698
77.2 The Implausibility of Denial
To deny this fatalism represents implausible direction, unless we truly embrace life.
What does it even mean? As the hyperconscious structuralist semiologist Roland
Barthes (1915–1980) has written of that ultimate desire “…to dissolve one’s own
image…”.
2
Barthes adds, “… Such is the paradox, the imaginary of the self as paradox, that gives me a permanent feeling of enigma…”.
3
This lack of validity had
been earlier rejected by Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza, who argued that Nature
should present no confusion. That “the standard of the given true idea” should eliminate troublesome discrepancies in perception, as well as in reality. “That certain
things presented to the imagination also exist in the understanding…”.
4
That is
among Spinoza’s most breathtaking declarations.
77.3 Converging Factors
Following upon the Flemish Jesuit Grégoire de Saint-Vincent (1584–1667), who had
attempted to resolve Zeno’s Paradox, fellow Jesuit mathematician Alphonse Antonio
de Sarasa (1618–1667) fundamentally challenged the inaccessibility of infinity by
describing hyperbolas (curves within planar surfaces) and the quadrature (creating
a square with the volume of a circle or vice versa). Such thought experiments led
to the so-called natural logarithm (commonly perceived as the “inverse of an exponential”) and a numeric relation that touches upon everything in Nature: “mineral
hardness, and the intensities of sounds, stars, windstorms, earthquakes and acids…”
5
2 The Neutral, by Roland Barthes, Lecture Course at the College de France [1977–1978], Translated
by Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier, Text established, annotated, and presented by Thomas
Clerc under the direction of Eric Marty, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, pp.12–13.
3 ibid., Barthes The Neutral, p.101.
4 See How To Improve Your Mind, by Baruch Spinoza, With Biographical Notes by Dagobert
D. Runes, The Wisdom Library, A Division of Philosophical Library, New York, p. 66.
5 See “What Are Logarithms?” By Robert Coolman, LiveScience, May 22, 2015, https://www.
livescience.com/50940-logarithms.html, Accessed January 7, 2020. Beginning with the notion that
arithmetic sequences mirror geometric ones, logarithmic thinking quickly encompasses the entire
planet. The natural logarithm, when applied to a future projected population, becomes the witching
stick of extrapolation for any series as well as programming languages. The equation itself, Nt=P
e (r * t), relies on a constant, e, that is equal to 2.71828. One case study involves the estimated
population of Nigeria from 2011 to the year 2030, representing an increase in numbers of 98.67
million people. See http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/geog1000/PopulationProjections/
Population_Projections_GEOG1000-Answers.pdf, Accessed January 6, 2020. A natural logarithm
of ten equals 2.30258509. To any casual observer, their numeric relationship is meaningless. See
“The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences,” https://oeis.org/A002392. Chance, supposition, theory: these outliers of probability parallel every philosophical independent event. Random
(stochastic) processes and points, from Brownian motion to the Poisson point process, take their
cue in the history of mathematics from something as light-headed as gambling. Yet, a game of
poker has the same level of sobriety in terms of human affairs as archaeology. The Iranian military
77 The Finely Honed Basis of Unknowing
77.2 The Implausibility of Denial
To deny this fatalism represents implausible direction, unless we truly embrace life.
What does it even mean? As the hyperconscious structuralist semiologist Roland
Barthes (1915–1980) has written of that ultimate desire “…to dissolve one’s own
image…”.
2
Barthes adds, “… Such is the paradox, the imaginary of the self as paradox, that gives me a permanent feeling of enigma…”.
3
This lack of validity had
been earlier rejected by Baruch (Benedict de) Spinoza, who argued that Nature
should present no confusion. That “the standard of the given true idea” should eliminate troublesome discrepancies in perception, as well as in reality. “That certain
things presented to the imagination also exist in the understanding…”.
4
That is
among Spinoza’s most breathtaking declarations.
77.3 Converging Factors
Following upon the Flemish Jesuit Grégoire de Saint-Vincent (1584–1667), who had
attempted to resolve Zeno’s Paradox, fellow Jesuit mathematician Alphonse Antonio
de Sarasa (1618–1667) fundamentally challenged the inaccessibility of infinity by
describing hyperbolas (curves within planar surfaces) and the quadrature (creating
a square with the volume of a circle or vice versa). Such thought experiments led
to the so-called natural logarithm (commonly perceived as the “inverse of an exponential”) and a numeric relation that touches upon everything in Nature: “mineral
hardness, and the intensities of sounds, stars, windstorms, earthquakes and acids…”
5
2 The Neutral, by Roland Barthes, Lecture Course at the College de France [1977–1978], Translated
by Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier, Text established, annotated, and presented by Thomas
Clerc under the direction of Eric Marty, Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, pp.12–13.
3 ibid., Barthes The Neutral, p.101.
4 See How To Improve Your Mind, by Baruch Spinoza, With Biographical Notes by Dagobert
D. Runes, The Wisdom Library, A Division of Philosophical Library, New York, p. 66.
5 See “What Are Logarithms?” By Robert Coolman, LiveScience, May 22, 2015, https://www.
livescience.com/50940-logarithms.html, Accessed January 7, 2020. Beginning with the notion that
arithmetic sequences mirror geometric ones, logarithmic thinking quickly encompasses the entire
planet. The natural logarithm, when applied to a future projected population, becomes the witching
stick of extrapolation for any series as well as programming languages. The equation itself, Nt=P
e (r * t), relies on a constant, e, that is equal to 2.71828. One case study involves the estimated
population of Nigeria from 2011 to the year 2030, representing an increase in numbers of 98.67
million people. See http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/geog1000/PopulationProjections/
Population_Projections_GEOG1000-Answers.pdf, Accessed January 6, 2020. A natural logarithm
of ten equals 2.30258509. To any casual observer, their numeric relationship is meaningless. See
“The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences,” https://oeis.org/A002392. Chance, supposition, theory: these outliers of probability parallel every philosophical independent event. Random
(stochastic) processes and points, from Brownian motion to the Poisson point process, take their
cue in the history of mathematics from something as light-headed as gambling. Yet, a game of
poker has the same level of sobriety in terms of human affairs as archaeology. The Iranian military
77 The Finely Honed Basis of Unknowing