5x5

gazetteer: an interesting and indemnifying collection of global maps

cuisine de rue: an in depth guide to the street specialties of European cities

dragnet, gumshoe: via our friends at Nag on the Lake, the non-profit group Sea Shepard is spearheading a campaign to create sneakers made exclusively from trash dredged from the oceans

moku hanga: Lucasfilm commissioned a master artist to create traditional Japanese woodblocks of the Star Wars saga

opening credits: a tribute to the iconic film title work of Saul Bass

self-same or et in arcadia ego

Some seven centuries prior to the famous Cartesian maxim Cogito ergo sum (originally formulated with the French Je pense, donc je suis), another mathematician and philosopher—plus notably a physician, who attested that all medicine was guesswork and theoretical—from Persia (presently in part of Uzbekistan, those a creature of the courts through the realm) called Abu Ali al Hussein ibn al Sini (Latinised as Avicenna) prevision the philosophy of self as a first principle (or evidence thereof) by supposing a floating man—suspended in a sensory-deprivation tank as it were.

Heir to the grand translation movement, this floating man, blindfolded, and with his extremities stretched to the point, arms and fingers and other limbs, where he could not investigate his own identity and thus had no external confirmation of his body, would still nonetheless, that Avicenna posited, have a conception of his self, identity as separate from the universe at large that was buoying him up, insensibly. Whereas the assertion by René Decartes that I (ego) think therefore I am, which doubts away the whole cosmos, supposing by turns that his consciousness is a brain in a vat, feed deceptions by an Evil Genius (like the film saga of The Matrix) until there is only his doubt that he can be reliably certain of the fact that he—it is I, who is doing the doubting. After all this skepticism, Descartes seeks to rebuild the Universe as it is, only now more confident that his senses and reason is not deceiving him. It’s rather easy to intuit this after Avicenna and Descartes have done all the hard work, but both writers expect of their readership to try the thought experiment themselves (choosing the red-pill, again like Matrix) and to go through the same harrowing rigours of discovery. While Descartes was already hoping to establish the nature of the cosmos out of his Cogito, Avicenna may have had less ambitious goals (even though more conclusions fall out of his argument)—just demonstrating, no mean feat certainly, that one’s consciousness, mind or soul had an existence regardless of what outside impressions augmented it and therefore could be said to be immaterial and unperishingly incorruptible.
For Avicenna’s next trick, he deduced the argument of infinite regression and first-causes to prove the logical necessity of a creator to set everything in motion—whose reasoning and nomenclature influenced philosophers and theologians, many luminaries tilling the same ground, until the present day. Building off Aristotle’s taxonomy, Avicenna figured that there were three kinds of things in the Universe, putting them into sets like a good mathematician: one, those things which can not be, like a square-circle, an anti-whale or infinity plus one—though we might be able to imagine otherwise; two, that which exists in the physical world which are contingent on something else—that is everything with a parentage and a history, from a tablet computer to the Andromeda Galaxy, and up to a point, we are able to tell that story (for things that do not exist but could, there are the same antecedent causes that we might also account for, like there never having been a Persian Empire because Alexander the Great was never born); the third sort of thing exists without being contingent on any else—unmade and the creative impetus, the divine (Aristotle believed that the Universe had not origin and was eternal). That’s pretty tidy and has been championed by countless thinkers since. Avicenna’s statements, however, eventually fell out of favour with the theological establishment believing he was degenerating the faithful with his mathematical proofs, as I suppose that the same articles of faith are superfluous in a logical framework. The Cartesian Cogito also retains its relevance, influence and heritage (currency and cachet) but post modern thinkers introduced yet another element of doubt that creates a pretty big whole in Descartes’ regression and progression about what that I was that was doing the reflecting was. Was it really me or is it us, and since the present is the only thing one fancies himself positive of (since false memories could also be implanted) and that’s always slipping away (so we suppose)—is anything more possible than pre-reflection that doesn’t essay the heart of doubt? But that is for another post.

tantric

The Daily Beast is reporting how a Russian city, with the support of senior leadership, has banned yoga, citing practitioners for cult-like behaviour. Taking the statement in a glancing, off-the-cuff manner, it does strike one, especially those among the trendy-set, as getting into a furore over jazzercise. As the article demonstrates, however, as it looks beyond the established and familiar health benefits into its holistic history with mental, spiritual and even political faces, it becomes manifest that certain regimes might find this lifestyle contentious. Though I would side with those who’d prohibit the practise only insofar as we can’t selectively embrace some aspects without appreciating what those techniques are rooted in—just as karma is no cosmic-cashbox, I would also think that those antagonists (this Russian town not being a singular instance and other religious groups object to the direct or the vaguely spiritual side of it) would benefit greatly from those treasonous influences.

dungeon master or cosplay caliphate

Writing for the always provoking Æon magazine, pastor Benjamin Dueholm takes up the banner of fantasy politics—the sleeping hero, the once and future king with a parallel which stops necessarily short of the gruesome violence and vile pretensions that by its unsettling and discomforting nature may bridge that gap in trying to understand the allure that the would-be caliph has for his following.

The standard explanation usually repairs towards brainwashing, alienation, general listlessness and marginalisation of Muslim youth, but it is probably more productive to confront a prickly affinity even if in the end the comparison does not pan out—especially given that traditional accounts are not leading anyone anywhere. Going off to fight jihad is certainly degrees more radical than attending a convention, re-enactment not matter how devoted or die-hard the fan is, but the idea of role-playing and seeing the slumbering and legitimate liberator awake (and vanquish all the pretenders) is not so far removed from our shared cultural, literary and cinematic mythology. One finds other examples in Arthurian legend and the Matter of Britain, in Friedrich Barbarossa asleep under the mountain, as well as more recently renewed struggles, like the notion of a legitimate heir to all of Christendom. Instead of Romulans, sith, orcs, however, they target far less formidable and imaginative foes. Cosplayers, subcultures usually don’t become delusional in their pursuits and passions but tragic and catastrophic outcomes may follow when they do, and perhaps if anything can be gleaned from this analogy (though I feel that there is a lot there, which is also maybe too close for comfort), it is the ability to perceive—take to heart, when other members of the community say that their actions are not Islam. What do you think?