tadpoles and marginalia

Though rarely presented unmediated in its direct and unadulterated form, having been glossed and thoroughly pardoned by Church and civic scholastics through commentaries, the major difficulty in reconciling the philosophies of the ancients within the framework of medieval societies was the general notion of a detached, rational (and arrived at by rational means) divinity—as opposed to a personal and intervening one—and the idea that the soul was unperishing but not in the sense of individual souls.

Thomas Aquinas (influenced in turn by the translation and commentary of Moorish thinker Ibn Rušd called Averroës, who argued that reason and received holy scripture partook of one and the same truth, and that religious symbols and rituals were more expedient means to arrive at this truth since most people did not have the time or ability to figure this out on their own) was instrumental in bringing the traditions of the classics into the fold—but the differences were not resolved exactly, nor were they ever but rather minimised and marginalised. Plato, through Socrates, was probably most suppressed and kept under wraps for millennia, due to the fact he believed in the transmigration of the soul and there was already more than enough problems to go around with heretical sects that shared this belief in reincarnation. The teacher could be safely excised from the lesson but not so much for his student, Aristotle, whose practical contributions could not be ignored and medicine, forms of government, poetry and theatre all hinged and were beholden to the overall cosmology.

Though Aristotle, departing from Plato, did not believe that contemplating the Forms (that is the perfect, idealised and immaterial abstraction that are the templates for all the imperfect, corruptible earthly manifestations of things) was all that beneficial from a political point of view, Aristotle did nonetheless think the theory had weight. Parallel to the injunction of Averroës that there was only one self-same truth that could be arrived at by different approaches, it follows (I suppose, though highly contentious and probably best left alone as it was for centuries) that souls—disembodied—will be aspiring towards one Reason, pure and immediate intellect unburdened by personalities. The same otherwise, reincarnation where one does not remember one’s past lives although choose them seems pretty much the identical argument and conclusion. Rational thought and logic is the same for all and imagination is pared away—that Form of—say—Frog, the abstraction is something absolute and unaffected by whatever figments we might entertain, be it Mister Toad from Wind in the Willows, the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County, poor frog on a dissection table or frog in the wilds. For all the variety, they all partake of Frog (except maybe the toad), and are distilled into one abstraction that would transcend and even reject the individual paths that we took to get there.  I do not know if this dispassioned, rational sort of after-life would appeal to those expecting reward or punishment.  What do you think?  Would this sort of tempered enlightenment be any different in the end? 

5x5

wet-blanket: the concept of cooling the mark out is the opposite of cheering-on, warming-up

effigy: from our wonderful friends at Nag-on-the-Lake, the Donald in piñata form

http 403: the Caliphate is making everything forbidden

religious pluralism: images of amazing ritual costumes of the neo-pagans of the British Isles

armillary: nicely curated collection of star maps from Atlas Obscura

elite and anodyne

Though one thinks of the format of the seven-segment display to have been a fairly recent concept, it predates the electronic control-panels, trusty alarm clocks, pocket calculators and home entertainment gadgets by decades—the design first patented in the USA as early as 1908 with illuminated instrument panels following just two years later. The rendering of numerals—calculator spelling with 1337 and the like—in such a manner was not thrust upon the public all at once, however, with the advent of the liquid crystal display (LED) but was already a familiar sight on the vertical totems of petrol stations, quoting the current price and in the distinctive flip-flap boards of departure terminals.

panoply or watermark

The member states of the European Union hold diverse opinions on how to interpret and respect the right of panorama, that is, the ability to freely capture and use street photography, what’s in the public space, the commons, without fear of reprisal should those images have caught a spare glimpse of some building or piece of outdoors art that is under copyright. The creators of said installations that might be crowding up the skyline that a visitor is trying to frame are afforded a proprietary ownership of how the likeness of their creations are distributed, especially for profit, and ought to be allowed to gain off their works—notwithstanding their oft photographed location. Some have been found to be baiting the system—hence German legislators codified Panoramafreiheit to avoid legal snarls and keep public-spaces public and not subtle billboards. German EU representatives are urging all countries to enshrine such protections, which would surely leave a lot of attractions impoverished for the view. Other factions, however, want there to be uniformity of enforcement, siding with the clearinghouses. Given that people are quick to deputize themselves when it comes to enforcement in unclear situations, I hope that the matter is resolved definitively and in favour of the infringers.

al-gebra

Before that watershed moment in European scholarship when the rediscovery of the classics ignited the Renaissance, the rebirth of Greek academics and inquiry, there was a parallel precedent that took place in the Caliphate of Baghdad some four centuries earlier that secured for secular and religious spheres the systems of mathematics, medicine, astronomy and circumspection that dominated both oriental and occidental thought for over a thousand years. Plato’s dialogues and the spectre of Socrates the gadfly did not exactly dislodge the Aristotelian approach to government, civics and philosophical inquiry—that only really came much later with the enlightenment and educational reform that conceded that while the rote exercises that Plato’s pupil prescribed were excellent dress-rehearsals, they failed to prompt anything progressive. No school of thought that endured any rigour or scepticism is so easily exhaustible, but Aristotle’s early and spectacular reintroduction may have proved all-consuming in that it did rather launch an important and sustaining tradition of independent and original research, which was wedged in Western scholastics as an idée fixe by early theologians who knew no other Greek thinkers.
Abbasid Caliph Abu Ja’far Abdullah al-Mamûn ibn Harun, who ruled Baghdad in the early ninth century, had a dream, reportedly, in which the figure of Aristotle came to him with assurances that Hellenic thought was not in opposition to Islam but very much compatible with it. Al- Mamûn’s successors disagreed, but for a not insignificant run, Baghdad’s House of Wisdom was the premier repository of knowledge and research facility in the world. Academics and original sources were gathered and brisk business of translation grew up around the institute, all administered by the patron caliph who oversaw the curriculum and debating societies to further the pursuits. Whether because of the vision or because Aristotle was more fastidious in organising his writing than most (all of his works were plainly titled as opposed to Plato’s where one could not claim to know what the piece was about in a word even after having read it through), the work began with the most practical topics—biology, taxonomy, geography and proceeded to the ethics and sociology. Before the flagging support for this place of learning of al-Mamûn’s descendants and its eventual destruction by the Mongol invasion in the Siege of Baghdad, perhaps they had set out to tackle the whole of classical-thought but the venture fell victim to its own success, so to speak, as more and more discoveries and derivative writings came out of that first systematic endeavour. In the informal environment of the House of Wisdom, new and inspiring works with tangible advances being made in mathematics, surgery, engineering, map-making and star-charts. Plato and the other rarefied luminaries must have seemed old-hat.

lullaby

Via Weird Universe comes a preview of the longest single piece of classical music yet composed, entitled Sleep by Max Richter.
The British-German artist will debut his eight-hour long performance in September at an opera house in Berlin, which will be outfitted with beds rather than conventional theatre seats so the audience, as Richter intends for his lullaby to be experienced while drifting off to sleep and even dreaming. Though some of us might be more prone than others to doze off at a concert and it is nice to be invited for a sleep-over, I don’t know that all artists would appreciate having their works subject to our different states of consciousness.

5x5

joey: kangaroos favour left-handedness and all of Nature exhibits this sort of chirality

neo-noir: brilliant, retro animations by Argentine artist Kidmograph

beat the heat: researchers determine how silver ants of the Sahara survive the withering temperatures and imagine human applications

side by side-show: a look at the lives and career of conjoined twins, Daisy and Violet Hilton

conspicuous consumption: philosophical quandary on what the take-away might be for alien-observers on the very mundane subject of chewing-gum—being contraband Singapore seems very antithetical to our ritual