some three dimensional helix

some three dimensional helix with light cones

Origami. An infinite sheet, folding, unfolding, refolding, and a hard-headed infolding. The Plane of Immanence. I’m desperately holding on to this origami metaphor so I don’t get shaken off. It’s a rough ride, a bucking magic carpet ride over the plains of innocence, the plains of ignorance. The past, the present and the future are about to be recast in ways for which those origami books you looked at in the shops have not prepared you.

Imagine a sheet of paper that extends forever in all directions and the past and present and the disinclined future are all there, immanent within this tremendous sheet. Now fold a pelican. Or, then fold a wristwatch. If you haven’t yet. At the same time unfold a thought and infold some memories of the day you walked on the beach and thought how curious, the sand so cold, the sky so broad. This is only the first lesson.

It is in the seeking that we express meaning. It is in the meaning that we seek expression. Immaculate immanence, your eminence. I can spell of those only ‘your’ with any confidence. This philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, how? It sounds or seems so detached. This is the thing, and it is a thing because I can’t say emphatically that it is in fact a problem, with science: it is attached. It makes sense of the senses. Things, most things, manifest in reasonable connections to others so that you can trace them. Sometimes, more often lately than in its heyday, you may need an expert to lead you gently and patiently through the labyrinth, but eventually most connections are accounted for and there you stand with your new smartphone. In your hand. Palpable, and explained. With diagrams and podcasts. Is it the whole truth? I cannot say. It seems not. It could be more is required to get to access the whole thing. We may not have the necessary tools to build the necessary tools. Ultimately we may have to look at our man Gilles and say yes. Yes, you may well be right. Good on you for seeing it so long ago. Yes. But now, while we have you here, what do we do with it?

It’s too early yet for me to get into it here, the explanations, the qualifications. Let’s see where it takes us. This book I’m reading is bound to tell me that, once I understand all that, the dirty business of adding up and dividing by and rooting over x, all that can be shaken off, discarded like so much academic dandruff. Some convoluted form of Buddhism. Once you understand, once you’re enlightened, you won’t want to waste your time on a smartphone. You will understand that science and its belligerent alter ego technology cannot satisfy your search for meaning. They can only disappoint. Time isn’t even what you think it is and the future is no different from the past. History is as much science fiction as the future. We just make it up as we go along. Same as always. The tropes are limited and the characters never change. It is not a line or a circle or even some three dimensional helix with light cones so you don’t scratch the stitches loose again. It is Brownian, a bumping into things in a darkened China shop where every piece is attached to every other piece by multiple strings and you do not want to wake the proprietor. Never and especially not now that she’d just fallen asleep and is dreaming of paper cups and stainless steel straws.

Tread with care on that plain of knots and triangles.