0 Book 1 – IMMANENCE
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VOID (VOID)
VOID (POINT)
Enquiring what came before the beginning is a meaningless question but nevertheless it is a question worth asking. This first section conceptualises the discrete transition from a state of ‘Absolute Zero’ to ‘Zero Point’ by measuring the potential for an infinitesimally small ‘virtual’ something to emerge out of the apparent ‘actuality’ of a pre-dimensional nothingness; a primal state lacking even the quality of location. Words cannot describe this movement towards existence so my advice is to desist from reading anything more that’s written here. Follow the images and obviously question what you are seeing, for nothing is less real than an enquiring mind susceptible to suggestion.
Logos (pronounced /ˈloʊɡɒs/ or /ˈlɒgɒs/; Greek λόγος logos) is an important term in philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion.
In its mundane sense the word ‘logos’ roughly translates into something akin to ‘reckoning’, ‘proportion’ or ‘measure’. The Greeks knew that the validity of a measurement resides in the universality of the units employed in the measuring. The Egyptian ‘common’ cubit was commonly taken to be the length of ones forearm, specifically the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. The ‘royal’ cubit – as measured against a facsimile of the sacred rod entrusted with the priesthood – ensured standardisation for the purposes of accuracy. Heraclitus equates ‘Logos’ with an underlying order to the cosmos. The more precisioned the measurement the greater the truth.
Contextually ‘logos’ also translates into the idea of a ‘word’ or ‘account’. Hence the Sophists use of ‘Logos’ to mean discourse. Aristotle elevated the term to indicate ‘rational’ discourse, reflecting the further associations of ‘logos’ with ‘reason’, ‘principle’ and ‘plan’. Discourse imbued with – to use a related word – the quality of ‘logic’. Perhaps it’s little wonder then that the Stoic philosophers further associated ‘Logos’ with the idea of a governing or animating principle, of a reasoning intrinsic to the cosmic order.
Philo fatefully introduces the term to Jewish philosophers, defining it the medium through which all things are made. With the Gospel of John this further evolves into an identification of Jesus as a divine incarnation of the ‘Logos’. Second-century Christian Apologists then take the anthropomorphism to its logical conclusion. Jesus is no longer symbolic of but quite literally is the ‘Logos’, transforming ‘His’ divine message into one-way traffic. From critical reasoning in search of perfection, the dialectic, we’re offered perfection beyond criticism, encouraging blind faith in the ‘word’ or ‘account’.
According to Diogenes Heraclitus was a misanthrope who took to wandering the mountains, surviving on a diet of grass and herbs whilst cursing his enemies with an abundance of wealth. He was also the King of an autonomous region within the Persian Empire. When asked to pass laws he refused claiming the constitution to be ‘ponêra’, which means both fundamentally wrong and toilsome. For Heraclltus the ‘Logos’ necessitates change with the flow of time; we can’t observe the universe and not be affected by it. A resilient and flexible ‘Logos’ favouring the transitory over the rooted and static.
In response to this ‘obscurity’ and council of ‘despair’ Plato splutters: “How can that be a real thing which is never in the same state? … for at the moment that the observer approaches, then they become other … so that you cannot get any further in knowing their nature or state …. but if that which knows and that which is known exist ever … then I do not think they can resemble a process or flux ….” sounding for all the world like a confused critic of the “Uncertainty Principle”; one can ascertain the position of a particle or its angle of momentum but never measure both, how absurd!
When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.
Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other.
Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn’t possess, acts but doesn’t expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching
“Subjectivity is the only truth”.
Kiekegaard