----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- Those are fascinating comments, John. I've been interested in scale-independence as a strategy of copying for a while. You find it in intriguing ways in Buddhism where you might have a Sutra, i.e. a teaching, that has a one word version, a 1000 word version, and a 100,000 word version ... and all are considered the same. But how/why? This relates to my earlier comments about the enigma of sameness, and the notion of non-sensuous similarity. In In Praise of Copying, one of the ways I approached this was through some of Morton Feldman's ideas about scale ... for Feldman, a large part of the creative process was deciding on what scale a deployment of certain elements starts to become powerful.
Could you say more about scale-independence as you're using the term? Sounds like a great dissertation ... what's the field of inquiry, if that isn't too intrusive a question? As for your last two lines: the sameness of the null set, or "nothing" is precisely what I mean by a non-identical sameness! But how do you see that operating in Douglas' book? best Marcus On 2014-06-13, at 1:19 PM, John Hopkins wrote: > ----------empyre- soft-skinned space---------------------- > >> figures like Alvin Lucier's physics mentor Edmond Dewan. And I get the core >> point about the natural history of media, and the ways in which what gets >> called "technology" as a human endeavor, is necessarily embedded in these >> natural strata -- geophysical energy, electromagnetic forces, and so on. > > Another strategy is to shift to scale-independence when considering EM > radiation -- or, more precisely, the idea that EM energy underlies all scales > of 'reality' as it is perceived by our body-systems as well as by all the > 'hearing', 'seeing' and other sensory instrumentation that we deploy to > provide us information about reality that our bodies cannot directly sense. > Another words, the nature of reality as we can model it here in words is > provided by EM radiation. And, ultimately, it is that narrow band of EM > radiation that we can directly perceive through which we determine our > complete impression of reality -- analog signals (energy) received by our > embodied configuration of energized matter. > > Furthermore, we are comprised by the fields and flows through which we > perceive: talk about the fish's conception of water! > > Technology may be framed as an applied re-configuration of energy (EM) flow > -- applied by humans who are themselves re-configurations of energy flows > that Life has 'imposed' on the cosmos. > > As I explore in my dissertation, "The Regime of Amplification", the > re-configurations are essentially the application of evolved protocols that > direct EM (energy) flows. From this point of view, widely divergent 'systems' > -- bio-systems, techno-social systems, self-organizing systems, geo-systems > -- may be more powerfully comprehended in their continuity with wider > phenomena (their complete embeddedness to all that surrounds them). No > phenomena is singular or unitary except by abstraction. > > Consider asking the question, from an old Cartesian pov: Where in the > universe is a 'space' that is not 'infused' with electromagnetic energy, or > is not comprised of EM energy? > > The answer is a null set: and this is what unifies all the chapters in > Douglas' book ... > > Cheers, > John > > -- > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD > taking Manhattan as Berlin isn't possible right now > http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/ > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > _______________________________________________ > empyre forum > empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au > http://www.subtle.net/empyre _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyre
