Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 06:39:10 +0100 Subject: from meat to eternity (and beyond...) From: michaelP <michael-AT-sandwich-de-sign.co.uk> > This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. --MS_Mac_OE_3134702351_289946_MIME_Part Jud the meat: > Meat questions because it is a questioning meat, and not a non-questioning > meat. Michael: why? why questions if just meat? what purpose, meatwise, purely meatwise, does questioning serve for meat-qua-meat? Jud: Why is human meat (for it is of course human meat that is characterised as a questioning meat) questioning rather than a non-questioning meat? That seems to be the pivotal thrust of your message below, which is fugue-like in its insistent interpellating peckings and repetitive forms and thematic ingeminates both above and below the pentad stave of its first statement. This is no criticism for, the questioning of questioning meat is the most amazing phenomena of the universe as we know it, and is far more exciting as a question to excogotate than the possibility of the existence of some irritable desert God who hides in burning bushes and speaks privately on mountaintops. Michael: And the basic thrust of Jud's response to the fugal question of why meat-qua-meat questions (beings, being, its ownmost being) seems to be that it is an amazing phenomenon, i.e., an element of pure facticity, an example of 'the-way-things-are', i.e., there is no reason for it, i.e., Jud does not reason the why of my question, but just repeats what is in question ({human} meat questions), i.e., he refuses to think as philosophic meat does and is but simply and complexly points to the always already of thinkerly meat that has always questioned in order to be what it is, i.e., human. Jud: As I write this I am reminded of a scene from the famous Speilberg/Arthur.C Clarke [he who wrote it] movie, with the background music of Thus Spake Zarathrustra [I think] with the man-apes throwing the rib-bones tools/weapons in the air, which due to the brilliance of the American special effects team was transformed into a space station encircling the earth. Why did the meaty man-ape take the bone from the floor where it had lain whitening for years and raise it above its meaty head to bring it crashing down first on the other bones to extract the marrow and then on the head of an aggressor to drive him away from his females? Michael: Must correct here: '2001: A Space Odyssey' was directed by the brilliant Stanley Kubrick and not the clever cosey popman Speilberg (who could never ever have directed 2001). More importantly, the event, happening that preceded the moment that seemed to define (perhaps, confine?) the ape as human, was the appearance, nay, appearing, of the monolithic block, (accompanied by the extraordinary music of Ligeti of massed voices of almost unbearable violent beautiful intensity). This event (ereignis?) occurs three times in the film, marking a radical discontinuity, a cleavage in the being of human and human history/destiny. The dispute we see with the other apes not visited by the gift of the dark towering monolith was more to do with water rights than sexual rivalry. The important point for me is that the ape could have stared at the bone, bashed it on the other bones or rocks for a billion years and not put two and two together (---> language (thinking/questioning) ---> tools ---> technology, etc) without the visitation, the gift of the appearing of the monolith (so rectangular, so precise, so crafted... so frightening). That Kubrick accompanies this resulting cleavage of the ape (now differing, differencing itself, as human) with Richard Strauss' 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', and thus associates the happening with Nietzche's masterpiece, the story of elliptic (be)coming of the ubermench, only serves brilliantly to emphasise the discontinuous momentousness of the moment that has become, for us long since, a cinematic icon. In terms of the question of the questioning in this discussion, the visitation of the monolith perhaps transforms the ape-just-ape (meat) into the apeman (human) -- some being both more and less than just-meat, some being that both exceeds and grounds meat. The question that has bothered me for decades since the appearing of '2001' can be articulated thusly: did the ape need to be already human in order to accept the gift the monolith gives? (or was the gift the gift of humanity to the ape(s)?) Jud: The answer in my ever so humble opinion was so that he could be left in peace to shag the females and that the limited food supplies would be available to his troop so that he and the others and the impregnated mothers would survive to ensure that his DNA would survive and multiply and repeat itself down the millennia like one of Michael's interpellating fugues. Interval: "Music Maestro! The Straussean Waltz [an early and far more decorous forerunner of postmodernist rap] goes something like this.: Sing along to the tune of: Dah dah dah - dah-da dah-da - dah da - dah-da etc, 1) Why did he pick up the bone? - To beat off rivals. Why beat off rivals? - to achieve sexual dominance. Why desire sexual dominance? To ensure genetic immortality. Why desire genetic immortality? Because I wish to live forever. Why want to live forever? Because...er... nature wants me to Why does nature want you to live forever? Er...don't know...Michael...help...? Over to you Michael for your non-meaty opinion. Michael: It seems to me that Jud has assumed, but not articulated, the answer to the question of questioning in answering with such as: rivalry, sexual dominance, genetic perpetuation, etc, and an appeal to "what nature wants" (!) -- none of which actually answers the question concerning questioning. He can assume the answer only because he is human and not just meat, which begs the question lying in the gulf, the void, the cleavage in being between animal (meat) and human (not-just-meat). regards michaelP --MS_Mac_OE_3134702351_289946_MIME_Part
HTML VERSION:
> Meat questions because it is a questioning meat, and not a non-questioningMichael:
> meat.
why? why questions if just meat? what purpose, meatwise, purely meatwise, does questioning serve for meat-qua-meat?Jud:
Why is human meat (for it is of course human meat that is characterised as a questioning meat) questioning rather than a non-questioning meat? That seems to be the pivotal thrust of your message below, which is fugue-like in its insistent interpellating peckings and repetitive forms and thematic ingeminates both above and below the pentad stave of its first statement. This is no criticism for, the questioning of questioning meat is the most amazing phenomena of the universe as we know it, and is far more exciting as a question to excogotate than the possibility of the existence of some irritable desert God who hides in burning bushes and speaks privately on mountaintops.Michael:
As I write this I am reminded of a scene from the famous Speilberg/Arthur.C Clarke [he who wrote it] movie, with the background music of Thus Spake Zarathrustra [I think] with the man-apes throwing the rib-bones tools/weapons in the air, which due to the brilliance of the American special effects team was transformed into a space station encircling the earth. Why did the meaty man-ape take the bone from the floor where it had lain whitening for years and raise it above its meaty head to bring it crashing down first on the other bones to extract the marrow and then on the head of an aggressor to drive him away from his females?Michael:
The answer in my ever so humble opinion was so that he could be left in peace to shag the females and that the limited food supplies would be available to his troop so that he and the others and the impregnated mothers would survive to ensure that his DNA would survive and multiply and repeat itself down the millennia like one of Michael's interpellating fugues.
Interval: "Music Maestro!
The Straussean Waltz [an early and far more decorous forerunner of postmodernist rap] goes something like this.:
Sing along to the tune of: Dah dah dah - dah-da dah-da - dah da - dah-da etc,
1) Why did he pick up the bone? - To beat off rivals.
Why beat off rivals? - to achieve sexual dominance.
Why desire sexual dominance? To ensure genetic immortality.
Why desire genetic immortality? Because I wish to live forever.
Why want to live forever? Because...er... nature wants me to
Why does nature want you to live forever? Er...don't know...Michael...help...?
Over to you Michael for your non-meaty opinion.
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