[Paraphrased from P. Vysparov]
My guess is that Bismark’s most widely quoted remark – “People who love the law or good sausage should never watch either being made” -- applies to hyperstitional carriers (avatars) too.
There’s an understandable reluctance to fabricate them in public, perhaps because this would undermine their Limbo status, casting them too crudely into the realm of blatant fiction.
Still, it might be worth re-thinking this reservation, since carriers are so integral to the functioning of hyperstition that anything inhibiting their production massively impedes hyperstitional propagation (throwing practitioners back into the sad slum of the “creative ego”).
Hyperstitional carriers simulate personalities in order to consolidate a node of anegoic cognitive consistency (and, etymologically, persons are masks). Carriers are the vehicles through which tendrils of hyperstitional exploration are singularized and promoted.
It might be worth de-emphasizing the entire problematic of simulation so as to focus on methodical productivity. Carriers do not exist by virtue of their credibility, but due to the fact that if any one of them had not arisen it would be necessary that it be invented (for a thread of investigation to take place).
Thesis: Thought is only hyperstitional if a carrier conducts it.
“Lemuria” is itself a mega-carrier – its only authority being its inexistence.
It is in the name of Lemuria that the Numogram became accessible, without conceivable human derivation. Numogrammatic research decomposes itself in strict correlation with carrier-production: at first neolemurian subcultures, ultimately artificial individuals. Insofar as this process is held in abeyance, hyperstitional proliferation is itself suspended.
Hyperstition requires that we relentlessly refuse the reduction of carriers to false identities. Carriers are not disguises (as if their true content were really “oh, so it’s Oedipus”) – they are defined by what they convey, not by where they ‘come from.’ The virtual-real source of any carrier is the conceptual impulse it alone makes possible, not the creative ego who ‘invents’ it. Conception happens in the carrier, simultaneously with its virtual genesis, not in the creative subject.
Hyperstition will be assaulted by trolls, and trolls have a coherent ideology: “Stop pretending, you know it’s really Oedipus.”
Because this assertion plugs directly into the basic imprisoning flinch biosocially implanted into all human animals it tends to be horribly effective. Perhaps fabricating carriers ‘in public’ would positively contribute to resisting it – “there’s no pretence, no disguise, look at the sausage-machine if you’re so morbidly fascinated, there’s nothing hidden. There are things that can only happen through this process, thoughts no ego can appropriate, paths only radical artificiality can open.”
We really are not interested in anything we can think.
Nick, major development taking place here. I am quite confident a lot of positive changes will ensue from the recent troll incident for the facilitation of productive activity. In particular, I see that you have potentially levered open the hatch and transformed Hyperstition from being locked into a state of semi-fiction, or at least being accusable as such, to being spun out from this real/fictional axis altogether. This is key, I think, to letting it do its own thing.
However, I don’t think that refusing the reduction of carriers to false identities suffices to ensure hyperstitional propagation, since I don’t think refusal operates at the base level. What does an effective refusal look like? For me, it seems to grant too much to the real/fiction binary, and play into the true/false identity game, and is far too human an impulse to generate impact. What works at the base level for hyperstition to propagate? This is the question if a suitable strategy is to be formulated.
Please check your inbox, Tachi
Yes, Nick... I think this is really crucial. Also for the discussion with Simon too. Romantic-Sadeans always insist that exposing (the) mechanism will spoil the magic. Perhaps it will: white magic is after all an art of (self) delusion. But sorcery is compatible with Cold Rationalism precisely because for both there is no dissimulation. Libido can be and always is INTENSIFIED by analysis of the mechanics of its own production. (While the Catholics turn away in disgust... too much detail....) It's not theatre, it's not spectacle, nothing has to be concealed. We're not fooling anyone, there's no-one to be fooled.
Intensities and affects are indifferent to epistemology.
Posted by: mark k-p at December 13, 2004 07:41 PMActually surprised this hasn't attracted more attention. Think this is extremely relvant to Hyperstion, yet there seems to be another series of debated raging on in other departments. Shame really, since the trolling and bitching is actually connected to the issue of carriers. And given that Nick has pretty much thrown hyperstition-production into a new light, where a reflection on method - strategy and tactics if you like - has been required, it seems painfully sad that others don't find it relevant enough to connect on this issue which affects the core of Hyperstition.
Posted by: Tachi at December 15, 2004 02:06 PMTachi I received this from a friend (very pertinent to the polemics about personality):
“not to reach the point where we don't use our names, but the point where it no longer matters...” (Deleuze and Guattari, ATP)
plus, have you ckecked the etymology of the word Troll unearthed by Thistle?
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=troll
Posted by: Reza at December 15, 2004 02:31 PMGood quote, Reza.
Could we also say “not to reach the point where we don't use other names, but the point where it no longer matters”?
Surely the point being that it doesn't matter at all which names we use - our 'real' names or alternative names? ... or that using names, per se, relying on names, marks, is of little consequence?
This surely touches on the issue of consistency. Even a fluid has a certain consistency, however much it changes shape or form.
As for 'troll', it reminds me too much of fantasy games ..
Posted by: Tachi at December 16, 2004 01:12 PM>>> Could we also say “not to reach the point where we don't use other names, but the point where it no longer matters”?
yes, but in the second phase; how is possible to jump on the 'other names' issues when we still have 'Our Own Names' issues? when it starts from 'our' names, the process continues to other names, as a consequence in the continuity of the process.
>>> This surely touches on the issue of consistency. Even a fluid has a certain consistency, however much it changes shape or form.
yes, but it is the orgnizational consistency not the consistency of composition (the consistency between participative elements) ... organizational consistency as its name shows, is con-firming the economical bonds that hold the expression and contents of an organization together (methexis); as J.J. Gibson discusses; it is only the consistency through mutual affordance or as he elaborates, the dynamism between surfaces. organizational consistency only happens through the surface dynamics, i.e. super-ficiality. on the organizational consistency see: http://www.cold-me.net/text/asianpeace.html. endnote 12 (also follow the discussion in the body of text) or pestis solidus: the same address (just replace the file with pestis.pdf)
>>> Troll
oh, yes, warcraft, etc. ;)
Posted by: Reza at December 16, 2004 02:34 PMTachi - think you've already answered this, but is it cool to use your Q.s, attributed to you, in a Numogram Q&A post?
If so, i'll put it up this afternoon.
Sorry Nick, been away, just seen this, but see you have posted them, that's fine. Anything I have sent Reza or yourself feel free to use. Just been going over the massive number of comments in the 'problems and mysteries' post, seems some interesting stuff finally coming through, should maintain momentum.
Posted by: Tachi at December 20, 2004 12:16 AMTachi - didn't wait for permission because when I re-read your comments on a previous thread you seemed to be happy for your Q.s to be used. Glad to have that confirmed, anyway.
Does seem we've finally crawled out of troll-hell (fingers crossed).
Welcome back.
No problem re. permission Nick, these questions and thoughts are better shared; would hope they could be better feed for hyperstitional shoals. Seems plenty of activity on the site of late, albeit cramming up the 'problems and mysteries' post. Any way of extracting the most pertinent lines and throwing them into fresh water?
As for the issue of rendering carrier production transparent, it seems like the issue has gone fairly unnoticed. What do you do when something with a potential bang doesnt go off? Relight it and stand back, or let it go?
By making carrier production transparent, that way you open up the carrier to polyproductive inputs. The production of hyperstition relies on the production of carriers, so the latter does seem to be an zone of priority.
By bringing the 'fictional' into a realm of 'non-fiction', as it were, it becomes open to all sorts of channels, since it does not communicate over a threshold of ambiguity (where the distinction between fiction/reality still remains but is just unknown); the effect is to remove the unknown status and allow interactivity not just between truths and fictions, but also between carriers.
Posted by: Tachi at December 20, 2004 12:20 PM