Tuesday 27 December 2011

The Square Root

What one word describes all others?

This is an important question to me. If there is a monotheistic God out there, his face is totality. She would need to be the ultimate omni-being: all present, all powerful, all knowing. It is one thing to be considered the architect of a creation, but another to be a part of that creation itself. If God were a simple architect, The Universe would be a self-sustaining entity no longer reliant on the presence of it's creator (Like Reltash is), but if not, we are offered something completely different.

For a creation to be dependent, it has to be an actual part of its creator, like a thought or a feotus (is there a difference between the two?).Thus an Omni-God is not so much a creator of something physical as a being who sustains a reality within her own mind, because as I am sure all artists know once it has left the mind to be transcribed into something physical the artist loses control over it. Of course, one of the important attributes of God is that he is 'unknowable' and capable of modes of thought we ourselves are not. I've always struggled with this idea. I can imagine her being very smart, imaginative and aware (heightening human attributes) but no further than that. I suppose imagining something unimaginable is something God can do but everyone else can't.

Anyway. Let's move on. Words. What exactly are words? Semantics dictates that words are symbolic compounds that describe other concepts or physical matter. Most important to the human experience is that words are not only physically transcribed for understanding (written characters) but also spoken compounds (sonic frequencies), which suggests that they can in fact be applied to any of the senses with a little work and a dictionary.
That leaves us with the task of understanding symbols, and though I'm no semioticist I'm pretty sure that symbols are representative examples of concepts. Whether or not 'representative' implies that something cannot be a symbol of itself is another matter which I will skirt over completely because loads of people choose to self-represent themselves in court and they don't pop out of existence when they do. Either way, almost everything is a symbol anyway, because we mostly just look at something and assume that it holds other characteristics without needing to lick and smell them to qualify our assumptions.

So yeah. Entities can be self-representative symbols, ergo symbols equate those entities themselves, ergo words equate to the entities they describe. Most people know this without having to read my blog, but they also know that everyone else needs a colon to survive even though they don't know why. That's very silly, because their colon may very well be planning to strangle them while they are sleeping.

When I ask "What one word describes all others?" I am not asking about the little electronic twigs you are staring at right now, I'm asking about entities. What one entity describes all others? If there is a single symbol that holds the whole multiverse within it, what is that symbol, and what does it represent?

This question is difficult to answer because we are limited by physical perceptions, even though we are quite competent in mental ones. I'd like you to join me in a simple mental exercise to find the answer we're looking for.
Look ahead of you. All of that and everything behind that has a word to describe it (or 'is a word'). All of it is also made of smaller words, or fragments of words, or longer words with smaller substances. Now that you are holding all that in your mind remember that reality has at least four dimensions. Incorporate everything behind you; trucks, trees, supernovas, photons. Now everything on each side of you (walls, emotions, gravity,  sounds). Above you (weather patterns, stars, temperatures, light). Below you (Caverns, pressure, shoes, odours).
Now recognise that everything you can name and cannot name is moving through time too, forwards and backwards, one substance giving into another in cycles of entropy and dynamic consistency. Ignore the barrier between concepts and physicalities; all things are recognised equally as words. Lastly, accept possibility. Understand that though you have perceptions, those perceptions can be wrong. Any one word may mean something else completely - as a good friend once pointed out to me, how can you be certain that your 'blue' is not another person's 'purple'? The symbol stays the same, but the entity shifts beneath it.

Swimming in this ocean of havoc and unity we are left with the task of naming two things: the reality, and the symbols (a duality which, once again, equates). There are many words we use to describe things we have never known; 'Absolution', 'Totality', and my favourite, 'Eternity'. If you consider the name for a group of complimentary words the best answer is 'Language'. This too is the crux.

Eternity and language. The one has the intention of shaping the other. One negates substance to something neutral and complete, while the other separates and labels. I am in love with both. Eternity is the word I chose to describe the sum of every other word, and I gave it this symbol
as a foundation for every other that would follow.

Six and twelve, folks.

Hexaemeric Law is what I named my 'Language of Eternity'. Writing is the substance of Reltash in more ways than one.

Sunday 25 December 2011

Escapism

Plegh. that's enough about The Elder Scrolls for now. I need to clear my pallet. I've written as much about Saris Saryoni to fill a novel the same size as Shadowolf, which scares me. Plegh plegh. Ptooi.

Glad that's done with.

Merry Christmas, beings of Earth. I hope it's treating you kindly. Today I wish to discuss a certain problem I have that you may have too if you are extraordinarily unlucky. The problem - well, it's more of a foible to be honest - is that I really, really detest life on Earth in the 21st century. It's not that I can't see the good in the world, it is more that it is filled with so much repulsive evil that good can only be seen with an electron microscope.
That's the other thing: I'm a cynic. Of course most cynics consider themselves to be realists, but I'm not so sure I am one. The scientist has an effect on the experiment, after all, and my own personal perception of the world effects the truth behind it.

The trouble is that whether through locale or misfortune I have been exposed to the greasy underbelly of the world - heck, the greasy underbelly of the middle class world, which implies there's something even worse out there. I know people who have been raped. I know people who've died before their lives even began. I've played witness to countless affairs and divorces, and watched as people slip through the cracks, going insane or taking their own lives. Sure, there's love and understanding here and there, but it can get really hard to see.

Cynicism is my coping mechanism. If all this tragedy is centered around me and the rest of the world is free and happy, what could I have done to deserve the utter misery of lost hope, of constant dejection and melancholy inevitability? I can't see myself as the cause of tragedy, or my existence would imply suffering. Instead I recognise the disease has nothing to do with me; I'm merely one of the lucky immune who sit around and watch it spread. If it has nothing to do with me, it cannot be localised. Evil is everywhere. Cynicism is reality.

That said, life becomes a hard thing to cope with. This ocean of human debris floats around me, but I never seem to get wet. I have no substance. I cannot touch, only observe. I feel... empty.

There are limits to this sensation, or lack thereof. Physicality implies connection and conflict, after all. Where I can help people out I do, in whatever way possible. I avoid hurting people, or shoulder pain to save them from it. I'm not trying to be a saint. I'm not even trying to be good. I just need to believe that there can be something decent in the world, and the most readily accessible agent of change towards decency is the body directly under my control.

All too often, the physical world feels like a prison. I guess that's because of the emptiness - the feeling that I've been sequestered someplace where nothing I do is of any consequence. Freewill is marvelous, yes, but as we are often shown by pop culture it is worthless unless we are given options to go along with it. Sometimes I feel like I have all too much freewill, but not enough options. It's a little like what Tolstoy said about the course of history; we cannot stop the future from occurring, or swerve away from cyclical patterns. All we can do is change the manner in which we approach the curve, and the spirit in which we enter that forthcoming state. He demonstrated that theory with his 'Letter to a Hindu', later read by Gandhi and used to promote a non-violent revolution in India.

Physical options can be limited, and so mental ones are where I feel I can most safely express myself; thus reading, virtual reality, television. When you read you can colour a world with whatever perceptions you wish, because most often the scope of the characters is small and focused. You can write a world behind them completely unlike our own; for example you may see a fantasy world as a utopia where evil only threatens through singular agents and syndicates, or where such perversions as rape are dealt with with equal severity to murder. Fiction gives possibility; it breaks out from the web of singular red moments on Earth. In fiction as on Earth we have freewill, but infinitely more important we are given the option of perceiving the world how we want it without resorting to delusions or lies.

I find myself desperate to lose myself in other worlds, and this usually means virtual reality. I play computer games because they are vivid, they encapsulate the senses, and they are immediate. I cannot stress the importance of the last. Time is my oxygen, and without a steady supply I suffocate. I know this is a false perception, but it is one I cling to uncertainly. With time I hope to change this, and draw my focus upon books. I know I love books more. It is just that cultivating relationships with them takes more effort, and hard work does not come naturally to me. Dewey suggests work and play are essentially the same, but during the liminility of adolescence we separate them to make sense of the world, so that we know one is a fight and the other is fought for. In an ideal world both are treated equally. Earth is not an ideal world.

Merry Christmas folks, wherever you are. Stay decent.