[syndicate] notes like i used to write and some pictures for joy

[Alan Sondheim]

Notes from the Structure of Reality


In my Structure of Reality (which is under review), there are three funda-
mental layers to what I call the 'topology of intention'; these are of
interest since they critique any structuring, conscious or unconscious,
'like a language.' The layers are the real, interpretation, and language;
there is a 'zone' between the real and interpretation, and mappings all
across the layers. The real is knowable through interpretation which does
not presuppose language (syntactics, sememe); the mappings are tight, how-
ever, between interpretation and language. One might think of this as a
pre-linguistic representation without the thwarting embodiment of lan-
guage. You can see this at work when the 'unnamed' of the real skews into
anomaly - in other words, when anomaly appears without the aegis of lang-
uage. Consider for example something falling without the presence of an
ostensible object; the 'something falling' might be construed as such by a
thud or less-interpretable sound. Repeat this enough and a name is gener-
ated; if it remains on the level of a singularity or the anecdote, it
might be quickly forgotten - except for the possibility of a marker of
some sort, for example, a recording.

Heinz von Foerster: "Since nothing in the environment corresponds to
negation, negation as well as all other 'logical particles' (inclusion,
alternation, implication, etc.) must arise within the organism as a
consequence of perceiving the relation of itself with respect to its
environment." (From "Thoughts and Notes on Cognition.") SoR p. 69

Cyclical chains sailing past O and I - maybe modeling through the tangent
function. Is the repetition assumed to be 'complete'? A cyclical chain is
a loop with any number of nodes; think of one as nul, O, and another or
the same as universal, I. Then circle. What happens? One moves from 0
through infinity perhaps then back again. The simplest equation here:
tangent. Each revolution is marked perhaps by sliding along the x-axis:
equivalent but not identical graphs. And so we're there. We can visit as
many times as we like.

Does distributivity really fail w gesture? (The old Land experiments in
color vision as well as a structural analysis of gesture seem to imply
that distributivity in Aristotelian logic fails in daily life - which
further implies the potential for superimposition as the basis for a logic
of gesture.)

The thinness of language - ontologically existing on the level of the
sheave - language carries no weight at all. From within the avatar, the
sheaves, surfaces, have zero-width, one-pixel width, nul-width, as 2d
mathematical manifolds embedded within 3d space; they've all got the same
measure as the continuum, but zero volume in the embedding space - like-
wise language has zero volume.

Language, speaking, is always frustrated, flustered. It can't get around
things. Meaning: One can't get around things through language, not even
through performatives (which indicate real-material embodiment elsewhere).

Meditation medication goes nowhere.

Aristotle's Problems - sexual problems related to fluidity, abjection, in
part iv - numbers pp 327-328, Loeb edition. The beginning of the fifteenth
book is of great interest - he describes number systems with different
bases which is fascinating given the apparent absence of zero.

Conservancy of the Problems, Bacon of all people working through them
almost two thousand years later; not that much had changed. The Problems
are on the level of the anecdote - curiosity cabinet, wonders - same as
any fundamentalist text - wonder upon wonder without internalized
structure or subtext - everything is new, raw, unrelated. Or causality is
pushed back into categories which are taken for granted, even though, like
heat or air, they're composite.

What is meant by modeling? Think of a 'world-particle' W whose scope is
anything, process, etc.: W( ... ). what does that tell us? What are the
processes of narrowing the scope, increasing the information - in other
words filtering?

Along these lines, modeling is always a filtering.

Four negations: annihilation, -x s.t. --x > x; 'chain negation' s.t. -x >
y; -y > z or whatever; combinations of these; negative of the 'set-aside'
- form of retrievable absence.

States and nodes of graphs represented/mapped into states and nodes of
graphs - this includes the possibility of 'foreign' graphs which are
disruptive. The whole becomes an excursion into description rather than
explanation, which is seen as a subset.

There should be limited copies of the Structure of Reality online/offline
- dates from 1977, I wasn't a child.

10 linked images:

http://www.asondheim.org/linked01.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked02.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked03.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked04.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked05.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked06.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked07.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked08.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked09.jpg
http://www.asondheim.org/linked10.jpg