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Re: <eyebeam><blast> Astronomical hindsight




>While I hesitate to give Monsieur Baudrillard any credit whatsoever (I
>consider him a simulacrum of a theorist), his vision of a domain where
>light slows down is not entirely without scientific basis.  Here are
>three cases, in order from most quantifiable to most semantic:

-----
"In an age when the existence of a measurable light-velocity seems to
belong to the realm of facts long since experimentally proved; when
science has begun to measure the universe, using the magnitude of this
velocity as a constant, valid for the whole cosmos; and when entire
branches of science have been founded on results thus gained, it is not
easy, and yet it cannot be avoided to proclaim that neither has an
actual velocity of light ever been measured, nor can light as such ever
be made subject to such measurement by optical means - and that,
moreover, light, by its very nature, forbids us to conceive of it as
possessing any finite velocity."

Ernst Lehrs "Man or Matter" 1958

Centuries ago navigators mismapped the earth but produced results
anyway.Function has nothing to do with truth. We map in interaction with
the events we are embedded in - symbiotic with. The light, the image,
the arrangement of what we encounter presupposes us - prehends the
observing human - and vice versa. The real shifts with the imaginary.
Have we got light all wrong? Were indigenous tribes wrong about the
spirits? Medieval Christians about God - there paintings about
perspective? Just different mapping - but not just different. When the
true and the good don't exist, we are only left with the best of all
((in)com)possible worlds - and the worst.

The physics of light is just one realm where we can learn the following:
We can now cite "experimental findings" for any number of differing
positions - consensus no longer protects/deceives us. Understand this:
Each experiment is a work of art - of magic. "To have found what you
wanted to find" does not nullify the power of the experiment but rather
its mistaken conception of truth. What it reveals is the successful
event of inventing your desire - your will. Being the channel for the
impulse that precedes you entails enacting your fate as free will. Amor
Fati.

Now again the question is: what kind of world do you want to inhabit?

Each one alone must find out what lies ahead . . .

"This is the result of too abrupt an opening of the Magical Eye,
effected by a persistent perversion of the will and a craving for new
sensations, new worlds . . .instead of understanding that all worlds are
the excrement or end-products of our constant objectification of
consciousness."

Kenneth Grant "Against the Light" 1997





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