The Mirror is a Cave
“In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream-
Lingering in the golden gleam-
Life, what is it but a dream?”
― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
In the last essay, I introduced five primal relationships pertaining to collections and their dynamics:
1 Bag, immediate container and aperture(s) for the collection
2 Host/guest, primitive relationship between contents and container, and other special members such as shepherding members.
3 Empedoclean Cycle describing periodic changes and exchanges within and outside of the bag.
4 Appearance, the functional shape and appearance of the container.
5 Effigy and Chimera, any product, secretion, signal, superficial figure applied to, inserted into or expelled by the container for possible collective purposes such as list of contents or stealth, instruction, warning, attraction, grade access. Effigy is virtual compared to the container; usually missing one dimension. Chimera is a composite but reduced image or concept applied to complex ideas, opinions or knowledge. In devising emblems, one can apply symbolic elements to the divisions of the body for the transmission of complex information. Visual effigy is transmitted by its medium light and travels faster than the body that carries it; same for other body-based means of sense transmission. Chimera on the other hand is an internalized effigy ‘drawn over’ a group of ideas or goals.
These five relationships comprise a hybrid of functional, geometrical, and physically dynamic properties mixed with independent, conscious activity so to depict living behaviors. The ends to which this activity applies chiefly concern survival. This sounds like artificial life parameters. But instead, the intent of this series of essays is to edify the person as to the forces plied upon it, due to two higher parameters: Position and access within a collective. Clearly within a living conscious organization, there will be some differences from a static bag of marbles on a table. We begin by adding constant motion impinging the container and its members. Then, we give the container coordinated ability to fulfill its inherent function thru information that is coded, savable and sendable to its members and other collectives. Lastly, we give the container and contents the faculty of memory and thought. These skirt the margins of artificial intelligence as far as humans can conceive of intelligence, but the intellect cannot itself reduce to a simple form other than label it as ‘description’.
In the prior essay we touched on the purposeful conscious application of Effigy in order to signal appropriateness or alter appearance in certain domains. While the behavior is familiar to all humans, unconscious products also accompany the human which signal other issues of appropriateness or functions that are for the moment unconscious, i.e., subconscious. These tacit signals often follow non-visual channels or occur in the background. In the case of animal camouflage, the production of foliate patterns are utterly unconscious for birds and mammals; yet the complexity demonstrated by octopuses suggests its dermal figuration to be willful, and connected to the visual channel. In each, surface figuration of the external body, separate from anatomical appearance, serves to sustain the contents through adverse contexts. The behavior of collectives and their container relates to First Principle: That which strives to achieve persistence of form and balance ‘in the best way possible.’ (v. Timaeus. Plato) In case we overlook the Platonic idiom in use here, Principle rests upon conscious awareness, which is the appearance and use of information appropriate to the organism. This is exercised by problems that present due to discontinuity in the cosmos and in all organisms, for which the entity of the whole attempts to modulate & mitigate through choice action.
So-called inanimate mechanisms can also create persistent forms and systems that have electrochemical or mechanical limit tolerances and triggers. These primitive systems would be available for conveying higher, living systems through change as well.
Further, the first four relationships really describe irrevocable ‘destiny’. The human or the tree find themselves contained by processes that extend beyond their individual scope. Each are sustained by hierarchies of internal and external constituents that are, again, ab origine beyond the scope of the individual. Lastly, motion, which mostly resolves to cyclic iteration, induce or impel change throughout the system which is unavoidable.
Destiny is thus related to Cause, consciousness-being and the particle structure of the cosmos. It appears a priori to Principle which is subject to interpretation and choice. These two Cause and Principle are co-dependent aspects of divided awareness. The destined relationships are not easily changed once engaged, so intelligent behaviors arise to mitigate and survive the negative aspects of them. The animal and tree both are impelled to hibernate for surviving Winter. The human is induced to store supplies for the same period, and to behave in many ways directly related to immediate survival. Other behaviors are meant to better the odds of future survival. Much of destiny mitigation and life improvement happen by interpreting and sending audible or visual messages. Consequently, context of the message and the medium of transmission are important properties to consider.
For example, one is looking for a suitable appearance toward daily trips to school. Here a nearly linear relationship exists between the sequence of years in primary through secondary school and age-targeted fashion marketing. Then later, one is looking for a date or mate: S/he gazes at the image in the mirror again, but differently. In the first scenario we look to make sure the apparent nuances of our literal age, expressed through contagious fads, are proper for our group or membership in the ‘container’. In the second scenario, we check the mirror less for tokens of group status and more for signs of personal value like health, balance, confidence, wealth.
The Mirror
The mirror is related to our original series of relationships through the projective property of the closed sack, with an aperture that projects a reversed image onto the back of the bag. This is accomplished by restricting light rays through point which reverses the image. The mirror projects light rays from a reflective surface that is reversed.
Once, the person gazes into the mirror the external sensory channel is bent back upon the internal conscious channel. The mirror appears as another container whose aperture is the mirror surface. The view is graphically illusory insofar as the image is reversed from what others see. The viewer can see if the face is clean, hair coiffed, or if the current fashion is carried well, etc. But what is not perceived there is the physical contents of the body or any of its associated sensations. Neural sequencing is not visible there, not thoughts, opinions, objectives. What is seen is appearance initially, qualified by applied devises of fashion. The mirror produces effigy, even if it reflects the appearance of the naked human because the image is superficial and observer dependent. As such, one’s appearance is reduced to effigy that can be modified via reflection to match the chimera carried in the head. An example of this reduction is present in high fashion where surface layering or insertions produce a ‘theme’ or evocation of beauty not usually considered human. One can pretend to embody a season, animal or element. Such additions are claimed to shepherd certain behaviors and attain access. All of it would be impossible to accomplish without a mirror.
A problem can arise: The effigy cannot alter the appearance to the extent presented by the chimera or imaginary picture. The person will visit the mirror repeatedly to affect the closest possible simulation, even after one accepts that the world sees a ‘backward you’. Another discomfort is that the person does not feel that their reflection is truly them. They sense that their face or body shape is not that which they’ve come to think or feel it is. Or, the fleeting image of one passing quickly in front of a mirror can seem to show a distorted shape.
Another problem can be the pleasant fascination with one’s reflection. This also indicates an estrangement between self-concept and a reflection that demands reassurance. It is not difficult to see how these three scenarios capture the human within a secondary system that isolates it from primary existence. The fascination occurring with the mirror is increased during passing glances that show an unexpected or odd appearance. Or, peering into one’s eyes, the face begins to shift. Often the mirror is too close to give a proportionate, global view of the body, within the rooms they are hung. Instead, they project a fish-eye distortion due to foreshortening at close range.
You know what fish-eye does? Makes you look ‘plump’. So, it goes within the myth of rapt Narcissus, that his vanity with distorted and fragmented reality carried him to the extreme of starving while staring at his reflection.
Short of death, these are sufficient inducements in the commercial realm to create markets, sales in cosmetology and divide society based on exceeding prior limits of fleeting beauty. In the political realm, the solidity of the reflected body stripped of consciousness, is petitioned, maintained and disposed by a greater host, the media network. To escape the tractive powers of the mirror, step away, … you disappear. And now, you can think clearly, take control again of your life, be your living self without that token face you’ve managed to perceive.
The Screen
There is another form of mirror which arose with the invention of photography and cinema. This mirror is more comprehensive. It captures not only the members and objects in a scene, it also captures scenery, locale, with or without significant people or animals. Cinema can also impart motion to a scene, leading from one group of parameters to another group with a purely derived logic achieved by a camera aperture. Photography can apply cinema codes to evoke emotion, memory & achieve a lokah (thought-world). Video/TV similarly delivers the same kinds of effigy since it produces a superficial image, without sufficient reality of independent life.
The screen allows a public appreciation of the imagery appearing there. This raises the level of strength referring the individual to the collective. Here, the shepherding properties of information can reach the community, not just one person. The geometrical arrangement of a public screen is similar to that of a theatrical stage above the viewers head. This arrangement broadens the receptivity in the audience and strengthens inducements presented there thru suspension of disbelief. This famously happens in public theaters where a collective is present. However, in domestic television, where programming reaches millions at once, effigy is powerful and follows the prerogatives of people with intentions that can be far from yours or those presented.
The camera or mirror has the effect of grounding the person in the environment through an external artefact if the background environment is included. The loop of consciousness occurring there can reveal the invisible viewer, who is greater than the image presented within the world. A reflection within a small, personal mirror that captures the face or body with the landscape can evoke thoughts of ancestors, their choices and yours. This cinema-code-like experience plants one solidly in the world and excites questions around ‘your story’. These thoughts are invisible products, the work of awareness in motion.
For such reason, Shinto uses the mirror as a sacred, liminal object. With the thoughts of ancestors, thoughts of past and future come poignantly, placing the gazer between the two stations, becoming a flow of time itself. This experience can bring concerns that become strident in times of fear or doubt.
Commercial media is aware of this and uses effigy to suggest, induce behavior in the market. Poets are aware of these concerns that provide subject and character for their entertainments. Holy men and politicians are also aware of their issues, who mirror the cares of their followers for the purpose of offering enlightenment and better government. We can observe also that many contradictory endeavors are yoked to the fascination of these same people. Or darkly, doubts of self-image are seeded in the community to increase niggling worries, then reap the stochastic sales in stores.
The offerings of each practice attempt to answer or reward the work of mitigation of harm to the individual. Since humans are social, found in collectives, these avenues of mitigation are critical due to proximity of members. Within urban environments the priest, the politician, scientist and poet are all more highly sought and developed, therefore. Each portrays differing ways of determining mitigation of raw existence. Each draws attention to different kinds human origin, and calls listeners to different goals even while humans are inherently destined to the same end. Each would have you get there differently.
Next week… Origins and Membership, figured concepts of, within the collective.
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