from www.wikipedia.org
* The 17th century writer Jonathan Swift mocked the idea of self-similarity in natural philosophy with the following ditty:
"So nat'ralists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller fleas that bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum."
* Which was itself parodied by the Victorian era mathematician Augustus De Morgan:
"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on."
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6 comments:
Cool.
And in response to previous comments, I tend to think that we know the flea is on us, but may be as the flea in not fully conceiving of what we are on.
Yet I have faith in a flea, so I also tend to lean towards thinking that the flea is fully aware of what it is on.
And as per Swift, similarity is undeniable, unless of course it is the trick of the mind to find similarity in difference.
Yet I would also say that difference is difference, wherever it is found, and maybe knowing difference is what helps us conceive of similarity.
It is the nothing that we now need to understand; how to reach into it, how to interact with it.
In hopefully making a convoluted connection to this further on:
I have been reading a book on moral realism by Paul Bloomfield, where he builds an moral ontology on the concept of health.
His argument is this, that there are things in the world that are unobservable, and that are not causal, yet they very much exist. As an example, he gives life, or health, saying that life, or our vitality, is something that is unobservable, and not needed for causal explanations. Simply ask yourself what health is? Who is healthy, by what measure? Yet we very much know that it is there. Truly, a radical non-realist or post-modernist cannot deny their own vitality - i.e., you gonna die mofo!
Yet in being unobservable, and in not being needed for causal explanation, one you can explain the workings of muscles, of actin filaments contracting, without necessitating a notion of 'life' or anything 'vital'.
He claims that morality is one of these types of things.
So there is being in the world in a way that is non observable (to us at least), and un-causal, but very much real.
This I would argue is the type of being that goldStar intimates when talking about the no real of the real, or the logic of no logic, embodied in the noMan.
(Forgive me if my interpretation is incorrectly correct.)
:)
So bringing it back, I think as flea, we are now onto that which is not observable and not causal, but still very much real, and thus part of our world.
I know I can do things with it. For those who know the details of my rubric, the distal enhance is one example.
And it goes on... thank you for your time and patience.
I just read that over, and I don't think that I've made my case yet.
Health, what is it? Is it about your heart rate? Is it about your weight? What about your genes? And what about the fact that health is recognised differently all around the world?
Yet a boundary is quickly reached, in that however conventional and relative it may be, you die (at the very least the flesh does), and this is an undeniable thing.
Yet you don't need a notion of vitality to explain any aspect of health and/or its component part. Let's say measuring blood pressure is a marker for health. Differences in BP can be (partly) explained by changes in the endocrine system, and at its most reductionist, in terms physics qua fluid dynamics. So again, nothing needed other than mechanics as explanation, and if you ask what about the endocrine system, well, that's simply a series of chemical pathways that I can pretty much reproduce in a test tube.
But can I?
Well, now we're back to these undeniable and pesky unobservable things that are not causal, meaing that they are not needed in explanation (i.e., an unhealthy BP is not caused by a lack or loss of vitality, it is caused by physiological reactions to stress, by hardening of the arteries and thus a constriction in vessel diameter and with a constant volume, pressure must go up, etc)
And morality is this very thing, both conventional and relative, but something very much needed to understand and to 'be' in life.
And now that some of you are still reading...
:)
I think society is one of these unobservable (at least not directly), un-causal things in the world. So not directly observable and not needed for causal explanation, yet why can't I run in the mall screaming bloody murder like I want to? Why can't I walk through a fast food window and be denied service for not having a car? Why do I stop at the stop light in the middle of nowhere, with no one to be seen for miles?
'Til next time nerds.
"Why do I stop at the stop light in the middle of nowhere, with no one else for miles around?"
That should be the title of a GREAT show of art currently on at the label-- one bluemask has hung his last few years of art, and it's pretty durned impressive. If my camera was working i'd show you all some pics.
p.s. my fave pieces in the bluemask show are the "family" ones.
I really liek your writing here Carlos. Presenting an idea(s) with formal language while injecting the occaisional "you gonna die mofo" makes it quite palatable. I laughed, I cried...perfect.
PS. I read it all.
=)
a good portion of people are still unaware that they have fleas.
and for the record books, "Why do I stop at the light in the middle of nowhere,with no one else for miles around?" IS the title of the Waterman Workshop now. :)
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