<div dir="ltr">I also suggest that the brilliance of TRP's conceit re Descartes and the Black Hole of<div>Calcutta is that that extreme subjective existence, likened to Descartes "I think therefore I am",</div><div> is the foundation of the suffering of modernity. </div><div><br></div><div>Very akin to his use of the rationalization of animal murder as a 20th Century trope in the stockyard in Chicago---</div><div>only that one is not as original as THIS ONE....</div><div><br></div><div>And, dear Smoak, isn't all reflection on history after the fact(s)? i.e. retroactive? And I might suggest not an</div><div>undoing, a return to some state of innocence but just, as in the energy use metaphor, just a </div><div>recompression to a new starting point, intellectually conceived? Not unlike the scientific theory that the </div><div>universe is endlessly big banging and collapsing; or in an cyclical notion of History that it ..sorta breathes,</div><div>rises and falls, etc.</div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, here is the science definition that seems to provide the metaphoric meaning</div><div>: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/<wbr>wiki/Zero-point_energy</a><span class="m_-151490904155413167sewqm3nu3sn6ien"></span><span class="m_-151490904155413167sewotn0ngab17uz"></span></div><div><br></div><div>And here's a guy aware and defining the lowest possible state of quantum energy as he argues that</div><div>thoughts therefore become (some kind of) "matter"......</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-baksa/zero-point-field_b_913831.html">https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-baksa/zero-point-field_b_913831.html</a><span class="sewno7nwmjhdlc2"></span><span class="sewymh59bcs9gm0"></span><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 2:10 PM, Smoke Teff <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:smoketeff@gmail.com" target="_blank">smoketeff@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Grateful for this.<br>
<br>
It strikes me that zero points are essentially only applied<br>
retroactively--an undoing of some kind of history, a return to some<br>
pre-historic innocence.<br>
<br>
Your suggestion that there's some affinity between Descartes and the<br>
Black Hole as having to do with subjective zero points is well taken.<br>
<br>
Extreme suffering--of which the Black Hole is perhaps one of the<br>
extremest ready examples--is extreme subjectivity, is often a collapse<br>
of the ego's fantasy-making and time-building capabilities to the<br>
present (like the spokes of the wheel have been removed) such that one<br>
perceives momentary suffering as inescapable, eternal.<br>
<br>
Extreme suffering can also deconstruct the entire complex edifice of<br>
your apparent self/psyche--can reduce your subjectivity to beholding<br>
only its own suffering and mortality. The zero point of the self.<br>
<br>
On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 4:47 AM, Mark Kohut <<a href="mailto:mark.kohut@gmail.com">mark.kohut@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> Amazing, sometimes, what looking up a phrase can bring one.<br>
><br>
> Remember your Descartes? That guy who<br>
> thought that getting to pure existence, pure subjectivity, happened as soon<br>
> as you reflected that you were<br>
> at least reflecting...(I won't repeat the famous cliche).<br>
><br>
> Well, seems that some have referred to that as the Zero Point. Of existence.<br>
> Which TRP seems to<br>
> use and play with with his Black Hole of Calcutta image in the section Smoke<br>
> put up for us....I mean,<br>
> crammed in with all those other people with nothing, nothing at all---is<br>
> that not pure 'existence' and subjectivity<br>
> only?....(well, yes and horribly NO in Thunder).  The link below shows the<br>
> above usage and then the next an extension within<br>
> cultural history.<br>
><br>
> Also, remember that TRP satirizes Descartes savagely (the words always go<br>
> together when most write) elsewhere in his<br>
> work, most particularly, AtD.....the case can be made that he sees Descartes<br>
> as the fountainhead of Ultra-Rationalism<br>
> in philosophical history, a severed head in Murdoch's image dividing we<br>
> humans from our full selves,<br>
>Â and *therefore* a major cause of the problem of modernity.<br>
><br>
> Others have.<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 5:28 AM, Mark Kohut <<a href="mailto:mark.kohut@gmail.com">mark.kohut@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=kJRFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA91&dq=descartes+fiction+of+the+zero+point&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFmN2DqaDZAhWETd8KHWRjAd8Q6AEIUDAI#v=onepage&q=descartes%20fiction%20of%20the%20zero%20point&f=false" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/<wbr>books?id=kJRFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA91&<wbr>dq=descartes+fiction+of+the+<wbr>zero+point&hl=en&sa=X&ved=<wbr>0ahUKEwjFmN2DqaDZAhWETd8KHWRjA<wbr>d8Q6AEIUDAI#v=onepage&q=<wbr>descartes%20fiction%20of%<wbr>20the%20zero%20point&f=false</a><br>
>><br>
>> At Zero Point: Discourse, Culture, and Satire in Restoration England<br>
>><br>
>> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0813158583" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/<wbr>books?isbn=0813158583</a><br>
>> Rose A. Zimbardo - 2015 - ‎Preview - ‎More editions<br>
>> —Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs Following Blumenberg, I have named<br>
>> as “zero point†the moment in late seventeenth century English culture<br>
>> wherein medieval/Renaissance epis– temology collapsed under the weight of<br>
>> questions it had itself raised and simultaneously the new epistemology of<br>
>> modernism was constructed. We have briefly considered some implications of<br>
>> the process in discussing the turn to mimetic discourse in the Introduction.<br>
>> To appreciate the full extent of ...<br>
><br>
><br>
</blockquote></div><br></div>