Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 13:48:56 +0200
Subject: Re: Remanences


remanence is a word borrowed from physics --the magnetic effect that  
endures in a ferro-magnetized field after the effect was purged -- but
it can have a fruitful chance --in spite of Sokal's warnings-- in the 
domain of thinking --philosophy, human sciences, especially           
filmmaking...                                                         
                                                                      
philosophically it refers to "images" which are nothing but the       
"traces" of a real corporeal-physical effect on a body... hence...    
Spinoza's "images" are nothing but "remanences"... And the culmination
of this philosophical interpretation of the term could be the formula:
"a perduring effect even when the cause is removed". Physics was      
capable to find it out in magnetic and electromagnetic fields         
--including what we simply call today as "registration" (magnetic,    
videographic, if not digital)... if we really believe in the          
importance of "registration" (as Foucault did, not only in the realm  
of the "physical"), such a concept could help to understand how       
"effects" remain even after "causes" are removed --and this not only  
"in laboratory conditions", but in real life...                       
                                                                      
the word is a Latinism, that means both a French and English word...  
accepted as a technical term... but to which, as we have seen, can    
correspond a "concept", provided that a philosophy is interested in...
                                                                      
                                                                      
ulus baker