Miscellaneous Chatter > Literature
Satoshi Itoh - Harmony
Madness:
--- Quote from: Callan S. on July 30, 2013, 07:29:10 am ---You're the carrier/a carrier of the argument now. As in you've repeated it, Mike.
--- End quote ---
Aside, +1.
I was responding to Royce but, in both of my above posts, I'd seeded arguments for james, specifically, as originally asking for commentary on V. Itoh's BBH.
--- Quote from: Madness on July 22, 2013, 03:14:33 pm ---And in reality, it is only a problem so much as other humans use this leverage to dominate other humans because argumentatively,
--- End quote ---
This sentence is misleading in a couple ways but, in one aspect, it directly reflects the outcome of Harmony's plot. In another, it has connotations of both Cain's posts on TPB and Bakker's writings on BBH as a whole. Another is the antecedent premise and the primary argument.
"if there is no gestalt shift in perception, then these realizations wouldn't and couldn't change our behaviors."
This is, somewhat, the secondary argument in the sentence. It also performs the duty for the antecedent premise (which just means for the consequent to be valid or "true," then the antecedent, "coming before" argument must also be valid or "true."
"if there is no gestalt shift in perception," then it doesn't matter what was written after because it cannot be validated by this specific linguistic bolster.
Gestalts are a tricky perceptual and philosophic thorn to handle. Unfortunately, it has outgrown its simple effect, which is similar to 'flicker fusion' - Bakker offers this as analogy often on TPB - and it has a developed to the point of Thought Schools (in my opinion, groups agreeing to a number of non-debatable premises for their research) in both the philosophic and psychological disciplines.
To put it most simply, a gestalt effect manifests most obviously in visual illusions. A gestalt shift occurs, say, when that rabbit you were looking at becomes a duck, the lady becomes a lamp, the 2D image of random patterns becomes a 3D object. In many cases, individuals experience an inability to re-embody their former perceptions.
This seems to be the primary criticism for BBH's efficacy as a theory... there's yet no gestalt shift greater than, say, something akin to nihilism or Buddhism (though I would hesitate to include this as Buddhism is embodied to a greater extent than other philosophies and, thus, experience the dividends of more physically manifest changes).
jamesA01:
So - I complain that people aren't reading the book fast enough then take months to reply!
It occurred to me after reading your posts Madness that I don't quite understand BBT like I thought I did, so I've been going back and reading the Last Magic Show again. But to be honest, I might just be happier muddling through with my own half baked bundle of heuristics. At this point my brains like a patched up quilt, with a cigarette slowly setting it on fire hanging from the hand of an unconscious drug addict. I don't know how many more dark voyages to the void of conscious blindness it can take.
When you say "how we manifest", it seems to me that this puts us back into a kind of infinite regress where we keep putting our agency somewhere else. So I'm pretty convinced that it will turn out to be the case that we have none, but this answer is still unsatisfactory, even if true. I found Itohs supposed dystopia highly appealing.
Anyway, your comments on Harmony put it into contexts I was totally unaware of. It is interesting to see the culture underlying the novel. It reminded me of what music critic Simon Reynolds called "retromania" - the inability of modern music to go forward with any kind of progressive momentum and its reduction to endless reiterations on past sounds. There is a real melancholy to the book, buying old novels precisely because their formats are obsolete. It often feel like this, being ignorant when it comes to coding and more than basic computer tech, as if i'm stuck in archaisms all the time and the speeds of the world around me are too fast to even sit down and finish the books that I buy.
Here's hoping that all Itohs' blogposts and remaining works (I know theres a short story collection) will one day be translated into English. Are you able to read Japanese Madness? His blog is still online somewhere.
Madness:
--- Quote from: jamesA01 on September 04, 2013, 05:39:02 pm ---So - I complain that people aren't reading the book fast enough then take months to reply!
It occurred to me after reading your posts Madness that I don't quite understand BBT like I thought I did, so I've been going back and reading the Last Magic Show again. But to be honest, I might just be happier muddling through with my own half baked bundle of heuristics. At this point my brains like a patched up quilt, with a cigarette slowly setting it on fire hanging from the hand of an unconscious drug addict. I don't know how many more dark voyages to the void of conscious blindness it can take.
--- End quote ---
Lol, it is definitely worth multiple perusals. The distance of assertion between the blog and the papers; the papers are tame in comparison.
--- Quote from: jamesA01 on September 04, 2013, 05:39:02 pm ---When you say "how we manifest", it seems to me that this puts us back into a kind of infinite regress where we keep putting our agency somewhere else. So I'm pretty convinced that it will turn out to be the case that we have none, but this answer is still unsatisfactory, even if true. I found Itohs supposed dystopia highly appealing.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Madness on July 22, 2013, 03:14:33 pm ---We are humans fretting about how we manifest (something I hold dear as we seem to be able to choose to manifest beautifully as well as terribly) when, in reality as we are redrawn by BBH or Itoh's conclusions, we're really just protrusions of a fleshly Nature, our intentions and doubts no different than the leaves rustling the wind, plants growing towards the Star, or the motion of the planetary orbs through the galaxy.
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I assume you to mean the highlighted sentence above. I try and minimize these instances of ambiguity in my writing but I suffer from a compulsion towards the dramatic.
When I wrote "how we manifest," I should have written something to the effect of: we 'manifest' as the sum total of the exercise of our "perceived" agency. I say, 'perceived' because, obviously, the limits/existence of our "perceived" agency is up for debate. But otherwise we do and say things which affect the material world around us. Each of us is a butterfly effect as it were. And we'd like to think that we exercise our agency with intent and so as long as that is consensually the case, I'd like to hold people accountable for their personal exercise. A good percentage of "nihilists" I know are "better" people than those who believe things (Person Who Fallacy)... and I'm not necessarily talking religion so much as personal commitment. AA puts Evangelists to shame, neh?
Not really contending your second statement though.
--- Quote from: jamesA01 on September 04, 2013, 05:39:02 pm ---Anyway, your comments on Harmony put it into contexts I was totally unaware of. It is interesting to see the culture underlying the novel. It reminded me of what music critic Simon Reynolds called "retromania" - the inability of modern music to go forward with any kind of progressive momentum and its reduction to endless reiterations on past sounds. There is a real melancholy to the book, buying old novels precisely because their formats are obsolete. It often feel like this, being ignorant when it comes to coding and more than basic computer tech, as if i'm stuck in archaisms all the time and the speeds of the world around me are too fast to even sit down and finish the books that I buy.
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Yeah, that pretty much sums up academic philosophy. I understand the concept but I think the world is rife with experimentation.
--- Quote from: jamesA01 on September 04, 2013, 05:39:02 pm ---Here's hoping that all Itohs' blogposts and remaining works (I know theres a short story collection) will one day be translated into English. Are you able to read Japanese Madness? His blog is still online somewhere.
--- End quote ---
No, I was pretty much a ghost in Japan - the distinctions between my sister and I are fairly pronounced at this point. However, she'd likely have no stomach to read Itoh's blog.
It would be fitting to nail that linguistic accomplishment thirteen years later.
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