The Ocean and the Self

In Emerson, Whitman, and Stevens, there is the image of the sea- the vast mother shored by the father and abstracted by the clouds of the intellect. These abstractions are words, once crafted by an original, vital poetic voice and employed later as trope by the speaking poet and those who come after. As Emerson writes in The Poet “Language is fossil poetry.”

Even in artificial languages, the Word (in the Sausserian sense) is an idiosyncratic product of one Self- the product of one collection of interrelated abstractions, one collection of sensory impressions influenced by extant tropes (a Whorfian stance reinforced by the research of Boroditsky). The metonymy of the ocean is a manifold sensory impression uninfluenced by the semantic framework of an experiencer’s mind. It is, of course, an ideal. However, it is something we, each and all, may approach asymptotically. Wading into the ocean, new beholdings attune one to inadequacies in the impressed frames, and in an outpouring of originality, a new, more effective term or usage might be expressed. This is the genius of the painter, the philosopher, the mathematician, and the poet.

New for me is the resolution of Whitman’s use of “the soul” with the notion of “semantic framework” and, again, this ideal of experience, “the ocean”. “Spirit” is something different. “Soul” is the unique semantic framework, the unique hash value over the complete file contents, the signature of a singular character. It floats above the ocean as a system of clouds, independent of the water but inescapably of it. Emerson (at least in the earlier years, as seen in Essays, Second Series (1844) and the poem Seashore (1856)) holds that, being so inextricably of it, we cannot “sing beyond the genius of the sea,” as the singer in Stevens’ The Idea of Order at Key West(1936) did. The nature of Mathematics, too, seems to suggest that we may work beyond our origin, if only in the vapors of abstraction.

…though the voice that is great within us cannot be our own, we are under the transgressive necessity of being able to locate it nowhere else.

Harold Bloom, Ideas of Order , 1976

more vaporous wanderings re: probability theory

I have some deep suspicions. There is a strong relationship between the normal distribution, Probability Theory (both as concepts as opposed to applied frameworks) and the semantic apparatus of the mind.

Salience develops together with the ascription of meaning/senses beyond those of immediate experience. There is a complex association between words, appending notions and stitching relationships. On a more elementary level, there is also repetition and coincidence across the immediate sense inputs. The behaviors of these associations, their resolution and realization, can be described quite elegantly with Bayesian logic, among other statistical programs. Our brain, all brains, are elegant heuristic devices for creating discreteness.

I’ve recently come to appreciate the true fullness of the abstraction mathematics represents: to know that the Bayesian logic of the mind relies on a more primitive logic, one that follows the physical, and that this most fundamentally discrete logic also gives way to something else.

thinking/sloshing about Probability

‘The Law of Large Numbers’ and ‘Central Limit Theorem’ are representations of Probability Theory. According to Jaynes, the behaviors of any system in question appear “random” because we are not privy to the complete composition, behavior, and influences upon that system. Given many examples of the given system’s behavior, however, certain trends stand out- characteristics more essentially of the system than others; this may be more accurately stated: “characteristics definitive of the system”.

Obviously, Probability Theory was a coping method acquired by the developing ocean beast simply to function more effectively in its unfurling World.

More strangeness radiates from the unusual, inexplicable asymmetries of Thermodynamics when ’statistical mechanics’ is regarded in light of this take on Probability. Deep quantum understanding and non-relativistic physics do a fine job of indicating the fundamental possibility or truth of bidirectional “time”. However, action in the universe proceeds unidirectionally; this is a basic tenet of Thermodynamics. How curious that this framework of understanding, to our best knowledge, is inseparable from the epistemological workings of Probability.

(sounds of 4/4 strumming)

My neighbor, in the apartment above my room, listens to some lame music. Every twist, chord change, bridge, and snare is utterly predictable.  By mishearing a song earlier, I tricked myself into hearing the music change into something akin to the band 311- I was immediately struck by its funkiness and character. I do not have the most positive feelings about 311, and that I reveled in its qualities should indicate how bad the neighbor’s music actually is.

This is not all to say that uniqueness is of virtue in its own right- that would be a grave, shallow misunderstanding of originality.

Because the neighbor’s music is so homogeneous, and of such undifferentiated presence in the sphere of music, little power inherent to “the literary artifact” is realized; it appeals basely.

‘literary artifact’

“…grasshopper’s appetites…”. This highly idiosyncratic phrase identifies itself through its unique composition. it is an example of a “literary artifact”, a great meaning indicated efficiently (sometimes exceedingly important, sometimes intentional; sometimes not). Another term for this might be “reference” or “link”. For those versed in a literature, these links are populated.

For those outside that literature, the links are meaningless, or simply not recognized in the first place. The unusual qualities of the Burke quote make it stand out, pique the awareness. With objects such as this, it is permissible to expect the audience to read more deeply or, as with encountering a recondite technical term in the literature of a more “technical” practice (ie electronics, mathematics, philosophy, etc.), to seek further.

Respectfully, the languages, or “literatures”, kept intact by reference, must be kept separate. The uniqueness or idiosyncrasy of the term relies on the potential for uniqueness, reinforced by the distinctness of the language as a whole. The term’s use or utility as a referenced idea is a function of the domain in which it resides. The domain also determines the type of thing to be referenced (in addition to strongly influencing the mode of understanding in which it may ultimately be addressed, as previously implied).

“- Toronto Dominion.”

In the recession of 1987 Toronto-Dominion Bank “participated actively in debt restructuring initiatives”.

The abstract value of debt became real, was “material” somehow, had structure and, despite lacking actual physical matter, could not simply evaporate, be released, or stop existing-

Banks, the financial system, and collective economy are the realized bodies of labor credit, a biological abstraction that first arose as a facility of sociocognitive language. This value is as the grasshopper’s appetite and the compound chemical.

All-over hearing, The Reicher

- The more I think about them, the more unusual the harmonies seem to me- I think the rhythmic structures and timbral context permit these harmonies where they may have been too outstanding in earlier Western composition. [I was thinking specifically about The Desert Music(1984) here, which explicitly employed unusual harmonies]

- Reich’s melodic rhythms lean, their center of gravity wants little to do with the temporal structure of the measure. It is therefore common for those conditioned by western or pop rhythm to lose their place in the temporal structure, taken by one voice or the next, each line or group with its own unique center of gravity, (“unique”relative to the piece).

These “centers of gravity” are positioned by the unfolding of the line. They are in fact created, manipulated, and sustained by their unfolding. The genius of this is in striving towards an aural all-overness; if compartmentalized, the overall sound is generally still broad and usually coherent. The measures are pulsed across, not yielding the analytic source of time’s arrangement until the felt folds, formed as processes spread over many levels of the temporal hierarchy complete in unison.

Egg-time

Things, related in such a way as to be grouped into a ’system’, become, or in other words “are considered as” another thing. ["becomes..." = the moment of comprehension, initiated or held]

The sub-units of the system are themselves potential systems to be considered; all of them related via some shared pattern.

When cooking an egg, materials are rhythmically related, the heat propagating through the layers of material. The hand twists the dial, the element heats the pan, the pan cooks the egg. The subsystems, though ‘directly’ linked from our current perspective, don’t posses a 1:1 rhythm. The moments at each layer sweep differently through time. The moment of the knob’s twist is a gradual crescendo of heat from the perspective of the egg. The origins of each subsystem’s changes through time are shared, but to ponder the origin of a change from a perspective relative to a subsystem requires a notion of time relative to that system. Pan-time, egg-time, stove-time, cooking-time, heat-time. This last one a twist.

if madonna can write a kids book

for a short story: A landlord’s opulent house is densely surrounded by his tenants. For the tenants the winters are difficult to endure.

It is discovered that plumbing from tenant-building water heaters also runs out the walls in the direction of the landlord’s imposing castle.

patterns of coincidence, pissing near a cat

This afternoon Toad (a cat) was fascinated with the toilet and my pissing in it. Dangerously near the stream and unaware, I would push his head away, sometimes a desperate knee nudge, but to no avail. Later he returned, and I was suddenly confronted with an educational challenge and a bladder I was only growing in awareness of. I picked him up and put him across the bathroom, returned to pee- so did he. I picked him up and put him across the bathroom.

Because he didn’t return I thought about coincidence of stimuli, Burke and Pavlov’s Dogs. Learning is an impression of co-incidental patterns, rather, patterns of coincidence. It can take the form of simultaneous instances to be compared or simultaneous occurrences to be associated. Dissociation and distinction are one with these methods of memory (and are indissoluble from cognition).

Associations, in the form of neurons in the brain, are the key. Though there is not one neuron per one thought, because the cells are selectively connected they fire in associated groups. The genius is that any fringe link could well unite two or more associated groups, creating a framework. This is not even to say there is one associated group per idea. By fluttering through connections regularly, in quick repetition, slight to great changes in connections can take place, altering the nature of the idea and the direction of the thought. These flutterings are in multiple: new stimuli can be quickly arresting, breaking neural streams with degrees of influence not often seen in the slow massage of stored ideas.

The cortex is a relatively plastic place, but not all of the brain is without [hard coding] or some form of strongly encouraged direction/association. The more basic, deeply animal components are far more constant – take for example the optic nerve!