The Parallax View

"There is an entire series of modes of parallax in different domains of modern theory:

quantum physics

[Clemens Jahn photography]
(the wave-particle duality)

The parallax of neurobiology

(the realization that, when we look behind the face into the skull, we find nothing; "there's no one at home" there, just piles of grey matter – it is difficult to tarry with this gap between meaning and the pure Real).

The parallax of ontological difference

[Ad Reinhardt]
(Of the discord between the ontic and the transcendental-ontological (we cannot reduce the ontological horizon to its ontic "roots," but neither can we deduce the ontic domain from the ontological horizon; that is to say transcendental constitution is not creation).

The parallax of the Real

[Collage by Brion Nuda Rosch]
(the Lacanian Real has no positive-substantial consistency, it is just the gap between the multitude of perspectives on it)

The parallax nature of the gap between desire and drive

[New track/visuals from Flying Lotus via twitter]
(let us imagine an individual trying to perform a simple manuel task--say, grab an object which repeatedly eludes him: the moment he changes his attitude, starting to find pleasure in just repeating the failed task, squeezing the object which, again and again, eludes him, he shifts from desire to drive)

The parallax of the unconscious

[Photo by Daniel Sannwald]
(The lack of common measure between the two aspects of Freud's theoretical edifice, interpretations of the formations of the unconscious and theories of drives)

Last and least -- the parallax of the vagina

(the shift from the ultimate object of sexual penetration, the embodiment of the mystery of sexuality, to the very organ of maternity [birth])."

Genesis

Scientist Create 'artificial life.'

The report ends on a positive note:
"Barack Obama, the US president, asked his bioethics council to study the potential ethical implications of artificial DNA."


The singularity rapidly approaches!

Rabbits

Ever notice how The Television laughs for you?

The Problems of Consciousness

Wants to hold on to the notion of consciousness as an inherently unexplainable phenomenon. More so, really, that the traditional problems of consciousness are not solved by Dennett's disillusionment of this pseudo-Cartesian outlook.



THE obvious problem I see in this bizarre debate is that when Block says the word consciousness, he means something very different than what Dennett means when he utters the word consciousness. Dennett thinks of consciousness as the cartesian theater, a hypothesis with no physiological justification in the brain. Block, on the other hand, seems to be addressing the mysterious process that Dennett alludes to when he speaks of the brains wonderful ability to produce this illusion. It seems as though Block, believes that Dennet is saying that this unity does not exist. On the contrary, Dennett when saying illusion, means that the brain REALLY IS producing this unity, but that it has very little justification in reality.

DeLillo's SciFi

I had the pleasure of taking a writing class with writerbloggereditor, Ed Park this past fall. He is the author of the novel Personal Days (hugely funny, maybe the greatest sentence ever written), his blog is called disambiguation, and he writes a scifi column for the LA Times called Astral Weeks.



This week Part took a look at The Secret History of Science Fiction, in which DeLillo's short story, "Human Moments From World War III," is included. It is most certainly worth the trouble of searching out. Of the little short fiction I've read of DeLillo's, this piece stands out as one of his best (not that he's really capable of doing much wrong).


Did I mention that Ed Park is also the founder and editor of The Believer? Here's a 2004 interview with Slavoj Zizek because, why not?

Thanks Professor
via disambiguation

Zizek's Universe

Cosmogramma

Hiatus over. Cosmogramma is here



And it's probably the augmented reality piece fiedlines that speaks to the genius of this record more aptly than any intellectual form of communication can wish to.



But I can try, with no apologies for any gushiness. No artist today, in my eyes, is more inspiring or important to the evolution of music while simultaneously, unabashedly, composing accessible, pleasant music. Cosmogramma is effortless for the listener.

Just listen to it, very very loud.