Numogrammatic Time-Mapping
In Peter Vysparov’s construction of the Cthulhu Club System, the central region of the Numogram is labelled the ‘Time-Circuit’ or the ‘Domain of Chronos.’ Despite misgivings about mythopoetic arguments, it is worth briefly rehearsing aspects of Vysparov’s discussion.
According to the Greek myth, Chronos was the son of Uranus and Gaia, last of the Titans and God of Time, married to the Goddess Rhea. Revolting against the tyranny of Uranus, Gaia provided Chronos with a sickle, with which he hacked the sexual organs from his father, killing him (and producing various fall-out entities – Erinyes, Giants, and Meliae). Chronos also fell under the prophecy that he would suffer an analagous fate at the hands of his offspring. He thus devoured the first five (Hestia, Hera, Demeter, Poseidon and Hades – order (to me) uncertain (Hestia first daughter)), but Zeus escaped and poisoned him. The five consumed children were regurgitated as their father died.
Vysparov seems to have been convinced that these six offspring of Chronos – three of each sex - could be rigorously allotted zonal ‘houses’ on the Numogram Time-Circuit, consistent with the Pythagorean gendering of numbers. If he ultimately succeeded in establishing these co-ordinations his results do not seem to have reached us.
Vysparov also emphasized that this ‘founding’ myth is one of time disintegration, not time persistence. The ‘Domain of Chronos’ is a burial complex, ordering the world through the death of integral time.
Whether beginning from Kant’s identification of time with the content of arithmetic, or Einstein’s definition of time as a (fourth) dimension, attempts to model time seem to necessarily call upon the number line. The most elementary – and notationally efficient – chronometric and calendric systems count time by addition of unit periods, from caesium atom half-lives through clock ticks to day counting and annual date-changing. Whatever the scale, the procedure remains the same: the apparently basic arithmetical operation of additive succession, +1, +1, +1, …
Of course, mathematicians have known for well over two millennia that the number line in no way compels such an assumption. Step-by-step additive progression by units is merely one arithmetically arbitrary mode of numerical accumulation. Nevertheless, it can at least be argued that this pattern of counting presents the overwhelmingly prevalent articulation of chronological common sense.
Echidna Stillwell refers to Vysparov’s ‘Time Circuit’ as the ‘Hex.’ She demonstrates the arithmetical consistency between this region of the Numogram and the Chinese Classic of Change, or I Ching. This intermapping is locked into place by two basic bino-decimal echoes:
1) The six-step cycle of digitally-reduced binary magnitudes, repeating the series 2, 4, 8, 7, 5, 1.
2) The 9-twinning of these repeating stages. (To quote Richard Wilhelm’s commentary: “The following lines, provided they differ in kind, correspond: the first and the fourth, the second and the fifth, the third and the top [sixth] line.”)
Stillwell cites the Nma version of an almost universally familiar story: “A poor mathematician from the great landmass came to the court with a game he had invented, now called ‘chess,’ and the king was so enthralled by this diversion he asked the visitor whether there was anything he could offer as a token of appreciation. The cunning mathematician replied: ‘Your majesty, perhaps if you were to place a grain of rice on the first square, two on the second, and continuing thus, doubling the number on each successive square until reaching the final [64th] one, it would at least spare me from the danger of starvation on my return journey.’ Shocked by the modesty of this request, the king readily agreed. It was in this way the kingdom passed for the first time into the hands of strangers …”
This tale, attributed variously to Indian, Chinese and Persian sources, with minor variations in each case, is now to be found mostly in schoolrooms, where it is used as an aid in the teaching of binary exponentiation. The topics it raises, whether concerning mathematics, games and power, number and trickery, numerical isomorphy between the chess board and the I Ching, or other matters, exceed the scope of this discussion. Two points will suffice for now:
1) The utter obscurity attending the origins of this tale provides highly suggestive support for Stillwell’s ‘ethnomic’ hypothesis, with its argument that numerical potentiality is capable of generating spontaneous unlocalizable cultural syndromes.
2) Binary exponentiation has a ‘mythic’ dimension, now largely supplanted in modern societies by ‘Moore’s Law’ of techonomic development.
A privileging of binary exponentiation rather than unit addition is entirely consistent with the prominence of the number line as a model of time. The basic ‘time unit,’ however, is now conceived as the ‘doubling period.’ This approach integrates an intriguing diversity of problematics:
1) The I Ching, where time progresses through doubling and bino-decimal cyclicity. There is nothing exclusively ‘modern’ about the extravagant power of time as an exponentially accumulative trend – modernity lies rather in the evasion of disaccumulation crisis, which in the time of the I Ching is described as an inevitability of periodic catastrophe.
2) The Numogram Hex, rigorously echoing the I Ching, although with certain supplementary complexities (exceeding the scope of this discussion). The Numogram also ‘positions’ the sphere of duplicative time within a greater – and for now obscure – time terrain.
3) Qabbalistic tradition, within which binary exponentiation has ‘always’ provided the key to certain crucial combinatorial calculations. Combinatorics, qabbala, and binary exponentiation share a common procedural reservoir.
4) Transfinite arithmetic, as consolidated by Cantor, whose Continuum Hypothesis proposes that binary exponentiation to Aleph-0 = Aleph-1 (the real number line).
But this could go on forever …
AQ notes:
CHRONO = 127 (enough said)
CHRONOLOGY = 222 (a little theatrical perhaps ...)
CHRONOS = 155 (31 x 5: The pentanomic order is the strict complement of binary within the decimalized Oecumenon - more on this elsewhere)
nicholas -
AQ 239 = TEMPLEXITY = GRAND RETURN = INTERESTING
-----------------------
GON2 74 = A POOR MATHEMATICIAN = DECIMAL REDUCTION
AQ 251 = GREAT LANDMASS = FOUR-ONE-EIGHT
AQ 384 = TOKEN OF APPRECIATION = MACHINIC UNCONSCIOUS = CHANGE IS GONNA DO ME GOOD
AQ 379 = CUNNING MATHEMATICIAN = HYPERSTITIONAL GAME
AQ 214 = A GRAIN OF RICE = COMMUNITY = AGE OF KHATTAK
AQ 343 = DOUBLING THE NUMBER = CCRU BEGINS WITH Y2K
AQ 264 = THE FINAL [64TH] ONE = QWERNO-COUNT = WAR ON TERROR
AQ 321 = RETURN JOURNEY = HASHISHIN SPIRIT = ORDER OF THE WORLD
-----------------------
GON1 107 = KINGDOM PASSED FOR THE FIRST TIME INTO THE HANDS OF STRANGERS
GON1 107 = A DREAM UNTHREATENED BY THE MORNING LIGHT {Learning to Fly, by Pink Floyd}
northanger - **** that was quick
know this doesn't get far upriver, but needed to set up a few base camps for future templexploration
nick - this is good, brings a lot of flow.
three good mythology sites
http://www.pantheon.org/
http://66.90.77.92/index.htm
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/
Northanger- you feeling diligent enough to ordinalize the Chronos-spawn?
Posted by: nick at January 20, 2005 05:31 PMNick + Northanger,
Just returned home! I’m pretty tired.
trivial information: Chronos, the origin of the word Chronos is Khron from Sanskrit (we have a similar word in Avesta); it means Abyss corresponding to both mythological account of Chronos imprisoned in Tartarus and Chronos as Time. (Chronos as time cannot be separated from catadromic functions; ‘Cata at Cold Me’)
Chronos’ activities around propagating species / breeding offspring are also originated from pre-Zoroastrian mythos. Angra-Maynu (as the prototype of Chronos [1]) undergoes a bloody / butchering type of parthenogenesis (see Meatology of the Redeemer). Chronos is also bi/asexual.
[1] The Zoroastrian / Mazdaian accounts of Genesis are complex and v. interesting; will discuss them later.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not an inquisitive / interrogative question, just for the sake of discussion: I’d appreciate more info about time disintegration, time persistence and integral time. What is this integrality; do you mean integrality in Time itself or according to an exterior plane?
Also the excellent topic you raised, IMHO, needs some discussions about the Germanic Time with tidal / temporal functionalities and the Greek Chronos with catadromic disintegrating functions and descents (divergent ABYZmal polytics) but in most cases ‘Time = Chronos’; Nick, is this equation also available as a pivotal element in Vysparov’s discussion or in other words, is ‘time = chronos’? (it seems Deleuze and Guattari accepted this popular equation as an outset for their discussion about Aeon and Time).
>>>three good mythology sites
http://www.pantheon.org/
http://66.90.77.92/index.htm
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/
Northanger, these sites are interesting but not very reliable: if you want something accurate in most cases, check this out: http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/
Posted by: Reza at January 20, 2005 07:05 PMpythagorean tarot (highly recommended)
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PT/PT.html
>>> pythagorean tarot (highly recommended)
Most of John Opsopaus' essays are fascinating. The website is old but sometimes they update it.
Posted by: Reza at January 21, 2005 12:36 AMReza / northanger - you two both much more at home in this myth excavation space than me - i'm hanging on by my fingernails (wouldn't probably have gone there except for Vysparov's shtick)
northanger - Pythagorean tarot - sounds v. interesting, but could take a while to hunt down in Shanghai (San Francisco this ain't) - know you don't usually 'do' 'users guide' type glosses, but any brief and intelligible remarks about the elementary orientation / distinctiveness of this tarot?
Reza - it's a while since i've been near the D&Gon texts, but remember the distinction dividing time into Chronos/Aeon (rather than opposing time/aeon). Doubt whether their writings of much importance to Vysparov, if only because his Numogrammatic work quite early compared to theirs (much already done by the early 1950s for e.g.).
To my understanding, Vysparov is also identifying Chronos with a 'region' of time (that of the 'Time-Circuit') but his vocabulary viz time(s) of the Outer (triadic) zones and Ultimate Gulf is all over the place - sometimes he writes of (Warp) 'hyperchronic time' and (Plex) 'subchronic time,' sometimes he uses expressions such as 'Warp achronicity' or simply 'Warp-time' for instance, or what seem to be plays on language whose technical status is hard to decipher, such as 'time warping' ... don't think he ever completed a convincing theoretical systematization of anything beyond the Domain of Chronos, and even there he left plenty of holes (material for at least one more post though).
Also on Chronos/Aeon - 'Aeon' in Vysparov's work linked to Atlantean hermetic historicism (think he might even read the D&Gon as falling under this) - when he uses this word it seems less like an opposing term and more like a subregion of his 'Chronos' (itself much less polemically freighted, wider, more complex and more elastic than that of the D&Gon).
On Time Integrity … need to do some more digging around in Vysparov’s chaotic notebooks on this – I’ll get back to you on it. For now, basic sense seems to be that the Chronos myth shatters Chronos (into six) rather than installing it as a unitary sovereignty ... [sorry to just repeat the obvious and miss the whole point of your q., blame the sickness]
Posted by: nick at January 21, 2005 02:21 AM>>> Reza - it's a while since i've been near the D&Gon texts, but remember the distinction dividing time into Chronos/Aeon (rather than opposing time/aeon).
me too ... sorry for the mistake. but the chronos they demarcate, if memory serves, is the germanic Time with tide / temporal regions and pulsations which they oppose to Aeon. Is there any possibility to disentangle Time, not the germanic one but at least what Vysparov traces (with less emphasis on its chronic / aeonic spaces)?
"any brief and intelligible remarks about the elementary orientation / distinctiveness of this tarot?" - where do you want me to post it?
Posted by: northanger at January 21, 2005 03:48 AMnorthanger - "where do you want me to post it?" - does that question suggest we're actually talking long, baroque and unintelligible to mammalian nervous-systems? (otherwise, why not here?)
"are you sick?" - revoltingly
chronocrators: time lords
decennia: one of the greek time lord systems
got some notes on this, can post AFTER writing pythy glossy thingy. :-)
The Pythagorean Tarot
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/PT/PT.html
John Opsopaus indicates "interpretive framework" for PT different from other tarots. PT utilizes traditional iconography, archetypal imagery and Pythagorean numerology and is influenced by "Greek cultural milieu", Mediterranean mythology, alchemy, Jungian psychology, other divinatory systems and traditional tarot interpretation.
+distinctiveness of this tarot
In PT, the numbers are archetypes, as well as the symbols/images. Jung was convinced that number is the most basic archetype, and is the key to understanding the psychical + physical relationship. The west has focused on number's physical / quantitative / abstract aspects; the east has focused on the psychical / qualitative / affective (feeling-toned) aspects. And this is perhaps the major distinction with this tarot: "The Pythagoreans, however, viewed numbers as cosmic principles with both material and spiritual aspects. This perspective is the basis of the numerology found in many cultures. When the qualitative aspects are included in our conception of numbers, they become more than simple quantities 1, 2, 3, 4; they acquire an archetypal character as Unity, Opposition, Conjunction, Completion. They are then analogous to more familiar archetypes..."
This distinction also parallels ideas presented in ueue's paper: +Notes on Badiou, D&G, and the new antiliberation movement+: "Badiou declares the necessity of the 're-entangling' of philosophy and mathematics, and claims that philosophy .... has systematically excluded mathematics". If TIME=NUMBER, then philosophy's relationship to time is equivalent to PT's qualitative aspects, and mathematics to PT's quantitative aspects.
+elementary orientation
Pythagorean Oath: Nay! By him that gave our family the Tetractys, which holds the Fount and Root of everflowing Nature. (Ou ma ton hameterai geneai paradonta Tetraktun, Pagan aenaou Phuseôs Rhizôma t' ekhousan).
Opsopaus states that Pythagorean numerology is the main organizing principle for his tarot. Notice the Pythagorean Oath: Rhizôma = Root (mass of roots?). How can we determine RHIZÔMA is the elementary orientation for this tarot? The back design of the Pythagorean Tarot incorporates three important Pythagorean symbols: the Pentagram, the Tetractys, and the Pythagorean Y. The numeric formula for the Tetractys = 1+2+3+4+10; and another Pythagorean oath = "by the square of four".
The Tetractys represents the four worlds and, in fact, has a rhizomatic appearance. The Pythagorean Y represents a rhizome, or, a singular tetractyc-node(=abstraction=pattern=recursive=soul) which is utilized by the [pentagram](=four elements=1+2+3+4=body). The Pentagram represents the perfect equilibrium of the four elements enlivened(=wholeness) by the everflowing nature(=Aithêr=10) which in turn harmonizes body+soul(1+2+3+4+10) and the tetractyc-net.
To be effective, divination follows certain proven rules. If we are aware that a tarot deck embeds intention, then Opsopaus' deep awareness of Greek thought, number, alphabet, etc., "infects" every cut of the deck. He has engineered a deck that deals with rhizomatic harmony and intersecting all planes of existence:
+++The method of science may be contrasted with that of divination. In science one makes a conscious "cut" in the world, separating the phenomenon of interest from the rest of existence. In divination, on the other hand, one makes an unconscious "cut," by isolating a qualitative moment in time, which retains the fullness of its participation in both the physical and psychic aspects of all existence. Numerical procedures, such as cutting a tarot deck, rolling dice, or dividing yarrow stalks, are used to determine the kairos, the "key moment," for the constellation of a unique synchronous phenomenon. With proper preparation, so that an archetype is already activated by a sufficiently high "charge" of psychic energy, the divinatory act can create a "hole" in the "field of consciousness through which the autonomous dynamism of the collective unconscious can break in" (von Franz 227). (von Franz 44, 199)
+++http://inside.bard.edu/irby/citer.htm
Rhizome-- every point connected to every other point -- no points or positions in a rhizome, only lines (which do form intersections) --a rhizome can be broken off at any point and reconnected following one of its own lines --the rhizome is antigenealogical --has its own outside with which it makes another rhizome, therefore a rhizomatic whole has neither inside not outside --not a "calque" but an open chart which can be connected w/ something else in all of its dimensions, it is dismountable, reversible and susceptible to continual modifications --a network of trees which open in every direction can create a rhizome (often made into 'partial trees' that can be cut out artificially from every rhizome) --no one can provide a global description of the whole rhizome, not only multidimensionally complicated, but also because its structure changes through time -- not globally, but a potential sum of local descriptions --if not outside, can be seen ONLY from the inside (a myopic algorithm, any one only knows its contact points-- so each is only a hypothesis) blindness is the only way of seeing (locally) and thinking means to grope one's way.
Antikythera mechanism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
The mechanism is the oldest known surviving geared mechanism, made from bronze in a wooden frame, and has puzzled and intrigued historians of science and technology since its discovery. The most commonly accepted theory of its function is that it was an analog computer designed to track the movements of heavenly objects. Recent working reconstructions of the device support this analysis. The device is all the more impressive for its use of a differential gear, which was previously believed to have been invented in the 13th century AD.
AQ 397= ANTIKYTHEREA MECHANISM = ENCHANTED ISOLATION = THE PLACE OF ENCHANTMENT
Posted by: northanger at January 21, 2005 11:39 AMPythagoras is evidently going to get a thorough working over here - he intersects too many lines to ignore.
"CHRONO = 127 = DECENNIA" - this (IMHO) is a qabbalistic masterpiece.
nicholas - occasionally you say things like, "qabbalistic masterpiece" and i wonder, what is he thinking of exactly? couldn't help myself (and maybe answered this QM bizness): enneadic, aced nine, deca nine, need cain, de ancien, de canine, in decane, yadda.
this was interesting:
http://www.omakoio.gr/periexomena6_eng.htm
the ennead, among other things, are the nine chief deities of the osirian cycle; they can create a 3x3 grid (The Ennead Matrix or The Decaplex):
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/ennead.html
http://blog.urbanomic.com/dread/archives/2005/01/decaplex_develo.html
http://home.hccnet.nl/m.houtman/site/pwisse/htm/diaenneadic_framework.htm
Dia-enneadic framework for information concepts: A framework, or metatheory, is an artifact designed to control variety. Coordination of directions in information management (including communication management, vice versa) requires, first of all, a framework for information concepts. A framework is erected from semiotic enneads on the assumption of sign exchange. With two fundamental positions in sign exchange, occupied by a producer and an observer, respectively, a dia-enneadic framework for information concepts results.
AQ 142 = DECAPLEX = CRANIUM = END OF GOD = THE LINK = ACTIVE R1 = LEMURIA
AQ 236 = ENNEAD MATRIX = COUNTER-COIN = HERU-PA-KRAATH = METATRONICS = SIX AND FIFTY = TOO HORRIBLE
northanger said: 'CHRONO = 127 = DECENNIA (greek time lord system)'
nick said: '"CHRONO = 127 = DECENNIA" - this (IMHO) is a qabbalistic masterpiece'
We would have to locate the 'transmitting station' of this forumula in what might be termed 'hyperdimensional' or 'hyperdensity' environments and then applied or Pro-jected into a Tellurian environment (and all others needed to maintain one in stasis) for purposes which 'lock' or 'bind' BOTH the Tellurian 'target/object' and 'extra-Tellurian' 'subject'(or so they think) into their respective 'places/station' of self(ego). This maintains the 'feeding' relationship in a very strucutred and highly 'linear' manner. Every system which has been 'tainted' displays this 'linear' characteristic -- Monotheistic 'linear time' with a 'beginning and end', 'evolution' along 'progressive' lines, and 'god' presenting himself as a 'unique One` which is not only Outside -- but with all 'others' INSIDE, being a form ONLY, and removed from this 'god' (self separated and divorced from Self, except for this 'One').
This obviously places the 'time lords' into a 'savior' position vis-a-vis all those locked into the Tellurian net. It's a very clever structure that those separated from the Outside (either because they cannot SEE or have chosen NOT to) have devised to temporarily forestall the obliteration of their temporal, transient Form -- even if this means taking everything with them in their self-imposed death sentence and rush toward remanifestation as a contracted, primal atom.
The 'other side' of this polarity cannot be very impressed with this 'masterpiece' of numerology, so much as disturbed by having to observe all those trapped within its machinery run for the exits (entrances!) provided and showcased by the Warden himself. More salt, please, with that Messiah... ;)
Posted by: Valkator at January 25, 2005 10:58 AM