Re: <eyebeam><blast> Astronomical hindsight

[organon@mail.ggg.net]

>Baudrillard not only has his facts wrong about light (which NEVER slows
>down  -- it goes always at its same speed), but also his metaphors
>mixed! (p. 8 of the paper).  Professor Jay corrects the misconception in
>a very clear paragraph right after, yet he still finds validity in
>Baudrillard's mixed metaphors.  I must admit I did not quite follow the
>subsequent argument on virtual reality (sounds to me too romantic or at
>least subjective), but I do like Professor Jay's ending sentence.
>Athena Tacha
>http://www.oberlin.edu/~art/athena/tacha.html

------

With Baudrillard, metaphor has ceased to exist. From the impulse to the
phantasm to the simulacra, the joke of representation lies in ruins in
our childhood closet.

Actually, Baudrillard may be surprisingly closer to the truth than the
"modern" physics which thinks it disproved the ether. See the physicist
Ernst Lehrs' book "Man or Matter" which was written several decades ago
and which the most recent theories - cf. William Tiller at Stanford -
are catching up to. It's a problem of how we conceive of light. Light(1)
in the "material" sense is our experience of light(2) as pure
consciousness/meaning/information slowed down by the gravitation of our
atmosphere/noosphere. The speed of technology/vr/etc only takes the
everyday consciousness closer to a point where light(1) folds into
light(2) whereas there have always been practices of doing this:
esoteric yes, but actually the infinite speed which Deleuze and Blanchot
reach with their "philosophy" is on the same track.

Both Reich's empirical research and Bergson's theoretical analysis point
to the incorrect conception of empty space with objects moving through
it which has characterized our subjectivity during the dualist
"scientific" period. The movement of philosophy and technology over the
past century has only brought us to this abyss. Nietzsche's fortuitous
case of a confrontation with "madness" is only what is in store for each
of us unless we develop the framework for dealing with this "event" -
the folding of light(1) into light(2) is only one doorway into a realm
that circles dream/hypnosis/madness/alien abduction/false
memory/tryptamine communication and other strange phenomena.

Baudrillard even scared himself. Nostalgia gets the upper hand in his
last books. Hardboiled he tells the facts: this is what we have done and
this is what's going to happen - are you sure you want to wreck what
took so long to build. Nietzsche's madman in the square again. Surviving
the death of God was nothing compared to the next sacrifice. Oh well,
gravity and linear time were nice while they lasted.

Will



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