3. Projecting Will In The Koinos Kosmos

Hieroglyphs, the ‘portrayed’ (written) form of ancient Egyptian language were purportedly visualised in the ‘mind’s eye’, the spoken language being somewhat akin to ‘bird song’. Is this the link to projecting ‘will’? It has been stated by certain writers that Albert Einstein was a visual thinker (which seems counter intuitive with a discipline that requires conceptual thinking). The Phoenician syllabary was introduced to ancient Greece in the late ninth to early eighth century BCE. Unneeded consonant symbols being reused for Greek vowels. The earliest surviving inscriptions using this system date from the late eighth century BCE. With the adoption of new phonetic systems or in the case of the Far East a remove from hieroglyphs, is it possible mental projection upon the world persists. Rather than a simple hooking and reeling in of (visual) data as Husserl would have us believe is there in reality a two way action of creation on the part of the subject and conscious entities in the world. In ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’, Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-1980] reversed the time honoured essence precedes existence which had been believed since the time of Plato, however as Martin Heidegger [1889-1976] pointed out in his critical essay ‘Letter on Humanism’ the statement remains a metaphysical statement, with all that entails. Sartre had also said that people project wars and earthquakes. That people project wars seems as straightforward as people giving verbal commands and operating the appropriate machinery, but projecting earthquakes? Heidegger states and it is worth quoting at some length:

“Language still denies us its essence: that is the house of truth of Being. Instead, language surrenders itself to our mere willing and trafficking as an instrument of domination over beings. Beings themselves appear as actualities in the interaction of cause and effect. We encounter beings as actualities in a calculative businesslike way, but also scientifically and by way of philosophy, with explanations and proofs. With such statements we believe we confront the mystery. As if it were already decided that the truth of Being lets itself at all be established in causes and explanatory grounds or what comes to same, in their incomprehensibility.” (Heidegger: Basic Writings, Routledge, 1978. pp.151)

According to Heidegger we tend to think of language as a quintessence of mankind. The rational animal that possesses a unity of body, soul and mind, again for Heidegger man ‘ek-sists’ in the house of language that his truth of Being guards. According to Heidegger ‘Being’ is not the product of man but rather “Being is Transcendence pure and simple” (pp.163). Heidegger also castigates those that see, an attack on “logic” as irrationalism and a defence of the a logical. That an attack on values must necessarily leave everything valueless. In this form of argument Heidegger finds a nihilism created with the aid of logic. Before the founder of logic, Aristotle [384-322 BC] there existed the primordial essence of ‘Logos’, obfuscated and lost in Plato [c.427-347 BC]. Heidegger states that “logic”, “physics” and “ethics” appeared for the first time in the school of Plato, where Thinking became “Philosophy”, “science waxed and thinking waned.” Previous thinkers had neither logic nor ethics nor physics and yet their thing was neither considered illogical nor was it considered immoral, the ‘Ethos’ contained in Sophocles [C5/4 BC] is exceeds that of Aristotle’s lectures on “ethics”. As Heraclitus [c.540-c.480 BC] said in Fragment 119 “A man’s character is his daimon (for daimon read god), Heidegger elaborates “man dwells insofar as he is man, in the nearness of god”, or as Heraclitus would say, “The gods come to presence.” Heidegger castigates the conceptual in favour of Thinking as he sees it, “We measure deeds by the impressive and successful achievements of praxis”, in the form of scientific knowledge and research projects. Thinking according to Heidegger is left to the discipline of “Philosophy” and only accessible to initiates; however we ask too much of “Philosophy.” Accordingly the Thinking to come is no longer “Philosophy” because it must think more originally than metaphysics a name synonymous with “Philosophy”. Heidegger’s parameters of research encompass Thinking about Being, however beyond the rudimentary, metaphysics and questions regarding God are not broached. Perhaps it WOULD have been best if he had written cryptic poetry instead. “Humanism” according to Heidegger originated with the ancient Romans coming into contact with Greek culture, “Renaissance Humanism” differed somewhat however neither questioned the existence of God/the gods, and “Enlightenment Humanism” is different again. Heidegger believed we needed a new definition of “Humanism” for the late modern world; the above is the main gist of his criticism against Sartre. Heidegger’s Thinking is ontological, where his Thinking touches on metaphysics after ‘Being and Time’ is in the projected uses of technology. The transitory nature of time would seem to prohibit absolute knowledge. In Philip K. Dick’s [1928-1982] 1965 essay ‘Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes’, Dick writes of the schizophrenic seeing the “whole film reel at once”, or as I previously quoted Nietzsche that the “abyss stares back at you”, or the totality of times events perpetrated on a human psyche that isn’t equipped linguistically to make sense of it. We in Klondike do not prescribe to the ‘Idios Kosmos’ conception of the schizophrenic in his state upon the ‘event horizon’ as Dick believed to be the case. Heraclitus said of the ‘Koinos Kosmos’ (shared world) and the ‘Idios Kosmos’ (private world) “The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.” It has been noted by many Thinkers that the greater proportion of the general public have all the awareness of somnambulists. We must walk carefully amongst them; the abruptly woken dog is prone to rage and bite. So we are left pondering on the question how does one project earthquakes?

An earthquake from a scientific/geographic perspective is a natural phenomenon caused by shifting tectonic plates. The comic’s artist Neal Adams [Born 1941] has a theory that the Earth is literally growing and gravity is increasing with the size of the planet, hence the ability of large dinosaurs to move about unimpeded by gravitational force, the world in the prehistoric age was smaller. The supposed ‘lunatic fringe’ have a great many interesting although often completely insane ideas, (not sure who first coined the term ‘lunatic fringe’ but it has become an establishment consignment for all that is not acceptable to ‘reasonable’ people). There is theory that earthquakes are caused by rampant consumerism. Seen from the angle of depleting the earth of her natural resources one could possibly view such a theory as falling into the conservative bracket of Heidegger’s ‘Projectedness’, even if it is bad “Science”. Projection is an extension of the ‘Will’, the ‘mindless will’ of the ‘zombie’ consumer?

Aleister Crowley [1875-1947] said “Do what though wilt shalt be the whole of the law”; however he left out two words “of consequences.” William S. Burroughs touched on the power of the will in a purely mental aspect to influence the outcome of events; a battle of the wills. The Nazis at Nuremberg were give IQ tests by the Allies and with the notable exception of the editor of the Nazi rag ‘Der Sturmer’, Julius Streicher [1885-1946], they scored above average. National intelligence rankings place the Germans at the head of the table, the British by comparison are fairly low on the European table, however Britain and her allies won the war. ‘Will’ is not reliant on intelligence. At the end of his book ‘Nietzsche’s Great Politics’, Hugo Drochon [Date of Birth Unknown] wonders whether Friederich Nietzsche [1844-1900] wanted a society akin to Hermann Hesse’s ‘Glass Bead Game’. A small elite closeted away unencumbered by financial worries and material concerns, schooled in the arts of which music is the highest, and equipped mentally to play the Glass Bead Game, a game that determines the futures of the world. Did the 300 really die at the “Hot Gates” so we could wear Nike trainers and consume Big Macs?

Pythagoras [C6 BC] is credited with the invention of the monochord (kanon), so much in the ancient world is attributed to that Babylonian sage, however hammers do not ring, anvils do. The invention of the monochord may be dated somewhat later although probably in use at the time of Euclid [Born c.330 BC]. The monochord had a movable bridge and a graduated rule, it was believed to place mathematical arguments in the auditory realm; therefore bridging the gap between sense perception and mathematical reason (representing musical sounds at visible, measurable distances: lengths of string. Representing numbers audibly to the musical ear). This allowed for the study of music as arithmetical science through geometry. The great renaissance sages of pictorial and sculpted form employed sacred geometry in the creation of their works, but music is a higher art, transient, and as with all art emotive. There is a geometry to music too, space does not permit the elaborate explanation of the monochord it deserves here, however we shall return to it later. One last note on the subject: Adrastus of Aphrodisias [second century AD] wrote “Under irrational relations noises are irrational, and should not strictly even be called notes, but only sounds; but under relations that place them in certain ratios to one another, the multiple or epimoric or simply that of number to number, they are melodic, and are strictly and properly notes.” (The Monochord in Ancient Greek Harmonic Science: David Creese, Cambridge, 2010. pp.5) Again we but heads with the “Logic” of mental order. Does not music insight powerful emotions, even if we allow for the fact that ‘Pitch’, that is timbre and volume was left to the science of acoustics, leaving the scientific instrument that the monochord was, simply to the ratio of numbers. We know from experience music may when harmonious induce tenderness in its audience and in the case of an opera by Richard Wagner [1813-1883] or Richard Strauss [1864-1949] or a piece by Arnold Schoenberg [1874-1951] induce anxiety. The tetrachord of the ancient world is a different scale to contemporary systems, so comparisons may be foolish and ill advised however one is reminded of Orpheus torn from limb to limb by the Maenads driven mad by his music. The malice of rage is evil according to Heidegger when it ‘ek-sists’ in Being. Do strong emotions ‘Project’ themselves?

It has been noted that strong emotions such as love and hate may affect their object negatively at great distances. Is an individual’s emotion consigned to a ‘Signature-Frequency’? Can ‘Will’ work its ‘Magick’ in this manner? Would this imply that the brain is less a sophisticated isolated computer but rather an aerial for receiving and transmitting ‘Projection’? When the brain shuts down during sleep, after REM the heart, which apparently is formed of similar tissue to the brain takes over simple command functions such as keeping the lungs operating during sleep. I leave you with a question; within man, where is the seat of man?

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Part one of Grisly In Klondike’s Enchanting The Universe can be accessed here: 1. Order, Psyche, Insanity And Chaos

Part two of Grisly In Klondike’s Enchanting the Universe can be accessed here: 2. Dualism, Holism And The Psychology Of Love In Time And Space