Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

Here are a few neat things. Just so cool, and... neat. I have no idea how this shit works, I just find it fascinating.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/11/universe-hologram-physicists_n_4428359.html

http://thespacereporter.com/2013/12/warning-the-universe-could-be-about-ready-to-collapse-on-us/

I've also been toying with the ontology of black holes lately, at least theoretically. I don't think any of the popular images we can find online even come close to accurately conceptualizing what the physics of black holes are. They are so profound, in a material sense, that entire galaxies revolve around them... and yet they are nothing. Or, not nothing; they're something. But we have no instruments that can even hope of observing them. They defy the any means of empirical knowing. We can detect that they're there, and we can measure their effects; but we cannot see them.

They're like the material instantiation of the Lacanian real.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Yeah I love pretending I understand what's going on when I listen to guys like pop physicist Michio Kaku and Neil Degrasse Tyson. Plus they're comedians in a subtle way. Kaku explains everything to you with analogies of cookie crumbles and bubble baths like you're a fucking 9 year old lol and Tyson is just a sarcastic sorta gloomy dick-head haha

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Yeah I love pretending I understand what's going on when I listen to guys like pop physicist Michio Kaku and Neil Degrasse Tyson. Plus they're comedians in a subtle way. Kaku explains everything to you with analogies of cookie crumbles and bubble baths like you're a fucking 9 year old lol and Tyson is just a sarcastic sorta gloomy dick-head haha

Neil Tyson's awesome man haha. I love how he seems to secretly hate everyone. But J. Richard Gott is the shit, I learned about him from this excellent and hilarious debate with Tyson, Krauss, and some other assholes nobody has heard of. He's the quirky old southern dude wearing a baby blue suit.

 

[Einherjar86]

Tyson is great. His essays in Death By Black Hole are particularly fascinating, and his description of what would hypothetically happen to a body "falling into" a black hole is terrifying. I personally just find the properties of black holes, as they impact our apparatuses of knowledge, absolutely mind-boggling.

Black holes, as gravitational singularities, allow nothing to escape, not even light. All instruments of empirical human knowledge are beholden to reifications of the human senses; that is, they rely on measurements of waves that we interpret as images, or sounds, etc. Unfortunately, black holes consume all these waves, leaving no direct evident of what goes on inside a black hole. No instruments of empirical knowledge can directly observe a black hole.

All we can do is detect the black hole as an effect of our instruments of knowledge. Where light warps, or typical measurements appear inaccurate, we can deduce that something else is enacting unseen forces upon reality. This is how we can tell that, and where, black holes exist.

The term "black hole" thus signifies not only an ontological property (i.e. that it consumes all physical matter, even particles and waves) but also an epistemological property (i.e. the failure of all material media and substrates by which we can know reality). Experiments rely on observation, and black holes are the ontological instantiation of what cannot be observed.

I, personally, interpret this as the necessary evidence that our ability to know if affected by the world; and, vice versa, that the world is altered by our ability to know. There is no original spatiotemporal reality that we can observe. Wherever we look, wherever we aim our instruments, we alter what we presume to gaze innocently toward. Where we think we measure reality, we only ever measure reality as it has been affected by us measuring it.

 

[Dak]

Speaking of Mandela:



http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/mandelas-socialist-failure/?_r=0

I can paraphrase Zizek: It's a tragedy Mandela didn't lead a global necklacing campaign.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[Einherjar86]

That sounds more like an interpretation rather than a "paraphrase."

I have a new blog post up; it's been a while. I admit it: I'm a closet dialectician (closet? Maybe more obvious than that...).

 

[Dak]

Am I incorrect? Zizek prefers to whitewash Mandela's legacy like any other good tribalist. Or phylist. Taking the high ground in a mutual bloodbath is amusing looking in from the outside.

 

[Einherjar86]

Žižek is saying that Mandela's "legacy" is nothing more than a façade to cover up the fact that he merely maintained the status quo. Doesn't sound like whitewashing to me...

 

[Addo_Of_Nex]

Ein, I'm working my way through your latest blog post right now and finding myself nodding in agreement with quite a bit; namely the claim that dialectic is the most convincing way of attempting (and I do only mean attempting, for it's senseless to arrive at any final conclusion in any matter of inquiry) to describe and systematize reality; but I can't help but feel like I'm an outsider looking in, as it comes off as a technical term of sorts. Any background literature recommendations to help me have a more footed approach?

Also, I got After Finitude and Nihil Unbound for Christmas. Thinking about revisiting some Badiou and maybe exposing myself to Foucault and Derrida, as well as finishing the second half of The Speculative Turn, before tearing into them, but cool beans nonetheless.

 

[Einherjar86]

Any background literature recommendations to help me have a more footed approach?

Fredric Jameson is probably your best bet if you want some metacommentary on the dialectic, its history, and how it's applied. Philosophers who often apply it typically don't bother to discuss the technical aspects of what they're doing or how.

Jameson, on the other hand, is not only an incredible theorist, thinker, and writer; he's also a fantastic student. By that, I mean his texts can be read as studies in dialectical thought, and this means very intense engagement with dialectical philosophers and explanations of their methodologies.

His early book, Marxism and Form: Twentieth Century Dialectical Theories of Literature, provides a study on subject matter that's closer to my line of work. For a later, more heavily philosophical approach, look for his book Valences of the Dialectic (which is the book I used for some of my blog post).

Also, I got After Finitude and Nihil Unbound for Christmas. Thinking about revisiting some Badiou and maybe exposing myself to Foucault and Derrida, as well as finishing the second half of The Speculative Turn, before tearing into them, but cool beans nonetheless.

Awesome! I'm having Christmas with my folks late this year (had Christmas with the in-laws first); so I'll keep everyone posted on my literary hauls as well once I receive them.

Any particular texts of Derrida and Foucault you're considering? I only ask because of all the authors of theory I have on my shelf, Jameson and Foucault are those whose work I have the most of. I also have two books of essays by Derrida; he's fallen out of favor recently among literary critics, and philosophers (especially in the American traditions) have always eschewed his work. However, I find him fascinating and occasionally misunderstood. He's currently undergoing a bit of a renaissance due to the work of Martin Hägglund (who has an essay in The Speculative Turn).

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Reading this on my little vacation. It's incredible.

from wiki:

"According to his book, Perkins' function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with debts they could not hope to pay, those countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins argues in his book that developing nations were effectively neutralized politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an EHM as follows:

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization."

 

[Dak]

I've had a lot of people recommend that book. Been meaning to read it but as it's only confirmation of what I already know it's continually pushed down the list.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

Would you be so kind as to list some books you've read in the same vein.. or some you've been meaning to read?

 

[Dak]

Would you be so kind as to list some books you've read in the same vein.. or some you've been meaning to read?

Um, I can't think of anything off the top of my head. I did blog about this sort of thing a couple of years ago when Reuters did a huge article on deals in Libya before Qaddafi was even dead - deals being cut with any and all potential new leaders.

This game has been going on a long time.

"But, rest assured, this will be the sixth time we have destroyed [Zion], and we have become exceedingly efficient at it."

Pretty much tells the tale in a nutshell.

 

[Addo_Of_Nex]

Fredric Jameson is probably your best bet if you want some metacommentary on the dialectic, its history, and how it's applied. Philosophers who often apply it typically don't bother to discuss the technical aspects of what they're doing or how.

Jameson, on the other hand, is not only an incredible theorist, thinker, and writer; he's also a fantastic student. By that, I mean his texts can be read as studies in dialectical thought, and this means very intense engagement with dialectical philosophers and explanations of their methodologies.

His early book, Marxism and Form: Twentieth Century Dialectical Theories of Literature, provides a study on subject matter that's closer to my line of work. For a later, more heavily philosophical approach, look for his book Valences of the Dialectic (which is the book I used for some of my blog post).



Awesome! I'm having Christmas with my folks late this year (had Christmas with the in-laws first); so I'll keep everyone posted on my literary hauls as well once I receive them.

Any particular texts of Derrida and Foucault you're considering? I only ask because of all the authors of theory I have on my shelf, Jameson and Foucault are those whose work I have the most of. I also have two books of essays by Derrida; he's fallen out of favor recently among literary critics, and philosophers (especially in the American traditions) have always eschewed his work. However, I find him fascinating and occasionally misunderstood. He's currently undergoing a bit of a renaissance due to the work of Martin Hägglund (who has an essay in The Speculative Turn).

Did some cursory reading on Jameson (while drinking Jameson, as it was), and I'll definitely be grabbing Valences of the Dialectic when I get paid next.

As for Foucault and Derrida, I haven't the slightest clue where to start. I was unfairly prejudiced against continental philosophy up until last year, so they're two major figures I've managed to totally neglect. My favorite professor does bring up Derrida at least every other lecture, though.

 

[Einherjar86]

Derrida's most famous and accessible texts are probably Of Grammatology and Writing and Difference. I own the latter, as well as his book Dissemination, which is really difficult due to its length and really weird presentation; but it has a long essay titled "Plato's Pharmacy" that's now considered a staple of his work.

As far as Foucault goes, you can start almost anywhere; but I'd suggest The Order of Things.

I'm psyched to hear what you think! A lot of your comments in the past have shaped the way I view some of the theorists I've read, actually. Recently, I've been seriously interested in a new materialist combination of philosophy and the life sciences; that's why I was drawn to both Meillassoux and Brassier in the first place. You might enjoy Manuel DeLanda as well.

 

[Addo_Of_Nex]

I'm vaguely familiar with the ideas in Of Grammatology, mainly from disparate mentions of it in other texts. I'll have to look into that, and a lot of Foucault especially. Foucault seems to be one of the most respected continental philosophers in the analytic circle that usually (unfairly, though not entirely without reason) derides their perceived obscurantism in the style. That's actually why I've actively avoided Lacan. The way he invokes topology is laughable and mathematically baseless, but his name is so ubiquitous that I feel the need to at least become familiar with some of his ideas.

Yeah, a lot of the stuff you've mentioned here over the years has gotten me into an entirely different world of philosophy I never thought I'd bother with. I feel a bit lost right now given my long absence from school and new-found interest in continental philosophy. My professors (I'm in a continental department) will be thrilled when I come back having read all this stuff. The existential crises that have been brought on by not being entirely sure of what I want to specialize in has been a bummer, though.

 

[Onder]

Russia is getting a nice series of bombings before the Olympics start. I think it's a gift from the southern people. Maybe it's just the new year's fireworks though.

EDIT: Insert "in Russia..." meme here.

 

[Dak]

Mises Daily (2004): Vocation vs Profession

@Ein.