I am sorry I have not been able to follow through on the discussion of
appropriate, internalization, etc of the past week. In addition to an extra
class to teach to seniors so they can graduate I have been deeply preoccupied
with the disasterous consequences of the Enron debacle for the outreach
efforts of the University of California (which gets off "easy" compared
to the poor kids who depend on the state health and human services budget
which has been egregiously slashed). The budget deficit of 24 billion
dollars would be a surplus of 10 billion if the big power rip off had
been prevented. Thanks W and thanks to your friends.
In the middle of that discussion, someone posted an old note from me
and asked what the hell it meant. I don't have the note, but it was about
a topic I ruminate about a lot while going around doing my have to's, time.
If I recall even approximately correctly, it was a fragment about relation
of past, present, and future, and the tendency to turn processes into
things, ending in the notion of "its process all the way down."
I assume it was obscure in context, but out of context it must have been
close to meaningless.
Because I want to get to Helena's other paper and have a few have to's
yet to go today, I'll simply gesture toward what the issues are. I think
they are worth a lot deeper discussion... in Amsterdam over beer? XMCA
this summer?
Anyway:
1. The "all the way down" part comes from a (mythical?) story told about
somone (I heard it about William James, but I am sure there are lots of
other presumed sources). James (lets say) is asked what holds the world
up. He answers, "The earth rests on the back of a huge tiger."
And what holds up the Tiger?
The tiger stands on the back of four giant Elephants.
And what do the Elephants stand on?
The elphants stand on the back of 16 figantic turtles.
(etc)
And what do the turtles stand on?
Its turtles all the way down.
---------
Now, when we relate this infinite regress idea to time, we note
a strong tendency to find mimimal units, things, entities, from
which everything else emmenates. A psychologist might call such
entities representations or schemas, I might have done so once
or twice. But that is just a short hand, because upon further
analysis all such entities are themselves processes considered
at a different level of analysis. Its process all the way down.
Its not my idea. I figure the folks making lunar calandars sitting
on the edge of caves at what we call Lascaux had the same
intuition.
Here is a discussion of the same idea by an early cultural-historical
thinker:
Our action exerts itself conveniently only on fixed points; fixity is
therefore what our intelligence seeks; it asks itself where the
mobile is to be found, where it will be, where it will "pass." Even
if it takes note of the moment of passing, even if it seems then to be
concerned with duration, it restricts itself in that direction to
verifying the simultaneity of two virtual halts; the halt of the
mobility it is considering and the halt of another mobile whose
course is presumed to be that of time. But it is always the
immobilities, real or possible, with which it seeks to deal.
Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind, 1946, p. 14.
---- Time to dunk those have to's and get to the get to's. mike
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