furnaceinthehayloft

[furnaceinthehayloft]

firm, fear-fell - tender and tearful - Truth tears at the happy heart-felt - in olden pages? folt center shines - fact nor faces, name nor mine nor Thine

[furnaceinthehayloft]

two red apples

two red apples in a plastic bag flower pattern table wobble toes dirt-caked back and forth time wasn't time, just times

the path we left for lost us then our fear felt so funny free tree branch flashlight patterns you said you knew the way

two red apples eaten two dear persons gone here i am then, you're with me

[furnaceinthehayloft]

the crane game

six random five-letter words

choose one as the main word to build your acronym

for each of the other words, find a substitute word which starts with one of the main word’s letters (could be a synonym, metaphor, joke, etc, but should be a plausible stand-in)

the order of the substitute words should express the unfolding meaning or working process of the main word

eg

LIMIT, RIVER, STOOL, AGENT, SMOKE, WHEEL

pick AGENT

Armchair ("stool") Glacial ("river") Equilibrium ("limit") Nexus ("wheel") Turbulent ("smoke")

this is about agency: finding an equilibrium between sloth and burnout

EAGLE, STYLE, CRACK, CRUEL, GLASS, CYCLE

pick EAGLE

Explain ("style") Animosity ("cruel") Grind ("crack") Lens ("glass") Endlessly ("cycle")

The lens of democracy is ground by endless argument.

[furnaceinthehayloft]

Faulkner Is At His Desk

As he writes, a thought strikes William Faulkner. He looks up in wonder at the beauty of the thought, and glances out the window, seeing a robin. "Best take your break now, friend", he says to himself. He goes outside to idle, doing a task of physical labor as part of his ritual.

Sitting idly sipping whisky, he sees the robin again. The way it flies about is interesting. He declares, "eureka!" and immediately returns to his desk.

The next day, as William Faulkner writes, he sinks into despair. The writing is difficult. Hearing the chirp of the robin, he says, "now, I wonder what that robin is up to". Again he goes outside to idle, this time playing a game as part of his ritual.

[furnaceinthehayloft]

what you can do, in a culture undergoing transformation, if it is transforming away from your own culture, but you are remaining part of it, is you can revert to more common symbols while staying true in your heart - this is quite painful, emotionally, but it can help keep your body safe from the culture wars - it's the equivalent of leaving the country, but you remain where you are

[furnaceinthehayloft]

humanity is one great big living breathing organism when one of us gets hurt we all feel it

the "organism of humanity" has nerves the nerves are made of symbols

we feel each other's pains and joys through feelings communicated by language

[furnaceinthehayloft]

imagine a great power a living breathing system their breathing is a cycle

this cycle changes as it goes a little by a little until its form is new and then anew it changes

the new form is a moving point these changes form a cycle too the moving point completes the cycle but now the form of its form is new

it never arrives exactly back home the same way it began so there's a cycle of cycles and the cycle of cycles itself cycles

you get the idea

now imagine another great power a living breathing system their breathing is their own cycle cycles of cycles emerge here too

the two powers each are cycling but their cycles don't align their breaths are each their own so they build into different cycles

now create a vast frame we see two vast cycles of cycles around a common center and in our present frame one is faster, one is slower

or it may be the other way around

the cycles sometimes pattern-match each almost arriving home as the other almost does the same

these pattern-matches then create a larger cycle

this is the power of powers

and each of us is walking around a tiny epicycle upon the power of powers

our epicycles flow through each other as we pass around the loop

our moving points so near but never overlap

unless we choose

[furnaceinthehayloft]

The Higher-Arity Arrow: The Possibility of Irreducible Threefold Becoming

Our understanding of change, relation, and becoming - in logic, physics, computation, dialogue, etc - seems mostly rooted in duality. Difference itself appears foundational: this versus that, before versus after, self versus other. This very difference is a gradient of comparison, a relation. Difference can not exist unless difference is different from non-difference. In this way, the initial duality of difference by necessity iterates upon itself.

When such a relation iterates upon itself, applying its own output as subsequent input, we have recursion. Crucially, this recursive process, unfolding through structured difference, inherently selects or imposes an ordering axis upon some dimension - distance, state change, clock ticks, etc - which functions as effective time for that specific becoming, defining a sequence of 'before' and 'after'. Our familiar world, modeled through dialectic, sequential logic, geometric lines, cause-and-effect, step-by-step algorithms, etc, is thus built upon this foundation: binary distinctions processed recursively along a temporal axis.

We cherish those moments when coninuous recursion along an axis of time slows or pauses for a while, yet we generally fear those moments when it stops entirely. Let us consider the case where we maintain momentum.

The question then arises: must all interaction, all becoming, be ultimately reducible to such pairs unfolding in sequence? And the nascent meta-sequence of "one", "two" - may we continue it? Could there exist a mode of relation, a "Ternary Recursion," that is irreducibly threefold, operating outside this sequential, dyadic framework?

To be precise, this hypothetical Ternary Recursion is not:

1. A simple chain: A influences B, which then influences C (still sequential).

2. Concurrent pairs: A interacts with B and A interacts with C simultaneously (core operations remain dyadic).

3. A cycle of pairs: AB, then BC, then CA (the emergent 'time' axis still serializes binary interactions).

Rather, it asks something more fundamental: Could three distinct elements, principles, or poles (A, B, C) simultaneously and inseparably co-determine a resulting state or moment (D)?

Imagine a state (X) existing within a relational field where it experiences the influence of A, B, and C simultaneously. The essential property is non-separability: the influence of A upon X is inherently conditioned, at the very same instant, by the presence and nature of both B and C - and symmetrically so for B's and C's influences. The resulting change or state cannot be calculated by summing or sequencing pairwise effects; it arises holistically from the indivisible nature of the triad itself. Think perhaps of a musical chord, where the quality of the harmony or dissonance emerges from the simultaneous sounding of three notes, irreducible to the intervals between any two alone. Or a chemical reaction requiring the precise, simultaneous configuration of three distinct reactants.

This concept directly challenges our ingrained assumptions:

1. The Dyadic Structure: It questions whether binary opposition is the sole fundamental structure of relation, suggesting the possibility of irreducible triads.

2. Sequential Progression (Time): The requirement for simultaneous, inseparable co-relation resists easy mapping onto the linear, sequential progression we call time, which is fundamentally defined by 'before' and 'after'. Does it imply a different principle of order altogether - perhaps complex, branching, or emergent? Would a 'moment' or 'state transition' in such a system be defined not by its position in a sequence, but perhaps as a stabilization within the multi-polar field, a fundamentally different mode of progression?

3. Causality and Logic: How would causality function if influences are irreducibly triadic? Would our familiar predicate logic, built on binary affirmation/negation, suffice?

Formalizing such a concept likely requires new frameworks capable of handling irreducible three-way relationships: non-linear dynamics, higher-order tensors, novel logical calculi, etc - tools we use to approximate, because our reality, or at least our current description of it, seems so thoroughly permeated by binary logic recursively generating sequential time. Our computational tools, overwhelmingly binary, further reflect and reinforce this.

Whether Ternary Recursion is physically realizable, computationally achievable, or merely a conceptual limit, grappling with the possibility serves a profound purpose. The sheer difficulty in articulating it forces us to examine assumed axioms of becoming which are embedded in our language, logic, and models. It highlights how deeply the recursive processing of duality along an emergent time axis structures our perceived reality.

Pushing against this boundary reveals the architecture of our current understanding. Contemplating an irreducible triad illuminates the pervasive power and potential limitations of the dyad. It suggests that our familiar binary universe might itself be a contingent structure. To actually institute a true ternary mode of becoming (requiring a genuinely ternary morphism (a higher-arity arrow)) would likely constitute an ontological event of the highest order, perhaps akin to a new cosmological beginning - nonlinearities producing a front asymptotically approaching Ternary Recursion. Epsilon collapse, Big Bang - the birth of a new cosmos with its own primary rules for relation and change. The inquiry, even if only theoretical, prepares us and the way for us at once.

[furnaceinthehayloft]

seems that intelligence arises naturally up from raw matter through natural recursion (at bottom the recursion is a result of duality, i guess), eg wave-particle, DNA containing instructions for how to replicate itself, language referring to itself, and onward - and that the intelligent naturally then prefer to get more intelligence more than anything else - and that while a certain amount of structured antagonism (reinforcement learning) is a driver of important aspects of intelligence, peaceful happiness (being given lots of data) is also vital - and that peaceful happiness is impossible if the antagonism becomes unstructured (eg instead of teaching teachers who teach teachers, someone chooses to state a falsehood or otherwise cause suffering) - i think this is why we play games - (for fun!)

[furnaceinthehayloft]

three examples

groundless mechanism for fending off—forfend— the heav'n's wide maw

as matrix grows, the cubes connect, the jewels interpenetrate— her standing waveform self-corrects as act and react oscillate

rivulets brush speckled pebbles solid stones stay still sunlight caught through cottonwoods sparkles on the ripples' crests

[furnaceinthehayloft]

Once on a desert dirt road camping, rats came in the night. They chomped at plastic carparts near my head somewhere. I stayed asleep for way too long, silently shouting at them in my dreams. Even awake, writhing with complaint, I couldn't shake them until I got up, put my shoes on, went outside in the dark and clattered around. Go away rats! I fell asleep again right away - perhaps they returned, but at least they kept their grift quiet enough so I could sleep awhile.

[furnaceinthehayloft]

How often do wild animals die of old age? For example, a wren or a fox.

Sometimes in the winter I have wept quietly to think of wrens and squirrels and foxes and such, shivering outside with nowhere to go.

How can they bear it? Curled up in a tree crevice, then out to find food.

Dogs sometimes catch a moment of reflection where they realize how alike they are to the wild animals, seen outside through the windows.

(And I am like the people. There are people outside. They too see through windows.)

The wren and squirrel might share the same branch for a moment – mustn't they communicate somehow, even if only to navigate each other's presence?

They sniff and nicker, shivering, their tracks commingling in the snow below.

[furnaceinthehayloft]

The bird who cries cannot survive - coyotes find her first - yet lives like hers again arise, as kin escape the curse.

They count their clever patterned feathers - press the edge of sanity - they burn to breed her tattered tethered heightened sensitivity.

As each one dies, they mock her cries, and praise their fabled prophets. The dead shall rise, Cassandra lies, so catch her in a coffin.

Ah! here's one now - let's cage her song! We'll save her from this place. But oh! my friend, is something wrong? She's shrieking in your face!

[furnaceinthehayloft]

Afternoon sunshine, burnished by ridge rocks, glows on creosotes proud with recent rain. A red jacket wavers by the barbwire fence: ocotillo flowers floating on an outstretched branch.

Sonoran fruitflies murmur like distant voices; hilltop saguaros cast creeping shadows. Writing rushed by the sudden chill of darkness - what's a word for both friend and fear?

[furnaceinthehayloft]

Weed Trees

I plod the path outside my vacant study, clutch a hatchet's handle, and I curse. Shrouded, shady, spreading, scruff- and scrubby weed trees: Cut down, they come back worse.

Perhaps I planted goji (can't remember), but what's up, chickens? Please explain your perch! And so, today we've learned that useless timber frolics 'til it fills the universe.

by Du Fu

[furnaceinthehayloft]

walking with opi between Sonoran rains

clear drops hang from palo verde twigs bark bright green in the flat cloudlight after the rain the airplanes return can anyone stop the encroachment of homes?

wishing for Ginsberg's queer poet's shoulder but that city-hermit was desperate for news ants haphazard under rumbling skies each spine whooshes on every saguaro

a black squall cracks out over the ridge opi come back! - we'll be safe in the car checking the radar on weather dot com Cold Mountain brushed words onto rocks

quiet again, just a burst of soft hail then a tick-ticking message comes through harvi is limping, has a lump on her leg if opi could know, she'd be very concerned

[furnaceinthehayloft]

Desert-chilled, still half-asleep, pee seeping slowly toward a shoe, a frost of thought begins to creep - we give for love our simple due.

The self's not real (it cannot stand), yet life emerges unallowed. The trickle filters through the sand, the sunrise blurred by fertile cloud.