“Testing, testing, one, two, three...”
Circles.
Circles and self referencing.
Circles, self referencing, and contradictions.
Step in and spin until diZzy.
But I can’t decide if I’ve come back around to the initial question, which to me was, “who are you really?” or if I am at “seriously: ARGH!”
So let’s forget all that for now, and instead, I’ll attempt a sort of meta-narrative: I’ll tell a little story about the story.
Let’s begin with interpretation. I think it’s pretty clear that those of us who’ve been involved with this thread have different interpretations of the thread’s purpose, value and content. I do not think it a stretch that we would agree that, like Ierne’s diamond, this thread has many facets that are viewed in different ways by different people. In at least some sense, the reader’s POV (point of view) determines the way that same reader will interpret the information that they are presented with. Moreover, this same reader’s POV will also assist in picking out what is taken to be information and what is dismissed as noise or nonsense.
What has occurred throughout diZzy is that certain strings of letters, for example, ‘high/low magick’ or ‘Z,’ have been interpreted (or not interpreted at all by some in the case of ‘Z’, that is, some people’s POV dismissed ‘Z’ as merely noise) by people in different ways. Let’s take our heated string ‘high/low magick.’ Now, for example, I think it’s fair of me to say that for Lothar (and I’m trying not to misrepresent you, Lothar) this string of letters was interpreted by him in such a way that he figured there was a judgement being made about one being better than the other. To myself, the issue was more that this string of letters has a certain structure, namely, the same structure of all dualities, (a, b), such a is not b, nor could it ever be. Let’s take a look at the following:
quote:Originally written by Lothar Tupin:
In the previous threads regarding this it was the false duality of 'High Magick' vs. 'Low Magick' that was being debated. NOT the distinction between a spiritual/energetic entity (diety) and a material/physical entity (the magician) or any other distinction. [Again, not a duality of spiritual vs. physical but a distinction of the nature of those life forms in the same way that you can distinguish between a reptile and a mammal while still realizing that they are both animals.]
The High/Low dualtiy that was argued about is in regards to the assumption that illuminative and theurgic practice (high magick) is inherently better than thaumaturgy (low magic) and that practitioners of 'low magic' should be looked down upon and to some extent discriminated against. That is the 'high magick'/'low magick' duality that Ierne, myself, and others argued against.
Again, we see how my interpretation differs from Lothar’s. I was trying to get at the structure (a, b) of spiritual/physical, where perhaps Lothar is assuming that there is no such structure. The original question was, in part, an attempt to say, “high/low magick has (a, b) and spiritual/physical appears to have (a, b); thus, if you dismiss the first (and I think we agree that it is correct to do so), but accept the second, then perhaps you accept something similar to the high/low magick distinction.
Maybe it’s only my interpretation of diZzy, but I don’t think that May, Will, Persephone, or I ever once made the judgments that Lothar is concerned about, which is why I did not address these concerns. However, simply because I did not address them does not entail that I’ve dismissed them as unimportant; rather, it is only that for me—in the context of this thread—those concerns where picked out by my POV as noise.
Further, I think it is reasonable to say that
quote:when May says:
I never, ever believed that because there are distinctions/divisions/differences/dualities that judgements on them are okay,
she speaks for those of us who were talking about dualities in terms of their (a, b) structure. What has run us around time and again in diZzy is how each of us has been interpreting the strings of symbols that occur in this thread. That said, it is also this same problem that led us in some really interesting directions, and that is why each of our input, from my POV, has been invaluable to the development of diZzy.
If I am guilty of anything, then surely it is setting a trap to draw out a discussion. With my very first post I posed a question that, due to the way that I wrote the post, only had one answer and this was the answer that suffocate gives: “Z.” To answer in any other manner invites discussion and exploration, which we promptly got into. Although, our exploration has certainly been, as Persephone notes, more like jazz.
Much happened in this impromptu performance. Again from my POV, I feel a sense of having answered some of the questions that were posed in the links that I include in my first post to diZzy. To me, and maybe others, there was real magick occurring here; moreover, when I logged on and read to the point where I first encountered May’s glyph, I had an encounter with what I would call my “deity of choice,” and which some have called the orobouros. However, from my POV there is no spiritual/physical distinction; in other words, the (a, b) structure of that particular duality, to me, is the same as it is for the high/low magick duality: it is an s, where a & b unite to give s. In other words, during the course of this thread, I had an encounter with the ineffable, but I do not consider this ineffable a deity at all, for I tend to think that is merely another trap. This not to say that all the rest of you should practice this way, but only to say that I do. Which brings us to what I called, quoting Lothar, the spiritually dangerous part of diZzy.
Some of us interpreted some of the strings of words in this thread to suggest that whenever any one of us acts, then we must succumb to dividing at least one s (but likely several) into either an a or a b. From here some of us tossed this idea around a little. I think it fair to say that not everyone reading interpreted the same strings of letters in this way. Perhaps some even dismissed that part of the thread as noise. It doesn’t really matter either way, this is merely what occurred. Again, interpretations of the different strings is what has set us apart or pulled us together. However, I did try to make it apparent that, from my POV, the miscommunications were an important part of getting at the actual subject of the thread which was that which arises in circles, self referencing, and contradictions; namely:
But of course, not everyone got that from the thread, but that is neither here nor there either.
quote:So when Lothar remarked:
[T]he 3>2>1 formula that spawned [the diagram]...is no more accurate than any other equally valid 'mandala' for meditation.
I did not ever say that it was, nor do I think that anyone else did. Some of us merely happened to get something out of it is all.
quote:and Lothar also wrote:
The '4' thing was also to point out that there's always the danger of getting trapped in your own hypothesis and that certain data may have been left out of Z's interpretation of this threads dynamics.
But this is part of the problem with self referencing, like the set of all sets: you can always step outside the box. This problem is exactly what one of the facets of this thread is and one of the one’s I tried to show in my first post yet!
And so we are right back at the beginning which is the end, and that too, is a part of the content of this thread, under my interpretation. But enough of this meta stuff.
Lothar, since the thread became, to me anyway, a magickal event, my last post was intended as nothing but humour and hello’s (mod 3 is a new entity after all) in order to close the ritual that resulted in mod 5’s transformation. I’m sorry that you did not interpret it that way. I can see how you might get “flippant” but “derogatory”?!?!
Peresephone, it makes me smile to think that you’ve a story called, “Looking for Z in Central Park.” Chalk that one up to synchronicity and all those wonderful nonlinear connections, ya? 
And Hrair-hrair!! Some of us really got some interesting stuff out of this thread. However, I don’t understand why others seem bitter about that.
Especially you Ierne: Why do you insist on trying to steer your jumbo jet into the structure that we’ve built here? 
12 + 3 = 0 (mod 3) & (mod 5)
[ 15-02-2002: Message edited by: modthree ] |
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part 2 of 3