Reply to a Friend:

I don't know much about philosophy, but I do know a thing or two about boxes. Boxes have an inside and they have an outside. In order to be a box, the inside must have an opening to the outside but also must have sides and a bottom to keep objects placed within from sliding out or falling through. It may also have a top, and of course a'' this implies a general understanding of use that includes a right-wise orientation. It is also important to note that these sides and bottom aren't inside or outside the box, though they have inside and outside faces.

You mentioned something about the reality of the external world [independent of the internal] and, I would think, things hold quite the same in this case. I suppose using this metaphor would mean that the body constitutes the sides of the box, with there being an inside face to the body and an outside face. To grossly simplify, the body (or, really, the brain) is a kind of box of electrical waves that are both generated spontaneously within, but also through the senses where wave patterns in external media converted to concomitant waves in the brain. For example, sound waves are converted to electrical waves through the ear, which within itself creates a kind of artificial lake for our still very amphibian hardware to translate the patterns within. However, one can say that these brain waves, too, are externalized in that they are physical processes theoretically observable to humans--even to the human itself who is under view.

It would seem, then, that it is physical reality that is external, and the sensory that is internal. The sides of the box that are external would be the sensing body, and the internal face would be the sensed body. Except that we can hardly locate that sensory experience within a particular physical space; and, indeed, under this dualism we would have to say that it is non-physical, and hence non-localizable, and hence not a spatial thing that we could understand as inside or outside or possessed of faces. It will be protested that this is just a metaphor, but I'd like to hear just what the problem is if we try to talk about this matter (whatever the matter is) without resorting to the metaphor. Yet this seems precisely what we do: we apply the logic of space to the non-spatial.

In light of this, I would humbly forward a recommendation for general consideration: perhaps if we can fold the mind into a box, we could also perform a kind of mental origami and, with skill, do other shapes as well. If we can fold our minds into a box, perhaps we can fold them into a crane as well, or a ship upon the sea. Such is one of shaman's arts: mind-space origami. To fold these shapes so that he is not a passive hole into which the world flows, all flow, into the something I know not what; but to relate to sense as a flying-aloft, moving by its currents, moving amongst its currents. Not as a jet engine but with graceful wings. Maybe, even, we could be unfurled as a sail, to be folded and unfolded, waving in the current.

The only hard shape to get out of is the fold of infinite regress. The worst thing you can try to do is create a box that internalizes the external, or externalizes the internal--the box that eats itself and everything else; the box that would have but one face, facing the abyss (what Deleuze and Guattari describe as the system of the white wall and black hole.) This is the very definition of black magic, and is the cause of the systematic error that is appearance/reality. Sensation never lies, and it never trades in wholes or parts. It is only when that sense is cut off from the sensed by the schematic of an infinitely regressing frame that it can be isolated as an image, doubled over, compared to its unknowable reality (which can never be the thing but only ever be the empty regressing frame)--and come up short.

A story from a people in a distant future.

Once a horrible Tree grew upon the Earth. Its roots crushed and strangled the life that was there before it; they extracted all that was good and clean from the Earth; they excreted poison that killed everything else that grew. Its bows shaded out all other life; obscured the night sky, and the minds of man and beast until nothing could be seen except the tree. Its fruit was sweet but poisonous and all who ate of it became ill; all continued to eat of its sweet fruit was bound to die. Only the one trunk was permitted to reach for great heights, at the cost of all else. But eventually the tree made the Earth too poor and arid to support it. The Tree, which could only grow became sick itself. And the Great Mycelium began to tear into its roots; tear into its bows; tear into its trunk. The Tree fought The Great Mycelium, tried to drive it out, tried to poison its spores, but the Tree's might was failing for it had become sick, and The Great Mycelium grew deeper and deeper into the Tree. But the Tree would shed whole branches and limbs and bows and tap roots to purge itself of the Great Mycelium's growth; all in vain, for The Great Mycelium would always start again in another place from spores. And The Great Mycelium decayed The Tree; made The Tree's roots soft and crumbly; Released back into the Earth the nurtents that had been locked up in the Tree; made clean the poisons the Tree excreted ; defoliated the sky blocking branches, and opened the skys; shriveled its fruit; Fell its trunk. And when the trunk landed on the Earth The Great Mycelium did bloom with life and prosperity. When the Tree was at its might it gathered up all that was good on the Earth for itself; when The Great Mycelium was at its might, living on the destruction of the Tree, it returned to the Earth the boon from the Tree. Now we live in The Garden, its soil rich from the compost of the Tree and The Great Mycelium.

Blind: part 3

Dr. Strings Etching of the occasion the Lightstruck told him of their superstitions.

I studied to learn the language of the Lightstruck for 21 tides before I even came to live with the Lightstruck. I had listened to their language many times, and found that it lacked many of the concepts that we take for granted as the Blind. Their language is a relic from our past, a less evolved version of our own. For the day to day matters of survival it is quite utilitarian, but the rich harmonies of our grammar are lacking. The language doesn't include even contain the capacity of many speech acts we consider basic; they can't distinguish between possibility and actuality; they can't draw logical inferences; lack a concept of the past or the future; no concept of truth, or distinction of ends and means; they lack even the words to speak about their own language, hell they don't have a word for 'word'; They have no music theory or for that mater logic of harmonics. And yet, for all its simplicity, the Lightstruck are able to interact with one another in ways that I can't understand from their language.

Disturbingly, sometimes when I am preparing to speak (before I have said anything!) they will seem to gather around me and grow quiet. I am fairly confident that it is coincidence, but the effect is disturbing.

~~~

I had a disturbing experience quite recently, and I feel I should put it down now that the memory is fresh, as if I don't I am sure to distort it. An older lightstruck for the last half tide has been listening to me etch these journal entries. And after listening to my previous entry he purred [smiled] and a moment later began speaking to me in the language of the Blind! Included is a transcription:

It's so obvious to you that when we talk there are things important to your people that never come up, and you note that we lack the * possibility* of understanding them. You would say we are of a lower nature. Of course you are the one not using logic. You would then infer, that if your people could talk of things my people don't have words for, then my people might be talking in ways that your people couldn't recognize. Granted, that I never would speak of the 'past' or 'future' an that even those words I only know through borrowing, if I hadn't listened to your concepts I would have never learned of these new types of words that I had never use for. But, maybe if you actually listed to us you would realized that there are things my people do with language that you can't even recognize. Those sounds you dismiss as nonsense are our words for light types [color]. The world is alive with lifelight [bioluminescent] language, and we too emit lifelight, and converse with the other creatures. You know how we know when you will talk? Your words glow on your skin before you speak. Out of kindness we pretend not to understand what you are thinking, and some of it is shameful and sometimes you embarrass yourself, it is fair because of your disability. We speak with each other of things your people could never grasp through out skin, and also with sounds, for even though you hear the sounds you could never understand that with you assume to be nonsense.

At that point he walked away, and turned his face toward the forest again. I admit this is an exciting insight into their mythology, but I am still shaken that a lightstruck was able to emulate our language so well.