Bakker XXXIII: When One Thread Dies One Must Learn To Love Another

[sologdin]

Let us consider this question more precisely. Is there any self-existent fire ? and do all those things which we call self-existent exist ? or are only those things which we see, or in some way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and nothing whatever besides them ? And is all that which, we call an intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name ? Here is a question which we must not leave unexamined or undetermined, nor must we affirm too confidently that there can be no decision ; neither must we interpolate in our present long discourse a digression equally long, but if it is possible to set forth a great principle in a few words, that is just what we want.

(timaeus 51c) (emphasis added).

goodness. it's the eponymous bit from plato for the Bigg D essay, and it marks itself out as a digression. traditionally, the space for deconstruction is in the margin, so digressions and other deviations away from the main thesis of a text (such as a preface, say) is where it will be found to self-destruct. no wonder this is the locus of the undoing of the timaeus.

[Hello World]

Damn... At this rate we’re going to need a sologdin-speak interpreter.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Damn... At this rate were going to need a sologdin-speak interpreter.

I've said that before also...I'm getting better at deciphering it, just takes a while.

[sologdin]

the timaeus, as it turns out, is a mess. it takes place the day after the republic, and so begins with a recapitulation of that argument. after asking to be entertained (17a-b ), which marks this type of socratic dialogue as primarily aesthetic in purpose, socrates wants to discuss how the state he has described as a static might look in dynamic circumstances, such as war. this leads into a guy named critias offering up a discussion of an ancient war of the athenians against atlantis, which he proposes to relate--but not before timaeus says hey y'all greasers let me tell the whole story from the moment of creation up to the appearance of humanity, which is of course a completely normal and not at all antisocial interjection into an otherwise polite conversation. critias' tale of atlantis is accordingly pushed out of this dialogue, which is essentially a coda to the republic and a preface to the critias, which dialogue has only survived as a fragment. (for deconstruction, by the bye, the deferral of the narrative to a point that is not available to us is perfect.)

the timaeus is just insane for the most part. most famous thesis is that the universe is made of the four primordial elements (earth, air, fire, water), and that these can be reduced down to the platonic solids (fire is tetrahedron, air is octohedron, water is icosahedron, earth is cube; he has cute little explanations for why!) (see 53c ff.).

relevant passage on seminal fluids, just because:

The bones and flesh, and other similar parts of us, were made as follows. The first principle of all of them was the generation of the marrow. For the bonds of life which unite the soul with the body are made fast there, and they are the root and foundation of the human race. The marrow itself is created out of other materials : God took such of the primary triangles [!] as were straight and smooth, and were adapted by their perfection to produce fire and water, and air and earth; these, I say, he separated from their kinds, and mingling them in due proportions with one another, made the marrow out of them to be a universal seed of the whole race of mankind ; and in this seed he then planted and enclosed the souls, and in the original distribution gave to the marrow as many and various forms as the different kinds of souls were hereafter to receive. That which, like a field, was to receive the divine seed, he made round every way, and called that portion of the marrow, brain, intending that, when an animal was perfected, the vessel containing this substance should be the head ; but that which was intended to contain the remaining and mortal part of the soul he distributed into figures at once around and elongated, and he called them all by the name 'marrow'; and to these, as to anchors, fastening the bonds of the whole soul, he proceeded to fashion around them the entire framework of our body, constructing for the marrow, first of all a complete covering of bone.

(73b-d) (emphasis added).

for those keeping track, the divine seed is popped into our marrow.

And this was the reason why at that time the gods created in us the desire of sexual intercourse, contriving in man one animated substance, and in woman another, which they formed respectively in the following manner. The outlet for drink by which liquids pass through the lung under the kidneys and into the bladder, which receives then by the pressure of the air emits them, was so fashioned by them as to penetrate also into the body of the marrow, which passes from the head along the neck and through the back, and which in the preceding discourse we have named the seed. And the seed having life, and becoming endowed with respiration, produces in that part in which it respires a lively desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation. Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway ; and the same is the case with the so-called womb or matrix of women ; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease

(91a-c) (emphasis added).

NB: the seed is a living thing and causes the desire for emission, causing genitals to become rebellious, which applies to both the male 'organ' and the female 'matrix' (identified otherwise in this text with khora).

and, regarding afflictions of the body (after describing in mindnumbing detail how the body is fashioned):

He who has the seed about the spinal marrow too plentiful and overflowing, like a tree overladen with fruit, has many throes, and also obtains many pleasures in his desires and their offspring, and is for the most part of his life deranged, because his pleasures and pains are so very great ; his soul is rendered foolish and disordered by his body ; yet he is regarded not as one diseased, but as one who is voluntarily bad, which is a mistake. The truth is that the intemperance of love is a disease of the soul due chiefly to the moisture and fluidity which is produced in one of the elements by the loose consistency of the bones. And in general, all that which is termed the incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach under the idea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter for reproach. For no man is voluntarily bad ; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will.

(86c-e) (emphasis added).

ergo: race of lovers just have bursting marrows, is all.

[Happy Ent]

FUCK

YOU

ALL

We are your willing receptacles.

[Hello World]

I was just looking at a thread called HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEX!! in General Chatter and the thought crossed my mind that someone should Bakkake by starting a HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAKKER!!! thread.

Of course, I did not consider doing this seriously, just sometimes I can’t help but have trollish thoughts come to me, even if I don’t act on them. And what are the chances that his birthday is close, anyway? Still, just for the heck of it I looked at his wikipedia page and it turns out his birthday is literally tomorrow.

Of all the days it could’ve occurred to me to start a thread about Bakker’s birthday, it happens the day before his birthday.

How could that be a coincidence?

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

The World conspires....

[Happy Ent]

A fortuitous correspondence of cause.

[sologdin]

so, excerpt of D essay available on google books notes that khora is the triton genos, a 'third genus' apart from the sensible and intelligible, which are two categories at stake in the early parts of the timaeus.

This new beginning of our discussion of the universe requires a fuller division than the former; for then we made two classes, now a third must be revealed. The two sufficed for the former discussion: one, which we assumed, was a pattern intelligible and always the same; and the second was only the imitation of the pattern, generated and visible. There is also a third kind which we did not distinguish at the time, conceiving that the two would be enough. But now the argument seems to require that we should set forth in words another kind, which is difficult of explanation and dimly seen. What nature are we to attribute to this new kind of being? We reply, that it is the receptacle, and in a manner the nurse, of all generation.

(48e-49a) (emphasis added).

easy enough. the linguistic equivocation is where it gets a bit muddled:

as the several elements never present themselves in the same form, how can any one have the assurance to assert positively that any of them, whatever it may be, is one thing rather than another? No one can. But much the safest plan is to speak of them as follows:-Anything which we see to be continually changing, as, for example, fire, we must not call "this" or "that," but rather say that it is "of such a nature"; nor let us speak of water as "this"; but always as "such"; nor must we imply that there is any stability in any of those things which we indicate by the use of the words "this" and "that," supposing ourselves to signify something thereby; for they are too volatile to be detained in any such expressions as "this," or "that," or "relative to this," or any other mode of speaking which represents them as permanent. We ought not to apply "this" to any of them, but rather the word "such"; which expresses the similar principle circulating in each and all of them; for example, that should be called "fire" which is of such a nature always, and so of everything that has generation. That in which the elements severally grow up, and appear, and decay, is alone to be called by the name "this" or "that"; but that which is of a certain nature, hot or white, or anything which admits of opposite equalities, and all things that are compounded of them, ought not to be so denominated.

(49d-50a).

alrighty! so, the reason this stuff matters in plato is because, pursuant to the 'digression' mentioned, supra, we have an unstable world that can't be contained by signifiers. true to the platonist synthesis, we have first the parmenidean principle of permanency:

Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only

(51e-52a).

but there is also the other half, the heraclitean flux of the material world:

And there is another nature of the same name with it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created, always in motion, becoming in place and again vanishing out of place, which is apprehended by opinion and sense.

(52a-b ).

and then there is triton genos, which features the khora:

And there is a third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, and is hardly real ; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a space, but that what is neither in heaven nor in earth has no existence. Of these and other things of the same kind, relating to the true and waking reality of nature, we have only this dreamlike sense, and we are unable to cast off sleep and determine the truth about them. For an image, since the reality, after which it is modelled, does not belong to it, and it exists ever as the fleeting shadow of some other, must be inferred to be in another [i.e. in space ], grasping existence in some way or other, or it could not be at all. But true and exact reason, vindicating the nature of true being, maintains that while two things [i.e. the image and space] are different they cannot exist one of them in the other and so be one and also two at the same time.

(52b-c)

so WTF is all that? reasonable acknowledgment of instability in signification turns into a flight of fancy, aye? the 'digression' ends in the following paragraph (which transitions into the argument about the elements and platonic solids):

my verdict is that being and space and generation, these three, existed in their three ways before the heaven ; and that the nurse of generation, moistened by water and inflamed by fire, and receiving the forms of earth and air, and experiencing all the affections which accompany these, presented a strange variety of appearances ; and being full of powers which were neither similar nor equally balanced, was never in any part in a state of equipoise, but swaying unevenly hither and thither, was shaken by them, and by its motion again shook them ; and the elements when moved were separated and carried continually, some one way, some another ; as, when rain is shaken and winnowed by fans and other instruments used in the threshing of corn, the close and heavy particles are borne away and settle in one direction, and the loose and light particles in another. In this manner, the four kinds or elements were then shaken by the receiving vessel, which, moving like a winnowing machine, scattered far away from one another the elements most unlike, and forced the most similar elements into dose contact. Wherefore also the various elements had different places before they were arranged so as to form the universe. At first, they were all without reason and measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might be expected to be in the absence of God

(52d-53b) (emphasis added).

so, what say we? khora is what again?

[Happy Ent]

Thank you for doing this.

But this was all Plato, right? The definition of khora that is significant (ha!) to Bakker would be in Derrida himself, I should think.

[sologdin]

yep, all plato. thing is, D never just opines on a topic; he is rather always reading somebody else. deconstruction as a rule burrows into another text, takes a (typically minor or marginal) concept from that text, fashions it into a weapon, and then destroys the text.

we won't understand therefore the D piece without a grounding in the plato.

[Sci-2]

Thanks for this Solo, I think it's good to think about the kind of alternative metaphysics that might apply to the Bakkerverse. I actually found the idea that the elements themselves could be broken down into geometrical figures to be of interest, as it suggests that just because reductionism is effective via the Tekne it doesn't mean the world actually breaks down in the way ours does. Same goes for the Inchies use of the Bios and how the marrow may contain the "seed" of God.

Obviously the limits of signifiers ties into the use of logic and theoria, suggesting that both Gnosis and Tekne are born out of the same way of looking at the world as far as applied abstractions are concerned. The Psukhe might even be a nod to certain brands of holistic panpsychism where the Whole becomes Many rather than Many building up into perceived "Wholes".

The Khora seems to be a kind of Neutral Monistic substance, though it seems from the excerpt that it might be a term used to describe our relation to reality and how from our vantage point things must have a spatio-temporal location?

[Madness]

Ah, Timaeus et Critias... the Atlantean volumes. I remember them fondly. Derrida would fuck them up.

[Wise Fool]

Chorae are testicles, basically. Testicles of the God.

[lokisnow]

Chorae are testicles, basically. Testicles of the God.

After reading all that, I thought they were the womb of God?

[Callan S.]

Actually I liked the doorway idea someone gave.

I wonder if they are a doorway to the true state of earwa?

[Hello World]

Chorae are testicles, basically. Testicles of the God.

That makes sense. Remember that the Judging Eye is the “Eye of the Unborn.”

So what happened in Cil-aujas? Clearly, there was some interaction between the Unborn (TJE) and God’s testicles (the Chorae). I think at that moment Mimara and Akka’s baby was transformed into the son of God.

[sologdin]

some interaction between the Unborn (TJE) and God’s testicles (the Chorae).

can someone pop the preggerbomb bit from volume IV up on here, incidentally, so we can track through it with rigor?

[Larry of the Lawn]

some interaction between the Unborn (TJE) and God’s testicles (the Chorae).

can someone pop the preggerbomb bit from volume IV up on here, incidentally, so we can track through it with rigor?

It's actually not till WLW:

The Wizard regards her for several unblinking heartbeats. Worry. Pity.

"Aye... I think you are cursed."

Mimara has told herself this from the very beginning. There is something wrong with you. There is something broken. So she assumed hearing the same from Achamian would leave her intact, confirmed more than condemned. But for some reason tears flooded her eyes, and her face rebels. She raises a hand against the gaze of others.

"But I do know," Achamian hastily adds, "that the Judging Eye involves pregnant women."

Mimara gawks at him through the tears. A cold hand has reached into her abdomen and scooped away all warring sensation.

"Pregnant..." she hears herself say. "Why?"

"I don't know". He has flecks of dead leaf in his hair, and she squelches the urge to fuss over him. "Perhaps because of the profundity of childbirth. The Outside inhabits us in many ways, none so onerous as when a women [sic] brings a new soul into the world."

She sees her mother posing before a mirror, her belly broad and low with the twins, Kel and Sammi.

"So what is the curse?" she fairly cries at Achamian. " Tell me, old fool!" She rebukes herself immediately afterward, knowing that the Wizard's honesty would wither as her desperation waxed. People punish desperation as much out of compassion as petty malice.

Achamian gnaws his bottom lip. "As far as I know," he begins with obvious and infuriating care, "Those with the Judging Eye give birth to dead children."

He shrugs as if to say, See? You have nothing to fear.

***

Cold falls through her in sheets.

"What?"

A scowl knits his brow. " The Judging Eye is the eye of the Unborn.... The eye that watches from the God's own vantage."

ebook, page 58 (Chapter 3 Meorn Wilderness)

Probably best to read this alongside her inverting (or whatever the fuck she does to) the chorae in TJE with the banishing the Seal of Hell.

[Larry of the Lawn]

"But you should not lean so close," he says, nodding to the Chorae still stuffed beneath her jerkin.

Assured that Achamian is as comfortable as possible, she sits some distance from him, and at last draws the Chorae from the sweaty pocket it has pressed into her breast. Though she has grown accustomed to its inverted presence, there is a surreality to the act of taking it into her hand, a sense that it is not the Trinket that moves so much as it is the whole of creation about it. She has no clue why it should compel her. Everything about it shrieks anathema. It is the bane of her heart's sole desire, the thing she must fear above all once she begins uttering sorcery. What almost killed Achamian.

The light of the Surillic Point does not touch it, so that even its worldly aspect seems an insult to her eyes. It is a ball of shadow in her palm, its iron curve, its skein of ancient writing, illuminated only by the low crimson glow that leaks through the entrance. It seems to brood and to seethe. The abyssal dimensions of its Mark are a greater insult still. She can scarce focus when she looks with the eyes of the Few. It is as if it rolls from her sight and thought each time she centres her attention upon it.

And yet she stares and stares, like a boy gazing at some remarkable bug. Low voices flutter through the portals of the wind. She can hear some of the scalpers hammering at the dragon's teeth—even in disaster, their mercenary instincts have not abandoned them. The Wizard lies prone in her periphery.

Shivers scuttle like spiders from her palm to her heart and throat, pimpling her entire skin. She glares at it, concentrates her breath and being upon its weightless horror, as if using it to mortify her soul the way shakers use whips and nails to mortify their flesh. She floats in the prickle of her own sweat.

The suffering begins. The pain...

It's like thumbing a deep bruise at first, and she almost revels its odd, almost honey sweetness. But the sensation unravels, opens into an ache that swells about wincing serrations, as if teeth were chewing their own mouth through sealed muscle and skin. The violence spreads. The clubs begin falling, and her body rebels down to its rooted bowel, gagging at memories of salt. Emptiness itself... Lying cupped in her palm, a sheering void, throwing hooks about her, a million lacerating stings.

She grunts spit between clenched teeth, grins like a dying ape. Anguish wracks her, as deep as deep, but the smallest nub of her remains, an untouched sip, still conscious of the Wizard lying in her periphery, and it sees that he is the same yet transfigured, an old ailing man, and a corpse boiled in the fires of damnation...

The Judging Eye has opened.

She feels it leaning through her worldly eyes, pressing forward, throwing off the agony like rotted clothes, snuffing fact from sight, drawing out the sanctity and the sin. With terrible fixation it stares into the oblivion spilling from her palm...

And somehow, impossibly, passes through.

She blinks on the far side of contradiction, her face and shoulders pulled back in a warm wind, a breath, a premonition of summer rain. And she sees it, a point of luminous white, a certainty, shining out from the pit that blackens her grasp. A voice rises, a voice without word or tone, drowsy with compassion, and the light grows and grows, shrinking the abyss to a rind, to the false foil that it is, burning to dust, and the glory, the magnificence, shines forth, radiant, blinding...

And she holds all... In her hand she holds it!

A Tear of God.

TJE ebook pg 375 chapter 16 Cil Aujas