The Great Mirror
“It is a language game” = df. “It is time to say goodbye to the Truth Crystal”. What I mean by this, is that there is room for interpretation. The misunderstanding is part of properly grasping the rule and applying it. Noise allows for communication. Distance creates the conditions for a re-establishing of communication, it’s transcription onto a higher plane of consciousness. Language games must be utilized effortlessly, they are deployed through the lower, more powerful and unconscious faculties of the mind. Effort, ego, work and strain are the ruin of ones ability to participate in language games of strategy and tactics.
What does logic do to language? It takes a proposition; “She likes me” and abbreviates it; [“She likes me” = S]. Afterwards, logic assigns a ‘truth value’ to the abbreviated proposition; [S v-S] = df. Either S is true, or it is false; “either she likes me, or she does not”. According to logic, language can be translated into a binary system. The binary system can later be calculated by adding up the 1’s and 0’s and manipulating them mathematically. Logic distorts the essence of language, it creates an illusion of stability.
Truth is concealed in language and by language. It can be made somewhat visible through an inventive use of words. Certain crystalline structures are hidden within linguistic formations. The spoken and written words are no more than thoughts materialized, smudged, tainted. The material side of language is what triggers objective events in the world. People are governed through a strategic, violent or subversive use of language which shows no regard for the thought in its purity, but only for the outcome of things. The latter is essentially used to command, either in explicit or concealed forms. The former is not used in any particular way, it is an attempt to clear away all misunderstandings and achieve as much clarity as possible.
To care for oneself and to look and see things for what they truly are. The truth of the self. Truth runs parallel to and traces itself along the path to oneself and the essence of things. The philosopher cares for truth, by caring for herself. And by caring for herself she searches for the truth of the self. The self provides the most direct access to truth.
We acquire the concept ‘hiccup’ when we acquire language. Words that refer to physical sensations are always already known by definition in virtue of what it means to feel pain, pleasure etc. Language only makes them possible to express and communicate. There are social dimensions of pain as well as personal ones. Yet, this distinction is impossible. The social dimension of sensation is what allows me to fully understand my own sensations and therein lies the paradox. For what is my own is not public, but what is my own is truly so only in virtue of my fully comprehending it and full comprehension of the private implies its opposite; a certain public comprehension. My ability to refer to myself in the third person.
Most of psychoanalysis deals with latent concepts. Neurosis is reducible to these, the concepts that the psyche refuses to acknowledge due to their “perverse” nature. The various symptoms of neurosis are therefore the workings of a conscience. A self-censorship of the soul prevents one from accessing the hidden energies locked away deep down within the unconscious. Alternatively, neurosis is an expenditure of useless energy; an internal discipline, dedicated to keeping the unconscious thoughts, the latent concepts hidden or repressed. Whether one ought to access these forces is a great ethical question, that is often decided for us by the state and its various manifestations: the law, the public, the family, the corporation etc.
Dazzled by the military-industrial and commercial dimensions of science, we tend to forget the conceptual simplicity which underlies all technical scientific rigor. Beneath the complexity of laboratory experiments, data analysis, various computer simulations and woven theories there lies a simple practice of observation, agreement, documentation and summary. What is most dazzling about science, is also the most trivial, if not altogether harmful.
When Wittgenstein writes that he either wants, needs or in some other sense attempts to solve philosophical problems, he is already within a philosophical language-game. Philosophical problems are unlike any other problems; as puzzling as they might be, they are not puzzles. This would be the underlying difference between scientific and philosophical endeavors. Nevertheless, problems do get solved as a result of philosophical activity. The result is not a collection of solved problems; the result is their complete dissolution. The philosopher engages with philosophy, because she cannot help it.
If insanity could be described as a feeling, it would doubtless be sickness. Something that would have to do with the stomach, the intestines and the nerves that connect the central nervous system with the linings of the gut. A sick soul would be particularly fearful of its own bodily functions, especially the orifices. The so called “boundaries” of the organism, the system. A certain nervousness which manifests organically, forcing the body to poison itself using its own strange toxins. The soul can become a torture chamber for the body. A delicate interplay of exposure and isolation can reduce many symptoms. Physical exercise, an aesthetics of the body. Violent imagery must only be used to counterbalance the internal disturbances of the soul and to give concrete expression to the otherwise murky, unidentified feeling of nausea. The demon must always, so to speak, be named before it is driven away. Same applies to unpleasant looking and strange smelling foods. One must take into account the architecture and one’s immediate surroundings. Certain spaces can induce melancholic thoughts or feelings of abandonment. A stroll in the park and a proper meal. Meditation; one must always be ready to drive away negative imagery that often spews from the unconscious for no real reason. One must fall victim neither to the mind nor the body. Replace mindless racing thoughts with mindful thinking, replace thoughtless chatter with full speech, replace anxious scurrying with meditative walking.
Full speech.
Thought stripped of words and words like sparks
ignite the truth akin to lightning form a picture.
Compared to truth, we’re all strange creatures.
It happens in a sweep.
Consonant chords of a sentence well formed and transparent.
It must have depth and harmony with resonance,
firm and just is my deliverance.
First impulse from above,
the higher thus comes down and speaks the truth
through lightning words and lighted swords
that glimmer language,
with structure never changing.
The objects ever rearranging, gauging the reality.
A Picture formed of lightning sparks,
with speech that’s full.
This is my art,
a speech that’s null.
Nothing.
Always present.
Originally published at https://tractatus07.wordpress.com on April 18, 2019.
