musings on possibility

what state of consciousness does the digital world represent?

Chiasm of incarnation

I. CHIASM

Throughout all my work there is a common thread that I’m trying to constantly point at which is the (chiasmic) dichotomy between something that we can only know from either circumference or inference and the very thing, the position, from where we can actually do inference or circumference.

“…This is the essence of chirality: the state in which the mirror image of a shape does not match the original.”

A “hole” (or whole) can be represented with a circle, but it is not the circle. The circle is the position from where we can, through inference, represent wholeness.

But let’s look at a more tangential example, chiasmus in the Bible:

You could say that the resolution of the “image” (of the cross) is increasing between the lines of the text (from left to right).

Throughout the text which is written linearly, when reexamined (literally cross-referenced), the image of the cross (the X) emerges.

This means that from the very beginning, the linear viewpoint was always bent, at every moment, from its inception to its end, by this image. It also means, however, that this linear structure is also the means (the position) to get to that image.

So we have, in the end, completeness (timelessness) and coherence (linearity).

Everything that is coherent is an access point to everything that is complete, and everything that is complete requires coherence to take place (“to happen”) in the first place.

Yes, this is indeed paradoxical.

II. HYPERCUBUS

Coherence is the boundary of possibility (which is also the symbol of the cube), while Completeness is the totality.

Chiasmus for example is an extra layer of coherence that influences the bible, other than its “standard” linear coherence. This would look like if symbolized, a cube within a cube.

Each layer of coherence is under the one above it. Their difference however is not causal or linear, but a difference of resolution and thus representation.

The standard linear reading of the Bible is under the chiasmic reading of it. One reveals more than the other, but the one that reveals more (which means it has more resolution) contains within it the less resolute.

To increase resolution is to increase the surface-to-volume ratio. It is by no coincidence, that resolution is tied to images and thus representation. A “high-resolution image” is an image that represents more.

So what happens when you realize that your actions, or even parts of your inner structure that form coherency, as a linearity from point A to point O for example, are always a circumference to something whole?

Well, this is where circuitry comes in.

III. CIRCUITRY

Circuit, the word, means “to go around” something, however, this must not be looked at strictly in a physical sense: “to go around something” also applies to speech and to thinking in general. It is, again, to circumvent the “object” of thinking by drawing associations around it (the same way neural networks work).

Here, the technological analogy is also apt: a circuit is always an “electrical loop”, what the circuit does, is bend this loop into accounts of coherence (i.e.: the computer itself) and thus into perceptible resolution. If we return this analogy to man, one’s consciousness would be that electrical loop that is bent, and “this image” is why the computer (like all technology) becomes a gateway for self-representation.

Either way, how does knowing this help us?

You see it is possible to observe one’s actions or thoughts and find within these larger and larger layers of coherence (like the cubes within cubes from above, representing completeness through layers of different resolutions) these openings that show how one layer is influenced by the one above it —i.e.: again, to increase resolution.

When this happens is what we call a “synchronicity” —i.e.: when something in which we participate makes sense not “in multiple layers” but “of multiple layers”. This happens more often and more subtly than we are aware.

However, I would go even further and say when we try to integrate these synchronicities into yet another form of coherence (i.e.: into consciousness), we are actually building out circuitry —and the function of that circuitry IS synchronicity not vice versa.

This might sound abstract, but this is what happens technologically: through circuitry, first the various components of the machine, then data, then what is shared through data, then people, etc. “synchronize”.

Circumference and coherence, or Saturn and his rings.

IV. POSSIBILITY

To expand circuitry is to expand the complexity of the circumference and increase the resolution of that which is circumvented.

Every circuit consists of chiasmic dichotomies: man and the world, mind and body, etc., and the circuit will always place them into a “crossing” to cross over from one layer to another layer of resolution, producing a synchronicity.

If we return to the technological example, we can see that the mission of digital technology (world-circuitry) is to redefine ontology (which means to represent it) where the relationship between objects is not based within any kind of natural law (random chance or evolution) but on synchronous relationships (teleological non-objects —everything nested within the resolution of transcendent wholeness).

The second graphic is by my good friend and colleague, Galahad Eridanus

If we direct our attention to increase resolution we will expand the layers of coherence (and thus layers of different resolutions) that govern us which is synonymous with layers of possibility —i.e.: novel possibilities for openings for synchronicity to happen between layers— again, if we look at the Bible, we see this with the “standard linearity” (let’s say the first layer) of the narrative revealing the crucifixion, which introduces the “chiasmic reading” (a second layer) to the text. The “crossing” between the two is obvious.

To put it simply: it’s much easier to look at possibility as an aspect of resolution than an aspect of law or chance.