[^^zix home page] [HYPER-SPACE (mfa)]
[Promenade] [SUB-space (ma main page)]
[Index]
[MAP]
NOTE: Portions of this index/map were prepared whilest listening to/experiencing/trying to understand/learning/seeing/feeling/hearing/knowing/not-knowing/maybe knowing the concept of "LUE" using Black Star's amazing new invention called the "Third Eye Vision" (5-star dimension edition). That's liff.
Abs Fra Hum Sci
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PROMENADE ========================= Cafe Voltaire
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Art Fut Jaz Spi
The Promenade Galleries (Abs, Art, etc) lead to "Museum tubes"
which are hyperspace by-passes that in turn lead into the
"exhibit" spaces (eg, a "topic"). At any point, you may
go directly to the factory floor (where the basic building
blocks of the iconospheric things are located) - eg, "ma-artist".
Think of these as fairly compact volumes of an encyclopaedia
but directly focused upon certain (somewhat restrictedly so)
topics under each axis (eg, Absurdism, Artism, Fractalism, etc).
NOTE: There are both TWO and THREE letter designations for the
various axises; ie, AB/ABS=Absurdist, AR/ART=Artist, etc.
Fractalist, Futurist, Humanist, Jazzist,
Scientist and Spiritualist.
NOTE: There is no possible return from this page; well, other than the
BACK key. Since it is assumed that you arrrived on this page by
the process of non-linear thinking; or at least by
the process of non-linear querying.
...however: [Back to the Quick Index/map] (page)
A Brief Phylogeny of Everything
Stuff (probably only partially "knowable")
Other stuff (probably ab bit more knowable)
Small aquatic fowl
All non-possible universes
All non-possible universes that (turn out to be possible)
Our Universe (commonly refered to as "Reality Structure 3")
Concept/Idea/Form (and most other philosophical things)
Matter/Anti-matter | Engergy/Dark-Energy
Vast regions of empty space
Galaxies
Planets, Creatures, Thoughts, and Insurance Policies,
sub-atomic particles, waves, non-wave phenomenae, etc
(commonly mis-refered to as "everything)
The following is a quasi 4-dimensional map of the icon-o-sphere
Absurdity Art
Fractals
Humans (see alternate map)
Jazz
Science Spirituality
(The easiest way to "visualise" this is to "see" it in the
"tetrahedral way" (a triangle-based pyramid). The vertexes
(end points) of the tetrahedron are given by:
Art, Science, Spirituality (the base triangle)
Absurdity (the apex or the top "point" of the tetrahedron)
(it's a left-handed tetrahedron, which here, i
have taken the liberty of drawing upside down
and as a right-handed tetrahedron)
(for ease of viewing, maths (also commonly refered to as
"mathematics", "matimatika", etc -- for reasons unknown)
is not shown, since they pervade all things, even when
those things don't exist in the "normal" sense of "exist" or "is")
At the centre of the tetrahedron are of course humans who
rather have an high oppinion of themselves and are thus
at the centre of all things. As one of their philsophers
once put it: "Man is the measure of all things.". How this
would aid in the measurement of the mass of the graviton,
the semiotic thickness of the un-disclosed agency of
causality, or any of the other more common things still
in need of measuring is beyound your current narrator's
capacity to understand.
Now piercing this tetrahedron is a four-dimiensional line
that knows no bounds either in terms of any of the various
fictions such as "time", "space", "reality" (or non-reality
if you prefer).
The "end points" (again a convenient fiction) of the line
are of course fractals and jazz.
It is hoped that this diagram will aid the user in accessing
the portions of the icon-o-sphere that they wish to examine/look at/understand/not-understand/experience/not experience/etc.
Any comments or questions are always welcome.
Please address these to the librarian/tea-time consultant
of the library in the infinite city via:
Frank: fleeding AT hotmail DOT com (earth link; 2009.05.05)
Updates are announced via, the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/iconospherezix
Which also provides an automatic notification service as well.
Only send closed-form missives as a portion of the library
is being moved (when is a portion of the library NOT being
moved?), and as such any non-closed-form missives (packages,
letters, drawings, songs, etc) may be mistaken for part of
the library's permanent (or non-permanent) collection and
might not receive a response, but rather a catalog number,
reviews, indical notations, references to/from/of/by/with,
as well as possibly a small duck. (The duck may not be
returned unless all parties can agree on a peace-full
solution; Form LUE-042/3-5 must be filled out and
enclosed with the duck).
Please use the BACK key to return to your previous page.
Miscellaneous
Note: The semi-standard notation of "--30--"
is used to indicate the end of
each entry.
"action" (as well as "action at a distance", etc) -- the
concept of any change that produces a different
state of being. The diametric oppostie is usally taken as
"non-action" despite the fact that by NOT acting, events
may occur as a result and thus even non-action can be seen
as a form of action. The concept of action is closely
related to the various forms of the "free will" argments
(see topics in the INDEX under "free will"). One of the
key thinkers in this area in the new millenium is/was Isaac
Asimov (now, sadly deceased) who in his so-called "I, Robot"
series of fictions introduced "The Three Laws of Robotics"
(he consistently gave co-authorship to fellow writer/futurist
John Campbell).
(see entry: ["Robotics"] (under Scientist)
Key among them was the idea of "unless". In once story the
"strong" form of one of the three laws (of which there
actually more than 3, similar to the fact that there are
more than 3 laws in "The Three Laws of -[Thermodynamics]-"
(in physicist; but, alas, i digress).
The second law (in strong form) states: A robot may not allow injure
to a human being unless compromisiing the first law (not an exact quote).
In the weakened form of the the "unless" was removed. This allowed a robot
to attempt murder. It could easily now drop a heavy object on a
human knowing that it can reach the human and pull them out of harms
way before the object reaches them. In the weakened form, the robot
can then later decide simply not to act to fullfill the intent of
the first law: A robot can do no harm to a human being. In this case,
the robot knows that it is not harming the human, since it knows that
it can act soon enough to negate the action.
Thus, this gives rise to a very fruitful line of argument and reasoning
concerning free will, action, the common good, laws of right and wrong,
etc. That Asimov did not intend such discussions to take place is very
un-likely for several reasons: 1) He was a humanist, dedicating much
of his life to writing books on EVERY subject in the Dewey Decimal
Library Classification system (over 500 at the time of his death), 2)
Thus, he was deeply concerned for mankind (humanity) and its fate,
3) Further, he wrote two full volumes of the "robot stories" -- which
are quite literally un-like any other stories of their kind at the time
-- most of the "plot" of the story revolves around the "problems" that
arrose in the three laws with robotic behaviour that involved conflict
resolution and action directly -- in some case dealing with the potential
death of humans (something which would bring "grief" to a robot, possibly
driving it mad or rendiering it inert), and finally 4) it is clear that
he "probably" intended these laws as a model for a utopian society
for several reasons:
The robot was seen as the "utlimate servant" thus, freeing humanity
once and for all from drudgery work. The word robot is derrived from
the Chezk word "worker" from Karel Capel's story "Rostrom's Universal
Robots" -- which tells the story of autonomoton workers (robots).
Asimov later augmented the three laws with a zeroth law which consisted
of three higher laws. The word human was replaced with the broader word
"humanity", thus action on a single human might be justified by serving
a larger context of the greater good of humanity as a whole. Asimov was
only partially able to explore the paradoxes and problems inherent in
such a system before his death.
Most obvious is the old problem of "the end justifying the means". It
would appear that a robot (or an idealised human) COULD kill a human
(or at very least harm them) if the greater good of humanity was somehow
preserved/protected. This would at first show that violence "might" be
necessary for the good of society. But, as one of his most memorable
characters, Salvador Hardin ("Foundation", Volume 1) put it: "Violence
is the last resort -- but, only of the incompetant." (not an exact quote).
Thus, indicating that Asimov (or at least his idealised benovlent
ruler -- Hardin becomes the active leader of a revolutionary group
when "The Foundation" (a distant outpost in space created to presever
the galaxy from the chaos of a thousdand year decay into barbarism)
is threated with violence by surrounding principalities -- eschewed
violence.
Of course another probelm involved with action (and its counter-part,
non-action -- not necessarily an "opposite" since for almost any
action there are probably an infinite number of actions as well as
an almost as infinite number of anti-actions, etc). At any rate, another
problem is that one "makes mistakes" and that one "can not anticipate
every consequence". Even a cursory use of the icononsphere shows us
that due to the fractal/quantum/chaotic/random natures of the universe
(see map), we can rarely predict the outcome of ANY action (in-action, etc).
Thus, comes the moral problems with consequences. Even if we attempt to
create rational systems (teach children, build machines, writte plays)
we are certain to find that they can be mis-used, mis-understood, or
at the very least ignored until it is too late (or not).
Thus, comes the important of keeping track of the actions that we take,
trying to "tie down" (or at least annotate) as many extraneous features,
events, variables, etc as possible, as well as (probably most importantly)
"learn from the mistakes of history". The author/futurist/socialist
H.G. Welles pointed out that "Those who do not learn from the mistakes
of history are doomed to repeat them", as well as "More and more, civilisation
becomes a race between education and disaster" -- probably exact quotes.
A good example of this is with the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, there is
one pyramid that is a bit too steep and it collapsed. Subsequent
pyramids never came close to that slope again. In the same way the
classic case of the "Verizonno Narrows Bridge" ??ref?? stands as
a modern example as to what happens when we don't "pre-think" our
our actions. (A bridge that was supposed to be state of the art at
the time (and in fact WAS!) ended up by being destroyed by a very
small, rhythmic wind that "pumped" the bridge (just like when you
"pump yourself forward and backward" when sitting in a swing). The
resulting forces ended up completely destroying the bridge -- even
though it was designed to withstand MUCH higher wind current speeds).
From a fractalist/jazzist point of view (POV), this is the power of
rhythm, repetition, and other forms of pattern. Note that these are
two almot opposing ways of viewing things:
Fractalist -- repetition of a pattern as acurately as possible
With the possibility of a "slight error" -- in
which case the behaviour can become chaotic and
"defy" prediction, etc....
Jazzist -- pattern, which is then destroyed (or transformed) and
these patterns of change are either by "feel" or by
strict guidlelines of musical transformation. In either
case though, not strictly random -- they can be made so
using electronic methods or by carefully doing so
according to mathematical methods -- usually refered to
as "stochastic" (statistical music, "Markov processes", etc),
etc....
Regardless, the concept of "action" (right action, non-action, etc)
continue as a problem in all areas of philosophical investigation.
"ducks" -- refer to file: [Ducks] --30--
"earth" -- small, blue-green planet which the creature "man" (cf/qv)
inhabits (mainly). Primarily of local interest only. --30--
"humans" -- both a phsical term (see map: "man") for members of the
genus species homo sapiens (Latin "wise man"). As well as
a philosophical concept of "humanity" (see direct entries in the
icon-o-sphere under "Humanist"). Many essays are available on the
concept of "humanity" written from almost every point of view; eg,
spiritualist, scientist, artist, and of course humanist among them.
At the heart of the concept of "humanity" is the idea of "humane
treatment" -- which has also been extended to the treatment of humans
and non animals. Chief among these efforts are such organisations
as the "World Wild-Life Federation", "The Socieity for Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals", the oddly named "GreenPeace Group", as well
as "Amnesty International". The last of these your current narrator
having had close associations with for the past 30 years as an
active participant, sponsor, and "freedom writer" -- i never thought
to see Nelson Mandella alive again. Peace to all. --42-- --30--
"the infinite city" -- referring to either a real or imagined city
where many things are possible. Modesl for
this have included things like "Nirvanah", "heaven" (as well as "hell"),
"el Dorado", "Kimeon" ?sp?, "civis dei" (the city of God), Emerald City
(as well as all of Oz itself), etc. In the infinite city, there are
infinite delights as well as the possiblity of seeing people living
and dead. On notable part of the infinite city is its library and
tea room (technically speaking, any meal (or not) may be consummed
in the tea room of the infinite city -- for reasons unknown the tea
room is refered to as the "tea room" (not necessarily as "The" tea
room) as in the conversation:
Entity A: "I'll see you in the morning for breakfast, then."
Entity B: "In the tea room, around 8?"
Entity A: "That sounds good."
(this is one of the simpler such conversations concerning the tea
room. There are natually enough an infinite number of such
conversations. Refer to the as yet-un-written essay "Concerning
the countablity (or non-countability) of the infinite number of
conversations for setting a "luncheon date" in the tea room of
the infinite city" and related references to be contained there-in
-- some of which are already in existance.
) --30--
"library" -- a collection of things usually arranged according to
some systematic scheme. A common example is a school
library which contains books (printed, electronic, and facsicle),
recordings (video tapes, DVD's, audio tapes, vinyl records), as well
as an "index" (commonly refered to as "the card catalog" -- even
though it may be stored and accessed electronically and is only rarely
printed onto "cards").
Noted libraries on the planer Earth (see map) include the following:
The Library at Alexandria -- destroyed and mostly in-accessible
following the Roman-Christian era.
The Great Library of Persia -- destroyed following the invasion
during the Egyptian-Islamic era.
The Great Library of the Confuscians -- (possibly appocryphal),
destroyed during one of
the many purges (executions) of the Confucians by one of the
many Emperors of China.
The Library of Batan -- Destroyed during/following the so-called
"Bataan Death March".
The private library of Professor Ito -- destroyed during the
"re-settlement" of
Japanese Amercians following the so-called "Day of Infamy".
The Library and Collection of Berlin -- preserved by soldiers
during the final stages
of the so-called "Second World War". Although many items were
damaged beyound repair, many were recovered and exist now in
various collections. The painting by Gustave Colbert, "The
Stone Cutters" as well as the "sculpture by dadaist Kurt
Schwitters entitled "Merz House" did not survive the conflict
and both are presumed destroyed -- only a few casually taken
photographs of those (and many other) works remain.
"The 291 Gallery" -- While technically not a library, the collection
(stored in the attic of the building on 291 Fifth
Avenue, New York ??ok??), for many years in the early 1900c (the so-called
"twentieth century") housed the only viewable collection in the United
States of America (see any current political atlas) of many avante
guarde art works by such authors as Alfred Stieglitz and ??name? (co-founders
of the collection), Pablo Picasso, Paul Ceszane, Matisse, O'Keefe, etc.
Tragically though one of the most treasured pieces in the permanent
collection entitiled "The Fountain" by the artist "Richard Muttinger"
(signed simply "R. Mutt") was misplaced and/or stolen at about the
same in Paris that the famous "Mona Lisa" (also refered to as "The
Portrait of the Lady La Giaoconda ??spa??) was stolen. Although
suspected as the possible thief of both, the artist/chess-player
Marcel Duchamp was never conclusively proven to have anything to do
with either event. Oddly enough some maintain that Marcel himself was
the artist who created "The Fountain" (possibly a copy of the original
by R. Mutt), as well as purported to have painted the "Mona Lisa"
-- despite the latter's usually accepted authorship by Lenoardo da
Vinci. Both "The Fountain" and the "Mona Lisa" have been much
imitated by many visual artists, sculptors, writers, etc. thus
increasing the burden of authentication by curators but usually to
the delight of art historians, and other teachers.
Other libraries too numerous include those at cities, universites,
colleges, acadamies, schools, as well as small privately owned (and
much treasured) libraries (more "mere" collections) of various
aestheticists, scientists, theologists, pata-physicists, etc
-- all paying homage to the enduring value of such a concept
of a library.
As a final note, it is purported that the "inventor" of the so-called
"lending library" was in fact Benjamin Franklin, a rather obscure
inventor in the 1700c-1800c colony of Philadelphia who is usually
credited with discovering (and un-fortunately mis-labeling the
polarity of) electricity. Fanciful accounts include flying a kite
during an electrical story, purposefully (or not depending upon
the version of the story) forgetting his wig and thus changing the
course of world history, as well as supposedly being married to
someone named Constance Dogood. History is full of such interesting
tales concerning not only the sciences (for example the invention of
the first earth-quake detector by ??namename?? in China during the
??chinese-dynesty??), the arts (the the invention of counter-point
by Johann Sebastian Bach (approx ??year??) followed much later by
the invention of modern Jazz notation under the dirction of the
Base player Charles Mingus at a confeference of Jazzists that he
called in New York in the late 1900c, as well as the invention of
a rational alphabet for the Korean Language (hanguuk) by King Sejoung
(of the Yi Dynesty) with the assistnace and interworking of his
scholars just going to show you that it IS possible for humans
(see map) to get along -- at least briefly.
These and mnay other topics are accessible via the internet
(usually credited as having been invented by the CERN laboratoy
in France/Switzerland and Tim Berners Lee; although the inventor
of e-mail is unknown, a largely bearded chap by the ironic last
name of "Post" (now, sadly deceased) is generally credited with
many of the so-called "post office protocols" used to make not
only e-mail but the internet the mostly successfull information
i-way (c) that it is today). Of course many traditional scholars,
*still* prefer wandering up and down the musty halways of libraries
to sitting on their duffs and "surfing" the internet. --30--
"man" -- a small, ape-like creature inhabiting (for the most part)
the third planet from the star locally known as "Sol",
"The Sun", "Solaris", etc. Many theories have been put forward
to explain this creature and its habbits. Chief among these is
the concept that the creatue was created out of nothing. One of
these ideas derives from the concept of "divine creation" while
a generally recognised "opposite" idea is that man evolved from
a a "lower form" sharing many common characteristics with existant
creatues called "The Great Apes". Other ideas involve the creation
of man as a result of the inadequacies of the "first people" (commonly
refered to as "the first ones", "the yei", etc) who determined
that the forces of nature could ONLY be balanced by the introduction
of a "fifth element" (also refered to as a "fifth direction" -- that
is, as opposed to the "normal" four directions; ie, north, south,
east, west) in this view man is tasked with enjoying life as much
as possible, trying to understand the universe, and among certain
individuals (called into being spontaneously from their "normal"
existance) as "intercessors" (guides, shamans, saviours, prophets,
seers, etc) who attempt to bring "balance" (as well as a greater
understanding) to the thing called life. --30--
"the universe" -- Commonly refered to as "the universe of discourse".
It is both a philosophical as well as materialisic
concept used to refer to the vast collection of possible but not
im-possible (for the most part) things. It also refers to the
metaphorical concept of "universality" or "totalness" of things or
any such collection (physical or conceptual) purporting to include
many, many things with common (or not) attributes. --30--