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Ode to Man
Tho’ many are the terrors,
not one more terrible than man goes.
This one beyond the grizzled sea
in winter storming to the south
He crosses, all-engulfed,
cutting through, up from under swells.
& of the gods She the Eldest, Earth
un-withering, un-toiling, is worn down,
As the Twisting Plough’s year
into Twisting Plough’s year,
Through the breeding of horse, he turns.
& the lighthearted race of birds
all-snaring he drives them
& savage beasts, their clan, & of the sea,
marine in kind
With tightly-wound meshes spun
from all-seeing is Man.
Yet too, he masters by means of pastoral
beast, mountain-trodding,
The unruly-maned horse holding fast,
‘round the neck yoked,
& the mountain’s
ceaseless bull.
& the voice & wind-fast thought
& the passion for civic ways
He has taught, so from crag’s poor court
from under the ether’s hard-tossed arrows
To flee, this all-crossing one. Blocked, he comes
upon nothing so fated.
From Hades alone escape he’ll not bring.
Tho’ from sickness impossible
Flight he has pondered.
A skilled one, devising of arts beyond hope,
Holding at times an evil,
But then to the noble he crawls,
honoring the laws of the Earth, &
Of gods the oath so just,
high-citied.
Citiless is the one who with the un-beautiful
dwells, boldly in grace.
Never for me a hearth-mate
may he have been, never equal in mind
He who offers this.
Ode to Man
A BwO is made in such a way that it can be occupied, populated only by intensities. Only intensities pass and circulate. Still, the BwO is not a scene, a place, or even a support upon which something comes to pass. It has nothing to do with phantasy, there is nothing to interpret. The BwO causes intensities to pass; it produces and distributes them in a spatium that is itself intensive, lacking extension. It is not space, nor is it in space; it is matter that occupies space to a given degree—to the degree corresponding to
the intensities produced. It is nonstratified, unformed, intense matter, the matrix of intensity, intensity = 0; but there is nothing negative about that zero, there are no negative or opposite intensities. Matter equals energy. Production of the real as an intensive magnitude starting at zero. That is why we treat the BwO as the full egg before the extension of the organism and the organization of the organs, before the formation of the strata; as the intense egg defined by axes and vectors, gradients and thresholds, by dynamic tendencies involving energy transformation and kinematic movements involving group displacement, by migrations: all independent
of accessory forms because the organs appear and function here only as pure intensities. The organ changes when it crosses a threshold, when it
changes gradient. "No organ is constant as regards either function or position, . . . sex organs sprout anywhere,... rectums open, defecate and close, . . . the entire organism changes color and consistency in split-second adjustments." The tantric egg. After all, is not Spinoza's Ethics the great book of the BwO?
Ode to Man
But human power is extremely limited, and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes; we have not, therefore, an absolute power of shaping to our use those things which are without us. Nevertheless, we shall bear with an equal mind all that happens to us in contravention to the claims of our own advantage, so long as we are conscious, that we have done our duty, and that the power which we possess is not sufficient to enable us to protect ourselves completely; remembering that we are a part of universal nature, and that we follow her order. If we have a clear and distinct understanding of this, that part of our nature which is defined by intelligence, in other words the better part of ourselves, will assuredly acquiesce in what befalls us, and in such acquiescence will endeavour to persist. For, in so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which is true: wherefore, in so far as we have a right understanding of these things, the endeavour of the better part of ourselves is in harmony with the order of nature as a whole.
Thank you and yes, this is much of what I think blogging is good for also. I suppose I further think it’s therefore important not to chill the roughing-out process by demanding too much rigor in the blog context, but that’s a moving target.
Btw I found your analogy to software development in a later comment on that thread illuminating and well-targeted. I’m looking forward to Asher’s response.
Some people, the “software” types, actually find the de-bugging process to be stimulating, rather than “chilling”.
I should add as well, after a moment’s reflection, that the analogy should drift between “operating systems” and “software” to be more interesting or useful.
There’s a distinction of this sort between testing and debugging. A tester will report in pretty precise terms what is wrong and how it happens, but there is no direct report of what is wrong in the code. I have to “debug” the code to find the actual problem. And the test of the fix doesn’t evaluate the validity of the code change — it simply tests the behavior to make sure it’s spec. In some situations, I could fix the code in a totally heinous way to simply make it produce the expected result. Not that I ever do that.
A lot of programmers enjoy the (code) debugging process, and its associated small triumphs. It usually brings out the most competitive aspects of a team (“I found your bug”).
The analogy reminds me of Thomas Kuhn’s distinction between theoretical science and the “puzzle-solving” nature of what he calls “normal” science.
Is the suggestion here that philosophers are the “operating systems” type, who want the systems well-constructed at the most basic level?
Following the analogy, there is the sense that the operating sysem (unto software) or software (unto its products) is transcendent in some fashion, or structuring (depending on how you want to read it). But yes, there is a kind of “most basic level” thinking in most philosophical pre-occupation.
I wonder how far one can push the analogy. Do different philosophies, seen as operating systems, require different different CPUs, i.e., different realities? Or can different philosophies be written for the same underlying reality, in the way that Linux, Windows and MacOS all run on Intel processors?
And if you push it even further, do you get the idea of a “universal Turing machine” — a way of saying that one’s particular implementation of a theory does all the computations of truth that another theory does?
And maybe you even get something like a frustrating Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem affecting the ability to prove the consistency of the theoretical system.
Could it be that at this point we have pushed the analogy beyond the limit within which it seems useful?
I am thinking here of comparable situations, e.g., debates about string theory in physics. There, too, the “theory of everything” leaves open the question of how to retrace the path from the fundamentals to the messy emergent properties of chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, societies, culture, the blooming, buzzing confusion of everyday life.
I am also thinking of how one gets from Turing machines to machine code, Assembler, C++ or Python, Filemaker Pro or Access, or a database designed for one particular application, where the ontological issues (which entities to include and how to specify their relationships) arise at every stage in the process.
Guys, the thing to appreciate about analogies is that analogy is always also dysanalogy. The analogy to software design was itself an answer to a specific question, Carl’s intutional thought that all of philosophy is Science Fiction, and thus disputes between philosophical positions held almost no social cause merit. He was trying to balance this intuition, as it was informed by the position he take as a historial, with the obvious contribution philosophy has given (and continues to give) to the Social Sciences (if not the hard sciences themselves).
I think that before you take it apart (like good software engineers and good “software” engineers) that has to be kept in mind, it is an answer to a specfic question.
As for Turing machines and Godel, I think that software/OS of a philosophical system has to be measured within historical contexts. It is always doing more than just is stated aims. It is connecting hardware and persons, and social relations, aesthetic concerns, political dispositions and needs together. If we bring back Spinoza in a 3.0 version it is because today there are concerns facing us that faced Spinoza 1.0, though this will express itself in the evident truth of Spinoza when we study him, as if presenting the truth, i.e. Science and not Science Fiction.
I’m not following completely. Are you saying that the historical context affects whether Spinoza 1.0 == true?
No. I am saying that historical contexts determine whether determining if Spinoza 1.0 (or any other version of Spinoza or some other philosopher) is true is valuable.
This is a meta-opinion, because in THESE historical contexts, and AS a Spinozist of sorts, I consider the pursuit of Spinoza valuable, and so to a particular degree I cannot have access to the above statement.
For instance in the 18th/19th Century, during the Pantheism Controversy in Germany (Spinoza 2.0) determining whether Spinoza 1.0 was true was quite valuable. In the early 20th century probably much less so (though Einstein and Freud were no doubt influenced by Spinoza at this time). As a Spinozist do I think that pursuing the truth of Spinoza would have been helpful? I am bound by the internal vision of my investigation to say “yes”, but the answer also must be qualified. If the full materialiality of Spinoza is to be embraced then really as well, the circumstances and opportunities of truth-pursuit have to be taken into account. Truth does not simply bang its way home, it is conditioned.
Spinoza himself acceded to this I believe when he elected to publish his Theological-Political Treatise both Anonymously, and in Latin, despite the fact that some of his most radical friends were publishing in vernacular Dutch in the effort of liberation.
I do not consider the Ethics to be filled with Absolutely Adequate Ideas, under Spinoza’s own theorizing.
Okay, got it. I was looking at the Turing machine business in terms of the truth of the philosophical system itself, which kind of stretches the metaphor because the Turing machine = philosophical system idea refers to a “virtual” Turing machine running as software under a machine (the “hardware”) that is capable of containing truth.
That seems compatible with the idea that things like historical concepts would be relevant when deciding whether to “run” Spinoza.
What I’m wandering toward is really the idea of Turing completeness, which in this metaphor would not be so much about whether a philosophical system could “compute” truth at all, but whether A) a philosophical system could compute a particular “complete” set of truths; and B) whether various systems, possibly via totally different methods, could compute the same set of truths.
I like the idea of “running” Spinoza. By my reading this also is supported within Spinoza, which is to say, the entire process of studying the Ethics is meant as a pedagogical interaction. The truth ultimately is not found in the statements, but rather the interactions with the statements are meant to induce an intutional state of awareness, a kind of operating systems state by which truths function. (Just to riff on the idea.)
As for Turing machines, I have to say that computational or syntatical approaches to philosophy are analogical, and not grasping the process itself. I don’t find this path interesting, which isn’t to say that you shouldn’t pursue it. I just can’t help.
“The truth ultimately is not found in the statements, but rather the interactions with the statements are meant to induce an intutional state of awareness”
That is exactly where my analogy breaks down. If you can’t reduce the truth of a philosophical system to a series of statements (or, really, if you have to include the “user” at all), then I’ve done too much violence to the analogy for it to work.
But seeing where the edges are is helpful for me.
Well, experimenting with the idea (and this is not my path), closed systems are incomplete (Godel), therefore any truth-relation system must ultimately point outside of itself (which in Spinoza is the function of Intution). I think much of this is also expressed in the question of whether Spinoza is Cybernetic or Chaoplexic:
Which I entertain here: https://kvond.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/is-spinoza-a-cyberneticist-or-a-chaocomplexicist/
This is beyond your framework, perhaps, but the entire Cybernetic model is one of internal coherence pursuit in the context of external “noise”, drawing out meaningful differences in the world, and filtering out the supposedly meaningless ones. The Cybernetic model is computational and syntactic. But this is limited.
Good stuff, especially the part about the “edge of chaos” and Spinoza’s formulation of the Good. In the “marble” post I did recently, I was talking about a chaotic cellular automaton (rule 30), but there is an edge-of-chaos CA of the same sort (rule 110) that is Turing complete. Odd how things are connected sometimes.
It is easy to understand the desire not to be pushed beyond what we might call “the utility horizon,” the boundary beyond which fundamental knowledge ceases to be useful that I mention in my response to Asher.
It is not at all fair, I know, to query “the evident truth of Spinoza,” when, as a latecomer to the conversation, I haven’t read everything you’ve already written or, for that matter, Spinoza himself. Here, however, we encounter another utility horizon. Were I willing to disengage from my current research and invest the time to do this instead, I could, perhaps, ask fairer questions. Should I perhaps, instead, follow Wittgenstein’s advice and remain silent on matters on which I have nothing to say? Contributing in this way to the fragmentation of Internet-based conversation into cliques comprised of people who share hobbies and hobby-horses?
This is not a cynical, rhetorical question. What would Spinoza have to say?
Sorry, I don’t have much time John, but you seem to offer several questions, or degrees of one question and I”m not quite sure where to answer.
Here is one of my takes on why Spinoza should be studied:
https://kvond.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/why-spinoza/
Secondly, if Wittgenstein’s advice isn’t to pass into mere sloganing, it should be considered as part of his Early philosophy which had very strict thoughts about what could and could not be said.
Thirdly, the evident truth of Spinoza, or any philosopher, is the mode of investigation that happens within the horizon of its study.
Thanks for the link. The argument that you advance there, that Spinoza represents a path less taken that may now be especially timely as Decartes’ Mind-Body distinction gives way to growing concern with embodied minds, has for me a powerful appeal. But is it powerful enough, given my current situation, to draw me away from other projects to invest the time it would take to do Spinoza justice? No.
That “No” reflects no disrespect for the argument, whose appeal is sure to keep me dropping by to see what else you’ve come up with. It is simply a sober assessment of the fact that, to me, other projects in which I am currently invested (see my self introduction on Dead Voles) have a higher priority for me.
If I have any hints to offer, the best may be the advice of advertising legend David Ogilvy, who reminds us that we write for a changing parade, making it worthwhile to repeat the basic pitch from time to time. Who knows? If I come across that link again a year or two from now, I may have the time to follow where it leads. And, more importantly, in the meantime others may join the conversation.
I strongly suggest that you don’t give up whatever line of whatever study you are conducting, and really the same for most people. Spinoza is very difficult to deal with, and in fact in my opinion rather boring to read.
Thank you for being so understanding. The other side of my dilemma is that I find this site so visually attractive and the content so substantial that leaping in to the discussion is always a temptation. The marketing guy in me keeps thinking, “How could we break this content up in way that would make it easier to digest on the fly. The link to which you pointed me could, for example be summarized in a catch phrase,
Decartes, body and mind.
Spinoza, embodied mind.
The idea is not to cheapen or oversimplify the argument but, instead, to distill it in memorable chunks.
Embodied Mind is an interesting book you may like:
http://books.google.com/books?id=QY4RoH2z5DoC&dq=Varela+embodied+mind&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=szEdS9iHCozf8QaXksnWAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Varela’s Theories are not so distant from Spinoza