[Warning: hyperstitionally unprocessed and qabbalistically naïve pretentious meta-discourse]
The ocean in which qabbalism swims is not mathematics, but popular numerical culture. From a mathematical perspective it remains undeveloped, even ineducable, since it cannot advance beyond the Natural number line even to the level of the Rationals, let alone to the ‘higher’ numbers or set-theoretical post-numerical spaces. Where counting ceases, qabbalism becomes impracticable.
Socially, qabbala makes an implicit decision against specialization, in order to remain virtually coincidental with the entire economy of digitizable signs. It is essentially ‘democratic’ (in the most inclusive sense of this word), even when apparently lost in its own trappings of hermeticism. It is bound to the ‘blind’ undirected contingencies of pre-reflective mass social phenomena, with all the inarticulate provocation this entails in respect to professional intellectuals. Wherever exact semiotic exchange occurs, a latent qabbalism lurks (even within the enclaves of intellectual professionalism themselves). Deleuze & Guattari’s ‘Nomad War Machine’, within which number is socially subjectivized, captures crucial aspects of this qabbalistic fatality.
Historically, qabbala arises through epic accident, as a side-product of the transition between distinct modes of decimal notation. Its historical presupposition is the shift from alphabetical numerals (of the Hebrew or Greek type) to modular notation, with its resulting unlocalizable (and theoretically indeterminable) confusion. This transition provided the opportunity for a systematic calculative ‘error’ - the mistaken application of elementary techniques appropriate to alphabetical numerals – simple addition of notated values - to the new modular signs. This mistake automatically resulted in digital reduction, by accident, and thus as a (theoretically scandalous) gift of fate.
Arising historically during the European Renaissance - when zero, place value and technocapitalism finally breached the ramparts of Western monotheism – qabbalism (born in a semiotic glitch and thus lacking the authority of tradition or even purpose) was compelled to hyperstitionally generate an extreme antiquity for itself, in a process that is still ongoing.
Technically, qabbala is inextricable from digital processing. Emerging from calculative practicality within the context of blind mass-cultural metamorphosis, it antedates it own theoretical legitimation, making sense of itself only derivatively, sporadically and contentiously. Its situation is analogous – and perhaps more than analogous – to that of a spontaneous artificial intelligence, achieving partial lucidity only as a consequence of tidal pragmatic trends that ensure an integral default of self-mastery. Practical systematization of technique precedes any conceivable theoretical motivation. Dialectical interrogation of qabbalism at the level of explicit motivation thus proves superficial and inconsequential, essentially misrecognizing the nature of the beast. (It is equally misleading to ask: What is a computer really for?)
Politically, qabbalism repels ideology. As a self-regenerating mass-cultural glitch, it mimics the senseless exuberance of virus, profoundly indifferent to all partisan considerations. Indifferent even to the corroded solemnity of nihilism, it sustains no deliberated agendas. It stubbornly adheres to a single absurd criterion, its intrinsic ‘condition of existence’ – continual unconscious promotion of numerical decimalism. Qabbala destines each and every ‘strategic appropriation’ to self-parody and derision, beginning with the agenda of theocratic resoration that attended its (ludicrously robed) baptismal rites. Even God was unable to make sense of it. It has no party, only popularity.
[So let’s party?]
Posted by nick at December 23, 2004 04:34 AMSo the party's going move into here now? Not read the post yet Nick, but looking forward to getting sunk in. Will look out for the naive and pretentious ;)
Posted by: Tachi at December 23, 2004 06:16 AMok, what pretentious team am i on ::cracking knuckles:: unprocessed or umlaut?
Posted by: northanger at December 23, 2004 06:31 AMPopulation pressure will drive you all up here eventually, just wait and see ... attic today becomes basement tomorrow - that's blogotheology in a nut's hell ...
Posted by: nick at December 23, 2004 12:30 PMNick, I get the SNEAKY feeling that everyone's popping nummobites and going hypermental. Not sure if - fuck, 'F' just flew out of my keyboard - your more considered, and IMHO more interesting, contribution above has much purchase on rapid-fire jaw-gurning blog rhythm.
Posted by: H.P. Lovecraft at December 23, 2004 01:22 PMsince you like food fights AND you're a chaos mage we can justifiably say SNEAKY NICK.
where do we post bug reports for The Nummificator?
Posted by: northanger at December 24, 2004 04:17 AM"where do we post bug reports for The Nummificator?" - sure Undercurrent would love to hear about them over at his place - or on the Cryptogliberal thread
Posted by: nick at December 24, 2004 06:25 AMyou'll find my maintenance charges are reasonable (allowing for the fact that I'm the only nummificator-repair-man on the planet)
Posted by: undercurrent at December 24, 2004 11:26 AMI noticed something interesting on the nummificator : if you take any word and add 'ography' to it, the result (after decimal reduction) is always identical :
demon=(96 -> 15 -> 6)
demonography=(249 -> 15 -> 6)
gematrix=(169 -> 16 -> 7)
gematrixography=(322 -> 7)
it was a while until I realised (doh) that this is because
ography =153=9
and no matter how many 9s you add onto any given phrase, you'll always end up with the same result, any 9-valued modifier are transparent (so, therefore, are Is and Rs or any multiple of 9) in regard of the final result, but modify the path.
Undercurrent - there are other similar cases - obvious eg (negative prefix) DE- = 27 = 9 and its anagram (tense suffix) -ED.
Suspect there are more.
Not trying to deduct from the interest of this observation, on the contrary ...
obviously I'm asking this out of sheer personal laziness, but does decimal reduction equate arithmetically to modulus base 10?
Posted by: undercurrent at December 24, 2004 08:20 PMhex: decimal reduction = cold rationalism = 3
gon1: decimal reduction = decimal labyrinth = 5
gon2: decimal reduction = the unthought-out idealism of cold rationalism = 2
2 + 3 = 5
decimal reduction
Base 9 Number Reduction
http://www.sollog.com/base9numberreduction.shtml
(sounds suspicously fictitious of course)
"Lemurian subcultures associate Zone-0 with the dense void of the cosmic hypermatrix, upon which absolute desolation crosses infinity as flatline and loss of signal. Blind Humpty Johnson’s Channel-Zero ‘black snow’ cult communicate the influence of this zone in their call for the return of true Tohu Bohu or the subprimordial Earth."
Posted by: northanger at December 24, 2004 11:27 PMUndercurrent - "does decimal reduction equate arithmetically to modulus base 10?"
- don't think i'm quite getting your question. (shouldn't "modulus base" be "modulus / base" - not trying to be irritatingly pedantic, just want to get your drift)
PS. your 'banding' pic getting really fascinating to gaze at hypnotically
northanger - link you posted (on DR)looks incredibly interesting (need more neurons firing before seriously beginning to process it properly) - also sure it's definite Undercurrent material
Posted by: nick at December 25, 2004 07:08 AMOn Undercurrent's suffix (/prefix) topic - systematic exploration of this surely basic to rigorous analysis of the qabbalo-lexical interface
Posted by: nick at December 25, 2004 09:52 AM>> On Undercurrent's suffix (/prefix) topic - systematic exploration of this surely basic to rigorous analysis of the qabbalo-lexical interface
On Undercurrent's suffix (/prefix) topic - systematic exploration of this surely basic to rigorous analysis of the qabbalo-lexical interface <<
Posted by: northanger at December 25, 2004 08:32 PMMore Undercurrent 'subtle modulators' (DR-9 lexical modifiers) - hyper-, ultra-, trans-, plexo-, numo-, qwer-, para-, mini-, -tech.
Posted by: nick at December 25, 2004 11:12 PM>- don't think i'm quite getting your question. (shouldn't
>"modulus base" be "modulus / base"
yes, it was in relation to 9-transparency: how exactly does decimal reduction procedure relate to modulo-10 (ie 15 mod 10 = 5, 15 red 10 = 6). Sure there is a stupidly simple answer to this, but was/am a bit tired and emotional due to excess nummification...
Posted by: underslept at December 26, 2004 07:32 PMUndercurrent - understand (very well) the 'tiredness and emotionality' problem - but still haven't got the foggiest idea what you're asking
Posted by: nick at December 27, 2004 08:27 AM>>> and no matter how many 9s you add onto any given phrase, you'll always end up with the same result
>>> re: TSUNAMI
check:
The Cry of the 11th Aethyr
http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/l418/aetyr11.html
By three and by three and by three hath He made firm the foundation against the earthquake that is three. For in the number nine is the changefulness of the numbers brought to naught. For with whatsoever number thou wilt cover it, it appeareth unchanged [8].
[8] e.g 9 x 7 = 63. 6 plus 3 = 9. 9 x 127 = 1143. 1 plus 1 plus 4 plus 3 = 9.
Posted by: northanger at January 1, 2005 09:46 AM>>> eg (negative prefix) DE- = 27 = 9 and its anagram (tense suffix) -ED.
AQ 37 = EN-
GON1 19 = DE-
GON1 19 = THE LINK
D26 CZ = ANALYTICA = CRYPT = SRI LANKA = UPLINK
AQ 64 = EDEN (=D26 Y = 850 DOLLARS = AXIS = SHE THUS AWAKENS THE ELD OF THE ORIGINAL OLD KING = UNDERCURRENT = YETZIRATIC FORM)