December 17, 2004

Numogram Q&A

Hyperstition contributor Tachi has submitted a large number of thoughtful questions about numogrammatic hyperstition which will hopefully stimulate some vigorous discussion of basic principles and methods.

The responses given here are meant to be uncontroversial and preliminary, based on a mish-mash of Cthulhu Club insights and suggestions, so if other members of the Hyperstition crew have any problems with them I hope they'll make corrective remarks.

I've taken the liberty of renumbering Tachi's original questions.

Q.1. "I am particularly intrigued and perplexed by the decimal numogram? What is its function?? I don't just mean as a tool, I mean what is it actually doing. Sure, I am keen to know to what extent you think it is an instrument and what you are using it for? How can it not have a purpose, as well as a function? But is it off the leash yet?? You cannot simply ignore the conscious aspect of its creation; after all it has been constructed carefully with a lot of conscious thought regarding its internal consistency and relation to externally resonant mapping systems. But separate from that, Is it really doing anything, and if not, why not?"

A.1. The Numogram [click on the Ccru link on the right for image] is unfolded out of decimal numeracy, which it inhabits as an implex. It is therefore discovered more than 'created', its virtual existence being coincident with decimal numeracy itself.
If it has a radically immanent function, independent of apprehension, it is probably best conceived on the abstract model of virus - sheer spreading.
However, it is more practical to attribute functionalizations of the Numogram to particular hyperstitional lineages, in which it is put to work in accordance with determinate programmes. The most elaborated lineage (partially) unearthed to date is that of Cthulhu Club research and techno-sorcerous practice (associated with such names as Echidna Stillwell, Peter Vysparov, Daniel C Barker and Mme Centauri). Within all the variegated off-shoots of the Cthulhu Club lineage, the Numogram is functionalized as a time map.
Conceiving the Numogram as a time map has a number of implications:
(a) Rather than representing any concrete empirical reality it operates 'schematically' in a crypto-kantian sense ('diagrammatically' or 'figuratively'). Applications of the Numogram to concrete fields are mediated by time-systems, time cultures and (most typically) time politics or time wars.
(b) The Kantian association of arithmetic and time is also pertinent, with the Numogram inhering in elementary decimal notation and procedures, rather than in advanced number theory. It is crucial to the propagation and resilience of Numogrammatics that it is affined with popular numeracy rather than professional /technical mathematics.
(c) The Numogram 'takes up' the time-mapping functions of the Chinese I Ching, the Hebrew Tree of Life, and other chrono-numeric systems (such as that of the Dogon). Its 'resonances' or partial isomorphies with these perhaps best capture its virtual-abstract and hyperchronic reality. Because the Numogram charts an intense involvement in fate it provokes oracular appropriations akin to those found in most occult traditions (such usages are, of course, hyperstitionally sedimented and in no way transcendently authoritative).
(d) The widely hyped description of the Numogram as a 'time-travelling device' remain subject to explication and confirmation by rigorous procedural formulation and experiment. Nevertheless, it is plausible to maintain that all hyperstitional lineages intersect with time-travel programmes of some kind.

Q.2. "How much is the Numogram useful as a tool to understand events, and how much is it functioning in the creation of events?"

A.2. Hyperstitional-occultural sub-historicism seeks a region of convergence between these options, where the Numogram 'clicks' onto itself coincidentally as supreme method and ultimate object. By marking-over all cultural / political programmes as actually degenerated concretions of virtual numogrammatic impulses, hyperstition lines them up for savage decoding.
This is why the role of the AOE meta-conspiracy is so decisive, since the diagrammatic directives guiding this vast covert movement are pre-eminently described by the Atlantean Cross, a manifestly decayed version of the Lemurian Numogram.

Q.3. "It must have been fun to synthesise the Numogram from other stratic, discarded and lost material. But if we are not to believe in the Numogram, how are we to use it in a state of not-believing? I am still coming to terms with the notion of not 'believing' but not 'not believing'."

A.3. The Numogram is auto-synthesized out of elementary decimal operations (including one - 9-twinning or 'zygonovism' - that is neither arithmetically nor occulturally traditional). It's relation to "stratic, discarded and lost material" occurs through subsequent applications, relayed through hyperstitional lineages which relativize them. These applications are radically non-authoritative and incredible, typically motivated to engender a maximum of 'unbelief' and thus lateral proliferation through alternative applications / lineages.
The Numogram itself has no thetic content, only procedural consistency. It thus entirely eludes the problematic of belief.


Tachi also raises various technical questions about Numogrammatics. Perhaps thew most important thing to note here is that these issues are basically terminological, referring to the ways preliminary explorations of the Numogram have tagged various aspects of its cartography. There is nothing remotely 'sacred' about any of this, different carriers might adopt quite different terms and emphasize different relations.

Basic responses:

Q.4.1. "What is an impulse entity, and what is its significance in the context of the Numogram (don't mean anything to do with signifier)?"

A.4.1. An imp(ulse entity) is a term coined by Peter Vysparov for any condensation within the Numogram that seems to designate a 'thing' - of whatever scale - to which strategic purpose, communicative potentiality or intelligence can be attributed. The term 'Imp' is colloquially used to denote Numogrammatic coagulations below the level of Lemurs/demons.

Q.4.2. "What is the functional difference between a gate and a channel? It seems that they could be the same thing, though we are accustomed to thinking of both channel and gate as a physical things, when both could be considered as switches."

A.4.2. The terms 'gate' and 'channel' - as used numogrammtically, also seem to have been originally coined by Vysparov, although this cannot be confidently confirmed. A channel is opened by unlocking a gate, but the difference in vocabulary is again basically conceptual / terminological ('justified' by its use value within particular research programmes or practices). It seems quite productive to envisage gates/channels as time-switches (anomalies or disturbances).

Q.4.3. "What is a Sarkonian mesh-tag?? How does it function?"

A.4.3. Oskar Sarkon's techno-mathematical overcoding of the Pandemonium array (consisting of all entities defined by non-repeating descending decimal clusters) employed 'mesh-tags' as reference markers. Relatively little follow-up work has been undertaken in this area - in large part because Sarkon's own investigations have without exception resulted in intelligence-catastrophies and escalating Anthropol involvement - so the functional potential of mesh-tagging remains uncertain.

There's a lot more, but too much at once could be bad for digestion.

Posted by nick land at December 17, 2004 04:43 AM

 

 


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