Chapter One, part one

On Wednesday, October 19, 2016, the first discussion group for Turning Signs met on Manitoulin Island for a conversation about the first chapter of the book. At this session in person were Heather Thoma, Patricia Mader, Veronika Bingaman, Pam Jackson, Emily Weber and the author. Paul Salanki was connected by Skype, but could only listen in, as the connection was limited to one-way audio, probably because of the satellite hookup he had to use. We’ll continue to experiment with remote links to these Wednesday-night groups.

In the meantime, anybody who’s now reading the book (either on screen or on paper) is welcome to post here any ideas inspired by (or commenting on) the first chapter. Click on “Leave a comment” at the bottom of this post. As a weekly reminder to check back on what others have said here, you could also subscribe to the our newsletter.

Klein bottleOne of the subjects that came in for some discussion this week was the overall structure of Turning Signs, with its Obverse and Reverse sides. Chapter One says that it ‘resembles a Klein bottle,’ but that may need some explanation. Fortunately i discovered a YouTube video that takes you on a visual trip through a Klein Bottle, which is probably the best way of seeing how it’s related to the metaphorical shape of the book. There’s also another YouTube video featuring Klein bottles that might be more helpful for developing your topological imagination (which is a great thing to develop, as it can take you into higher dimensions). I recommend both of them just for topological fun, if nothing else!

Now we’re all reading Chapter Two to get ready for next Wednesday night’s gathering and next Saturday’s blog post. If you’re reading this, you’re welcome to join the conversation!

Opening

The World-Honored One said, ‘When one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the ten directions disappears.’

Eihei Dogen said,

When one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the ten directions opens up reality and returns to the source.

EK 2.179

To suppose that practice and realization are not one is a view of those outside the way; in buddha-dharma they are inseparable. Because practice within realization

[translator’s note: Japanese, shojo no shu; literally, ‘realization on top of practice’]

occurs at the moment of practice, the practice of beginner’s mind is itself the entire original realization.
When giving instruction for zazen practice, we say that you should not have any expectation for realization outside of practice, because this is the immediate original realization. Because this is the realization of practice, there is no beginning in practice.

— Dogen, Bendowa (Tanahashi 2010, 12)

(For an alternate translation of this passage, see Okumura and Leighton 1997, 30.)

Starting now

Whether the object of your quest is the source of inspiration, the origin of language, the origin of life, or the origin of the universe, the origin of wholehearted inquiry is here in the time you are now living.

It is so difficult to find the beginning. Or, better: it is difficult to begin at the beginning. And not try to go further back.

— Wittgenstein (1969, #471)

What you think

If you don’t argue with me, I don’t know what I think.

— Alan Watts ‘On the Nature of Consciousness’

We speak, not only to tell others what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think.

— J. Hughlings Jackson (Dennett 1991, 194)

“How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?”

— the old lady in the anecdote related by E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, Chapter 5

… the thinking subject himself is in a kind of ignorance of his thoughts so long as he has not formulated them for himself, or even spoken and written them, as is shown by the example of so many writers who begin a book without knowing exactly what they are going to put into it.

— Merleau-Ponty (1945, 206)

So see we so as seed we sow.

— Finnegans Wake (250)

Entrance

Turning word: in Dogen‘s Japanese, 轉 語 [tengo], ‘Statement that crushes delusion and leads to liberation’ (Tanahashi 2010, 1152). Who is this turning the dharma wheel? Who is this turning the page?

Entering is the basis. The basis is from beginning to end.

— Dogen, ‘Bukkyo’ (Tanahashi 2010, 286)

God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages.

— Thoreau, Walden, chp. 2

Ellapsis

something we need
to remember but know
will sink into subsoil
its appearance up here
marked by this sinsign planted:
4 October 2016
only if ever to seedaylight
as memento of this moment of
bypassing

Now it is precisely the pragmatist’s contention that symbols, owing their origin (on one side) to human conventions, cannot transcend conceivable human occasions. At any rate, it is plain that no possible collection of single occasions of conduct can be, or adequately represent all conceivable occasions. For there is no collection of individuals of any general description which we could not conceive to receive the addition of other individuals of the same description aggregated to it. The generality of the possible, the only true generality, is distributive, not collective. You perhaps do not see how this remark bears upon your question.

— from a dialogue by Peirce, CP 5.532 (c. 1905)

The distinction made here between distributivity and collectivity corresponds to the normal terminology of intension and extension.

— Stjernfelt 2007, 7

meanwhile

Something forgets us perfectly

— Leonard Cohen, ‘For E.J.P.’

Selfmapping

A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.

— Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity (1933, p. 58)

We say that the map is not the territory, but if the territory includes the map, there must be a point on the map that represents itself. ‘On a map of an island laid down upon the soil of that island there must, under all ordinary circumstances, be some position, some point, marked or not, that represents qua place on the map, the very same point qua place on the island’ (Peirce, CP 2.230; see also EP2:161-2, BD ‘Imaging’). The same must be true of any “map of the world,” any iconic sign which takes its context as its object. Hence any viable guidance system inhabiting a being inhabiting its world must involve self-reference.

Here we have a map of the Island, lying flat on the Island itself. It doesn’t cover much of the surface of the Island, yet it represents all of it, iconically, to you. The Map is a sign whose object is the actually existing Island and whose interpretant is the form of the Island in your imagination. This representation exemplifies what Peirce calls Thirdness.

Now suppose your point of view rises high enough above the Island (above the Earth) that you can see all of it, as if on Google Maps or Google Earth: the map on the Island is visible only as a single point on the googlemap. But now suppose that the googlemap is capable of unlimited resolution, so that you can zoom in on the map far enough to view it in what we call ‘actual size.’ Now you realize that there is a point on the map (the original map, the omap) which represents the map itself lying on the surface of the Island. And now suppose that you can keep on zooming in on that very point until it grows to the actual size of the omap. Now it is no longer a point but a large set of points (an infinitely large set, actually) representing the place on the Island where the omap lies, and representing the omap itself to you. Still, on this map within the omap which represents the omap, you can mark a point representing where the omap lies on the Island. But if the omap itself is capable of infinite resolution, you can keep on zooming in on map after map – and on each map, you can mark the same point representing the omap within the map, and zoom in on it to find another actual-size map with that same point on it.

Now, as everyone knows, infinite resolution is a fantasy and a ‘point’ with zero dimensions is a mathematical abstraction. But in our thought-experiment, the Island is real, and the omap is actually lying on it. So if the dream of infinite resolution could be lived, there must be (at least) a point on every map, no matter how many times you zoom in on the map in it, which represents the next point you could zoom in on in real time to see the next map represented on it. And if you reverse the process, no matter how far you zoom out, that same point must be there on the map on which the location of the map is marked.

We have been using the word point in reference to a τόπος, a place. But a 0-dimensional point cannot contain anything. Topologically, if a “map” (a surface) is continuous, and no place is marked on it, there are no points on it at all. No matter how far we zoom in, we never arrive at a place that contains no other places. Just as everything that exists (‘stands out’) in any given universe is a discontinuity in it, every point marked on a line or a surface, or in a space, is a discontinuity of it.

Yet the making of a mark creates the possibility of representing the relations between marks on a continuous surface or in a continuous space. The representation is iconic, but the relations depicted in it may be real. Such a representation of existing things or events creates the possibility of observing real relations between them, relations which have a specific character independent of any particular observation of them. If those relations are real, then the universe in which the relata are marked must be really continuous. There can be no definite discontinuities except in a continuum; nothing can mean anything except in a meaning space.