Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 22:00:38 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Schillerian extravaganza


Dear Dai,

Trying to respond to this, I keep cracking up, which is probably a
blessing in more ways than one. (Blissful blessings!)

Re your first point: the sperm and the egg are of course not 'inert',
and nowadays (with our extended sensory equipment) we can see inside the
womb and the fertilised egg, but the emergence of life and consciousness
- yes, that is only 'almost' before our eyes, and it's all
recapitulatively awe-inspiring, you're right.

I remember (c) very well. Imo it asserts the opposite of what you think,
viz. it asserts that the cause of the beginnings of 'our cosmos' *can*
be considered without vicious regress. But only 'our cosmos'. Beginnings
are irrelevant in the case of the '0'.

I think you're probably right about 'poly-remption'.

As for whether 

>O splits into +  and  -

and all the rest of it -
 
>the minimum case of non-flatness

(!!) I'm waiting for *Gary* (who started all this) and/or *James* to
give us the definitive answer. 

Meanwhile, I think

>by itself, neither + nor - is generative
>
>but they come together to form a transient O'

an *excellent* metaphor for emergence.

In Bhaskarese, I take it, 'identification' and 'disidentification' are
'disemergence' and 'emergence' respectively (when one goes from 1M to 2E
the positives and negatives are inverted).

I find the way you link gender to all this - very interesting. I've been
reading William Blake on and off, and he basically thinks the same.

I would add that your 'Feuerbachian moment' would seem to have been
definitively sublated. (What does Pierre - from the perspective of the
'0' - think of this? I think he should paint it happening.)

Mervyn

PS. Reminder to the list: we have an absent Factual Pierre now, in
addition to an absent Fictional one.



Dafydd Roberts <dafydd.r-AT-btinternet.com> writes
>on 1/3/01 10:14 pm, Mervyn Hartwig at mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk wrote:
> 
>>> Inputs of inert
>>> matter are transformed into consciousness almost before our very
>>> eyes...
>> 
>> I'm not sure what you mean by this - my fault probably ('inert' and
>> 'almost' are the stumbling blocks).
>
>"Inert" wasn't intended very technically but polemically, contrastively and
>relatively humorously:
> 
>for mothers eat food that isn't alive (generally), derived from rocks and
>gases and from other things derived from rocks and gases, and produce
>therefrom babies that consume more gas, more liquids and solids derived from
>rocks and gases, look into Mummy's eyes, develop in a social context and
>before you know it you have a Bhaskar, not in aeons but in a decade or two
>or three...
>
>though as Pierre says (you remember my partner the painter) when people
>remark that he's charging thousands of pounds for a few days' work, he says
>"That painting took me fifteen years."
>
>Thus the ontogenetic recapitulation of phylogeny recapitulates not only
>(supposedly) the  evolution of the taxon  but much more dramatically the
>development of life and consciousness themselves (PHEW!).
>
>"Almost" before our eyes only because quite literally we don't quite see it
>- not inside the womb, and not then inside the brain that embodies the
>developing consciousness. We don't see it, yet we each live it.
>
>                                **********
>
>Now I'll go completely dotty.
>
>(c) - remember (c) ? - (c) asserts that the cause of the beginning cannot be
>considered, but the last line of the note seems to propose, that whatever
>its cause, in the case of a Schillerian generation ex nihilo, if we have to
>do with genesis not by classic (dyadic) di-remption but by
>polyadic-fissuring (which I take to mean poly-remption, if the barbarism can
>be forgiven - which I take as the co-causal, co-constitutive multiplication
>of beings in space and time on the analogy of subjectivisation)
>
> - THEN -
>
>this dialectic has a minimum 5-term structure.
>
>Now, if we were to follow the notion of primary polyadization even further,
>and consider the original diremption of a harmonious original plenitude into
>two opposing but complementary and inevitably un-self-subsistent qualities,
>we might have
>
>O splits into +  and  -
>
>if + and - fuse again (temporarily) they form an (transient, vanishing) O'
>which splits again into +' and -'
>
>but the movement from  O' to +'  or  -' is actually carried out through a
>process of identification/disidentification with + and -
>
>so we have (excuse me, I've only just made this up!)
>
>                          0
>                        [+-]
>
>
>
>             +                        -
>
>                        [O']
>
>+' (= ++-- = +-  = O)      -' (= +- -+  = -+  = O)
>
>
>                        [O"]
>
>by which I mean that
>
>+ is generated by disidentification with -
>
>- is generated by disidentification with +
>
>by itself, neither + nor - is generative
>
>but they come together to form a transient O'
>
>which undergoes a process of
>
>a) identification with +
>  & disidentification with -   to give +  (which is ++, --)
>
>or
>
>b) disidentification with +
>
>and identification with -   to give - (which is -+, +-)
>
>
>(where disidentification also means desire and identification disavowed
>desire.)
>
>Here, perhaps, we have a 5-term dialectic of gender and generation, of
>gender (spatial) distinction and fusion and generational (temporal,
>generator/generated) identification and disidentification, 2 genders and 2
>generations, 4 typical individuals always returning to O, the absent origin
>O, and issuing out from it again.
>
>This would be the minimum case of non-flatness.
>
>Now imagine starting with more than 2 qualities, and more possibilities of
>relation than disidentification and identification, and that the
>recombination of the progeny (so variously and multiply formed) produced
>emergent novelty upon novelty, each with distinctive possibilities for
>relation, reproduction and change...
>
>I appreciated your kind remarks, Mervyn, but now look what you've done by
>encouraging me...
>
>Hoping this makes sense / gives pleasure to someone,
>
>Goodnight all,
>
>Dafydd
>
>Dafydd Roberts,
>28 Huntingdon Street, London N1 1BS
> 
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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