|
|
La Chose - The Thing
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
ObjectiveWith Das Ding (Freud), La Chose (Lacan), It, we arrive at the very core of The Thing, the black hole wherein we seemingly will fall at the end of the ride, or where around we endlessly circulate without ever being able to fulfill our desire to catch It. I feel comforted with the idea that so many people were in search before me, and are together with me, for the basis of the mind, hoping to find what it might be to be. To be subjectively, or to be conscious intersubjectively. SubjectiveThe hole in the middle of the ring, where we put our body by means of our ring-finger, indicates once more that it, in the center of the thing, feels empty. What does it mean? To make the transition from symbol to magic to it, some more about alchemy and gnosticism (gnosis.org Ref 1):
The theme for the ring we made some years ago, and which we found in a historical book on jewelry and realized a variation on it, is much more 'symbolic' than we thought at the beginning. Now that we are searching for some coherence in our work, and in this site, all the time new roots are coming up. We read a little more:
So we arrived at psychotherapy, more specifically psychoanalysis. The core of analysis seams to be something unsolvable, unreachable and even not definable. The thing. Freud called it 'Das Ding', and Lacan named it 'La Chose'. What is it?
It reminds us for a while to the lost paradise, or the futile quest for the philosopher's stone. We found a text well in connection with the preceding, flwi.ugent.be Ref 4, concerning the origin of Christianity.
In this sense it revolves around the phenomenon of 'consciousness', which in turn may be defined in a multitude of ways and is characterized by mounts of features, and so we want to push forward the view of Chalmers to clear up as much misunderstandings as possible:
Of course there is much more in the text. In my opinion it turns around the experience, the knowing, that "I" exist, am. When I look into the mirror and notice that the being I see there (here) standing, is me, that as it were I have been thrown into it, and that the presence in the mirror suggests me that eventually I might and will be thrown out too, I feel this noticing as being 'conscious'. It is painful and frightening, and there is no cure for it, anyway no one that really helps.
Wearing a ring doesn't help either, but it may be a beautiful symbol for the painful affair of our existence. The spare parts are welded together to form a closed unit, the ring, the snake devouring its own tail, you know. The serpent(-s) of medicine, Asclepius :
Medicine heals, snakes make wholes and holes. Of course, we don't get better by the ring, but in case of emergency it might remind us of our desire for what we once lost and are unable to grasp again, and we only can enjoy because of our consciousness about it. The reference to the blue sea, from where we once originated, in the form of a blue topaz, puts the finishing touch. The hole in the middle, where, by means of our ring-finger, we put our body in, indicates that it, getting down to the very root of the thing, feels empty. We are going a little bit further with it, 'the thing'.
tec.uno.edu Ref 7, shows this picture, with the 'Bouleuterion' as the blue field, nr 7.
In "Webtijdschrift voor directe democratie" (athene.antenna.nl, Ref 8) tells something more about Athens, at that time :
And for a picture of the Agora today ...
Yes, what actually does it mean?
It, das Ding, la Chose. In the center of it, nothing grows. Important decisions are taken there, all of them really, not by any leader in person, but by a heterogeneous collection of people. A hard thing to throw on the market. It reminds me somewhat of the seat of the soul, the place in our body where our mind resides. It has been described as being at the top of the head, or on top of the brain or something, and at the time a gland was the suspect: "(Found in eur.nl/, Ref 10): Descartes' (1596-1650) idea about the function of the pineal gland, the organ with which he thought the soul was most intimately connected with the body, is still one of the most widespread and known aspects of his philosophy." Sometimes the heart is aimed, but always it is as if we are split in two parts: a body and a mind, where the last has been subject yet of quite a lot of debate. If the mind, or consciousness (the word I prefer), has a control quality as the main feature, then comparison with the events in classical Athens is very attractive. Marvin Minski, in his 'Society of Mind', considers our mind as being a community, which generates consciousness through of the organization of our brains. I (John) describe the experience or consciousness of 'me' as the 'current government' in my head, with a clear reference to the temporary aspect of it, if only from a historical point of view. William Calvin talks about committees: " ... higher functions inevitably involve large overlapping committees of cells, whose actions are spread out in time, ... ", in chapter three of his book "How brains think" (williamcalvin.com, Ref 11). It may be said that the place where it happens isn't so important, and that the interaction itself results in specific (conscious, coherent) behavior of the whole nation or the complete organism. Of course, this is a metaphor, but the resemblance is great. Only in Athens a group of officials came together on a certain place to deliberate upon the way to be followed, and in our head the concerned units in the collection use their GSM to reach unanimous agreement or at least a majority, so we don't want to walk in two directions at the same time for example. Of course the illusion of the bullies being the leaders of our body is very strong, but in fact it is our body itself, trough different communication channels, that comes to the conclusion to do this or that, and eventually this is what we are conscious of, comes into our mind. Animals do that too, of course, but only humans probably have enough cortex left to observe the affair as it takes place, remember a lot if it, and talk about it at the very moment or later. So.
Perhaps we should not forge the ring as a remedy against the pain of our existence, but to remind us to the fact that we have knowledge of our existence, and so are able to enjoy twice. The first time unconscious or something like that, and the second time with our consciousness. Maybe it isn't about a forbidden enjoyment, but about a forgotten pleasure. Of course it might feel like forbidden, because we learnt it like that, because it was formulated as such by the forefathers, the symbolic order we have to submit us to from sheer necessity.
Perhaps this is due to the simple fact that in Athens, at the important meetings on the market (agora) the men who were driveling on there again had forgotten to bring their wives with, because it is them who wear the jewels, speak more easily, are stronger in practical organization of society-relations and last but not least are much more closer in contact with their emotions than men are, who prefer to climb ladders and build pyramids, to shout at the top of their voice and the building that they are lonesome and lost contact with their roots, while they live the life of Riley and sit back on their asses all day. Mind you, this is the reason why on the market place nowadays the only matters under discussion are money and efficiency. Actually the market talks (for) itself, and the citizens only have to keep things going. So, and now we arrive at the next quotation on the Thing (it).
There is a universal knowing about the fact that it is not attainable, and that the Desire for it gets every action started and going.
Zen, Ref 14, garden of Soami, completed in 1499, ... fondly called the 'garden of emptiness'. There is a place where nothing grows, attracting people, suggesting meditation. The garden of emptiness is man-made, sometime ago, and permanently maintained, to remind us of the fact that it can and/or should not be filled. If there were trees or something, it was gone.
The Thing is something human, and it is important for people to create it by hand and consciously, day after day. Say it were a plastic replica, a fake-Thing, or that the garden were maintained daily by a robot, even better than man could do...
Most jewels on the 'market' are made in large quantities with the aid of sophisticated machines, very efficient and profitable, economically sound and not expensive, and last but not least: perfect and thrown away everywhere. As if we, with our abundance (for some of us) try to approach that thing as close as possible, by throwing in all what we find. By making such a fuss we apparently forget the fact that there is no possible fulfillment for it, no filling for the feeling of emptiness. We hide behind a splashing façade of sham. Why then the splashing brook of gold on the picture there? The aim is the production of a single ring, with gold (with a personal history) of the future wearer. It is not an efficient system, not very cheep, not perfect at all and well-considered economically. Yet there is contact between the maker and the bearer, communication is needed to realize the object, personal interaction, and this leaves other marks in our mind than when we bought it on the market. Human symbols, measured for men an women. Has all this still something to do with Lacan and 'La Chose'? Perhaps in the sense that everything seems to be wasted effort, but that at least it's worth the effort to make every effort trying to understand what is going on with it and that the Jouissance augments or deepens when we perceive it in the heart of other people. Next part has something with cathexis, and we start with that word as first course. We found it in psychomedia.it Ref 16.
In this sentence I (John) am mainly interested in 'the bridge', being the symbol for the connection between the body and the mind. You see part of it in the next picture, in the Japanese Golden Park. The rail suggests there might be a way out of something, or over something else under it, anyway made for people not wanting to get wet feet, there. Looking into the picture places me on the bridge, a human construction representing the symbolic space, fading away old nature, as if there were an escape from it, high in the air. Consciousness seems to be constructed on top of the bridge, aware of the symbols summarizing the vague contours of space and time, and knowing about the deep emptiness beneath the span.
Now we are saddled with the word intentionality. William H. Calvin tells something about it in his book: "The cerebral symphony", williamcalvin.com Ref 18.
If my understanding of the affair is right, then intentionality is the direction we consciously want to move our actions in at the moment, now. We take note of it on the basis of our internal narrator (when we speak with ourselves so to say), and this is nothing more than the awareness of the parley in the present parliament in our head. In fact the old emphasis on the existence of a spiritual soul living as a caretaker in a material residence bent on the gratification of animal instincts, should be shifted toward a vision in which there is a dynamic interaction between all the cells of our organism, and where the brain and the cortex could stand for the civil service, registering all input and sending it on to an official, who in turn puts it ready for later fetching. The sitting government collects all the summaries, and tries to work out a workable conclusion, publishes a policy document and implements the decision. Technically the whole affair is explained by Calvin in terms of evolution (Darwin), but inside our brains and within a timescale of milliseconds instead of eons. Cathexis then is the thin margin within which the government has, with its consciousness, the possibility to nudge the course people want to steer, or anyway think to have the intention to steer. What rests may be described otherwise as unconscious intentionality, coming into being as a reaction, dynamically balanced, upon the inner world and in interaction with factors and actors in the environment, more specifically fellow men an women with their possible suggestions and feedback.
The Bellman of Ghent, proclaiming the intentions of the management and what is to be done in the course of the Ghent Festivities, somewhat the narrator helping to give shape to our consciousness. In what follows the concept 'cathected' probably has something to do with 'intensely loaded with energy', as if it were a radioactive reactor in a nuclear plant, and that is totally different from the explanation just before. It apparently has something to do with the mother-child entanglement, and it burns like devils in hell.
To make things a little bit personal: when the previous picture was taken I was sitting on the arm of my mother, close on 60 years ago. For 25 years now I comb out my incestuous desires, those regarding my mother, father, grandmother, the whole bunch, in all possible perversions and aftermath. I'm digging them out for more than 20 years in my own garden, and in the grounds of other people, and never experienced it as resonating with the primordial nothingness. The affair truly is loaded heavily with dynamite, and painful, and full of consequences for the rest of our 'life', especially living-together. The more we develop more consciousness about it, unravel the channels in our head to see how everything, past and present, emotions and ratio, body and mind so to say, are intertwined and jumble up, the more clearness emerges about the existence of something like a primordial nothingness, in the sense of not being conscious. Not yet conscious, no more consciousness, but not unconscious, because this is something else. The unconscious in my experience is the basis, the source of the conscious. In my opinion it is consciousness that unveils nothingness, and the consumption of the apple by Eva reveals emptiness, and not the other way round. I also have the feeling that the impossibility to visualize or imagine this Thing, with whatever representation, and the impossibility to even approach it, represents a masculine vision, to maintain the social structures and balance of power. Probably women have less difficulties with all this, because by giving birth to their child they have to take leave of that intimate relationship, and thereupon, in function of the novice, give all love, place and time needed to make an independent and freely walking about person of it. More human it is to combine the two a little bit. If we feel das Ding deep under our bottom, than we participate in a reality about which we not even got a clue, which in spite of us yet further evolves, generation after generation, and with which we should live in peace as far and long as possible, instead of whirling around it until we begin to feel dizzy. To move on to golden rings once again. In my dream "stamps" I associate about the coming into being of my first personal ring.
There is no picture of the only real one, but here we have the idea:
In the left picture you see my baby-hand, then, resting on the left hand of my grandmother, wearing her wedding ring, and on the right photo she holds me with my leg, and you see there her 'other' ring. I don't remember anything about this scenes, but my relation with the person holding me tight there, is stamped indelibly into my mind, especially in my sentiments. When she died, about my thirteenth, I lost definitively one of the Things from where I originated, and where around I revolved for a long time, and there for the first time I encountered straight into my face, consciously, the fact that my personal consciousness is finite. My mother asked a 'jeweler' to melt the two rings together to have one for me, as a symbol for the loss and the emptiness. Then the Thing is approachable, you can even wear it on your finger.
The thing this hand is holding, is a cast ring with the casting-channel and the connections with the bangle still in place. As if it were a symbol for the mother-child bond, an object not yet being a ring, not independently bearable. First there is still a little piece to be sawn out, and with the empty hole the ring originates, symbolizing things gone for ever. Perhaps this kind of symbolism is found into the wearing of wedding rings, when two people in turn put children onto the world, experiencing the loss of oneness and trying find some significance for it. An other time das Ding, we are going for it again. The title of the PDF file is 'thanatos', death.
Looking at the word 'fantasm' we may conclude the existance of
different kinds of fantasy. Something with -sm at the end will certainly be
something holy, like holy Chrism, the oil used in the Sacrament
Much is left to work out and think about. Take for example two black holes, with everything they should have of flesh and blood, brains and mind, come into contact with each other, forming a couple. For sure some turbulence may be expected, although there is seemingly nobody to expect it.
So, the relation crystallized around Danburite, and the rings are ready.
Sometimes Danburite forms by itself twins, creates relations as it were. You never know if it is to be considered as a whole, or as two separate entities, each with its own soul, or something like this. Crystals are not likely to have consciousness, I think, but some people say even atoms are conscious.
|
||||||||||||||||
|
A. Syberg, Belgium
Copyright © 2005 A. Syberg
|
