In fond memory:
Jacques -Yves Cousteau
Pierre Lopez Bustamente - my diver friend
incept: 02.02.10
No water? No universe.
I have spent many happy hours watching the conversations of light in its reflections upon the surfaces of water. Fishermen, and others who are frequently exposed to such phenomenon, are more likely to be consciously aware of the beautiful and unexpected visual situations that arise when one’s gaze takes in the coruscating luminescence of the water’s surface on a sunny day. Warping symmetries of light twinkle in seemingly impossible abundance — forming endless and inexpressible arrays of sparkle-flowing wave-like patterns.
The effect is profound; these itinerant galaxies, in their sudden arisal and departure, interfere with each other — within us. When you add a living observer, and perhaps particularly a human witness, the effects of the light on the water extend into and could even be said to establish entirely new domains of expression which, while invisible, are accessible to us as living experiencers and as creatures with the inclination to co-experience and to communicate intimately with one another.
One could say that our personas themselves have a liquid quality, in that they change dramatically with our experience of and (relations with) our environment. Although we do not precisely ‘reflect’ the things, beings and circumstances in our environment, the analogy is not entirely inept.
Yet, if we are living mirrors, our ‘surface’ is consciousness. It is here where any ‘reflections’ and modulations would seem to actually occur — rather than, say, upon the surfaces of our skin. Yet even there, the flow of blood, particularly in the cheeks, where it becomes visible to others, is a way of ‘reflecting’ our experience visually, and so too, with our constant flow of body language — active and passive.
[] . ~ o^ ~ . ]J
The membrane thickness of a typical soap-bubble is on the order of 2-3 wavelengths of the photon. At this thickness, amazing interference patterns arise and transform while it floats, glistening and shining, as the patterns flow in spirals of rainbow-like color. These patterns are the result of a process we could call luminal feedback…
A (transentient membrane) possessing a physical extension into timespace might behave somewhat similarly to such a bubble and its superficial expressions — except that it could communicate intentionally to its spatio-temporal extension. I here suggest that a child, or even a peculiarly wise adult might recognize something intimately familiar in floating soap-bubbles and their unusual expressions of color and flow — but it would be missing a crucial dimension that would transform patterns into meaning…
In such a situation, changes in the patterns on the surface of a (transentient membrane) could correspond to or even trigger the experience of explanations — within the mind of an appropriately attentive observer. These processes would in this case represent a nonordinary form of conversation in which, for example, the participants are able to transmit memory and understanding more directly than formal language allows, although there would still be a kind or metaposition of language involved.
Such a language might be an intimate dialect of a universal language which approaches unadorned thought but can utilize patterns within change as an expedient.
mu . ~ o^ ~ . wv
Water can become a physical mirror, yet it is also the common antecedent of the concept of flow in that when we think of flow, the visual metaphor of water is nearly unavoidable.
We may describe it as a peculiar physical subposition within timeSpace of a (specific, peculiar) metaposition to timeSpace. Of course — so is every other substance — but water retains its special status no matter how we try to throw it away. It flows. It boils. It freezes. It was probably the first substance in which humans ever witnessed these transformations. It is transparent and reflective — at once, and thus it can reveal — transmitted on and through a single surface, multiple ‘worlds’ in constant overlay…
These characteristics are central to every story, every life, every world. Water is fundamental to the function of your body, what you call your mind, and probably any additional unnamed features which may or may not be associated with you.
In the sense that water is a ‘reflection’ or ‘representation’ of a metaposition, it is a physical instance of neither stuff nor beings. It is more than the sum of both of those categories. In other words, water is a nonoptional precursor to things and beings as we know them. These things or beings need not necessarily contain or directly reference water, yet they all require that (at least) the relational chemistry of h2o (real, in our universe) be possible in our universe.
In this sense, you have to have water to have anything.
Now, ask yourself, is this stuff trans-parent, or what?
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Water can further be understood relationally (in a perspective involving the periodic table) as a specific instance of possible metapositions of both Hydrogen and Oxygen. This relationship links water (and oxygen, and hydrogen) to all other possible metapositions of either and both.
Strangely, water contains — water. Now, what I mean is this: water must reference itself in order to be what it is.
So must you!
But... you… contain water?
Could it thus be that to “know thyself” (like a salmon) one must reach for, recall oneself to, and traverse…
… the trans-parent Sea?
++ . ~ o ~ .}{
Observe the act that initiates the events in this video.
It is a ‘«wind»’. An inspiration. That which moves invisibly yet inwardly forms (informs) all it encounters is often metaphied as spirit. It is directed by intelligence (in this case, human, however — that intelligence is a child intelligence and is thus imbued through inheritance with the character and conservations of its true progenitors).
Did you notice little ball of water that was ejected? Something similar was involved in our own conception, and the results were… well, let’s say they were complex.
;": .~o~. }P-
The forces and membranes represented by transformations of the water-bubble in space relate (as structural metaphors) to the formation (birth) of stars, planets, minds, language, mathematics, intelligence, language — and even — relations.
As you watch the later portion of the video, consider bubbleWar as an analog of properties of familiar situations or processes from nature, thought, and your own experience. As an analogy of ‘mind’ the introduction of the effervescent tablet can be seen as the introduction into the mind of the first actual ‘idea’. The character of this idea can be then understood to participate in the generation of the underlying character or schema of all future ideas.
Alternately, we might also consider this as a model of the onset of emotions — love, fear, anger, desire, &c. We can imagine the input as stimuli or cognitive relation with other beings — even thought or dreaming.
In the end, it appears, one of the bubbles must ‘triumph through universal absorption’, yet we ourselves contribute to this process — even if it appears that we are simply helpless or existing ‘in the grip’ of our emotions (in this analogy, the energetic transformations of the bubbles).
;] . ~ o^ ~ . %#
Perhaps the tricameral (3-bubble) state of the dolphin brain is a necessary (biomial) precursor to the bicameral state of the human brain? In such a model the tricameral bubble arises briefly and moves toward a bicameral evolutionary path.
Watch the video again and think about the growth of a human vocabulary. Think of economic competition amongst nations. Imagine the dynamic competition of ideas in a subculture, or, even, your own mind. This tiny bubble is a very strange mirror indeed…
“Eventually you get a single large bubble, and all the other bubbles are pressed into the annular space.” In a cognitive system, this may be seen as analogous to the perception of ‘certainty’ or ‘decision’ — also concentration or ‘focus’. Apparently, our minds are not entirely like this bubble; we have the capacity to shape these interactions which, here, proceed rather mechanically (or so it seems) beyond the initial introduction of novelty provided by the air blast.
Witnessing and participating in these processes it suddenly becomes clearer to me — what our old tails imply — that somehow, organisms are ‘born of the water and the spirit’ (or self-introducing momentum).
}@ . ~o~ . L<
^ click : - : - .
A preying mantis ordinarily progresses through 7 instars (physical forms) as it matures. Each phase begins with a molt, which should be understood in part as an encounter with death. During this encounter, the mantis is frozen within a dead shell, and can do nothing whatsoever to affect its physical circumstances. Of course, it began life in just such a predicament. Mantises are particularly vulnerable and may perish in the molt, which is a kind of dream-journey that ends with arrival in a new body.
It is my experience that we are like the mantis inwardly; we undergo 7 inward instars, each one a phase of spiritual, perceptual, creative and relational development. In between, we encounter death, becoming a bit more familiar with the opposite of physical existence during our own invisible molt (in which we may well feel quite trapped, even frozen).
The coalescence cascade in the hydrodynamics of a water droplet meeting an undisturbed water bath comprises a subtle visual analogy of this process. During each encounter the droplet is reformed in such a way as to commit half of its liquid to unity.
Kindly direct your attention to the following observations: a: the process unfolds in a rhythm which can be represented (abstracted) into a mathematical algorithm. b: as the droplet rises above the unity, the unity comprises a mirror in which the droplet is reflected, and the droplet comprises a (generally) spherical mirror in which the unity (reflecting the droplet) is reflected. c: with each phase, the apparent profundity of the unity is profoundly magnified in comparison to the droplet.
