Pic-A-Day: Location

Fragility of Position


Path: Ode to Klee

Paradigm Shift: Quantum Philosophy

From an article about Quantum Philosophy.:

"Other philosophers call for a sea change in our very modes of thought. After Einstein introduced his theory of relativity, ... 'we threw out the old Euclidean notion of space and time, and now we have a more generalised notion.' Quantum theory may demand a similar revamping of our concepts of rationality and logic, Bub says. Boolean logic, which is based on either- or propositions, suffices for a world in which an atom goes either through one slit or the other, but not both slits. "Quantum mechanical logic is non-Boolean," he comments. " Once you understand that, it may make sense." Bub concedes, however, that none of the so-called quantum logic systems devised so far has proved very convincing."

"A different kind of paradigm shift is envisioned by Wheeler.The most profound lesson of quantum mechanics, he remarks, is that physical phenomena are somehow defined by the questions we ask of them. " This is in some sense a participatory universe," he says. The basis of reality may not be the quantum, which despite its elusiveness is still a physical phenomenon, but the bit, the answer to a yes-or-no question,which is the fundamental currency of computing and communications. Wheeler calls his idea "the it from bit. Following Wheeler's lead, various theorists are trying to recast quantum physics in terms of information theory..."

Yawn: More than being tired or bored.

Discovery news suggests yawning is a response to brain temperature.

Accessibility in Art

Remembering back, I had a professor once who proposed that a piece of conceptual art -- leaving pieces of paper with partial quotes in subway cars and on buses for random strangers to pick up and posting copies of the quotes on a gallery wall with explanatory text of "the project" -- was more accessible to viewers/an audience than a "classically" representational figurative painting.

His premises? As I understood, accessing the figurative painting required awareness of the history and lines of development of representational figurative painting to really "get" the painting (beyond seeing it as a pretty picture) since the painting referenced Balthas, who referenced ..., etc, on back in time, while the piece of conceptual art did not suffer from the need to have awareness of the past and make connections to it. The reference within reference within reference was true of the particular painting that he used as an example. To a degree, painting does promote an "in the know" insularity: we can be part of the special club that can pat themselves on the back from getting it, our breadth of exposure and knowledge being greater than that of most others. However, a painting can be received on its own terms as much as a collection of posted quotes, and since the painting may at least be visually interesting, more so. In any case, to get the irony, even the one line kind, of much of conceptual art, we must be in on the references illustrated, whether the references are artistic or philosophical or political or cultural or consumerist snippets.

I thought of the professor's distinction as I was reading commentary by Matthew Collings on Clement Greenberg's birthday, written with an insider's tone of disdain, particularly this comment: "Even the art writers who produce small-audience, faux-intellectually rigorous magazines such as 'October' in America or 'Texte Zur Kunst' in Germany are nurtured pets of society not its opponents. The aim of these publications is power within a certain morally unassailable context, the university being its main institution. The aim of the circle of writers connected to each of these magazines is not to define an alternative world but to caress and polish certain long established creeds of alterity, congratulating themselves (like shallow versions of medieval scholastics) on ever more subtle and pointless re-castings of what they and their friends already know."

Neo-Fill In The Blank

“Neo”, beyond short hand utility of demarking that time has come between, imparts oppositional value judgments:

- It can be pejorative, suggesting that the rediscovery pales in comparison to that which is being rediscovered (mannerism).

- It can be abusive suggesting a connection that does not really exist.

- It can be neutral, simply demarking that some kernel of what is being offered up rests on something that came before it.

- Or it can be affirmative, suggesting a “new” and presumably interesting take on ideas that came before while skipping over a presumptively unsatisfying in-between period a practitioner/critic doesn’t want to be associated with or connected to.

Minding the apparent gap(s) -- most things being dismissed still operate outside the spotlight -- what is “neo” is still a continuation – even if it drives the rediscovered idea/approach either to absurdity or to banality. For those content to accept the absurdity and banality and leave it at that, the vacuum is filled by arbitrariness for which the authority of power offers the only validation presumptively available. For those who don’t accept the absurdity and banality, it would seem the attack shouldn’t be against a term. Rather, the attack should consider what underlying misperceptions/misconceptions might have led to the absurdity or banality, which requires looking at the apparent continuum and its premises.

The ontological continues to be worth taking on rather than illustrated.

Macro: There Is Meaning

Sometimes it feels like we (a cultural, intellectual, perhaps pseudo intellectual we) tired of perceptions unfolding with the movement of the observer and deconstructed simultaneity into meaningless. Before the hey day of relativism, duality was tangled with, but accepted -- and not as rendering the concept of truth meaningless (we can't really know anything, so nothing means anything). Two sides of a coin. Death helps one understand life, or at least the brevity of life (mortality) helps one appreciate the experience of life, come what may afterward.

We have very few real paradigmatic shifts like the one that accompanied modernism (or more particularly, Cezanne, cubism, etc) … we remain subsumed in the age in which relativism/relationships and acute awareness of the limitations of the observer is the underlying operative framework for our thinking about meanings. Still, on the macro day to day level in which we generally operate, ordinary cause and effect has meaning, at least to the the ones who feel the effects: it can't be disregarded. With out the intervention of a surgeon (and perhaps even with it), a bullet to the heart will kill.

Is it possible we are unable to fully articulate/comprehend a universal that nonetheless exists? Can we judge one construct against another without the need for a universal truth? It's easy enough to spout everything is relative, all constructs devolve into power battles, and none is worse or better than the other since there is no universal reality/truth against which to judge the constructs or principles underlying the constructs. But is it really so that some constructs in practice don't leave more people better off than do other constructs long term? Or that some don't offer more mobility to change position than others, as beyond the construct makers who would put themselves in a position of privilege, one does not know beforehand what position one will occupy in a given construct? Or that some constructs do not require ignoring cause and effect (at least probabilistic cause and effect) on a macro level?

If every "reality" we experience/occupy is a construct, with no standard to judge one construct against the other, I'd suggest there are means of questioning the utility, if nothing else, of the construct. Does the construct denies cause and effect on a macro level? What is the construct's internal consistency: does it meet the values it purports to elevate or does it simply devolve into hypocrisy?

Pic-A-Day: Patterns