can simply weigh each part of the attached subject with respect to the abstraction, and add up all the parts of the subject.

this results in the unhiding of the subject with respect to the abstraction.

this whole operation corresponds to the integral.

here, dx is a differential, and it is multiplied with each part i.e. value of the function f(x), and all those parts are summed up using the integral.

to do this for the honey example, take a honey bottle. then one can write,

overall,

the first step is to choose and describe the differentials to be used on a text.

the next step is to integrate each part of the text using those differentials.

the results provide a deep meaning of the text.

an example of this is given below, with the integral broken down into four integrals, each corresponding to the four poles of chiasmity.

the problem of evil asks for a way to reconcile the existence of evil with the notion of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient god.

a proxy refers to both the authority to act on behalf of another person and the individual who is authorized to cast that vote or make those decisions.

it is a concept in the law of agency, where one party (the principal) authorizes another party (the agent) to represent them.

an agency relationship is a relationship in which one party (the agent) is authorized to act on behalf of another party (the principal) to manage affairs with third parties.

the actions taken by the agent generally bind the principal, meaning the principal is legally responsible for the agent’s authorized actions.

the extent to which a principal is bound by the agent’s actions depends on the agent’s authority.

if an agent acts within the scope of their authority, the principal is generally bound by contracts entered into with third parties.

if the agent acts outside their authority, the agent may be personally liable to the third party.

an agency relationship and its authority can be established in several ways,

i

express agreement

the principal and agent explicitly agree to the relationship, either orally or in writing.

for example, a power of attorney or an employment contract.

ii

implied agency

created by the conduct or circumstances of the parties rather than an explicit agreement.

if the parties act in a way that indicates an agency relationship exists, the law may recognize it as such.

iii

ratification

when a person acts without authority (or exceeds their authority) on behalf of a “principal,” and the principal later approves or accepts the benefits of that act.

iv

apparent agency

when a principal, through words or conduct, leads a third party to reasonably believe that a person is their agent.

if the third party relies on this representation to their detriment, the principal may be prevented (estopped) from denying the agency.

v

necessity

formed in emergency situations where it is impossible for the agent to contact the principal, and acting on the principal’s behalf is critical to prevent loss or damage.

⠀

an agency is a fiduciary relationship.

hence, the agent owes several duties to the principal,

i

duty of loyalty

the agent must act solely in the best interest of the principal, avoiding conflicts of interest, self-dealing, or secret profits.

ii

duty of care and skill

the agent must perform their tasks with the degree of care, competence, and diligence that a reasonable person in a similar position would exercise.

iii

duty of obedience

the agent must follow all lawful instructions and directions given by the principal.

iv

duty to account

the agent must keep accurate records of all money, property, or transactions handled on behalf of the principal and must not commingle the principal’s funds with their own.

v

duty of information

The agent is obligated to inform the principal of all facts material to the agency representation.

⠀

the principal also owes duties to the agent,

i

compensation

the principal must pay the agent for their services, unless agreed otherwise e.g. gratituitous agency.

ii

reimbursement

the principal must repay the agent for reasonable expenses incurred while carrying out authorized duties.

iii

indemnification

the principal must compensate the agent for liabilities, losses, or damages suffered while lawfully performing their duties.

iv

cooperation

the principal must assist the agent in performing their duties and refrain from interfering with the agent’s work.

⠀

there are many parallels between theology and agency law,

i

the principal is god, the source of all authority, existence, and moral law.

for example, god initiates the covenant and delegates stewardship.

the agent are human beings, designated as imago dei to steward creation.

the third is usually the surrounding world or the community with which humans interact when carrying out their commission.

ii

express agreement is done by covenant theology.

just as an express agreement clearly outlines roles, biblical covenants provide explicit written and spoken terms of authority between God and humanity.

implied agency is done by natural law and revelation.

humanity’s moral conscience and observation of the natural order imply a relationship of responsibility to the creator.

people act as agents of God’s goodness through circumstantial moral duty.

ratification is done by redemption and sanctification.

god claims or redeems actions initially taken outside his direct command or even intended for harm, turning them toward a redemptive purpose.

for example, joseph stating, “you planned evil against me; god planned it for good”.

apparent agency is done by the witness of the church.

the world judges the character of the principal (god) based on the conduct of those who claim to be jis representatives (the church).

for example, if believers live hypocritically, they misrepresent the principal, yet god remains associated with their actions in the eyes of the public.

necessity is done by providential action.

in crises where direct divine revelation is not immediately apparent, individuals must act in accordance with God’s known character to preserve life and justice.

for example, esther saving her people.

iii

duty of loyalty is done by singular devotion.

it is total allegiance to God, avoiding “spiritual self-dealing” (idolatry) and choosing the divine will over self-interest.

duty of care and skill is done by the parable of the talents.

it is the moral obligation of believers to cultivate their spiritual gifts, intellect, and physical resources with diligence and responsibility, rather than neglecting them.

duty of obedience is done by submission to the divine will.

for example, christ’s obedience in gethsemane i.e. “not my will, but yours be done”, and the calling of believers to align their actions with divine commandments.

duty to account is done by eschatological accountability.

every individual must eventually give an account of their stewardship, actions, and decisions before god.

duty of information is done by prayer.

although god is omniscient, prayer serves to maintain transparency between humans and god.

iv

compensation is done by grace and promised reward.

for example, eternal rewards, inheritance, and the gift of eternal life promised to those who serve faithfully.

reimbursement is done by divine provision.

it is the assurance that god provides the spiritual and physical resources necessary to carry out his commands.

for example, “my grace is sufficient for you”.

indemnification is done by justification and atonement.

for example, christ assumes the liabilities and consequences of human failure to shield them from ultimate loss.

cooperation is done by synergism.

it is when god does not abandon humans to work alone but actively works within and alongside them.

⠀

when it comes to the duty of information, the relationship becomes a proxy relationship.

here, the person praying is the proxy for god.

the reason for being a proxy is to ensure a specific theodicy holds.

one can assume that god does so in order to balance the problem of evil with the three omnis.

prayers of this type can be called, proxy theodicies.

the degree to which a prayer does this can be called its proxy theodicity.

there are five main theodicies, and each have a corresponding prayer.

i

free will theodicy

god created humans with genuine free will.

for free will to be genuine, creatures must have the capacity to choose between good and evil.

therefore, moral evil e.g. theft and cruelty, is not caused by God, but is the result of humans misusing their free will.

overall, a world with free creatures who sometimes choose poorly is more valuable than a world of programmed beings who only do good.

the corresponding prayer is one of mercy. for example,

“we confess that we and those around us have often misused this freedom, causing pain, injustice, and sorrow in your world. when we are tempted to use our autonomy for selfish ends, grant us the grace to choose love and justice instead. help us to accept the responsibility of our choices and to work toward healing the brokenness caused by our errors.”

ii

soul-making theodicy

humans were not created perfect, but rather with the potential for spiritual and moral perfection.

suffering, challenges, and natural disasters are necessary components of a world designed for soul-making.

for example, without danger, courage cannot exist, and wthout suffering, compassion cannot be developed.

so, evil serves as the friction necessary for human beings to grow into their full moral and spiritual potential.

the corresponding prayer is one of strength. for example,

“we live in a world marked by challenges, friction, and sudden storms. when we encounter hardship, prevent us from falling into despair or bitterness. help us instead to see these trials as opportunities for our growth.”

iii

privation theodicy

god, being entirely good, created a world that was entirely good.

therefore, god did not create evil because evil is not a positive substance or force.

here, evil is defined as a privation or absence of good.

it is similar to how darkness is the absence of light, or sickness is the absence of health.

so, evil occurs when a good thing becomes corrupted or misaligned from its proper purpose.

The corresponding prayer is one of presence. for example,

“where we see brokenness, decay, and the absence of love, we pray for restoration. pour your goodness into the empty and hurting places of our lives and our society. repair what is bent, heal what is sick, and restore the beauty of your original design.”

iv

best of all possible worlds theodicy

Before creation, an omniscient god contemplated all possible universes that could exist.

bing perfectly good and all-powerful, god chose to create the best possible option.

while the world contains suffering, it is the optimal balance of physical laws, free will, and moral outcomes.

this is because removing a specific evil might require removing a greater good or introducing a worse evil.

the corresponding prayer is one of trust. for example,

“when we witness suffering that seems to contradict your goodness, help us to trust in your overarching wisdom and order. we believe that you have balanced all things with perfect care. grant us patience when we cannot see the larger picture, and help us trust that even the broken pieces of our lives are held within a purposeful design.”

v

process theodicy

god is not omnipotent in the absolute sense of being able to unilaterally control or manipulate the universe.

instead, god’s power is persuasive rather than coercive.

the universe is composed of self-determining entities that have their own agency.

god seeks to influence the universe toward goodness and order, but cannot force compliance.

evil occurs when creatures or natural processes resist divine persuasion and act destructively.

the corresponding prayer is one of attention or focus. for example,

“you constantly invites us toward goodness. we recognize that you do not rule through force, but through love. we see the struggles of a world that often resists your voice, leading to pain and disorder. give us ears to hear your quiet promptings amidst the noise of chaos.”

in a-series, positions in time are ordered by the properties of being past, present, or future.

these properties are dependent on time.

this is because a moment that is currently future will become the present, and then become past.

in b-series, positions in time are ordered by the relations ‘earlier than’, ‘simultaneous with’, and ‘later than’.

these relations are independent of time.

this is because a moment that is earlier than, later than, or simultaneous with another moment will always be so.

for example, the year 2000 is always earlier than the year 1999, regardless of how much time passes.

the a-series cannot be used as a description of time.

this is because mctaggart stated that the a-series is fundamentally self-contradictory.

i

the characteristics of past, present, and future are mutually exclusive.

this is because,

if an event is past, it cannot be present or future.

if an event is present, it cannot be past or future.

and if an event is future, it cannot be past or present.

ii

consider the event of reading this word:

“hello”

before telling what word to read, the event was in the future.

and when the word was read, the event was in the present.

and now, the event is in the past.

therefore, the same event had the property of being past, present and future.

this contradicts the mutual exclusivity of the properties.

iii

a natural objection is that an event does not possess these properties simultaneously, but rather successively, as in,

the event was future.

the event is present.

and the event will be past.

however, mctaggart stated that this is circular.

this is because using the tenses ‘was’, ‘is’ and ‘will be’ is just another way of saying,

the event is future in the past.

the event is present in the present.

the event is past in the future.

so by defending the a-series this way, a second-order a-series has been created.

this leads to the same contradiction as before.

and to resolve the contradiction at this second level, one must posit a third-order a-series, and so on.

since this is an infinite regress, mctaggart stated that the a-series is fundamentally self-contradictory.

⠀

additionally, the b-series cannot be used as a description of time.

this is because mctaggart stated that the b-series is self-contradictory because it contradicts the grounds for time’s existence.

i

for time to exist, there must be change.

mctaggart stated that change only occurs when an event has properties that change.

ii

in the b-series, the relations between events are permanent.

hence, these relations are not properties that change.

iii

when an event is in a b-series, these relations are its only properties.

hence, the b-series does not allow for change.

but since the b-series is a description of time,

the b-series is self-contradictory.

⠀

mctaggart then stated that the a-series and b-series were the only descriptions of time.

and since both descriptions are contradictory, he concluded that time is unreal.

to overcome this, philosophers came up with two new descriptions of time.

they realised that the reason the a-series and b-series are self-contradictory is because they contradict each other.

the contradiction arises because it is actually the future that is the ground of time.

it is the future that provides change.

the reason future cannot be reduced to the same status as past and present is because of free will.

past and present are actualities because free will cannot act on it.

future is a possibility because free will can act on it.

the two new descriptions differ in how they treat the future.

i

the a-theory states that tensed sentences cannot be reduced to tenseless ones.

for example, “the meeting is happening now” cannot be reduced to “the meeting is happening while the clock is between 10:00PM and 10:30PM”, because the meeting may end sooner or later due to the choices of the meeting members.

so, the future is undetermined,

and time consists of events acquiring and losing the properties of past, present, and future.

this acquiring and losing happens in the present.

because of this, it states that only the present exists.

this is called presentism.

ii

the b-theory states that tensed sentences can be reduced to tenseless ones.

this means that similar to how space indexicals like “here” refer to the spatial location of the speaker, time indexicals “now” merely refers to the temporal location of the utterance.

for example, “the meeting is happening now” can be reduced to “the meeting is happening simultaneously with this utterance.”

so, the future is undetermined,

and time consists of events that always have the properties of earlier than, simultaneous with, and later than.

because of this, the past, present and future all exist.

this is called eternalism.

⠀

the problem with eternalism is that it states the future exists.

this means that all the possibilities of the future exist.

this contradicts the transcendence property of free will.

similarly, the problem with presentism is that it states that the past does not exist.

this contradicts the facticity property of free will.

therefore, to remove both these contradictions, the growing block description can be used.

it states that the past and the present exist, but the future does not.

with this, it keeps the unreducibility of tenses for the future tense–maintaining a-series–but makes it reducible for the past and present–maintaining b-series.

the self-contradiction of the a-series translates to all objects that are grounded in time through the unity of opposites.

the unity of opposites states that the existence of such entities depend on the co-existence of opposing forces.

these opposing forces are what are reified into concepts.

for example, good and bad, justice and forgiveness.

so, one cannot fully understand or define a concept without its opposite.

hegel states this as, a concept contains its own negation within itself.

his dialectic is as follows,

thesis - a concept is proposed. it is accepted as true or standard.

antithesis - because the concept has its own negation, it generates its opposite.

synthesis - the conflict between the thesis and antithesis is resolved by combining the valid elements of both into a new concept.

thesis - once the synthesis is established, it becomes a new thesis. it then generates its own antithesis, continuing the cycle.

the main step is the one in the synthesis, called sublation.

it states three functions: to cancel, to keep, and to pick up.

to cancel is to remove the actuality of the concept, so that it goes back to being a possibility.

this keeps the future unreducible, and hence, makes the transcendence property of free will hold.

to keep is to preserve the present nature of the concept, by making it tenseless.

this keeps the present reducible, and hence, makes the lived experience property of free will hold.

to pick up is to bring out the past of the concept, by making it tenseless.

this keeps the past reducible, and hence, makes the facticity property of free will hold.

overall, the thesis can either be grounded in presentism or eternalism.

as a result, the antithesis can be grounded in eternalism and presentism respectively.

therefore, the synthesis is grounded in growing block.

overall, this description of time created by dialectics can be called, dialectical temporality.

some examples,

i

being (thesis)

absolute, pure existence. it has no qualities and boundaries.

hence, it is grounded in presentism.

nothing (antithesis)

because being has absolutely no characteristics, it is indistinguishable from empty space or non-existence.

therefore, being leads logically to its opposite: nothingness.

hence, it is grounded in eternalism.

becoming (synthesis)

the transition from being to nothing, and nothing to being, is the process of change.

this is becoming, or things coming into existence and passing away.

hence, it is grounded in growing block.

ii

rationalism (thesis)

knowledge is derived primarily from reason and innate ideas, independent of sensory experience, e.g., rené descartes.

empiricism (antithesis)

the mind is a blank slate at birth, and all knowledge is acquired through sensory experience and observation of the external world, e.g., john locke.

kantian transcendental idealism (synthesis)

immanuel kant proposed that while all knowledge begins with experience, it does not all arise out of experience, because the mind uses innate, structured concepts, e.g. space and time, to organize and make sense of incoming sensory data.

iii

nature (thesis)

human behavior, personality, and intelligence are entirely determined by genetic makeup and biological factors.

nurture (antithesis)

humans are shaped entirely by their environment, upbringing, parenting, and social conditioning.

epigenetics/interactionism (synthesis)

genetics and environment interact continuously. genes set a range of possibilities, but environmental factors determine which genes are expressed or silenced.

the pigeon’s gaze is a daily collection of hemingwayan stories in both style–e.g. parataxis, tourist-esque references–and substance–love, war and money.

there are many ways love can be, and one which is relevant to the pigeon’s gaze is love being embodied temporal nonrivalry.

this way is primarily understood through heartbreak and unrequited love, which most of the stories deal or end with.

it is when the body of the loved is not present, physically or digitally, for a possibly undecided duration of time, during which the lover and the loved go about their daily lives with or without either of them stopping the other’s flow of time.

with this, each property of the concept–embodiment, time, and nonrivalry–along with the full concept, is described below with examples from the stories.

embodiment is the lived experience of the phenomenal body.

merleau-ponty distinguished between the objective body, which is the physical organism studied by biology, and the phenomenal body, which is the body as it is lived and experienced.

with this, ponty stated that the body is not an object owned by a mind i.e. the objective body, but is instead the subject of experience.

this is the phenomenal body, and hence, it is the limits of one’s body that define the limits of their world and the actions they can take in it.

anthropology adds that, due to embodiment, culture is not a set of ideas held in the mind, but a set of bodily states.

for example, mauss stated that even natural actions such as walking, sitting, or sleeping are culturally specific techniques.

bordieu further stated that the social structures formed by a culture are grounded in the body, e.g. through postures, gait, and gestures, and usually reflect one’s social class and upbringing.

because of this, social positions are inscribed i.e. known instinctively by an individual, because they remind and are reminded of it through their bodily states.

the lived experience of one’s body can be given to physical objects, divided into tools and non-tools (i.e. sartrean objects and subjects), in order to use and understand them better respectively.

extended embodiment or tool incorporation is when an individual, while using a tool skillfully, treats the tool as part of their own body.

projective embodiment or anthropomorphism is when an individual treats a non-tool as having a body and hence a consciousness of its own.

additionally, extended embodiment and projective embodiment, but with the positions reversed, respectively correspond to role-playing and objectification.

some examples,

6.04

“locked his romanticism away in an old safe”

“their eyelashes, their eyelids, and their eyes were made entirely of sunset”

16.05

“i was afraid, afraid because the faces spoke”

“used the yellow crayon when she stopped to look at me”

18.05

“stairs never end... find fragments of feet, of faces...”

“abstract painting of triangles and pain”

24.05

“a bullet blew off his index finger”

“on that finger lived the tip of his wife’s nose”

⠀

time can be theorized in many ways.

substantivalism states that time exists independently of the objects or events within it.

relationism states that time is not a thing in itself, but rather a system of relations between events.

eternalism states that the past, present, and future are equally real, meaning all events across time exist regardless of the observer’s current position in time.

presentism states that only the present moment exists, with the past and future being nonexistent.

from eternalism and presentism, we get the a-series and b-series respectively.

the a-series states that events are ordered as past, present, and future, and that an event that is in the future, eventually becomes present, and then moves into the past.

the b-series states that events are ordered according to the relations of earlier than and later than.

some examples,

8.04

“a car honks and that moment lost in time and space ends” (presentism)

“...more time to fall in love, said the narrator after selling his car...” (eternalism)

10.04

“he hasn’t seen her for a day, or maybe a month. the last time, she had a math test coming up.” (relationism)

“he returns home after a few years...” (substantivalism)

13.05

“gathers leaves carried by a twenty-year-old wind” (a-series)

23.05

“after a few years, they pull up...” (b-series)

⠀

nonrivalry is a concept in economics that states that a good is nonrival if its consumption does not prevent other individuals from simultaneously consuming it.

it contrasts with rivalry, which states that a good is rival if its consumption prevents other individuals from simultaneously consuming it.

for example, broadcast television is a nonrival good, because when a individual turns on a tv set, it does not prevent the tv in another individual’s house from working.

however, the television itself is a rival good e.g. when a sibling is watching tv, it reduces the ability of another sibling to watch tv.

some examples,

13.04

“let’s just go straight, then” (rivalry)

“then, they took two different directions” (nonrivalry)

26.04

“he sits on the swing, but her scent is gone” (rivalry)

30.04

“they think of the unlit bulb... heavy breathing of the ones they love” (nonrivalry)

14.05

“checks her watch... no button to pause the storm”

19.05

“sleeps on that hood because his first red cat used to do it”

⠀

embodied temporal nonrivality is when an individual is embodied in time such that their embodiment does not reduce the ability of other individuals to be embodied in time.

for example, imagine an individual moving into an apartment, and their friends are helping them move in.

if the individual is unpacking the boxes, while one friend is dusting the rooms, another is talking with the landlord, and another is checking the switches, and the individual sees all the friends doing so, they would feel love in the form of connection, comfort, and a sense of “i’m glad they’re here supporting me”.

now, if instead the individual is unpacking the boxes, and one friend takes the items out, and another friend puts them in their place, and another moves the empty box away, and the individual sees all of them, they would feel less love and more responsibility, toil, and perhaps irritation if any of the friends are slowing down e.g. one friend doesn’t know where to place the items, so the others have to shout where to put it.

overall, in the former scenario, since all of them use their bodies to do activities in a causally independent way, they are all in embodied temporal nonrivalry.

and in the latter scenario, since all of them are causally dependent, they are all in embodied temporal rivalry.

the ground of embodied temporal rivality is the mirror neuron. a mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when,

i

an organism acts

this corresponds to embodied temporal rivalry, since when an organism does an action, it reduces its ability to simultaneously do another action.

ii

an organism observes an action being performed by another organism

here, its mirror neurons make it feel as though it is doing the action as well.

this corresponds to embodied temporal nonrivalry, because the organism still has the full ability to simultaneously do an action of its own.

the action need not be different from the action of the other organism–it can be the same, because the number of actions is still simultaneously two, with one in the mind and one in the world.

⠀

emotional contagion, interpersonal emotional regulation, self-expansion, and co-regulation are guided by nonrivalry.

for example, interpersonal emotional regulation is the process of changing the emotional experience of one’s self or another person through social interaction, and can be done intrinsically or extrinsically.

the intrinsic involves regulating one’s own emotions by sharing them through social interaction e.g. calling a friend to share good news, venting to a partner about a stressful situation.

the extrinsic involves regulating the emotions of others e.g. cheering up a friend who is upset, making one’s partner feel guilty for neglecting oneself.

co-regulation is similar to interpersonal emotional regulation, but additionally does physiological regulation, such as regulating heart rates, respiratory rates, and cortisol and oxytocin levels, among others.

personal boundaries, self-regulation, secure attachment, and self-expansion are guided by rivalry.

some amount of rivalry is required when the past, either negative (e.g. minor infraction) or positive (e.g. had a great time at the beginning of a relationship), makes one unable to act in the present.

for example, a personal boundary is a rule that affects the behavior of the person who chooses to make the rule, meaning it controls one’s own reaction, rather than controlling other people’s behavior.

self-regulation is the process where an individual regulates their emotion, behavior, and physiology in a given situation by themselves.

some examples,

12.04

“she loves feeling nothing” (self-regulation)

“she wasn’t alone anymore” (co-regulation)

16.04

“the dog greets him like it’s the first time...” (co-regulation)

6.05

“our vacation is when i remember how to make her smile” (extrinsic interpersonal emotional regulation)

11.05

“she didn’t have the money for a therapist or the strength to get angry, so she washed the dishes” (self-regulation)

“when i heard the water running, it felt like hearing her cry” (co-regulation)

“forgive me, but my hands can’t wash any more dishes” (personal boundary)

21.05

“why won’t you answer me? i just want to know why” (personal boundary)

For's Substack

Umbrella Terms

Part 1 here…

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2 months ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · For Love of Fiction

a demarcation is a way to distinguish between science and non-science (humanities and pseudoscience).

one way is falsifiability.

a statement is falsifiable if it belongs to a theory that can describe an empirical observation that contradicts it.

it does not matter whether the empirical observation is true or not.

i

for example, the statement “all pigeons are white” is falsifiable under evolutionary theory.

this is because one can state “here is a gray pigeon” or “here is a rainbow colored pigeon”.

gray pigeons exist, and so it falsifies the statment.

rainbow colored pigeons do not exist.

however, evolutionary theory can describe how a pigeon can evolve to have rainbow colored skin pigments.

for example, breeders were able to use the theory to evolve maroon color pigeons.

therefore, both falsify the statement.

ii

in contrast, “all pigeons are robots” is not falsifiable under evolutionary theory.

this is because it cannot describe an evolutionary path for pigeons that never leads to it becoming robots.

to reiterate, it does not matter whether the statement is empirically false.

for example, this is why alternate explanations, such as government programs, proliferate.

⠀

lakoff’s invariance principle can be another way to do demarcation.

a cognitive metaphor is a metaphor between concepts.

a source domain contains concepts to be metaphorized.

for example, “journey”.

a target domain contains the concept to be understood.

for example, “life”.

a mapping describes the target domain using the source domain.

for example, “life is a journey”.

lakoff stated that most source domains are image schemas.

an image schema is a set of spatiotemporal relationships.

some examples,

i

containment

for example, “in”, “out”, “into”.

the target domain is usually states, such as emotions and circumstance.

for example, “in love”, “got into trouble”, “got out of depression”.

ii

vertical position

for example, “up”, “down”, “high”, “low”.

the target domain is usually power and control.

for example, “high up in the company,” “presiding over,” “performance dropped”.

iii

balance

for example, “scales”, “weighing”, “outweigh”.

the target domain is usually justice and arguments.

for example, “they are a burden”, “weighing the evidence”.

⠀

the invariance principle states that a metaphor should only map parts of the source that fit the structure of the target.

there are two ways it can be violated.

i

contradictory mixing

contradictory image schemas subtractively map to the target.

for example, “we need to iron out the bottlenecks in our workflow.”

the first source domain–ironing–is a two-dimensional surface schema.

the second source domain–bottleneck–is a three-dimensional container schema.

both schemas contradict each other.

for example, when an iron is applied to a bottleneck, it will make it worse by flattening it.

ii

complementary mixing

complementary image schemas additively map to the target.

for example, “his words spilled out of his mouth and shattered on the cold floor.”

the first source domain–spilling–is a liquid flow schema.

the second source domain–shattering–is a solid flow schema.

both schemas complement each other.

for example,

words come out of the mouth, mapping to spittle.

they freeze on their way to the floor, mapping to cold tone.

they shatter, mapping to cold silence being broken.

⠀

in general,

science follows the invariance principle.

humanities follows complementary mixing.

and pseudoscience follows contradictory mixing.

science generally follows the target domain.

for example, the bohr model mapped the atom to the solar system.

however, quantum mechanics showed that electrons do not move in orbits.

as a result, it was replaced with the probability clouds metaphor.

in contrast, pseudoscience generally ignores the target domain.

some examples,

i

emotional management warfare

for example, “fight your anxiety”, “conquer your fears”.

the source domain is about destroying opposing forces.

the target domain is about integrating opposing forces.

for example, anxiety and fear are in the flight side of fight-or-flight.

therefore, if anxiety and fear were destroyed, the balance between fight and flight would be removed.

ii

energy reservoir

for example, “you cannot pour from an empty cup”.

the source domain is containment.

a container has a fixed, finite capacity.

expending energy drains the container, and resting or doing self-care refills it.

the target domain is mental energy.

mental energy violates the physical laws of a container.

for example, expending physical energy, like going for a run or engaging in a hobby, can increase mental energy.

in contrast, physical rest, like lying on the couch, can deepen lethargy or depressive feelings.

⠀

a common aim in pseudoscience is being with, or becoming, the infinite.

to describe the process, their source domain must contain spatiotemporal relations that include infinity.

however, most of them, such as containment and source-path-goal, cannot include infinity.

one domain that can do so, is projective geometry.

it studies the properties of geometric figures that remain unchanged under projection.

it originated to explain the technique of perspective.

in it, an artist paints a three-dimensional scene onto a two-dimensional canvas, by projecting it from a single point.

as a result, parallel lines appear to meet at a single point on the horizon.

in euclidean geometry, parallel lines never meet.

in projective geometry, every set of parallel lines is defined to meet at a specific point.

this point is called the point at infinity.

as a result, it makes infinity into a finite point, just like any other finite point.

this process of making an infinite space behave like a finite one is called compactification.

for example,

i

in euclidean geometry, the real number line goes from -∞ to ∞.

ii

to make it compact, take those two ends, and join them.

iii

this makes the line into a circle.

iv

this circle is called the real projective line.

it is compact because it has no endpoints and has a finite perimeter.

⠀

this can be done for any dimension, and the result will be a circle of said dimension.

for example, the projective version of the real cube is the riemann sphere.

a circle, in any dimension, has the maximum symmetry out of all shapes.

i

it has infinite rotation symmetry.

a circle can be rotated around its center point by any angle, no matter how small, and it will still look identical to its original state.

ii

it has infinite reflection symmetry.

any straight line that passes through the center of a circle divides it into two symmetrical halves, meaning it can be reflected across any of these lines and remain unchanged.

iii

it has infinite translation symmetry.

⠀

projective symmetry also has maximum symmetry.

i

in euclidean geometry, rotation and translation symmetry hold everywhere.

ii

however, reflection symmetry breaks down at the origin.

this is because reflection, which is 1/x, is not valid when 1/0.

iii

by adding the point at infinity, projective geometry simply makes 1/0 = ∞ valid.

as a result, reflection symmetry holds everywhere.

this is what gives projective geometry its maximum symmetry.

⠀

there are many pseudosciences that use projective geometry as its source domain.

i

sacred geometry

the flower of life is a figure made of multiple evenly-spaced, overlapping circles.

it is claimed that when it is used as decorations, it can harmonize energy fields and unlock one’s inner potential.

ii

chakra

sanskrit for wheel or disk.

it is visualized as circular, spinning vortexes of energy located along the spine.

it is taught that struggles and illnesses are caused by the chakras spinning too slowly or quickly.

techniques such as crystal healing, or sound baths, re-align or spin these circles in the correct direction.

⠀

“how i forgot about the golden ratio” is an ongoing story about swapna, a pop physics writer, trying to write a sequel to her memoir.

the problem is, because of an accident, she does not remember how she forgot about the golden ratio.

mr. bose, her replacement, and a stickler to science, decides to help her, and in the process, starts to believe in her ideas.

i

some examples of complementary mixing,

“some level below the basics”

“god’s invisible fingers playing along”

“carrying a mountain in your briefcase”

“her head’s thicker than a brick wall”

“low-hanging fruit”

“attic of the ivory tower is a long walk up the staircase and there are hundreds of pitfalls”

“the trickle always lands on the placeholder”

ii

some of swapna’s pseudoscience uses a different source domain.

some examples,

“same poles of magnets attract each other... higher energy and high values.”

“back-ended narrative... load, fulcrum, effort”.

iii

the source domain of swapna’s self-steering geometry is projective geometry.

the target domain is life.

some examples,

“there are only two things worth loving- lines and curves”

“and it combines both angular and circular motion, just like my lifepath”

“i’ve circled around almost every space that doesn’t go in a straight line, and tried to circle straight corridors as well and yet i can’t trace the rhythm of the stupid ratio” (side note: the golden ratio has an important relation with projective geometry. it comes from odom’s construction of the ratio.)

“circling a park near the school 6.18 times every evening”.

“you really need to keep your circles smaller. that way, you’ll be close to the centre, which is what everyone wants. and if you ever become an expert with the proper know-how, this centre will be your entire circle.

“somewhere around his root chakra.”

“spiralling towards the centre... not in a graceful arc like the fibonacci sequence, but i’m not in a closed circle anymore”.

two disorders were stated at the end of ‘the violence of having a body’: body dysmorphia and anorexia.

body dysmorphia is one’s preoccupation with a perceived flaw in their appearance.

anorexia is an eating disorder caused by one’s body image disturbance and resulting fear of gaining weight.

both these disorders are grounded in body checking.

body checking is the compulsive collection of information about one’s own body.

for example, checking in the mirror, pinching one’s abdomen etc.

it is mainly caused by discrepancies between one’s body ideal and their body image.

a body ideal is created by comparing one’s body image to the body image of another.

a negative body image causes negative emotions, derived from the properties of the gaze.

for example, anxiety and shame from being looked at and judged about one’s body.

and anger and fear from looking at oneself or others for looking the way they look.

the latter is described by self-objectification theory.

it states that people with body image disturbances look at themselves from a third-person view.

this results in them reducing their self-worth to the way they look.

lacan stated that the gaze is the point from which the subject is being looked at by the world.

he additionally stated that the gaze is always situated in a blind spot.

this is because, the point at which the subject is present, is one the subject cannot see.

with this, he stated that the gaze is an object-cause of desire, for two reasons.

i

object

the gaze implies that the subject is desirable.

a subject is defined by a lack.

a lack is filled by an object, not by another lack.

to make a lack into an object, the looker must be blind to it.

so, the lack of the looked at person, is made into a blind spot.

this can be done by the looked at person, by modifying themselves.

or it can be done by the looker, by selectively paying attention.

this creates the gaze, with the looked at person becoming the gazed.

and since the gazed does not have a lack, they become an object.

ii

cause

the gaze reminds the subject of their blind spot.

a blind spot corresponds to a lack.

a lack allows desire to exist.

⠀

there is a gaze that does not require other people for its creation.

it is created from one’s own body, and lacan called it the viscera.

being a subject is a small part of being a body.

this is because most of the functions of the body are involuntary.

for example, digestion, the cardiac cycle, etc.

these involuntary functions are not sensed most of the time.

and, one cannot look at their internal organs.

because of this, the viscera is a blind spot.

the blind spot of the eye cannot be partially seen by oneself.

however, the blind spot of the viscera can be partially seen.

this is because of the properties of the skin.

for example, since the skin can be cut, the internal veins and flesh can be seen.

and since the skin is elastic, when one has, for example, a potbelly, the stomach, in essence, is partially seen.

overall, the visceral gaze is variable.

with this, it can be converted into an infinitesimal, using hypostatization.

let the result be called, visceral gazeness.

its object-cause of desire is as follows.

i

object

a looker has to be blind to the lack.

the looker can either be another person, or oneself.

to be blind, one can either ignore or hide the lack.

ignoring corresponds to body avoidance.

for example, avoiding looking in mirrors and photos, avoiding touching certain parts, etc.

hiding corresponds to the cosmetic industry.

for example, hiding pimples, scars, slimming, etc.

ii

cause

the viscera is a reminder of lack, and hence, creates desire.

however, to satiate the desire, the lack must be removed.

this corresponds to making the viscera no longer a blind spot.

it is done using boundary rupturing, in two ways.

the first is from the outside.

for example, žižek stated that this is why there is pleasure in popping pimples, looking at wounds, etc.

another example is one patting their potbelly, or touching their pimples without letting them break.

the second is from the inside.

it is primarily done through creating body definition.

for example, having abs, bulking one’s biceps till veins are visible, making the chin skin go close to the chin bones, etc.

⠀

so far, the viscera described is in the real register.

viscera are also present in the symbolic register.

definitions of truth usually struggled with self-referential paradoxes, such as the liar paradox.

tarski stated that such paradoxes arise because natural languages are semantically closed.

a semantically closed language contains expressions, and truth predicates that can be applied to its expressions, e.g. “true”, “false”.

to prevent self-referentiality, tarski splitted language into two levels.

i

object language

the language being studied or talked about.

it does not contain its own truth predicate.

ii

metalanguage

the language used to talk about the object language.

it contains the truth predicates for the object language.

⠀

for example, one can define a truth predicate for german (object language) using english (metalanguage), such as:

schnee ist weiß is true if and only if snow is white.

tarski called his theory, the semantic theory of truth.

the reason is that it stated that truth is a semantic property.

in practice, this means that the same statement, told in different languages, all have the same truth value.

to relate to viscera: language (syntax) is the skin, and meaning (semantics) is the viscera.

scream ii has many examples.

truth is the satiation of the symbolic visceral gaze.

it starts from lacan’s statement that “there is no metalanguage”.

lacan viewed self-referential paradoxes as the foundational truth of the subject.

he derived this by splitting the subject into two levels.

i

subject of the statement

the subject represented in the subject or object position of the sentence.

it is analogous to object language.

for example, the “i” in “i am lying”.

ii

subject of the enunciation

the unconscious of the subject.

it is not represented in the subject or object position of the sentence, but in the predicate, and prosody such as slips, stutters, etc.

it is analogous to metalanguage.

for example, “am lying” in “i am lying”.

⠀

the object-cause uses this split.

i

object

the predicate can be ignored.

for example, one says, “i came home within curfew.”

and the other responds, “you’re selfish and irresponsible.”

the predicate can also be hidden.

for example, one asks, “you didn’t eat a burger, did you?”

and the other responds, “i only went for a jog.”

ii

cause

this generally corresponds to interpretation.

interpretation involves subjectivity, and situating oneself in the meaning of the statement.

for example, one reads, “james went to a coffee shop”, and they imagine themselves at the coffee shop.

⠀

scream ii is a poem series about joana/maria, a fragmented artist.

it describes her journey in navigating childhood trauma, familial expectations, and emotional isolation through art, self-dissolution, and eroticism.

below is an integral of scream ii and visceral gazeness.

i

she calls the red paint spill “beautiful.”

she suggests that what people often call “pure” is actually unstable and unclean.

she concludes that art is not made of immaculate, sterile things, but rather of “dirt” and rearrangement.

she also recalls a raw, painful memory: a scream, the absence of the mother, and blood hitting the white sheets.

ii

she is overworked, and her physical appearance is deteriorating.

as the water rises to her throat and nose, physical danger mixes with spiritual ecstasy.

but, she experiences a sense of clarity, claiming that she truly “sees” the nature of the abyss in a way that painters of romantic seascapes never could.

iii

she recalls carrying the weight of her mother’s anger, and the void of her father’s absence.

she notes how “fragile syntax truly is,” as in, language breaking down under the weight of her trauma.

she describes somatic reactions to closeness, e.g. “i picture their hands turning inside my stomach”.

iv

she feels an intense, claustrophobic sense of being watched.

she describes her immediate environment as something fused to her body.

the discomfort of being watched becomes the fuel required for her to create, as in, maurice blanchot.

the gaze becomes associated with deeply personal, perhaps painful, familial memories.

and by declaring “the eye is in me / i have eaten the eye,” she makes the carrier of the gaze–the eye–into a part of her viscera.

v

she sees the face of her mother and grandmother, but it is undercut by a darker memory of them.

people, places, and objects lose their stable identities.

she experiences a moment of dissociation, questioning who is watching whom.

unable to write a coherent narrative for what happened, she repeatedly writes 曖昧 (aimai), meaning “ambiguity” or “vagueness.”

this is to reinforce that ambiguity is the only truth in her life.

vi

she is in a sexual encounter with a.

she experiences a sense of artistic creation, described as “watery art” or a “mutation” taking place within the room.

but after m. enters, she experiences contrasting sensations of dominance and care.

the language during this sequence becomes increasingly sensory, disoriented, and intense.

all of them then debrief the experience through the lens of art.

a. compares the sexual encounter to a literary experience, mentioning bataille.

m. disagrees, viewing the experience as musical.

and she concludes that the experience, and art in general, is ineffable and unnameable, like god.

Collecting Thoughts

Of Creative Interpretation

I It is uncontroversial that, at the secondary school level in particular, we have a problem with literary incompetence and apathy towards the literatures. Many students cannot maintain sustained, profound engagement with dense texts (the classics are not even that dense by any legitimate standards). I’d like to move beyond the beaten-dead horses of atte…

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3 months ago · 36 likes · 8 comments · Mademoiselle Jacinthe

a need is a lack that has two properties.

it is situated in the body. for example, hunger.

and it is satisfied by an object. for example, food.

a demand is the expression of a lack to the other. it has two types.

i

intrinsic demand

it expresses the bodily situatedness of the lack, e.g. “i am hungry”.

since it is tied to the body, by embodied temporal nonrivalry, it is also a demand for love.

this means, it is a demand for the other to be a subject.

for example, “i am hungry” also asks, “since i am hungry, can you also feel my hunger”?

ii

instrumental demand

it expresses a real object that can satisfy the lack, e.g. “i want food”.

since it is tied to an object, it is also a demand for obedience.

this means, it is a demand for the other to be an object.

for example, “i want food” also states, “don’t do anything else until you get food”.

⠀

when a demand type is used, the other type is its derridean trace.

for example, when one says “i am hungry”, it also means, “i want food”. and vice versa.

by default, intrinsic demand and instrumental demand are inversely proportional.

i

intrinsic demand

one expresses the bodily situatedness of their lack.

the other expresses that they feel their lack.

they cannot provide a satisficing object at the same time of the expression.

therefore, it satisfies intrinsic demand, but increases instrumental demand.

an example is a statement like, “what am i going to with sympathy, help me instead.”

ii

instrumental demand

one expresses a satisficing object.

the other provides the object.

they cannot express that they feel their lack at the same time the object is consumed, because their lack is being reduced.

therefore, it satisfies instrumental demand, but increases intrinsic demand.

an example is the trope of the children of rich parents being given everything they want, but want their parents’ love i.e. expression that they feel their lack.

⠀

need is in the real register, because it is bodily.

demand is in the symbolic register, because it is verbal and nonverbal.

the imaginary register breaks the inverse proportionality of each demand type.

it gives desire and jouissance as a result.

i

desire

the first three steps happen for an intrinsic demand.

but now, the person imagines that the satisficing object is present.

therefore, it satisfies intrinsic demand and instrumental demand.

for example, one says “i am hungry”, and the other says “i feel your hunger. i’ll get food as soon as i can”.

and then, the person imagines that the food is or will be present, imagines that they are or will be satisfied by it, and as a result, cheerfully says to the other, “okay, no problem!”.

it is tied to the symbolic, because the corresponding imagination acts on objects.

ii

jouissance

the first three steps happen for an instrumental demand.

but now, the person imagines that the other felt their lack.

therefore, it satisfies intrinsic demand and instrumental demand.

for example, one says “i want food”, and the other gives the food.

and then, the person imagines the other verbally says, “i’m sorry you felt hungry”.

or the other did some nonverbal action, e.g. looking at them for some time, and the person imagines that it means, “i’m sorry you felt hungry”.

it is tied to the real, because the corresponding imagination acts on bodies i.e. subjects.

⠀

desire has two types.

i

pleasure

after satisfication, one increases the bodily situatedness of their lack.

and then the other satisfies or is imagined to satisfy the new lack.

it is retroactive from the view of the person, and retrospective from the view of the other.

for example, one says, “i’m hungry”, and the other gives or is imagined to give two ice creams.

they eat, and then they say, “i’m still hungry”, and the other says or is imagined to say, “okay, i’ll get you another one”.

ii

tenderness

after expressing the satisficing object, one decreases the bodily situatedness of their lack.

and then the other satisfies or is imagined to satisfy the old lack.

it is retrospective from the view of the person, and retroactive from the view of the other.

for example, one says, “i want three ice creams”, and the other says or is imagined to say, “i can only buy one”.

they eat, and then they say, “okay, i’m not hungry”, and the other says or is imagined to say, “no, it’s okay, i’ll buy two more”.

⠀

jouissance has two types.

i

retroactive jouissance

after satisfication, one increases the bodily situatedness of their lack.

and then they imagine the other expresses that they feel their new lack.

for example, alex bale’s theories on childrens’ shows.

ii

retrospective jouissance

one decreases the bodily situatedness of their lack, and express its satisficing object.

and then they imagine the other expresses that they felt the satisficing object of their old lack.

for example, one reduces their hunger, and asks for one ice creams.

and then they imagine the other expresses that, “i felt that you wanted two ice creams”.

⠀

all this description of the imaginary is for being a support to jacinthe’s question, “what is the act of imaginative reading?”.

in a comment, she stated that deferred yearning for continuity is the cause of collaborative understanding.

discontinuity, according to bataille, is the state in which one is separated from the other.

this separation creates need and demand.

therefore, using lacan, discontinuity is alienation. it makes one a subject.

continuity is the state in which one is not separated from the other.

this unity dissolves need and demand.

therefore, continuity is death. it makes one an object.

discontinuity is desired. continuity is jouissanced.

given this, bataille stated that continuity must be deferred.

a rule is something that draws a boundary around death. it defers continuity.

an erotic rule draws a boundary around ontic death.

ontic means at the level of beings, e.g. humans, roles, animals etc.

for example, rules in the bedroom and role playing.

a ludic rule draws a boundary around ontological death.

ontological means at the level of being, e.g. the nature of existence, will to live, debt etc.

for example, rules in professional sports (players are expected to give everything for the team), rules in bureaucracy etc.

jacinthe stated that it is one’s personal interpretation that harbours the life of a text, sprouts its subjective beauty, and overall meaning of the arts.

the personal is ontic.

combining with barthes, the linguistic codes of a text are erotic rules.

the resulting jouissance can be called humanities jouissance.

the makeup of the personal is one’s socioeconomic background, cultural belonging, experiences etc.

the personal can become ontological through what can be called, essentiation.

i

sartre’s main claim is, “existence precedes essence”.

ii

existence is ontic, because it expresses “x is y”, i.e. a multiplicity.

essence is ontological, because it expresses “x has y-ness”, i.e. a singularity.

iii

since ‘has’ corresponds to ownership, an essence is an obligation.

essences are created using hypostatic abstraction i.e. changing “x is y” into “x has y-ness”.

iv

institutions then do hypostatization (reification) to enforce the obligations.

this results in erotic rules (personal) being replaced by ludic rules (institutional).

⠀

for jacinthe’s piece, essentiation changes its humanities jouissance into what can be called, brainrot jouissance.

the banking model of education provides passive desire in terms of chasing grades and degrees.

the corresponding passive jouissance is provided through the social media feed.

here, the unsymbolisable tensions, nuances, intensities and anxieties of a text is replaced with unsymbolisable images.

for example, the 6-7 meme deliberately does not have a meaning, so that jouissance can be derived from it.

another example is videos of kids at restaurants owning the fact that they can’t read the menu.

additionally, the text as narratological other is replaced with the virtual world as ludological other.

for example, gaming continuously without having any narrative, e.g. goal or purpose, leads to one forgetting what they just did.

overall, it is a retrospective jouissance, as opposed to the retroactivity of the humanities.

to bring the personal back to the ontic, another property of rules is required.

a ludic rule does not acknowledge that it can be changed. an erotic rule does.

for example, beauvoir stated that the spirit of seriousness is the enemy of eroticism.

she said it is because the erotic requires both partners acknowledge the rules of their intimacy are things they have created together and hence can be changed.

the pleasure and tenderness from erotic rules come from breaking and obeying them respectively.

conversely, if breaking and obeying a rule does not provide pleasure and tenderness, it is a ludic rule.

this overall process can be called, erotisation.

with this, jacinthe’s piece puts forth a way to erotise the humanities and its texts.

the result can be called, textual eroticness.

I use repetition, silence, and non sequiturs.

Alex Female/Male - All Chapters

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4 months ago · 28 likes · 9 comments · Daniil Frolov

alex female/male is an ongoing psychological horror novel.

it describes the individuation journey of alex.

it does so in the context of concepts from psychiatry and experiences of self-harm.

this analysis will describe the novel using a concept that grounds the above: chiasmity.

two body parts, in merleau-ponty’s phenomenology, are in chiasm, if one is the toucher and the other is the touched.

for example, the right hand touching the left hand is a chiasm.

the right hand is the toucher, and the left hand is the touched.

the perception of touching and being touched are not merged into a single perception.

there is always a delay between the two.

this delay is called écart.

perceptions are grounded in the present.

husserl stated that the present has a threefold structure.

i

primal impression

the immediate, fleeting ‘now’, e.g. a musical note.

ii

retention

the immediate past that is still held in the present, e.g. the note that just played.

iii

protention

the immediate future that is anticipated in the present, e.g. the expectation of the next note.

⠀

the present progresses by the primal impression both being,

slipped into retention.

and pulled forward by protention.⠀

hence, écart can be partitioned accordingly.

i

the delay of sensation between impression and retention.

for example, the right hand gives the primal impression, that of touching.

this primal impression slides into retention.

this takes places at the left hand, giving the sensation of being touched.

ii

the delay of anticipation between impression and protention.

for example, one’s hand moving along a textured surface.

the current texture the hand feels is the primal impression.

in addition, they also anticipate the continuation of the surface.

⠀

overall, when a part touches another part, the body as a whole is both touching and touched.

given this, the category of chiasm can be generalised into a property: chiasmity.

chiasmity can be derived from the four permutations of chiasm.

i

chiasm

body is both touching and touched.

ii

active antichiasm

body is touching but not touched.

iii

passive antichiasm

body is not touching but touched.

iv

achiasm

body is neither touching nor touched.

⠀

each permutation has different psychological causes and effects.

i

chiasm

the body is both subject and object.

it is caused by primal impression sliding into retention while being pulled by protention.

there are two main examples.

the first is self-care.

for example, feeding oneself, resting, and grooming.

these are acts where the body both touches (being caring), and is touched (taking care).

the second is healthy relationships.

both partners acknowledge each other as subjects, who perceive, act, and speak.

and they acknowledge each other as objects, who can be affected, hurt, or comforted.

in jungian terms, chiasm corresponds to individuation.

here, the conscious ego–the touching subject–is in a reciprocal relation with the unconscious–the touched object.

in terms of karl menninger, chiasm corresponds to customary self-mutilation.

this is self-mutilation that is done for a specific culture, society, or religious group.

for example, ritual circumcision, tattooing, body piercing, and self-flagellation.

in terms of concealment, chiasm corresponds to concealing both to oneself and others.

ii

active antichiasm

the body is a subject but not an object.

it corresponds to cartesian dualism.

it is caused by retention being overridden by primal impression and protention.

for example, a person refusing to be affected by the past.

because of this, it overemphasizes agency and control.

it is accompanied by a defense mechanism that blocks receptivity and vulnerability.

for example, in narcissism, one treats the other as an object to be touched, while remaining invulnerable to their touch.

in jungian terms, active antichiasm corresponds to the persona.

the persona is the social mask one wears to act upon the outer world, while protecting their inner vulnerability.

in terms of menninger, active antichiasm corresponds to neurotic self-mutilation.

these are compulsive behaviors to relieve tension, anxiety, or guilt.

these actions are less severe, but they can be chronic and difficult to stop.

for example, nail-biting, hair-pulling, skin-picking, and severe scratching.

nail, hair and skin belong to the integumentary system.

except the skin, none of them can feel touch.

the skin is included here because, due to scratching, it also becomes insensitive to touch.

in terms of concealment, active antichiasm corresponds to not concealing to oneself, but to others.

iii

passive antichiasm

the body is an object but not a subject.

it corresponds to mechanism and physicalism.

an example is a limb that has fallen asleep.

it is caused by protention and primal impression being overridden by retention.

for example, being trapped in the trauma of their past, blocks sensory exploration and projection into a hopeful future.

because of this, the body is experienced as an object acted upon by external forces, illness, or trauma.

for example, in depression and melancholia, the capacity for engagement is diminished (touching).

however, one remains susceptible to painful sensations and emotions (touched).

and during trauma, one’s agency is overwhelmed, while being subjected to violation or threat.

this can lead to a protention where one continues to perceive their body as a vulnerable target.

in jungian terms, passive antichiasm corresponds to the shadow.

the conscious ego is passive, dominated by autonomous unconscious contents.

this occurs when the repressed shadow or unintegrated anima/animus surfaces to the conscious.

in terms of menninger, passive antichiasm corresponds to psychotic self-mutilation.

this is the most acute form of self-harm.

usually, sense organs are targeted.

for example, eye enucleation and amputation of digits.

the reason is sense organs do touching.

in terms of concealment, passive antichiasm corresponds to concealing to oneself but not to others.

iv

achiasm

the body is neither subject nor object.

it corresponds to samadhi and non-existence.

it is caused by retention and protention being overridden by primal impression.

for example, one moves their hand, but they do not feel the movement as theirs.

another example is depersonalization and derealization.

here, one can physically touch objects, but do not feel that they are touching nor being touched.

other examples are catatonia and anhedonia.

in jungian terms, achiasm corresponds to dissociation.

the ego can neither engage with outer reality, nor receive archetypal nourishment from the inner unconscious.

in terms of menninger, achiasm corresponds to conventional self-mutilation.

for example, clipping nails, cutting hair, and shaving beard.

in terms of concealment, one is indifferent to concealing both to oneself and others.

⠀

individuation is the process where one’s personal unconscious and collective unconscious are made conscious.

this is done through dreams, active imagination and free association.

the result is one’s psyche becoming integrated.

in the novel,

alex’s body is their personal unconscious.

and green grove is their collective unconscious.

the main feature of the novel is alex’s body being equivalent to green grove.

the consciousness of ‘alex’ follows a cycle, possibly taking place in the unus mundus.

i

‘alex’ is in the ‘real’ realm.

alexandria experiences a somatic shock or dissociation.

for example, the stopped watch.

ii

‘alex’ is in green grove.

artem experiences a collapse or trauma.

for example, artem steps through the dark door.

iii

‘alex’ is back in the ‘real’ realm.

but it has changed according to the changes in green grove, and vice versa.

for example, artem conversing with adria in the café.

⠀

some examples of chiasmity,

i

chiasm

gavril is the archetype of the wise old man.

he advices alexandria that she cannot run from crow and must confront her darkness.

ii

active antichiasm

alexandria desperately maintains a persona.

for example, by hiding her scars and engaging in transactional relations with evan.

crow’s theft of her black beret represents him stripping away her persona.

artem desperately tries to find a persona.

he is an amnesiac, searching for identity within the ruins.

alexandria and artem are locked in a destructive feedback loop.

for example, when alexandria does self-harm on kitchener street, artem experiences spatial mutations in green grove.

both of them avoid being touched using repetitive routines.

for example, alexandria relies on her neighbor ralf’s predictable 3:00 am vomiting routine to sleep.

and artem adheres to a rigid schedule of eating, exercising, and therapy.

iii

passive antichiasm

alexandria’s practice of ritualistic self-harm is a good example.

since crow is her shadow, he is a passive antichiasm.

green grove is also an example.

it is a monstrous mandala of spliced, historic human architecture devoid of exits.

alexander is also example, since he is the animus of ‘alex’.

dr. quidnunc is also a good example.

he carries empty folders and sleeps on the floor.

he is oblivious to the the stairs turning into a cast-iron spiral.

iv

achiasm

the sinkhole in the castle is an example.

this is because to fall into it is to risk ego-dissolution.

another example is the dark queen, an example of the devouring mother archetype.

this is because the queen demands the sacrifice of physical well-being and autonomy to inflict msbp.

the forest at the center of the castle’s shifting masonry is another example.

reaching it requires a grueling pilgrimage marked by regression and the breakdown of rational thought.

at the same time, it is a place of primal origin and final captivity.

there are two main aspects in claire elise’s current body of work: love and violence.

they can be grounded in iris murdoch’s theory of morality and philip grierson’s description of weregeld respectively.

murdoch first stated that there was a common picture of morality,

i

we must be as rational as we can be in discovering the facts, and in the light of the facts, we decide.

ii

since there is no objective value in the facts to sway our wills one way or another, nothing in the facts can show that we have chosen wrongly.

iii

since beliefs about reality are separate from will and action, we are free to decide whatever we wish.

iv

therefore, the only virtues left are sincerity and authenticity, and the worst vice is hypocrisy.

⠀

this common picture takes many forms in the present era, e.g. “we must not judge, everyone has their own values”, “just identify with your feelings and be yourself”.

murdoch stated this common picture is incomplete.

she stated that the right picture is not one of our will plunking for one or another set of facts, but of our seeing things in one way or another.

consider a woman, m, who believes her son has married beneath him.

she finds her ­daughter-in-law, d, common, undignified, and juvenile.

but m is intelligent, well-intentioned, and capable of self-criticism.

she begins to wonder whether she herself might not be a bit snobbish, perhaps old-fashioned, and even, jealous.

m suspects that her own biases are distorting the way she sees d and engages in the effort to see her more justly.

so, she pays attention to d, seeing her with a loving eye.

as m engages in this, she begins to see that d is not common but refreshingly simple, not undignified but spontaneous, not juvenile but youthful.

so, through attention, m sees d more justly, and hence, it is a moral act.

attending to things as they are is a slow and difficult process, and hence, moral change and moral achievement are also slow and difficult.

murdoch stated that we can get help here by the appreciation of beauty, because beauty–e.g.from art–teaches us how real things can be attended to and loved without judging its utility.

the opposite of murdoch’s seeing is weregeld’s seeing, which grierson described.

in early societies, justice was served privately using blood feuds. the problem is that this retributive violence that can destabilize and destroy a society.

to fix this, a proto-state–e.g. a council of elders–was created.

this proto-state mandated that people were not permitted to seek violent revenge, but instead must accept a standardized payment as compensation for deaths.

the tender given is called weregeld (man-price), which was usually coins or cattle.

the reason weregeld is the opposite of murdoch’s seeing is because it sees and values people and the parts of people in terms of market prices.

the non-permission gave the state monopoly of violence.

however, even within the leadership of a state, there is a monopoly of violence, or atleast a hierarchy.

similarly, there is a hierarchy between states, and then between nation-states, and so on.

one reason this can go on ad infinitum is because violence and power is governed by an power law (exponent law), a good example being the pareto principle.

it generalises to beauty through sturgeon’s law, which states that “90% of everything is crap”.

it also generalised to morality through hanlon’s razor, which states, “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”.

these power laws are socially constructed through a law in psychophysics called weber’s law.

perception is defined as contrast over time.

weber’s law states that the perception of a stimulus is proportional to the logarithm of the intensity of the stimulus.

the inverse of the logarithm is the exponent.

by applying the inverse to the law, it states that the amount of stimuli noticed is distributed according to the exponential distribution.

noticing is defined as just-noticeable difference, the amount something must be changed in order for a difference to be noticeable.

just-noticeable difference is proportional to time duration.

for example, if a bulb takes one second to become bright, one can notice very little of the in-between brightness levels in that duration, e.g. 99% of the levels are unnoticed, and 1% are.

however, if the bulb took one minute, one can notice more levels e.g. 60% of the levels are unnoticed, and 40% are.

with this, the strength of a power law is inversely proportional to the duration of time a person is given.

for example, if a person has very little time to watch videos, they may quickly go through them.

as a result, most of them go unnoticed, and only a small number that gets their attention i.e. that which increases time duration, are noticed.

there are many other examples, such as selection rates and venture capital returns.

paul virilio stated that under capitalism, that which moves with speed dominates that which is slower.

he defined the resulting the all-around, pervasive inscription of speed in every aspect of life into a concept called dromology.

therefore, the main reason power laws exist is because of dromology.

this is the opposite of what murdoch stated, that of attending properly.

in honor of murdoch, the duration required to attend to someone or something properly, in order to notice it justly, can be called its murdochian duration.

embellish with grace satirizes the deliberation before doing a blood feud.

it is about the price of justice when society has failed, as in “lady justice isn’t breathing”.

it is also about the barter quality to the dealing e.g. demanding a “story” that is “salacious” and filled with “guts and glory” to redeem the real violence the protagonist went through.

olympus uses greek mythology to critique the corruption that comes from the state’s monopoly of violence e.g. “gathered by his loyal tribe” and “zeus sanctioned the revelry”.

it also describes the precondition of the state being the deliverer of justice, e.g. “twisted faces pleaded to zeus” and “no god was coming to answer their call”.

songbird keep your tune is a metaphorical poem that shows why the wergeld’s seeing is the opposite of murdoch’s seeing.

the bird sings her heart out to a copper coin, but the coin is not stirred.

this is a metaphor for giving your best self to someone or something that is incapable of valuing you.

it also shows that money cannot provide emotional security or warmth i.e. love.

humanity’s gift implicitly describes the effects of debts from weregeld, because it states that the flaws of shame, failure, selfishness, and hunger define the human race.

nietzsche stated that debt requires errors, shame and guilt to be inscribed into the body of the debtor, and greed into the body of the creditor, in order for it to work.

courting ritual is a good example of dromology in dating and its murdochian effect.

although the guy considers themself “nice”, since he uses it to refuse seeing the protagonist as a full human being, he is more evil than a “bad man”.

this is proven true by the violence inflicted on their body. it ends with “aren’t i one to adore!”, a plea for the basic need to be loved and valued.

impossible dream describes how emotion work is required to maintain monopoly on violence.

if people let their emotions run wild, through anger or creativity, they may become violent.

therefore, emotion work is required.

it is forced by the company’s outward “magical” branding.

the haiku at the end gives help to achieve murdochian duration for the shift e.g. “deep breaths” and “punching in”.

catharsis symposium describes people offloading emotion work by willingly taking part in the gladiatorial game of trauma dumping.

they abandon unifying love (eros) in favor of a sacrificial display of personal pain, using it gain attention and social standing rather than seeking actual connection.

neptune’s snare describes this offloading at the individual level.

the protagonist is initially magnetised by shared pain.

but they realise they cannot “fix” or “witness” someone else’s trauma or depression without it eventually affecting their own stability.

high wire is about the risk of confessing romantic feelings to a close friend.

the risk is that if it is rejected, their friendship might be broken.

the protagonist is looking for a safety net, as in, the hope that the depth of the other person’s care is strong enough to survive the confession.

one safety net could be the other person realising that the friend, through loving them, notices them in a just manner, and hence, will still be a good friend.

sunbeam is a synthesis of the above three poems.

it is about dropping emotion work and the blossoming of an authentic connection.

instead of becoming bitter by their trauma, they remain “tender” and “loving”.

so, it is a good example of murdochian seeing, as in seeing their ‘bad’ trauma in a loving manner.

sheltered assurance describes this in more detail.

the relationship acts as a sanctuary against both the harshness of the outside world and the speaker’s own internal struggles.

this is because of his ability to see her lovingly, and her recognition of this in “for goodness, the nature which is his”.

erato is a poem that states she emphasizes meter, rhythm, sound and melody over metaphor in her poetry.

this shows she emphasizes active control over the time duration spent on the objects and subjects in her poetry.

the line “tuning heart strings like a guitar” states poetry is a way to harmonize her emotions and “tune” herself to the world.

overall, the magic of shaping words into a “song” is enough to join with goodness, as in “what else could make life feel quite so grand?”.

the previous analysis of yume’s parlor used class dramaturgy.

this analysis is based on a set of stories that currently represent the parlor:

dougveda, the great magistrate yun, frank the flamingo, louis the tiger, and shodo the pig.

with this set, this analysis describes the parlor using the concept of zan-ma-geki-ness.

i

geki (劇)

japanese for drama and play.

in the comedy of manners, class identity is not an inherent essence.

class is a set of rituals and actions that only the members of said class state they can do.

in terms of goffman, geki is the front stage performance required to sustain class distinction.

for example, elite status must be continuously staged through their curated consumption and aesthetic standards.

and when the material conditions of their wealth decay, the performance of status are doubled down upon to mask the material conditions.

some examples,

i

louis the tiger maintains his noble class solely by acting like it.

for example, louis performs nobility by rejecting certain silks, pacing the hall of mirrors, and wearing a tiny paper mask.

through his acting, his servants and the public believe that louis is a noble.

ii

in magistrate yun, class tension is expressed through goods.

in “the price of a name”, lord peng attempts to perform a high class by using fine silk to cover rotting cushion frames.

and in “the wedding cakes”, madame fu uses jizhou noble artifacts and cultural distinctions to show she is a higher class than her daughter-in-law’s merchant family.

iii

dougveda’s surfboard inspectors and sky daddies create the front stage.

the former claims exclusive authority to interpret the cosmos.

with this, they create access barriers to the spiritual commons, such as historical caste systems.

the latter keeps the individual in a state of perpetual debt, fear, and guilt.

with this, they make suffering for the system a prerequisite for spiritual growth.

ii

ma (間)

japanese for space, room, time, and pause.

it makes absence a positive entity, putting it on the same footing as presence.

in a class society, it is a refuge from institutions.

for example, it can be an un-enclosed commons, an unwritten page, and the moment of pause before an action.

in terms of heidegger, it is a state of mind and space that resists calculative thinking.

technology (gestell) views things as standing reserves to be measured and optimized.

ma is an act that allows a thing to exist in its own un-optimized being.

in terms of marx, it is unalienated labor.

activity is usually done to produce a commodity for its exchange-value.

ma is an activity that is done for intrinsic satisfaction, or use-value.

because the result is not capital, it remains safe from capitalism.

some examples,

i

brahman is the absolute, non-dual, and undifferentiated reality of the cosmos.

in the dougveda, brahman is translated into ma, as an endless open ocean.

with this, dharma is stripped of its class-preserving definitions.

dharma is reframed as the individual’s unique surfboard and wave.

different paths (of the surfboard) are all equally valid ways of navigating the open ocean.

ma is also seen between kali and shiva.

kali is the force of entropy and time, and hence represents geki.

shiva is pure, witness consciousness.

so shiva lying down in kali’s path represents the intervention of ma.

as in, shiva did not seek to conquer or defeat entropy, but held a non-judgmental space for it.

ii

the quiet stillness of the capybara’s pond in frank the flamingo.

frank’s aimless drift away from the scheduled zoo parade.

iii

in shodo the pig, ren’s writing with water on a dry stone (mizu) is ma.

it is because the act produces no commodity for market exchange since it only exists until it evaporates.

the unwritten margins of the scroll is another example.

iii

zan (残)

japanese for remaining, left-over, and excess.

geki attempts to suppress, exclude, or sanitize the material reality, physical labor, and memory that is required to maintain it.

but the objects and acts required to maintain the class structure cannot be fully erased.

the remainder from this is zan.

walter benjamin stated that history must be read against the grain.

the victors i.e. geki, write history in their official archives as a seamless progression.

to read against the grain is to look at the residue of history.

debris includes unremembered lives, scraps of old items, and undocumented labor.

additionally, hauntology describes that the present is always haunted by the ghosts of the futures imagined in the past.

this translates to the residue always haunting the current class structure.

this is what gives zan a mysterious, conspiratorial quality.

some examples,

i

atman refers to the universal consciousness.

every individual consciousness is a part of atman.

every movement or choice of an individual consciousness leaves a trace in atman.

the atman corresponds to zan.

the trace corresponds to karma.

in the dougveda, karma translates to the physical ripples in the open ocean caused by any action.

doug is another example, because he carries the memory of cosmic epochs, mountains, and human lives.

ii

in magistrate yun, the tang dynasty demands lao fang to write with number one and two brushes to validate their authority.

however, lao fang keeps a parallel set of private notes with his number four brush.

these private notes record the subjective truths, structural inequalities, and human emotions he observes.

power struggles are resolved when the residue of the marginalized disrupt the narratives of the ruling class.

in “the sealed study”, the automated murder plot of shen rui is exposed because a servant, liu ping, leaves the night watchman’s route un-bribed.

in “the wedding cakes”, madame fu’s crime is exposed by a dropped gold earring and a reversed knot.

⠀

with this, zan-ma-geki is the performance of class (geki), occupying and commoditising empty space and time (ma) in the process, only to be inevitably disrupted by the residue of labor and memory (zan).

zan-ma-geki is a cycle.

i

geki constantly seeks to expand its boundaries.

it attempts to colonize and commodify the free intervals of existence (ma).

it fences off the commons, schedules pauses, and turns leisure into a commodity.

ii

this act of colonization requires labor, extraction, and physical effort.

this inevitably produces residue (zan), such as unacknowledged physical fatigue, a discarded tool etc.

iii

the residue cannot be fully integrated into the official archives.

this gives the potential for them to eventually return and disrupt the performance (geki).

iv

this disruption shatters the illusion of the seamless performance.

with this, it opens a new, temporary interval (ma) of freedom and reflection.

⠀

some examples of zan-ma-geki.

i

the wedding cakes

the geki is the wedding feast between the rising merchant fu family and the ling family.

madame fu knows this, and tries to halt the marriage by poisoning the bride’s ceremonial cake tray.

the ma is the daily, unhurried routines of the local bakery stand.

the zan is madame fu’s residue.

her true origin is shown by the jizhou scroll painting, bronze deity, and filigree nail guards in her home.

but she is unable to destroy them. hence, they became physical ghosts of her true origin.

her crime is exposed by two events.

the first one is external.

her maid drops a distinctive northern filigree earring into the cake packaging.

the second one is internal.

she tied the packaging knot right-over-left, contradicting the local baker’s signature left-over-right method.

ii

frank and the best day of his life

the geki is the walk through the aviary.

it is filled with birds that mimic the sounds of consumer capitalism, such as cash registers, nokia ringtones, and microwave beeps.

the ma is frank entering the aviary and engaging in a joyful, non-semantic dialogue with the parrots.

ma also happens when, recognizing frank’s deep contentment, the keepers decide to bend zoo protocol and take a long lunch.

the zan is the parrots performing a détournement of consumer noise, turning disciplinary and productive signals into non-productive, aesthetic sounds.

iii

the summer bath

the geki is louis inspecting the fountains and pools of versailles.

the manicured water features are actually simulations of nature.

hence, they fail to accommodate his physical needs because they are designed for aesthetic display.

the ma is renard preparing a gold indoor bathtub.

the bathtub provides louis with direct, physical relaxation.

the zan is louis insisting on entering the tub under protest.

this is to preserve his self-image as a majestic predator, not a common housecat.

this allows him to enjoy the physical pleasure of the bath while maintaining his performative, sovereign role.

however, the pleasure is made possible only by the invisible labor of the servants who heated and carried the water.

iv

mizu

the geki is ren writing formal documents for the village headman.

the ma is ren walking to the river and observes how the water moves around obstacles.

he returns home to practice writing the character for water (mizu) on a flat granite stone using only water.

the zan is the water calligraphic strokes.

the strokes continuously evaporate under the sun,

so, ren’s labor expended does not solidify into capital.

however, it remains as a material trace in two places.

the first is ren’s muscle memory.

the second is the physical weathering of the stone.

Ninjastroni

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

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5 months ago · 5 likes · Ninjastroni

“blood, sweat, and tears” is a surreal, satirical short story about academia.

it is framed as an audiovisual transcript.

it begins with a narrator opening their mailbox and ignoring mails regarding financial schemes and their financial debts.

then, the personification of their adhd called monkey mind hands them a jack-in-the-box.

when cranked, it pops out a notebook and a warning that states the narrator has exactly 48 hours to write an 8-page essay on the pitfalls of the american dream.

because of a previous mishap that ruined their main studio, the narrator is forced to work in an old lab.

this lab has gone bankrupt by technical debt, since it has no internet, no cell service, and suffers from rolling blackouts.

trying to brainstorm, the narrator uses an old technique of pacing the floor.

they step on a broken ceramic tile barefoot, severely cutting their foot.

however, instead of panicking, they connect the blood and the broken tiles to their essay topic: redlining and the housing crisis.

the narrator opens the notebook to record the idea.

however, accidental contact between enchanted pieces of paper teleports the narrator to a life-sized chessboard dimension.

each of the chessboard squares being covered in razor-sharp spikes, mimicking the landscape of poverty and social immobility.

to escape, the narrator must reach a “thesis generator” two squares away.

guided by a holographic arrow, they use a magical pair of boots to jump across the board.

they manage to outwit an opposing knight’s horse (freeing it from its rider), and narrowly escape a menacing, necrotic bishop.

after mashing the generator’s button, the machine produces a thesis that describes the protestant revolution in the style of jay-z’s 99 problems, while relating it to the thesis’ landscape of poverty.

reciting the rap opens a wormhole that drops the narrator back into their lab.

sick and in pain from the interdimensional travel and the foot wound, they enter a hyper-focused writing trance.

they use a chaotic “surrealist gardener” method to vomit words onto the page.

after this, they organize the words using the meal technique.

they then take a smoke break and write a poem that is roughly about the sublimeness of a motorcycle rider riding through a highway, while using it to both gain enjoyment by applying their knowledge, while trying escape from their situation.

they return to the lab and pick up a “thoughtform”, a literal manifestation of an idea connecting john steinbeck’s the grapes of wrath to modern corporate eviction statistics.

with this, they finish the essay and falls asleep.

they are then jolted awake by aggressive knocking at the lab door.

they panic, fearing it is the “garish repossessor”, who surgically extracts memories and knowledge from people who default on their student loans.

essentially, the repossessor repossesses their collateral i.e. the knowledge and memories the student gained from their university.

however, when they open the door, no one is there.

lacking internet, they submit the final draft by strapping it to a carrier pigeon named petey, hoping the bird survives an incoming hurricane.

the narrator then notes what they learned from the ordeal.

finall, a twist occurs: the narrator reveals they have been quarantined by bio-suited doctors for a mysterious virus.

they the casually asks the recipient of the transmission to cover their wednesday shift at a place called the chunky monkey, which is probably why they craved banana pudding after the injury.

the twist ties the story back to the personified “monkey mind” that causes their brain to wander in the first place.

it additionally shows that even after writing their critique of capitalist exploitation, their main concern is covering the shift at their low-wage job, probably because they need to settle their financial debts.

some foreshadowing of the narrator being a undergraduate student include,

them writing a standard 8-page humanities paper.

stating what “my class and i had discussed a couple weeks prior”.

and proposing the invention of a “writing center” to help people proofread essays, which is a staple of every college campus.

their use of jargon is probably them satirizing academia, e.g. a blister/cut on their foot bleeding is stated as “hemoglobin tributaries ran together...”.

the chess game and the thesis generator were probably the hallucinations of a fever-dream due to their foot cut.

it is exacerbated by them procrastinating through making their homework feel like an epic quest rather than a last-minute assignment.

the story can be analysed using badiou’s concept of the new and its relation to debt.

in this story, there are three types of the new,

i

the constant search for the new resulting from the narrator’s adhd.

ii

a new idea for the essay, and the new situation brought about by the protestant revolution.

iii

a new life situation for the narrator, and the new economic opportunities the american dream promised.

⠀

the respective debts are the debts described in peter wessel zapffe’s philosophy, epistemic debt, and financial debt.

badiou describes a situation as a set of elements governed by a set of rules he calls the state of the situation or the regime of counting.

in any situation, everything that exists is already accounted for, and hence is stable.

in this state, there is nothing new because there is only the repetition of the existing order.

the new enters the situation through an event, which is an element that is in a situation but is not counted by the situation.

as a result, an event cannot be explained or deduced by the existing laws.

when it occurs, a subject must make a decision as to whether they should return to the old situation, or believe that the event has changed the situation.

by choosing to act as if the event changed the situation, the subject works to incorporate the consequences of the event into the situation.

these consequences are called the new, as in, it results in a new situation.

since an event is not counted by a situation, a subject must not be counted as well, as in, they must be outside the situation.

to be in or out of a situation is to be indebted or not indebted to it.

this is because a situation is comprised of debts, such as financial, legal, epistemic–e.g. unsolved problems, lack of knowledge due to division of labor–and individual–e.g. ailments, character flaws.

debts feel real when the situation is stable.

but when it is not stable, debts lose their real nature.

a good example is people’s view of their debts during crises such as the great depression.

the is because, in the presence of an event, the entire situation, and hence all its debts, are called into question.

therefore, a new situation is created if and only if subjects write-off or settle these debts to become indebted to the event.

in honor of badiou, the degree of a debt that is in the presence of an event, as well as a debt to an event, as badiouan indebtedness.

with this, we can tackle the three types of the new and their corresponding debts.

zapffe’s philosophy states that human consciousness is a maladaptation to its environment.

he states that humans have developed an excess of consciousness, evident in our deep need to understand the world and seek meaning, that our environment cannot satisfy.

he compared consciousness to the irish elk, whose antlers grew so large due to evolutionary pressure that they eventually led to the species’ extinction.

to counter this maladaptation, zapffe stated that we use four repression mechanisms.

i

isolation

banishes disturbing and destructive thoughts.

ii

anchoring

fixates around things–e.g. work, family, god–to give a sense of purpose.

iii

distraction

keeps one constantly busy or entertained to prevent the underlying existential questions from surfacing.

iv

sublimation

transforms the pain existence into something else, often through art and scientific and philosophical inquiry.

⠀

this excess of consciousness is one of the basic debts of a human.

the mailbox sequence is an example of isolation, the occupation at the chunky money is an act of anchoring, the narrator’s adhd at the beginning is a consequence of distraction, but during writing becomes an act of sublimation.

now, zapffe did not state what the environment is.

from observation, the environments can be natural or man-made, provided that it functions bureaucratically.

this is because, the null element is both present in every situation and is not counted by the state of any situation.

using sartre’s statement that consciousness is a nothingness, we can state that consciousness is never counted in any situation.

hence, consciousness is never represented when a situation is made into a structure.

since the narrator experiences breakthroughs through executive dysfunction, which is considered excessive inside the academic structure, the story writes-off the consciousness debt by showing executive functions do not lead thought to the new.

epistemic debt, which is the debt of knowing what one does not know, arises from,

power/knowledge, e.g. the protestant revolution.

standpoint epistemology, e.g. the “understanding dawned on me...” line.

and the kantian sublime, e.g. the poem about the rider.

good examples of financial debts are the mails, the content of george carlin’s statements, the opportunity atlas, the garish repossesor, and the shift at the chunky monkey.

to conclude, each of the situations these badiouan debts create can be changed only if they are written-off or settled.

in this story, the epistemic and consciousness debts are settled, but the financial debts are not.

accordingly, the corresponding newness and sameness of each of the situations are shown in it.

THE.MAZIST

GLDMAZE - MANDO FILES:: VOL. 1 [FULL ALBUM]

LISTEN HERE…

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3 months ago · 11 likes · Christopher Crawford Jr.

there are many institutions, and time is institutionalised in each to create its corresponding timeline.

a timeline is a list of events that involve its respective institution, selected and ordered as per its institutionalization of time.

examples include timelines of nations, companies, ideologies, disciplines, and institutionally recognised physical structures like monuments, the earth, and the universe.

the institutionalization of time depends on the set of entities an institution trusts and by how much.

this is because trust decides transaction costs.

for example, if a company trusts a certain demographic more than others for employment, they will shorten the duration for the former, and lengthen it for the latter.

another example is a state writing certain groups out of or into their history depending on the trust the state has on the groups as to compliance and attribution to them for the group’s achievements.

the set of all timelines is called a timestream.

in it, timelines are placed in hierarchies based on how their institutions are placed in hierarchies.

this hierarchy is created through a process called institutional isomorphism.

it is the process by which institutions tend to become increasingly similar in structure, strategy, and culture over time.

there are three types,

i

coercive isomorphism

an institution is forced to adopt the structures and behaviors of external institutions that have more power than them.

ii

mimetic isomorphism

an institution models itself after other institution in order to copy their success and legitimacy.

iii

normative isomorphism

an institution follows the practices and standards as given by the collective of institutions to which they belong.

⠀

when a timeline follows the practices of another timeline because it is a normative, then the degree of it can be called normative timeline isomorphicness.

mando files:: vol. 1 is an afrofuturist wuxia noir hip-hop album that tells the story of timewise.

timewise is a sleuth for an agency called the tempo state that investigates variances in the timestream (quantika).

the state tasks timewise to investigate a timeline called mando, and subsequently fight (to his mental detriment) a corporation called monolith.

the goal of monolith is to conquer all timelines through their armed forces (dominion) called mandos (commandos).

the resolution is timewise defeating one of monolith’s rogue elite assassins, deathstalker.

it ends with him accepting his role as a protector of his loved ones (”famo”) and the timeline they are in.

with this, he dives back into the war with clarity and purpose.

the album combines,

rhythmic rapping in the prosody of oral storytelling,

and hazy boards of canada samples,

to allow each track to do sci-fi and noir style worldbuilding and narration,

along with braggadocio and cultural references, to narrate in the manner of hip-hop.

given the monolith is forcing other timelines to be under its control, it is practicing coercive isomorphism on timelines.

since time has become a heavily regulated institution controlled by an imperial hierarchy, timewise refuses to integrate into the established sequence of events or process their localized reality or past trauma.

he instead engaging in continuous, erratic forward action to scramble the predictive algorithms of the timeline, the very thing that keeps time institutionalised.

the monolith then dispatches its mandos to eliminate timewise.

they operate strictly within the bounds of the monolith’s rules and absolute authority.

therefore, rather than engaging the enforcers within those rules, timewise projects his internal psychological dissociation directly into the physical space.

this fractures his own localized reality and allows him to phase through established space-time coordinates.

this forces the mandos into a state of total dissonance, because they loses their authority over reality, with timewise now dictatating the terms of his existence.

in response to this, the monolith sends one of their apex enforcers, deathstalker.

in the ensuing battle, timewise undergoes neurological and physical degradation.

it is compounded by the continuous necessity for violence, and the conflict between his kinetic output and the stabilizing pressure of the multiverse.

in the end, timewise realises he no longer needs to rely on erratic momentum or manic dissociation to survive.

instead, he distills his rage, trauma, and hyper-vigilance into a highly concentrated, controlled force, and defeats deathstalker.

with this, he has transitioned from a reactive disruptor to an active creator of his own reality, possessing the absolute power to govern his timeline.

overall, timewise acted to remove coercive timeline isomorphism (monolith) from his timeline, replacing it with normative timeline isomorphism (famo, loved ones).

i

timewise is under hauntology due to the suppressed timelines lingering in the atmosphere.

the monolith is dictating how subjects should perceive the past and future.

to counter the monolith, timewise must not stay still, and must fight his past.

ii

timewise changes the timeline by projecting his fractured psyche onto the spacetime surrounding him.

the mandos are unable to cope with this change in the environment, and as a result, timewise gains an advantage over them.

timewise defeats the mandos, and moreover, gains organic solidarity with his people, setting up his ability to create his own institution.

iii

timewise has to constantly move to make an impact on the mando timeline.

the additional fighting is having a detrimental effect on him.

however, he is fluent in the code of the timestream, and this helps him to manage the stress.

iv

deathstalker is introduced, and he is bragging about his ability to kill his enemies.

he treats subjects as dead objects in order to justify their execution.

after this, he returns to bureaucratic routines such as doing mantras.

all this bragging is directed at timewise, the sleuth, to scare him off.

v

the war is taking its toll on timewise, but he has to push through, atleast for creating a legacy.

timewise realises he was birthed by the systemic violence created by the monolith.

this separation between his morality and the monolith's makes his mission sharper.

with this, timewise refuses to be reactive and instead decides to take control of the timeline.

vi

timewise goes against deathstalker by first exposing his trauma.

he then throws himself into the void, accessing the liminal space (quantum superposition) where they are neither fully present nor absent.

with this, he escapes the timeline.

he then defeats deathstalker with the stare of kombatica.

vii

having broken the system, timewise is the designer of his own timeline.

he decides to form the timeline according to what he and his loved ones require.

finally, he knowledges his trauma and burdens, and claims absolute authority over his existence.

THE.MAZIST

You are an Institute.

I told yall I'd start releasing my youtube videos on here, so here's…

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7 months ago · 10 likes · Christopher Crawford Jr.

time is an institution.

according to new institutional economics, the main purpose of an institution is to reduce transaction costs.

transaction costs are the costs of using the market.

they are broken down into,

search and information costs, which are the costs of finding out that a good, service, or partner exists.

bargaining costs, which are the costs of negotiating the terms of an exchange.

and enforcement costs, which are the costs of making sure the other party sticks to the agreement by policing any violations.⠀

time reduces all three costs.

i

search and information costs

time standards reduce search and information costs of coordinating any activity because the basis of coordination is time.

these standards have a taken-for-granted quality, because it is objectified.

this objectification is done by turning the perception of time as a social construction into time as an external, objective reality.

this objectification is what ensures everyone has access to the same information about time.

additionally, searches include filters.

thorstein veblen stated that institutions can serve instrumental purposes i.e. solving practical problems, and ceremonial purposes i.e. demonstrating social status and hierarchy.

the latter purpose is a filter, and the institution of time serves this purpose through conspicuous leisure and conspicuous busyness.

in the past, the highest social status belonged to those who did not have to work i.e. have an abundance of free time.

in the present, the highest social status belongs to those with a large lack of time, because it conveys importance, market value, and indispensability.

ii

bargaining costs

time is treated as an ownable resource in negotiation instruments, and this reduces bargaining costs.

for example, in employment contracts, a person sells a property right to a block of their time, e.g. 40 hours a week, to their employer in exchange for a wage.

additionally, negotiation instruments are based on weber’s properties of bureaucracy.

the first is hierarchy of authority, and time standards create hierarchies.

for example, time has a hierarchy with year in the upper levels, and descends through to months, weeks, days, hours etc.

the second is impersonal arbitration.

time is a pure impersonal arbiter because the clock does not differentiate between individuals based on hierarchies such as class and race.

instead, it only differentiates them based on its own hierarchy.

for example, the rule that “work begins at 9:00 am” applies to all day shift employees, and “work begins at 9:00 pm”nto night shift ones.

the third property is written rules.

these give negotiating parties a common ground for bargaining.

time standards are an example.

the fourth property is division of labor.

negotiation becomes easier when there are bounds to one’s duties i.e. specialization.

time is specialized into industrial segments such as labor time, leisure time, and maintenance time (e.g. lunch breaks, sleep).

furthermore, time is specialized by industry e.g. the fiscal year for accounting, and the academic year for education.

the fifth property is calculability.

this is because for an ideal negotiation, each parameter involved must be measurable.

the sixth property is technical competence.

participation in modern society requires competence in time.

for example, individuals must demonstrate the ability to read, track, and manage their time.

iii

enforcement costs

time dictates expectations.

when these are broken, sanctions and punishments are used to enforce them.

expectations of time often have a moral quality.

for example, punctuality is viewed as a virtue, while being late is viewed as a moral failing.

and through life stages, time creates expectations for individuals to hit specific milestones at specific times.

deviating from these stages results in social friction, because people feel shame and are shamed because they are “running out of time” or “behind in life”.

additional enforcement is done through the way time is spoken of.

in the past, indigenous cultures talked about time as seasons.

in modern society, time is talked about as a commodity, e.g. “spend time”, “waste time”, “save time” etc.

due to globalisation, standardized time zones and calendar systems are enforced universally.

this is because deviating from it would result in social and economic marginalization due to an inability to coordinate with global markets.

inter-institutional enforcement, as in one institution enforcing their rules over another, also depends on the morality of each of their times.

for example, a person’s company demands time to be used to work on a project, while their family demands a cessation of work to spend time on a family event.

if time with the company is viewed as being more moral because they need the money to support their family, then the company enforces over the family.

self-enforcement also happens through two properties of time.

the first is that time, through the clock, is a foucaltian panopticon.

a person does not require a physical supervisor to be present to feel the pressure of the deadline or the start of the shift.

this is because the clock provides a constant, objective metric of the individual’s compliance.

this creates a state of self-surveillance where individuals monitor their own movements and speed to align with the clock.

the second is that time uses althusser’s interpellation.

it states that when a system calls to an individual and the individual recognizes themselves in the call, they are transformed into a subject who accepts their role within the system.

for example, when an alarm clock sounds or a shift whistle blows, the individual recognizes themselves as the addressee of that signal.

in doing so, the individual is interpellated as a productive subject, with the subject seeing the call as a personal responsibility e.g. “i must be on time”.

⠀

the converse is also true, i.e. an institution is constituted in time in a certain way.

this constitution can be called institutional temporality.

it can be contrasted with the temporalities of identity and sales.

an identity is the life history, traits, beliefs, and relationships of an individual.

an institution is a structure of rules and norms that state how an individual should be.

the ground of both is hauntology,

i

identity

it makes the individual act toward realising the unrealised futures of their past.

for example, dreams during childhood, the goals of their parents and their communities etc.

ii

institution

it makea the individual act toward realising the unrealised futures of the institution.

for example, its vision, mission and goals.

⠀

identity and institutions realise their futures through identity formation and institutionalisation respectively.

identity formation realises futures through events, which are points in the past.

insitutionalisation realises futures through processes, which are intervals of the past that include the present.

events include getting a job, reaching a certain age, attending or viewing a community event etc.

processes include habits, systems, practices etc.

due to late-stage capitalism, a third way for realising the futures is through sales of these futures as commodities.

a sale is a portion of the present.

it includes,

a hook, e.g. “do you want to be rich?”, “do you want to be productive?”.

a pitch, e.g. “using this product/course, you can 10x your productivity”.

and the close, which is either done by the individual buying for their identity or institution.

for example, wealth is an unrealised future for their parents, and productivity is an unrealised future for the company.

so, a sale provides a potential event or process.

this potentiality is what makes it always a portion of the present.

hence, the onus of actualizing the event or process is on the individual.

this is communicated through statements like, “this system can help you in x, if you do the steps to integrate it in your life”.

overall, an institution realises a future using both the past and present.

hence, an institution is a combination of an identity, e.g. records, resources, and a sale, e.g. brand, vision, goals.

all of this can help in understanding christopher’s philosophy, which is, among other things, making oneself an institute (institution).

he describes three habits to do so: awareness, knowledge-craft and synthesis.

awareness is having one’s past, present and desired future in memory, because an institution requires all three.

knowledge-craft, in a paraphrased manner, is the habit of reading about the pasts of the world that they can use for their new future.

this is done while continuously updating whether their future is truly new by reading about the futures those pasts described e.g. reading descriptions of utopia.

this new future is always potentially a part of the present, and hence, it is a sale.

this is why the new future is what is told to other people to make them understand the value of the institution.

synthesis corresponds to the operations that the institution performs to service its mission.

the point is to organize your knowledge into actions and creations.

it is these events of completion, these concrete pasts, that should be a major part of your identity.

for example, “i made that, and it is a part of who i am”, and not the events of validation and visibility, e.g. “i made that, and someday, i’ll be famous because of it”.