Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.
H. L. Mencken
The conscience has its source in what Freud would call the super ego, the psyche, the soul, which is one's social identity.
"Borges and I"
Text is from Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (New York: New Directions, 1964), pp.246-47.
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The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate; I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things.
Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.
I do not know which of us has written this page.
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http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/english016/borges/borges.html
Though we may not all be in control of our higher emotional center, we all have one. It is concerned with our place in our society, our role, our identity. To simply lump this with the mind is clearly a mistake.
Saturday, June 07, 2003
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Folding the Two into One
The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when [thine eye] is evil, thy body also [is] full of darkness.
Luke 11:34
light: luchnos lookh'-nos from the base of - leukos 3022; a portable lamp or other illuminator (literally or figuratively):--candle, light.
body: soma so'-mah from sozo 4982; the body (as a sound whole), used in a very wide application, literally or figuratively:--bodily, body, slave.
eye: ophthalmos of-thal-mos' from optanomai - optanomai 3700; the eye (literally or figuratively); by implication, vision; figuratively, envy (from the jealous side-glance):--eye, sight.
single: haplous hap-looce' probably from a - a 1 (as a particle of union) and the base of pleko 4120; properly, folded together, i.e. single (figuratively, clear):--single.
evil: poneros pon-ay-ros' from a derivative of ponos 4192; hurtful, i.e. evil (properly, in effect or influence, and thus differing from kakos 2556, which refers rather to essential character, as well as from sapros 4550, which indicates degeneracy from original virtue); figuratively, calamitous; also (passively) ill, i.e. diseased; but especially (morally) culpable, i.e. derelict, vicious, facinorous; neuter (singular) mischief, malice, or (plural) guilt; masculine (singular) the devil, or (plural) sinners:--bad, evil, grievous, harm, lewd, malicious, wicked(-ness). See also poneroteros 4191.
darkness: skoteinos skot-i-nos' - skotos 4655; opaque, i.e. (figuratively) benighted:--dark, full of darkness.
The term used for single is the conundrum that drew us here. It means 'folded together. If we follow the base pleko we find plek'-o a primary word; to twine or braid:--plait.
Vision is one, is folded together, braided into a unity.
Before an infant develops the muscular coordination to move the eyes together, the eyes may move randomly, and the baby may appear intermittently cross-eyed. This is normal for a child under the age of two months. Between two and three months, the infant's eyes begin to move together, and can track a moving object. At around four months, the infant can usually detect and reach for a nearby object. The infant can usually distinguish between objects by six months. Vision improves during the next six months as control of binocular vision develops. In binocular vision, the information transmitted from each eye to the brain along the optic nerve is transformed into a single image. Binocular vision depends on the ability of the eyes to align properly.
Eye and Vision Development
Strabismus is the general term for an eye imbalance, when the eyes don't work well together. The term comes from the Greek work Strabismos, meaning to look askance, or the evil eye.
When your two eyes focus upon a single image you see in stereo. But when the eyes are crossed you possess the evil eye.
Infants however develop stereo vision slowly. In the beginning the eyes are often crossed. Imagine a man and a woman of equal height, standing side by side, facing you. Were this pair actually before you, it would be possible for you to allow your eyes to drift out of focus so that one eye's image of the man overlays the other eye's image of the woman.
The saying is instructing us not to focus, to replace a single eye with eyes. Then we are to replace a hand with a hand, and a foot with a foot. We are to make man and woman a single one.
More practice at:
Stereoscopic Drawings
Luke 11:34
light: luchnos lookh'-nos from the base of - leukos 3022; a portable lamp or other illuminator (literally or figuratively):--candle, light.
body: soma so'-mah from sozo 4982; the body (as a sound whole), used in a very wide application, literally or figuratively:--bodily, body, slave.
eye: ophthalmos of-thal-mos' from optanomai - optanomai 3700; the eye (literally or figuratively); by implication, vision; figuratively, envy (from the jealous side-glance):--eye, sight.
single: haplous hap-looce' probably from a - a 1 (as a particle of union) and the base of pleko 4120; properly, folded together, i.e. single (figuratively, clear):--single.
evil: poneros pon-ay-ros' from a derivative of ponos 4192; hurtful, i.e. evil (properly, in effect or influence, and thus differing from kakos 2556, which refers rather to essential character, as well as from sapros 4550, which indicates degeneracy from original virtue); figuratively, calamitous; also (passively) ill, i.e. diseased; but especially (morally) culpable, i.e. derelict, vicious, facinorous; neuter (singular) mischief, malice, or (plural) guilt; masculine (singular) the devil, or (plural) sinners:--bad, evil, grievous, harm, lewd, malicious, wicked(-ness). See also poneroteros 4191.
darkness: skoteinos skot-i-nos' - skotos 4655; opaque, i.e. (figuratively) benighted:--dark, full of darkness.
The term used for single is the conundrum that drew us here. It means 'folded together. If we follow the base pleko we find plek'-o a primary word; to twine or braid:--plait.
Vision is one, is folded together, braided into a unity.
Before an infant develops the muscular coordination to move the eyes together, the eyes may move randomly, and the baby may appear intermittently cross-eyed. This is normal for a child under the age of two months. Between two and three months, the infant's eyes begin to move together, and can track a moving object. At around four months, the infant can usually detect and reach for a nearby object. The infant can usually distinguish between objects by six months. Vision improves during the next six months as control of binocular vision develops. In binocular vision, the information transmitted from each eye to the brain along the optic nerve is transformed into a single image. Binocular vision depends on the ability of the eyes to align properly.
Eye and Vision Development
Strabismus is the general term for an eye imbalance, when the eyes don't work well together. The term comes from the Greek work Strabismos, meaning to look askance, or the evil eye.
When your two eyes focus upon a single image you see in stereo. But when the eyes are crossed you possess the evil eye.
Infants however develop stereo vision slowly. In the beginning the eyes are often crossed. Imagine a man and a woman of equal height, standing side by side, facing you. Were this pair actually before you, it would be possible for you to allow your eyes to drift out of focus so that one eye's image of the man overlays the other eye's image of the woman.
The saying is instructing us not to focus, to replace a single eye with eyes. Then we are to replace a hand with a hand, and a foot with a foot. We are to make man and woman a single one.
More practice at:
Stereoscopic Drawings
The Suckling Infants of Saying 22
My primary assumption is that I know nothing. The second is that the text is what it claims to be, a text rife with hidden meanings. Third, that the instructions for solving the text are given within the text itself.
(114) Simon Peter said to them: Let Mary go out from among us, for women are not worthy of the life.
Jesus said: Look, I will lead her that I may make her male, in order that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Sayings 22 and 114 are linked in that saying 114 has a woman becoming male and 22 has male and female being made into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female. Consider the text as a literary puzzle, with 22 providing clues to the meaning hidden within 114.
(22) Jesus saw some infants who were being suckled.
He said to his disciples: These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.
They said to him: If we then become children, shall we enter the kingdom?
Jesus said to them:
When you make the two one,
and when you make the inside as the outside,
and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower,
and when you make the male and the female into a single one,
so that the male is not male and the female not female,
and when you make eyes in place of an eye,
and a hand in place of a hand,
and a foot in place of a foot,
an image in place of an image,
then shall you enter the kingdom.
Read the saying carefully and try to visualize the scene. What are the infants experiencing? Let me be a bit more concrete. There is an infant and its mother. What is the infant doing and why is it doing what it is doing? Think motivation. If you were an infant and you're doing what this infant is described as doing, what force was it that drove you to do so?
Indeed, the child was hungry. The child's stomach is empty, there is a void.
At the outset of the process:
Inside the child is empty.
Outside the breast is full.
So the child's goal is to make the inside as the outside, which will result in the outside source reaching the same condition as the inside of the child was at the beginning of the process. With the end result that mother, who is in the upper position in the relationship, will arrive at the same state the infant existed in at the start of the process.
The second half of the saying can be identified by the return to the theme of making two into one. Notice the one aspect that fails to fall into perfect symmetry.
and when you make the male and the female into a single one,
so that the male is not male and the female not female,
and when you make eyes in place of an eye,
and a hand in place of a hand,
and a foot in place of a foot,
an image in place of an image,
then shall you enter the kingdom.
It is the eyes in place of an eye. Everything else is perfectly symmetrical. Yes, and why is our attention being directed to the eyes, to vision? What is special about the vision of infants, of newborns?
The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.
Luke 11:34
I suggest taking a close look at this verse. Notice the two qualities your eye can possess. It can be SINGLE or it can be EVIL. We should examine the significant words in this verse very closely, giving special consideration to the definitions of the original Greek words used.
The following link may be of some help.
King James Bible With Strongs Dictionary
(114) Simon Peter said to them: Let Mary go out from among us, for women are not worthy of the life.
Jesus said: Look, I will lead her that I may make her male, in order that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Sayings 22 and 114 are linked in that saying 114 has a woman becoming male and 22 has male and female being made into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female. Consider the text as a literary puzzle, with 22 providing clues to the meaning hidden within 114.
(22) Jesus saw some infants who were being suckled.
He said to his disciples: These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.
They said to him: If we then become children, shall we enter the kingdom?
Jesus said to them:
When you make the two one,
and when you make the inside as the outside,
and the outside as the inside, and the upper as the lower,
and when you make the male and the female into a single one,
so that the male is not male and the female not female,
and when you make eyes in place of an eye,
and a hand in place of a hand,
and a foot in place of a foot,
an image in place of an image,
then shall you enter the kingdom.
Read the saying carefully and try to visualize the scene. What are the infants experiencing? Let me be a bit more concrete. There is an infant and its mother. What is the infant doing and why is it doing what it is doing? Think motivation. If you were an infant and you're doing what this infant is described as doing, what force was it that drove you to do so?
Indeed, the child was hungry. The child's stomach is empty, there is a void.
At the outset of the process:
Inside the child is empty.
Outside the breast is full.
So the child's goal is to make the inside as the outside, which will result in the outside source reaching the same condition as the inside of the child was at the beginning of the process. With the end result that mother, who is in the upper position in the relationship, will arrive at the same state the infant existed in at the start of the process.
The second half of the saying can be identified by the return to the theme of making two into one. Notice the one aspect that fails to fall into perfect symmetry.
and when you make the male and the female into a single one,
so that the male is not male and the female not female,
and when you make eyes in place of an eye,
and a hand in place of a hand,
and a foot in place of a foot,
an image in place of an image,
then shall you enter the kingdom.
It is the eyes in place of an eye. Everything else is perfectly symmetrical. Yes, and why is our attention being directed to the eyes, to vision? What is special about the vision of infants, of newborns?
The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.
Luke 11:34
I suggest taking a close look at this verse. Notice the two qualities your eye can possess. It can be SINGLE or it can be EVIL. We should examine the significant words in this verse very closely, giving special consideration to the definitions of the original Greek words used.
The following link may be of some help.
King James Bible With Strongs Dictionary
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