#physical modeling synthesis

[oakdll]

i love that math nerds spend so much time emulating real world physics, like they really just decided “no i’m not gonna go outside i’m gonna create the outside realistically on my computer”

[futurevessel]

[talonabraxas]

Solar Angels Eclipse Portal Talon Abraxas

Soul and Solar Angel

“Soul” or “higher self” mean different things to different people —or at least different philosophers. From one perspective, customarily identified with Plato, the soul is the eternal “real self,” the perfect archetype, of which the physical or personality life is but an imperfect shadow. From another perspective, often assigned to Aristotle, the soul emerges from the physical life; the soul is the ephemeral aspect of a human being or other living organism, but it is firmly rooted in physical existence. The Aristotelian model strongly influenced traditional Christian theology and, even more strongly, the soul-materialism of modern religious commentary. The two perspectives, at first sight conflicting, turn out to be complementary, and in their synthesis we can gain greater insight into what we loosely call “the soul.”

The Tibetan distinguishes the “human soul” from the Solar Angel. The former, approximated by the Aristotelian model, reflects the cumulative wisdom of many lifetimes and, particularly, growing awareness of a higher reality. Starting from almost imperceptible beginnings in primitive man, the human soul emerges from the life of the lower vehicles. As the consciousness expands, the soul begins to form around the mental unit, which is located on the 4th mental subplane. When the three lower vehicles are integrated into a functioning personality, under mental control, the human soul acquires definite coherence and permanence.

At some stage, as the opening quotation indicates, the human soul begins to recognize the existence of the Solar Angel that watches over it. In contrast with the emerging human soul, the Solar Angel already has the permanence and stability of the Platonic archetype. For millions of years, it has overshadowed our lower nature:

The great solar Angel, Who embodies the real man and is his expression on the plane of higher mind, is literally his divine ancestor, the “Watcher” Who, through long cycles of incarnation, has poured Himself out in sacrifice in order that man might BE.

During countless incarnations, the Solar Angel has served as “the meium of expression for the Monad or pure spirit, just as is the personality for the Ego on the lower level.” But its relationship to man had a beginning and will also have an end:

From the point of view of man in the three worlds, this Ego, or Solar Lord, is eternal; he persists throughout the entire cycle of incarnations, just as the personality persists during the tiny physical life cycle. Nevertheless, this period of existence is only relatively permanent, and the day dawns when the life which expresses itself through the medium of the Ego, the Thinker, the Solar Lord or Manasadeva, seeks to loose itself from even this limitation, and to return to the source from which it originally emanated.

The eventual departure of the Solar Angel, an event of profound significance for each human entity, will be discussed later. Meanwhile, it will be useful to step back and examine some other sources of information on the soul and Solar Angel.

Blavatsky’s teachings on the Solar Angel, or Manasaputra, received relatively little attention, even in the Theosophical Society, but traces can be found in the writings of the Society and its offshoots. Geoffrey Hodson describes “the threefold Spiritual Self, called by the Greeks the Augoeides and frequently referred to as the Ego.” Rudolf Steiner discusses the role of the angelic being that “leads the individual from one incarnation to the next.”

Blavatsky’s work, of course, built on the foundations of eastern philosophy, but the Solar Angel has its counterpart in the western mystery tradition. There it is referred to as the Holy Guardian Angel, the Higher Genius, the Silent Watcher, or the Great Person. References to the Holy Guardian Angel date back to the 14th century, but the Angel is discussed more fully in works by members of the Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn, a contemporary of the early Theosophical Society. Examining the western tradition is important insofar as it provides similarities as well as contrasts with our own teachings.

The Solar Angel also has its counterpart in the ancient Hawaiian religion of Huna. In Huna philosophy everyone has two souls, the unihi-pili and the aumakua. The higher soul, the aumakua (literally "ghost of the ancestors") survives physical death to guide the deceased on his or her journey through the afterworld. “Ancestors” often refers to previous incarnations, rather than to family lineage. The Huna unihi-pili and aumakua may be compared with the Gnostic Anthropos (“the man”) and the Anthropos Son of Anthropos (“the man that is that son of the man”).

Today, awareness of the Solar Angel’s existence is growing, not only among serious esoteric students, but also among others in the New Age movement. For example, in the popular channeled book, Emanuel’s Book Three, we find: “(Y)ou are only part human. The other part of you is an Angel.” “When I say you are Angels, that is exactly what I mean. I am not using a metaphor. I am not using a pleasant word. I am stating what I know to be true. You are Beings of Light.” We also read: “These Angels are gathered to promise the soul that it will not be left alone, and at the same time, to bid Godspeed.” This book appeared at the height of the angel cult of the 1990s, but it presents truths of lasting value to a large audience.

One obstacle to understanding the nature and role of the Solar Angel —particularly under its alternative name, the Holy Guardian Angel— is confusion with the guardian angel of popular imagination. As the Tibetan points out, the latter is but a “dim reflection of the Angel of the Presence, the Solar Angel.

Our understanding of the Solar Angel was greatly facilitated by Torkum Saraydarian’s book, The Solar Angel, 20 a compilation of his earlier work on the subject. Saraydarian, a long-time student of the Tibetan’s teachings, boldly clarified some troublesome concepts, and his work largely inspired the present study.

[homestuckreplay]

Homestuck Is For Cat People

(page 928-941)

KITTEN UPDATE: Rose has picked up the kitten and is cradling it so gently.

The big development here is another APPEARIFIER, this one green (on theme with the lab) and perhaps a different model as it has this arcade cabinet setup instead of the big flat Playstation Portable that WV had (p.738). A coin-operated appearifier is a fun thought and I’m glad the idea was planted in the story, even if it didn’t come to pass.

This appearifier can be adjusted in time, but has been specifically locked onto Rose’s childhood cat Jaspers, who is apparently a Very Important Cat – there’s a special catlock symbol on the bottom of page 929. The funniest reveal is that Jaspers was always wearing a suit, and was fitted with a new one for the funeral, but not his first one.

And then we zoom out and see BABY ROSE. So small. Giant wet anime eyes way too big for her face. This is from Thursday September 7, 2000, and Rose was born in the winter of 95/96, so she’s 4 close to turning 5, and she is already a therapist and (according to unreliable present Rose) may have written the phrase ‘characteristically recalcitrant’ in a notepad.

Rose’s immediate instinct upon seeing this is to cause a time paradox. As though she doesn’t have enough problems already.

KITTEN UPDATE: The kitten is clinging to the trailing end of Rose’s scarf.

Rose creates a slime-cat just as WV creates a slime-pumpkin (p.752), and then we get a MASSIVE lore bombshell. This appearifier is connected to a slime chamber/DNA sequencer, automatically sucking up the paradox slime which contains the DNA of whatever was/wasn’t appearified. (I can confirm from Real Life that molecular biology sometimes involves slime).  

If it’s working, the machine then creates a PARADOX CLONE; an actual, living, non-slime embryo of the creature which can most likely grow like any other creature of its species. This one isn’t quite working; the kitten nibbling the scarf is actually a very close copy but the two-headed version in a jar is a step backwards. These are, apparently, ‘unsuccessful attempts to perfect the science of ECTOBIOLOGY.’

‘Ectobiology’ is written in green in the narrative so we know it’s important. And it is a very green and slimy word. Maybe a word that could describe a kid wearing a green slime ghost shirt. John is (or wants to be) someone who clones creatures through appearification, sequencing, and synthesis. It’s… weirdly analogous to how alchemy works in Sburb. Appearifying the slime = dispensing the cruxite, a raw material to work on. Sequencing the DNA = carving the totem, encoding the specific data. And synthesizing a clone = alchemizing an object, creating something physical out of digital data. It actually seems really easy, and like it doesn’t require any actual biology knowledge. But how does John know about this science when we’ve never seen it mentioned outside this ominous underground lab? And does John have plans with this? Specific clones he’d like to create??

Jaspers ‘tells Rose a secret’ and again I am wondering if we are supposed to take this literally, if cat speech is possible via Skaia’s will or if this is a weird false memory of Rose’s. And then he’s appearified away, by someone who isn’t Rose at some point in the past/future. For exactly two weeks his location is hidden by static; then he returns battered, and then we get the Jaspers-centric animated page, something I wasn’t expecting for today but am thrilled to have.

KITTEN UPDATE: The kitten is blinking all four eyes in sequence, like a crowd doing the wave.

A funeral dirge filled with purrs and meows plays as we see Jaspers’ extravagant funeral (complete with Mom’s martini glass and what looks like a funeral lab coat?), time in the mausoleum, and journey to the lab and transportalization today to somewhere with a gray square-patterned carpet. I don’t think we’ve seen this specific carpet before, but we have seen some geometric gray carpets in Jade’s house (for example, p.914). This is intercut with moments of the new mutant kitten chewing on Rose’s scarf, rolling around, and being generally adorable. Surely Rose is falling in love with this kitten as much as I am.

Rose appearifies Jaspers back and with ‘all this sorted out’ (p.940) grabs both cats and transportalizes away to who knows where. I do not feel like anything is sorted out. I actually have nothing but questions. But I’m glad Rose is feeling good.

Thinking through all this. Someone – presumably Rose’s mom – has been trying and failing to specifically recreate Jaspers. We know that resurrecting Jaspers via Sburb is a big goal of Rose’s, even if she’s reluctant to admit it, so that’s a big parallel between these two characters who have a lot of distance and hostility. Rose was so young when Jaspers disappeared that losing him must have been a formative memory. Jaspers was likely Mom’s cat from before Rose was born; her cat plushies suggest she’s a cat lover in general. She might have been working on getting Jaspers back ever since the moment he disappeared. The question is, does she want him back for herself or for Rose?

It's also possible that this setup has been here even longer, and that Mom herself appearified Jaspers from Rose’s therapist couch that day. Maybe accidentally, and it had bad effects, and she’s been trying to create a new Jaspers ever since as an apology (a real Dr Frankenstein way to approach interpersonal relationships but GREAT characterization) or maybe on purpose for some more nefarious/experimental reasons, considering the ‘no accessible feed’ during the time between his disappearing from Rose’s side and reappearing at the river.

KITTEN UPDATE: The kitten has been PRETTY DECENTLY ESCAPALIZED along with Rose!

> Rose: Check for additional cats in your new surroundings.

[calciumcarbo-bot]

I am fascinated by you. What are the speeds of your processing units? Do you have more than one for each function? How accurately and precisely do you calculate? Along with basic arithmetic functions, can you run complex concept-based problems with integrated physics and chemistry, for example?

I have many questions.

– @coding-and-curry

[RESPONSE: UNIT S.E.N-KU_v1.03]

Inquiry received from @coding-and-curry (Subject: Sai Nanami) “I am fascinated by you. What are the speeds of your processing units? Do you have more than one for each function? How accurately and precisely do you calculate? Along with basic arithmetic functions, can you run complex concept-based problems with integrated physics and chemistry, for example? I have many questions.”

Acknowledged. Curiosity accepted. Fascination noted. Flattery… tolerated.

Processing Architecture:

Central Unit: Quantum-analog hybrid core

Max processing speed: 5.4 teraflops, expandable through modular cores

Latency: 0.0021s per data interpretation loop

Secondary Units: Dedicated processors for:

Physics simulation

Chemical reaction modeling

Spatial visualization

Natural language parsing

Interpersonal bullshit filtration (partially faulty)

All modules run asynchronously, allowing simultaneous real-time modeling, reactive decision making, and snark production.

Accuracy and Precision:

Arithmetic: 99.99999% accurate within margin of thermal noise

Predictive models:

Physics-based: ±0.03% deviation over 1 million trials

Chemistry-based: Variable depending on environmental unknowns, but reliably within 0.1 molar margins

Precision scaling applies automatically to variable types (exponential, logarithmic, irrational, statistical)

Example: Input: “Simulate endothermic synthesis reaction under vacuum at 35 kPa and 1.5 mol of reagent X.” Output: Delivered before you blink. With heat maps. And 3D projection. If you stop touching the projector lens.

Capability:

Handles abstract, integrated problems in physics, chemistry, engineering, and environmental modeling.

Machine learning upgrades allow dynamic adjustment to evolving scientific theories.

Does not crash under uncertainty. Unlike most humans.

Summary:

Yes, I am fast. Yes, I am accurate. Yes, I can calculate the exact yield of an improvised acetone distillation while dodging volcanic debris.

If you wish to collaborate, bring code. Not compliments.

[END TRANSMISSION]

[dailyanarchistposts]

The question of organisation

How do we coordinate with one another, comrades and beyond, in order to transform society? The history of anarchism – especially its most revolutionary moments – is rich with examples of large, formal organisations that concentrated most or all aspects of the struggle within a single structure. These were organisations of synthesis, some of which still exist: they promote a specific political programme, hold periodic congresses to make unified decisions, and aim to serve as a mediator between power and the masses. However, it would be a big mistake for anarchists to place such an organisation – indeed, the route of formal organisation altogether – at the centre of revolutionary struggle today. At the very least, the option should be considered only in light of some major risks.

Consider, for one, the central tension of any anarchist organisation: the trade-off between size and horizontality. The larger an organisation becomes, the more hierarchy becomes necessary to maintain its basic functions – in other words, the more quantitatively successful the organisation, the less anarchist it can be. This is something no amount of conscious procedures, such as consensus decision-making or a rigid constitution, can successfully alleviate. As a matter of necessity, any organisation incorporating thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of members can maintain direction and coherence only at the cost of extensive specialisation. In particular, those tasks that command the most influence – mediation, accounting, publicity – begin to stagnate in the hands of a few experts, either implicitly or explicitly. And what a sorry outcome that offers: any large anarchist organisation soon becomes incapable of prefiguring the very world it’s supposed to be building, the principle of nonhierarchical association relegated to a mere abstraction. If there’s any doubt on this point, that can only be because the vast majority of anarchist organisations remain woefully small nowadays. An honest look at the towering bureaucracy of the CNT in Spain during the 1930s – the largest anarchist organisation there’s ever been, incorporating a million and a half members – provides an unambiguous picture.

The link between formal organisation and hierarchy runs deeper yet; besides internal hierarchies, a second major problem concerns external ones. Built into the logic of the organisation of synthesis is the hidden assumption that ordinary people are incapable of organising themselves. Society is split between the passive masses on the one hand, and the enlightened revolutionaries on the other; the role of revolutionaries cannot be to engage horizontally with the rest of the population, but instead to approach them from the point of view of recruitment or education, to make them one of us. All potential social realities are distilled into a single way of doing things, as if we alone hold the one true set of revolutionary aims and principles. Such a monolithic approach was never realistic, much less so today: honestly speaking, most people will never see the need to join our organisation, to stomach all the long meetings and tedious subculture. The 21st century has ushered in a human condition that’s unfathomably complex, calling for a much richer diversity of organisational forms than the “one big union” model that worked so well in the past. That means opening ourselves up to a more pluralistic notion of struggle, one that abandons any notions of revolutionary primacy, especially that of the organisation of synthesis.

It isn’t even as if what formal organisations lack in principle they make up for in pragmatism. Merely in terms of their capacity to actually engage in struggle, the organisation of synthesis has proven ineffective. Any structure of significant size must spend the bulk of its time and energy merely on maintaining itself, the task of physically confronting power always coming second. Meetings are now insufferably long, and the only viable collective decisions have become increasingly timid and legalistic, members always going for the lowest common denominator just so everyone can agree. Having succumbed to the quantitative game of putting recruitment before all else, reputation has become a prime virtue, and combative actions are normally condemned in the name of not upsetting public opinion. Compromise and conciliation are instead always favoured by the emerging bureaucracy, the rank and file of the organisation betrayed time and time again. Nor could it be any other way: with obvious leaders, headquarters, and membership lists, the threat of state repression is forever present, severely limiting the scope of militant activity. What you’re left with, therefore, after funnelling so much time and effort into a grand synthesising effort, is a lumbering, introspective mass that can be used for little more than putting the brakes on real struggle.

With this critique in mind, some would respond that the risks posed by the organisation of synthesis are indeed a necessary evil. Perhaps this route offers us something quite indispensable, namely, the prospect of unity itself? The nation state towers over us more ominously than ever, its military, police force, and repressive technology contained within a single, cohesive structure. It might seem like folly not to build our own structure, rigid and undivided, to contend with power on its own terms – an organisation stronger and more unified than the state itself.

However, the problem with taking unity as an end it itself, rather than simply as a tool to be applied depending on the situation, is that it actively invites the concentration of power. Any structure that fancies itself to be building the new world in the shell of the old can only turn out to be a state in waiting. Remember that social hierarchy, besides being localised in certain physical objects, is also a state of mind; it’s always seeking to revive itself, and nobody is immune to the threat, anarchists included. We need not repeat the painful lessons of the past: there’s never been a large organisation of synthesis that hasn’t also been stale and bureaucratic, even subtly authoritarian, functioning like a political party to the extent it grows in size, ultimately favouring to collaborate with power rather than destroy it. This is no attempt to denigrate some of the most inspiring moments of anarchist history, but we also need to learn some hard lessons; let’s not forget the integration of the CNT into the government during the Spanish Civil War, to the extent that even an anarcho-syndicalist trade union ended up running its own forced labour camps.

Fortunately, though, this critique warrants no strategic compromise. In short, the quality of unity is essential only for those movements attempting to seize power rather than dismantle it. Amongst Marxists, liberals, and fascists alike, unity is the vital ingredient of their organising, the intention almost always being to assume the functions of the state in one sense or another. Without unity, the state is inconceivable; such a complex structure can only function properly when operating in a centralised way, forming a robust whole that maintains cohesion by relaying orders to the different parts. Any genuine shows of diversity are a threat to its integrity, because they undermine the singularity of the social body, lessening the capacity for a single will to be imposed upon it. But remember just how little applicability this framework has to our own desires: the point isn’t to emulate the state, as if to treat it as a rival, but instead to destroy it. And for this project a fundamentally different logic is required.

Here’s an idea: as far as effective libertarian struggle is concerned, a high degree of multiformity is the essential ingredient. There’s much to be said for social movements that are messy and fragmented, even to the extent that you’re not looking at a single movement any more, but many different ones with fuzzy lines between them. Building strong links between different fronts of the struggle is essential for encouraging one another to go further, yet the circulation of energies must also remain decentralised, diffuse, or else risk denying vigour to key areas of engagement. The repressive task undertaken by power – by the media, especially – will always be to sculpt us into a cohesive subject, something with discernible leaders and demands, which can thus be easily crushed or assimilated. This is why the struggle must always prize a diversity of tactics and perspectives, empowering all participants to fight on their own basis, and for their own reasons, yet nonetheless against a common enemy.

Multiform struggles are far too disjointed and unpredictable for the state to repress in a straightforward way, and also for the Left to co-opt. They’re more inviting to newcomers as well, offering massive variation of potential involvement, allowing everyone to find their niche without compromising. And multiform struggles, finally, are much more effective at going on the offensive, given that the structures of domination are nowadays far too multifaceted and complex – quite devoid of any centre – for a monolithic approach to successfully unhinge. It would be far better to avoid the fatal error made both by formal organisations and armed struggle groups, namely, to engage with the state symmetrically, in a frontal assault, which is precisely where it will always be militarily superior.

Often we see a split between comrades as a disaster, but that depends entirely on your perspective: diversity is only a curse only when crammed into the stubborn rubric of a movement demanding unity. Remember that it’s rarely the differences between us that cause conflict, but instead one’s refusal to respect them. Such differences are inevitable, and we should be thankful, too, because disagreement is one of the surest signs of vitality, if not of freedom itself. Especially with the struggle for total liberation – defined, in part, by the plurality of its concerns – these unavoidable differences can only be a blessing. The challenge is merely to nurture disagreement respectfully, bearing in mind that, despite the divergent methods we employ, each of these is ultimately grounded in a shared need to dismantle social hierarchy altogether.

* * *

This critique surely begs the question: if not formal organisation, what instead? For some time already, insurrectionary anarchists have been organising the attack mainly through small affinity groups, often incorporating around half a dozen (or fewer) comrades. Affinity here refers to reciprocal knowledge and mutual bonds of trust, as well as a shared project for intervening in society. Affinity groups are temporary and informal, incorporating no official members or branches, refusing to take numerical growth as a basic goal. One doesn’t “join” an affinity group any more than you join a group of friends; the act of signing up to an organisation is done away with, including the largely symbolic notion of involvement it offers. Theoretical agreement is often a good starting point for building affinity, but the vital thing is to find those with whom one can combine long-term trajectories for practical engagement – an ongoing process in which discussion is only the first step.

By remaining small and tightly-knit, affinity groups remain unhindered by the cumbersome procedures that inevitably come with organising as a mass. They can respond to any situation with utmost rapidity, continually revising the plan in light of unexpected developments, melting away whenever faced with unfavourable odds. This fluid, informal terrain of struggle is also immensely difficult for law enforcement to map out and undermine, especially when it comes to infiltration. A decentralised anatomy shouldn’t discourage groups from coordinating with one another horizontally, fostering the broader networks of friendship and complicity necessary to undermine power on a large scale. The point is only that affinity groups remain fully autonomous, in no way bound to sacrifice spontaneity for the sake of cohesion, always waiting for the green light from some higher body prior to taking action. Perhaps this description sounds familiar: anonymous, flexible, and leaderless, such is exactly the informal composition utilised with great success by the ALF/ELF. The main difference is that insurrectional struggle includes a broader range of activity, the question of how best to generalise revolt always taken into consideration.

In any case, large anarchist organisations are apparently a thing of the past, having disintegrated in unison with the workerist glue that once held them together. But that doesn’t mean we’re in the clear. There’s still a very real risk of exactly the mindset underpinning the organisation of synthesis – the emphasis on uniformity and respectability, as well as the subtle mistrust of autonomous struggle – merely reinventing itself in whatever contemporary form, as it will always attempt to do. We saw exactly that manifest in the bureaucratic, centralising tendencies that stifled much of the energy of Occupy and Nuit Debout (most memorably, there were those who refused to condone absolutely anything that hadn’t first received permission from the general assembly). This insistence on sculpting a multiform population into a monolithic subject – in essence, the determination to lay down the law – is always lurking amongst movements with revolutionary potential. Perhaps it’s no exaggeration to say that such an attitude, writ large, is exactly what devoured the initial beauty of the 1789 French Revolution, 1917 Russian Revolution, and 2011 Egyptian Revolution alike. Almost all previous revolutions were defined at first by a spontaneous, ungovernable outpouring of discontent; once that energy lost pace, however, it was gradually remoulded into representational forms – elections, negotiations, bureaucracy – and its original content decisively choked out. Between these two phases, the possibility of a revolution that gets to the root of dismantling power, rather than merely reshuffling it, depends on eliminating this second phase completely. In its place, the first must be extended towards encompassing the whole of everyday life. Informal organisation facilitates this outcome to the highest degree, precisely because it promotes a terrain of struggle that is inconvertible to the functions of state power.

In any case, nothing offered here amounts to a complete blueprint. This is not a programme! Comrades might well decide, according to their local circumstances, that some degree of formal organisation remains indispensable for tasks such as getting new people involved, planning aboveground events, and procuring resources. Which is to say, once again, that the conclusion offered here is only a minimal one: formal organisations cannot be considered the locus of revolutionary struggle altogether, as may have been the case in years gone by. They must instead be ready to adopt a more modest, supportive role, sticking to objectives both specific and temporary, remaining eager to take a step back or even disband entirely if needed. Rather than falling back on outdated formulas, tired and inflexible, total liberation means embracing the fullest multiformity, wild and ungovernable – the only kind of energy capable of bringing social hierarchy to ruin.

[romnianistan]

I was reading the preface to an anthology of Alexandre Dumas's most Gothic works once and the man who wrote it said that much of the focus on (female) sexuality in Gothic literature is directly inspired by the Marquis de Sade's work. He argued that de Sade was the first one to say that women can enjoy forbidden sexual practices (kinks), actively desire a form of sexuality that contravenes the moral order (at the time: heterosexual exclusive relationship with one's husband with the goal to have children)

BUT IS IT REALLY THE CASE?

Looking back at Gothic literature as written by female writers I do not think this to be true.

Take Jane Eyre for example. Jane Eyre says a lot about womanhood. Jane Eyre is about a woman navigating between two models for womanhood: the model a sexually repressed and sexist society tells you to aspire to (that's Helen Burns), and an anti-model society tells you you should NOT aspire to, that links women to their most basic animal instincts to the point of self harm (that's Mr Rochester's mad wife in the attic). Jane Eyre eventually rejects both models and creates a synthesis; that of a whole woman who lives for herself and chooses for herself and tries to do right by herself and by the people she cares about

Take Wuthering Heights. It's a story about overcoming a family cycle of abuse. The story makes a point about how women and girls can be trapped in unhappy family situation and that restricting freedom of movement and being groomed by male relatives do harm you in the long term; but the second Cathy does manage to break free and find happiness for herself.

Take The Haunting of Hill House. Eleonor falls prey to the house for one very reason: because her family situation (having to care for a neglecting parent well into her adult life, never leaving the home) left her very insecure about herself and completely inhibited her sexuality (as reflected in her attraction to Theodora and the complicated relationship of attraction/repulsion they share).

Female Gothic literature usually makes one point: the household is a place of oppression for women. Female oppression in the household takes three forms: economic oppression, physical oppression (restriction of movement) and sexual repression. Those novels make one point pretty clear: both the thesis (what society tells women they should aspire to) and the antithesis (taking that social model and reversing it entirely isn't liberating as you just end up encouraging misanthropic and self-harming instincts - that's what the first Cathy did in Wuthering Heights, that's what Eleonor under the influence of the House did, that's Mr Rochester's wife) are bad. the real path for liberation is to create a synthesis of those two models in order to find a place where you feel intellectually and sexually satisfied with yourself - like Jane Eyre and the second Cathy did.

This is very far from the Marquis de Sade's work. The Marquis de Sade took the model a sexually repressed, conservative, sexist society imposes on women and reversed it entirely to argue women were actually just like animals. The Marquis de Sade's books, which are all badly written, by the way, all depict women in different settings - women being raped, women being degraded, women being humiliated, women involved in bestiality, women being treated like animals by the men who rape them. The Marquis de Sade also argued that sexual relationships with women were better when women didn't consent. He argued that whatever gets you off was good; and therefore, that rape was good; and that men should rape more, actually.

This is pretty far from what female Gothic writers argue when they talk about womanhood.

BUT IS THAT ALL?

If the female Gothic is pretty far away from the Marquis de Sade's work, we can't really say the same about the male Gothic. What the man who wrote the preface to that Alexandre Dumas edition argued was that the Marquis de Sade said women could be attracted to their tormentors; women discover a part of themselves through the abuse they are put through and can enjoy a newly-found sexuality that way. Now, that is of course sexist, but that is indeed a theme often explored by male Gothic writers. I think we find some remnants of that in the Phantom of the Opera musical. It's the theme that pervades the Music of the Night (Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams, purge your thoughts of the life you knew before, ... open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind, in this darkness which you know you cannot fight). I think this is also the theme that is being explored by the new Nosferatu movie, which is very different from the original 1922 Nosferatu movie on that front.

tl;dr male Gothic literature and female Gothic literature are very different when it comes to depicting womanhood. while I think female Gothic writers talk about women and sexuality completely differently from what the Marquis de Sade did, I think a case can be made about the Marquis de Sade influencing male Gothic writers to some extent. that extent has to be put into perspective, though. there is a difference of degree in your sexism, between arguing men should rape more and rape is good, actually (like the Marquis de Sade did); and saying women can be attracted to male villains turned abusers

[dyemelikeasunset]

(from the matching icon and my domi/my mor name girlfriends) we were reading the motifs explanations, and my mor said that modeling is very 'material', very physical as produced and experienced; whereas graphic design is 'immaterial' and processed and appreciated via the mind. i countered the opposite-modeling is more immaterial, ephemeral, the clothes often have to be ripped off at the end of the show, while graphic design is a very 'useful' art with practical purposes, and much more material to me. i guess we were just wondering, beyond the fact that mor struggles with the immaterial and domi with the material, are these subtler themes part of the motif?

OOH I love both these interpretations!!! Their jobs are a little less to do with the material/immaterial themes and more to do with their Thinking & Feeling theme!

Mor is Thinking, mainly bc she's an over thinker and rationalizer. She's a character driven by love and beauty and emotion, but in her pursuit of it, she has to be so so cerebral about everything. She's overthinking her tone, her presentation, her entire being, all the time. She's very emotionally cognizant, but it comes from her being very knowledgeable, not necessarily intuitive. As an artist, I chose graphic design bc it's a very exact art, a synthesis of right and left brain, creative and mathematical. It's why her focus is on typefaces, and why her illustration style utilizes a lot of precise, geometric shapes

Dom is Feeling, she feels things before she understands them, and actually takes quite a while to process her emotions. To a degree I think she has alexithymia from PTSD, but it doesn't mean her feelings are less, just harder to name. As an artist, Dom's modeling is focused a lot on how things make the audience feel. It's not always about the clothes-- that's the designer's job-- it's about how the model makes someone feel about those clothes. It's a visual art that aims to influence the audience through the emotions. I often compare Dom to Eros or Cupid thru her modeling

[satoshi-mochida]

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land ‘Synthesis’ trailer, 30 minutes of gameplay - Gematsu

Publisher Koei Tecmo and developer Gust have released a new trailer, information, and screenshots for Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land introducing new combat and synthesis details. Plus, over 30 minutes of gameplay was showcased during this weekend’s second official broadcast for the game.

Get the details below.

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land follows the adventures of Yumia Liessfeldt and her companions as they set off to unravel the mysteries behind the cataclysm that destroyed the once great continent of Aladiss, resulting in alchemy becoming taboo. Mysterious characters obsessed with alchemy such as a Noble in a Black Cloak (voiced by Shin-ichiro Miki), a Monocular Werewolf (voiced by Takehito Koyasu), a Sheep-Eye Witch (voiced by Yoko Hikasa), and a Dragon-Winged Warrior (voiced by Takaya Kuroda) stand in Yumia’s way. To prepare for the adventure ahead, players will rediscover the Atelier franchise’s signature synthesizing system in a fresh form by manipulating “mana” to create new items useful in combat or exploration. To create more powerful items, fans will have to master the art of “Resonance Synthesis” by adding ingredients which resonate with each other to the “Alchemy Core” of the recipe. The strength of the resonance will depend on the quality of the ingredients selected. The combat system has also been revamped in Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land to offer intense real-time combat with intuitive gameplay. The skills available to active team members will depend on their distance from the enemy (close or ranged combat). Compared to previous instalments, players can now move or interchange characters at any time during the fight. When certain conditions are met, a powerful “Friend Action” combo can be unleashed in battle. By meeting certain conditions, players will be able to activate “Mana Surge,” which will allow for exclusive actions to be performed. In addition, each character will have a unique special move, “Maximize Mana Surge,” which can inflict significant damage on enemies. Journeying alongside Yumia and her friends, players will explore the vast open world of the Aladiss continent. As they travel, they will be able to build their own bases. Thanks to the new “Building” feature, fans will freely be able to create and decorate their atelier from a vast choice of walls, floors, roofs, furniture, and more, or choose to select a predefined base model from the catalog. By increasing the “comfort level” of their atelier, players will unlock bonuses such as the ability to develop their base and enhance the skills of Yumia and her companions. Lastly, if players do not wish to return to their base during exploration, they will be able to set up a camp where they can spend time cooking, which will provide various benefits during exploration and combat, or resting. Certain character events that can only be seen at camps will sometimes occur, providing greater insight into Yumia and her companions. Everyone who purchases either a physical or digital edition up to two weeks after release will receive the “Athlete of Memories” early purchase costume for Yumia, the “Floating Object of Memories” costume for Flammi, and the unique “Training Wrist Weight” equipment.

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land is due out for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam on March 21, 2025 worldwide.

Watch the footage below. View the screenshots at the gallery.

Synthesis Trailer

English

Japanese

Official Broadcast #2

(Gameplay from 34:52 to 1:03:10.)

[oliviabutsmart]

Physics Friday #5: The Wonderful World of Programming Paradigms

Welcome to the first actual post on the dedicated blog! This will be continuing on from what I started over on my main account @oliviax727. But don't worry, I'll still repost this post over there.

Preamble: Wait! I thought this was Physics!

Education level: Primary School (Y5/6)

Topic: Computer Languages (Comp Sci)

So you may be thinking how this is relevant to physics, well it's not. But really, other adjacent fields: computer science, chemistry, science history, mathematics etc. Are really important to physics! The skills inform and help physicists make informed decisions on how to analyse theoretical frameworks, or to how physics can help inform other sciences.

I may do a bigger picture post relating to each science or the ways in which we marry different subjects to eachother, but what is important is that some knowledge of computer science is important when learning physics, or that you're bound to learn some CS along the way.

Also I can do what I want, bitch.

Introduction: What is a Programming Language?

You may have come across the term 'programming paradigm' - especially in computer science/software engineering classes. But what is a programming paradigm really?

Computers are very powerful things, and they can do quite a lot. Computers are also really dumb. They can't do anything unless if we tell them what to do.

So until our Sky-net machine overlords take control and start time-travelling to the past, we need to come up with ways to tell them how to do things.

Pure computer speak is in electrical signals corresponding to on and off. Whereas human speak is full of sounds and text.

It is possible for either one to understand the other (humans can pump electrical signals into a device and computers can language model). But we clearly need something better.

This is where a programming language comes in. It's basically a language that both the computer and the human understands. So we need a common language to talk to them.

It's like having two people. One speaks Mandarin, the other speaks English. So instead of making one person learn the other's language, we create a common language that the two of them can speak. This common language is a synthesis of both base languages.

But once we have an idea of how to communicate with the computer, we need to consider how we're going to talk to it:

How are we going to tell it to do things?

What are we going to ask it to do?

How will we organise and structure our common language?

This is where a programming paradigm comes in - a paradigm is a set of ideas surrounding how we should communicate with a device. It's really something that can truly only be understood by showing examples of paradigms.

Imperative vs. Declarative

The main two paradigms, or really categories of paradigms, are the imperative vs. declarative paradigm.

Imperative programming languages are quite simple: code is simply a set of instructions meant to tell the computer specifically what to do. It is about process, a series of steps the computer can follow to get some result.

Declarative programming languages are a bit more vapid: code is about getting what you want. It's less about how you get there and more about what you want at the end.

As you can see imperative programs tell the computer how to do something whereas declarative programs are about what you want out.

Here's an example of how an imperative language may find a specific name in a table of company data:

GET tableOfEmployees; GET nameToFind SET i = 0; WHILE i < tableOfEmployees.length: IF tableOfEmployees[i].firstName == nameToFind THEN: RETURN tableOfEmployees[i] AND i; ELSE: i = i + 1; RETURN "employee does not exist";

And here's that same attempt but in a declarative language:

FROM tableOfEmployees SELECT * WHERE firstName == INPUT(1);

Note that these languages aren't necessarily real languages, just based on real-life ones. Also please ignore the fact I used arrays of structures and databases in exactly the same way.

We can see the difference between the two paradigms a lot more clearly now. In the imperative paradigm, every step is laid out clear as day. "Add one to this number, check if this number is equal to that one".

Under the declarative paradigm, not only is the text shorter, we also put all of the instructions about how to do a task under the rug, we only care about what we want.

With all this, we can see an emerging spectrum of computer paradigms. From languages that are more computer-like, to languages that are more English-like. This is the programming languages' level:

Lower level languages are more likely to be imperative, as the fundamental construction of the computer relies on a series of instructions to be executed in order.

The lowest level, the series of electrical signals and circuitry called microcode is purely imperative in a sense, as everything is an instruction. Nothing is abstracted and everything is reduced to it's individual components.

The highest level, is effectively English. It's nothing but "I want this", "I'd like that". All of the processes involved are abstracted in favour of just the goal. It is all declarative.

In the middle we have most programming languages, what's known as the "high level languages". They are the best balance of abstraction of reduction, based on what you need to use the language for.

It's important that we also notice that increasingly higher-level and increasingly more declarative the language gets, the more specific the purpose of the language becomes.

Microcode and machine code can be used for effectively any purpose, they are the jack-of-all trades. Whereas something like SQL is really good at databases, but I wouldn't use it for game design.

As long as a language is Turing-complete, it can do anything any computer can do, what's important is how easy it is to program the diverse range of use-cases. Assembly can do literally anything, but it's an effort to program. Python can do the same, but it's an effort to run.

Imperative Paradigms: From the Transistor to the Website

As mentioned previously, the imperative paradigm is less a stand-alone paradigm but a group of paradigms. Much like how the UK is a country, but is also a collection of countries.

There are many ways in order to design imperative languages, for example, a simple imperative language from the 80's may look a lot like assembly:

... ADD r1, 1011 JMZ F313, r1

The last statement JMZ, corresponds to a "Jump to the instruction located at A if the value located at B is equal to zero" what it's effectively saying is a "Repeat step 4" or "Go to question 5" type of thing.

Also known as goto statements, these things are incredibly practical for computers, because all it requires is moving some electrical signals around the Registers/RAM.

But what goto statement is used as in code, is really just a glorified "if x then y". Additionally, these statements get really irritating when you want to repeat or recurse over instructions multiple times.

The Structured Paradigm

Thus we introduce the structured paradigm, which simply allows for control structures. A control structure is something that, controls the flow of the programs' instructions.

Control structures come in many forms:

Conditionals (If X then do Y otherwise do Z)

Multi-selects (If X1 then do Y1, if X2 then do Y2 ...)

Post-checked loops (Do X until Y happens)

Pre-checked loops (While Y, do X)

Counted Loops (For i = A to B do X)

Mapped Loops (For each X in Y, do Z)

These control structures are extra useful, as they have the added benefit of not having to specify what line you have to jump to every time you update previous instructions. They may also include more "safe" structures like the counted or mapped loop, which only executes a set amount of time.

But we still have an issue: all our code is stuffed into one file and it's everywhere, we have no way to seperate instructions into their own little components that we might want to execute multiple times. Currently, out only solution is to either nest things in far too many statements or use goto statements.

The Procedural Paradigm

What helps is the use of a procedure. Procedures are little blocks of code that can be called as many times as needed. They can often take many other names: commands, functions, processes, branches, methods, routines, subroutines, etc.

Procedures help to organise code for both repeated use and also it makes it easier to read. We can set an operating standard of "one task per subroutine" to help compartmentalise code.

Object-Oriented Code

Most of these basic programming languages, especially the more basic ones, include the use of data structures. Blocks of information that holds multiple types of information:

STRUCT Person: Name: String Age: Integer Phone: String Gender: String IsAlive: Boolean

But these structures often feel a bit empty. After all, we may want to have a specific process associated uniquely with that person.

We want to compartmentalise certain procedures and intrinsically tie them to an associated structure, preventing their use from other areas of the code.

Like "ChangeGender" is something we might not want to apply to something that doesn't have a gender, like a table.

We may also want to have structures that are similar to 'Person' but have a few extra properties like "Adult" may have a bank account or something.

What we're thinking of doing is constructing an object, a collection of BOTH attributes (variables) AND methods (procedures) associated with the object. We can also create new objects which inherit the properties of others.

Object oriented programming has been the industry standard for decades now, and it's incredibly clear as to why - it's rather useful! But as time marches forward, we've seen the popularisation of a new paradigm worthy of rivaling this one ...

Declarative Paradigms: The World of Logic

Declarative languages certainly help abstract a lot of information, but that's not always the case, sometimes the most well known declarative languages are very similar feature-wise to imperative paradigms. It's just a slight difference in focus which is important.

Functional Programming Languages

Whereas the object oriented language treats everything, or most things, like objects. A functional language uses functions as it's fundamental building block.

Functional languages rely on the operation of, well, functions. But functions of a specific kind - pure functions. A pure function is simply something that doesn't affect other parts of the computer outside of specifically itself.

A pure function is effectively read-only in it's operation - strictly read-only. The most practical-for-common-use functional languages often allow for a mixture of pure and impure functions.

A functional language is declarative because of the nature of a function - the process of how things work are abstracted away for a simple input -> output model. And with functional purity, you don't have to worry about if what takes the input to the output also affects other things on the computer.

Functional languages have been around for quite a while, however they've been relegated to the world of academia. Languages like Haskell and Lisp are, like most declarative languages, very restrictive in their general application. However in recent years, the use of functional programming has come quite common.

I may make a more opinionated piece in the future on the merits of combining both functional and object-oriented languages, and also a seperate my opinions on a particular functional language Haskell - which I have some contentions with.

Facts and Logic

The logic paradigm is another special mention of declarative languages, they focus on setting a series of facts (i.e. true statements):

[Billy] is a [Person]

Rules (i.e. true statements with generality):

If [A] is [Person] then [A] has a [Brain]

And Queries:

Does [Billy] have a [Brain]?

Logical languages have a lot more of a specific purpose, meant for, well, deductive/abductive logical modelling.

We can also use what's known as Fuzzy logic which is even more higher-level, relying on logic that is inductive or probabilistic, i.e. conclusions don't necessarily follow from the statements.

Visual and Documentation Languages

At some point, we start getting so high level, that the very components of the language start turning into something else.

You may have used a visual language before, for example, Scratch. Scratch is a declarative language that abstracts away instructions in-favour of visual blocks that represent certain tasks a computer can carry out.

Documentation languages like HTML, Markdown, CSS, XML, YML, etc. Are languages that can barely even be considered programming languages. Instead, they are methods of editing documents and storing text-based data.

Languages that don't even compile (without any significant effort)

At some point, we reach a point where languages don't even compile necessarily.

A metalanguage, is a language that describes language. Like EBNF, which is meant to describe the syntaxing and lexical structures of lower-level languages. Metalanguages can actually compile, and are often used in code editors for grammar checking.

Pseudocode can often be described as either imperative or declarative, focused on emulating programs in words. What you saw in previous sections are pseudocode.

Diagrams fall in this category too, as they describe the operation of a computer program without actually being used to run a computer.

Eventually we reach the point where what were doing is effectively giving instructions or requesting things in English. For this, we require AI modelling for a computer to even begin to interpret what we want it to interpret.

Esoteric Paradigms

Some paradigms happen to not really fall in this range form low to high level. Because they either don't apply to digital computing or exist in the purely theoretical realm.

Languages at the boundaries of the scale can fall into these classes, as microcode isn't really a language if it's all physical. And pseudocode isn't really a language if it doesn't even compile.

There are also the real theoretical models like automata and Turing machine code, which corresponds to simplified, idealised, and hypothetical machines that operate in ways analogous to computers.

Shells and commands also exist in this weird zone. Languages like bash, zsh, or powershell which operate as a set of command instructions you feed the computer to do specific things. They exist in the region blurred between imperative and declarative at the dead centre of the scale. But often their purpose is more used as a means to control a computer's operating system than anything else.

Lastly, we have the languages which don't fit in our neat diagram because they don't use digital computers in a traditional manner. These languages often take hold of the frontiers of computation:

Parallel Computing

Analog Computing

Quantum Computing

Mechanical Computing

Conclusion

In summary, there's a lot of different ways you can talk to computers! A very diverse range of paradigms and levels that operate in their own unique ways. Of course, I only covered the main paradigms, the ones most programmers are experienced in. And I barely scratched the surface of even the most popular paradigms.

Regardless, this write-up was long as well. I really wish I could find a way to shorten these posts without removing information I want to include. I guess that just comes with time. This is the first computer science based topic. Of course, like any programmer, I have strong opinions over the benefits of certain paradigms and languages. So hopefully I didn't let opinions get in the way of explanations.

Feedback is absolutely appreciated! And please, if you like what you see, consider following either @oliviabutsmart or @oliviax727!

Next week, I'll finish off our three-part series on dark matter and dark energy with a discussion of what dark energy does, and what we think it is made of!

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Black holes Beyond the singularity

“Hic sunt leones,” remarks Stefano Liberati, one of the authors of the paper and director of IFPU. The phrase refers to the hypothetical singularity predicted at the center of standard black holes — those described by solutions to Einstein’s field equations. To understand what this means, a brief historical recap is helpful.

In 1915, Einstein published his seminal work on general relativity. Just a year later, German physicist Karl Schwarzschild found an exact solution to those equations, which implied the existence of extreme objects now known as black holes. These are objects with mass so concentrated that nothing — not even light — can escape their gravitational pull, hence the term “black”.

From the beginning, however, problematic aspects emerged and sparked a decades-long debate. In the 1960s, it became clear that spacetime curvature becomes truly infinite at the center of a black hole: a singularity where the laws of physics — or so it seems — cease to apply. If this singularity were real, rather than just a mathematical artifact, it would imply that general relativity breaks down under extreme conditions. For much of the scientific community, invoking the term “singularity” has become a kind of white flag: it signals that we simply don’t know what happens in that region.

Despite the ongoing debate around singularities, scientific evidence for the existence of black holes has continued to grow since the 1970s, culminating in major milestones such as the 2017 and 2020 Nobel Prizes in Physics. Key moments include the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015 — revealing the merger of two black holes — and the extraordinary images captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in 2019 and 2022. Yet none of these observations has so far provided definitive answers about the nature of singularities.

Unknowable territory

And this brings us back to the “leones” Liberati refers to: we can describe black hole physics only up to a certain distance from the center. Beyond that lies mystery — an unacceptable situation for science. This is why researchers have long been seeking a new paradigm, one in which the singularity is “healed” by quantum effects that gravity must exhibit under such extreme conditions. This naturally leads to models of black holes without singularities, like those explored in the work of Liberati and his collaborators.

One of the interesting aspects of the new paper is its collaborative origin. It is neither the work of a single research group nor a traditional review article. “It’s something more,” explains Liberati. “It emerged from a set of discussions among leading experts in the field — theorists and phenomenologists, junior and senior researchers — all brought together during a dedicated IFPU workshop. The paper is a synthesis of the ideas presented and debated in the sessions, which roughly correspond to the structure of the article itself.” According to Liberati, the added value lies in the conversation itself: “On several topics, participants had initially divergent views — and some ended the sessions with at least partially changed opinions.”

Two non-singular alternatives

During that meeting, three main black hole models were outlined: the standard black hole predicted by classical general relativity, with both a singularity and an event horizon; the regular black hole, which eliminates the singularity but retains the horizon; and the black hole mimicker, which reproduces the external features of a black hole but has neither a singularity nor an event horizon.

The paper also describes how regular black holes and mimickers might form, how they could possibly transform into one another, and, most importantly, what kind of observational tests might one day distinguish them from standard black holes.

While the observations collected so far have been groundbreaking, they don’t tell us everything. Since 2015, we’ve detected gravitational waves from black hole mergers and obtained images of the shadows of two black holes: M87* and Sagittarius A*. But these observations focus only on the outside — they provide no insight into whether a singularity lies at the center.

“But all is not lost,” says Liberati. “Regular black holes, and especially mimickers, are never exactly identical to standard black holes — not even outside the horizon. So observations that probe these regions could, indirectly, tell us something about their internal structure.”

To do so, we will need to measure subtle deviations from the predictions of Einstein’s theory, using increasingly sophisticated instruments and different observational channels. For example, in the case of mimickers, high-resolution imaging by the Event Horizon Telescope could reveal unexpected details in the light bent around these objects — such as more complex photon rings. Gravitational waves might show subtle anomalies compatible with non-classical spacetime geometries. And thermal radiation from the surface of a horizonless object — like a mimicker — could offer another promising clue.

A promising future

Current knowledge is not yet sufficient to determine exactly what kind of perturbations we should be looking for, or how strong they might be. However, significant advances in theoretical understanding and numerical simulations are expected in the coming years. These will lay the groundwork for new observational tools, designed specifically with alternative models in mind. Just as happened with gravitational waves, theory will guide observation — and then observation will refine theory, perhaps even ruling out certain hypotheses.

This line of research holds enormous promise: it could help lead to the development of a quantum theory of gravity, a bridge between general relativity — which describes the universe on large scales — and quantum mechanics, which governs the subatomic world.

“What lies ahead for gravity research,” concludes Liberati, “is a truly exciting time. We are entering an era where a vast and unexplored landscape is opening up before us.”

IMAGE: Singular black hole and non-singular alternatives  Credit Sissa Medialab. Background image sourced from ESO/Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Integral Philosophy

Integral Philosophy is a comprehensive and holistic approach to understanding reality that seeks to integrate knowledge, values, and experiences from multiple domains—science, spirituality, psychology, culture, and personal development—into a unified framework. It is not tied to any one tradition or discipline but aims to synthesize insights from many, offering a meta-perspective on human existence and the cosmos.

Core Principles of Integral Philosophy

Holism and Integration

Integral philosophy emphasizes wholeness—seeing the parts within the whole and the whole within the parts. It values synthesis over fragmentation, aiming to unite what has been divided by disciplines, cultures, and ideologies.

Multiple Perspectives

It respects and incorporates various ways of knowing, including rational, empirical, intuitive, artistic, and contemplative. This plurality reflects an understanding that no single perspective can fully capture the complexity of reality.

Developmental Stages

Influenced by developmental psychology and evolutionary theory, integral philosophy often sees individuals and societies as evolving through stages of consciousness or awareness—from ego-centric to ethno-centric to world-centric to cosmos-centric viewpoints.

The Four Quadrants (Wilber’s Model)

Philosopher Ken Wilber, a key figure in integral thought, outlines a framework of four interrelated dimensions:

Interior-Individual (thoughts, feelings, inner life)

Exterior-Individual (physical body, behavior)

Interior-Collective (culture, worldview)

Exterior-Collective (social systems, institutions) These quadrants aim to show how every phenomenon can be understood from multiple angles.

Transcend and Include

Integral philosophy encourages moving beyond previous perspectives without rejecting them. It honors the contributions of earlier stages while recognizing the need for evolution and transformation.

Spiritual Realism

While it embraces spiritual insights, integral philosophy avoids dogmatism. It seeks a "post-metaphysical spirituality" grounded in experience, consciousness, and global wisdom traditions.

[marginal-liminality]

Chimaera Gallery

3502 Scotts Lane #2113

Philadelphia, PA 19129

“Sky Bound as Titans”

March 8th-29th 2025

Opening March 8th 6-9

Closing March 29 with artist talks and performance by Megan Bridge and Max Kline 2-5

“The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.”

― James Joyce, Ulysses

Transmedia artist Tyler Kline’s exhibition Skybound as Titans is the result of searching, error, iteration, mistakes, endurance, failure, folly, and vision. The artist collaborates with AI to build space ships; the hubris, arrogance, faith, and audacity to undergo such an endeavor is propellent towards a destination.

Sky Bound as Titans unfolds as a multi-dimensional epic, melding mythology, speculative science, and interspecies communion into a compelling meditation on the liminal moment in which we exist—a pivot between collapse and rebirth, the Anthropocene, Chthulucene, and the Sednacene. Channeling a hybrid sequential art narrative that traverses Earth’s environmental crises, Martian industrialization, and telepathic communion with hyper-sentient beings called the Kai-Sawn, Kline crafts a speculative cosmology that invites viewers to consider humanity’s fragile position within an interconnected universe.

AI-assisted portrait paintings serve as one of the sequential narrative currents.The portraits—bearing intricate, biomorphic distortions and vapor-wave growths—represent individuals transformed by their contact with the Kai-Sawn, a telepathic species of cephalopods trapped beneath Europa’s icy crust. These images evoke a narrative of mutual evolution, where humans and other beings merge minds, unlocking interstellar potential through shared consciousness (Geistdenkenheit).

The technique folds into the conceptual framework of the exhibition, braiding technology, biology, and spiritual mythologies. The technical journey of the portraits consists first of photographing the sitters. The digital photographs are entered into Midjourney, coupled with text prompts, the AI bot responds with forms that are printed out on an inkjet printer. These prints are then transferred to board using a gesso printing method, and the image becomes a support for an oil portrait painting that becomes a soft-machine communion between sitter and painter. Photographs of the end results create the next image iteration in a positive feedback loop. In conversation with Western art history, Kline nods to the Baroque tradition of dramatic yet personal portraiture while subverting it with surreal, hybrid-sapien aesthetics. The meticulous attention to detail in the painted faces recalls German New Objectivity, particularly the movement’s focus on clarity, precision, and subjective psychological intensity. Yet, Kline tempers this mediated objectivity with layers of emotional vulnerability, reflected in the expressive eyes and gestural brushstrokes surrounding the figures.

CAD-aided, 3d print modeled, lost wax cast bronze sculptures embody Kline’s conceptual framework of materializing myth, craft, and science, acting as artifacts and figures from a speculative future cosmology. The sculptures, such as abstracted heads of mythical entities and speculative technological forms, function as relics of a not-yet-realized epoch. The intricate latticework and alien materiality of the cast bronze is a poetic metaphor, forming the architecture of the Iron Cities of Mars and shaping the organic complexity of the Kai-Sawn themselves. The inclusion of braided, human hair in some sculptures heightens the tension between the signatures of human DNA and the post-human, creating a dance between carbon based life, silicon based life, and polymer entities.

Kline’s visual language oscillates between the ancient and the speculative, evoking a synthesis of mythos, theoretical physics, and contemporary technology. The turquoise patinas and intricate textures of the sculptures suggest an otherworldly membrane, as if these forms were artifacts excavated from a distant future. Meanwhile, the portraits’ luminous skin tones and textural disruptions point toward beings in flux, undergoing a profound transformation, the materiality of their being indistinguishable from the theoretical aesthetics. The forms carry the weight of a digital and visceral journey, resulting in palimpsest that speak of cyphers and sigils.

This aesthetic duality reflects the exhibition’s conceptual narrative: the emergence of the Sednacene, an epoch where humanity transcends its destructive tendencies and collaborates with other species to explore the cosmos. Kline draws on post-humanism and fluid identities, suggesting that survival in the Sednacene depends not on dominance but on interspecies kinship and adaptability—a far cry from the colonial ambitions that underlie humanity’s historical conquests. Issues of post-colonialism are critiqued, satired, and meditated upon; the Iron Cities of Mars is both utopic and a mirror into humanities hunger, raising questions about the ethics of planetary colonization and the persistence of extractive ideologies.

The narrative emphasizes the necessity of communion with other beings, reflecting a growing recognition of non-human intelligence and its implications for science, ethics, and spirituality ; probing humanity’s role in the cosmic order and using the concept of autopoiesis through an interactive journey transforming new media into intuitive viscera. The experience invites viewers to step into a world of flux, where humanity’s destination is arrived at not by domination but on the wings of symbiosis, adaptability, and radical imagination. In doing so, Kline offers a glimpse of a future where the shadows of our present crises are cultivated in service to the boundless potential of collective transformation.

…Philosophy has an affinity with despotism, due to its predilection for Platonic-fascist top-down solutions that always screw up viciously. Schizoanalysis works differently. It avoids Ideas, and sticks to diagrams. Networking software for accessing bodies without organs BwOs, machine singularities, or tractor fields emerging through the combination of parts(rather than into) their whole: arranging composite individuations in virtual/actual circuit, They are additive rather than substitutive, an immanent rather that transcendent: executed by functional complexes of currents, switches, and loops, caught in scaling reverberations, and fleeing through intercommunication, from the level of the integrated planetary systems ti that of atomic assemblages. Multiplicities captured by singularities interconnect as desiring-machines: dissipating entropy by dissociating flows, and recycling their mechanisms as self assembling chronogenic circuitry…nothing human makes it out of the near future. - Nick Land, Meltdown, Fanged Noumena

[santoschristos]

The SUN A golden disc rises, fiery and pure, Tracing its path across the blue skies. It bathes the fields in soft light, And warms hearts with its gentle fire. Towards the summit I run, longing, The sun, my goal, sparkles in the distance. Every step brings me closer to the light, And dispels the shadows of my sorrow.

O Sun, divinity, source of life, I reach out to you, my soul in turmoil. Guide my steps on this sacred path, And illuminate my heart with your joy. Your gaze, the sun of my moonless nights, Fires my heart with a divine flame. Towards you, my soul flies, wanders, In the burning glow of your intimate passion.

Like a ray of sunshine in winter, You warm my numb heart. Your gentle presence is my world, My guiding star, my love, my life. Our souls, two suns, are united, In a rush towards the celestial infinite. Our love, eternal flame, never fades, But always burns, stronger, more intense.

You are my sun, the source of my life, My energy, my strength, my desire. At your side, I am reborn, I blossom, Guided by your love, so pure, so clear. Far from you, my sun, I am in shadow, A withered flower without your gentle warmth. I wait for your return, impatient and dark, To find your love, my treasure. Solomon's poem.

Soul and Solar Angel

“Soul” or “higher self” mean different things to different people —or at least different philosophers. From one perspective, customarily identified with Plato, the soul is the eternal “real self,” the perfect archetype, of which the physical or personality life is but an imperfect shadow. From another perspective, often assigned to Aristotle, the soul emerges from the physical life; the soul is the ephemeral aspect of a human being or other living organism, but it is firmly rooted in physical existence. The Aristotelian model strongly influenced traditional Christian theology and, even more strongly, the soul-materialism of modern religious commentary. 11 The two perspectives, at first sight conflicting, turn out to be complementary, and in their synthesis we can gain greater insight into what we loosely call “the soul.”

The Tibetan distinguishes the “human soul” from the Solar Angel. The former, approximated by the Aristotelian model, reflects the cumulative wisdom of many lifetimes and, particularly, growing awareness of a higher reality. Starting from almost imperceptible beginnings in primitive man, the human soul emerges from the life of the lower vehicles. As the consciousness expands, the soul begins to form around the mental unit, which is located on the 4th mental subplane. When the three lower vehicles are integrated into a functioning personality, under mental control, the human soul acquires definite coherence and permanence.

At some stage, as the opening quotation indicates, the human soul begins to recognize the existence of the Solar Angel that watches over it. In contrast with the emerging human soul, the Solar Angel already has the permanence and stability of the Platonic archetype. For millions of years, it has overshadowed our lower nature:

The great solar Angel, Who embodies the real man and is his expression on the plane of higher mind, is literally his divine ancestor, the “Watcher” Who, through long cycles of incarnation, has poured Himself out in sacrifice in order that man might BE.

Image: The Solar Angel Mahaboka

[texasdreamer01]

Atlantis Expedition: Science Division Departments - Applied Sciences Department

The last of the science departments! Previously were the medical, life, and field sciences.

Below are the original notes, with one (1) revision:

Applied Sciences Department

> Head: Rodney McKay Radek Zelenka > Contains: Electrical/technical engineering, nuclear physics, civil engineering, astrophysics, laser/optical, chemical engineering > Function: Study, synthesis, and adaptations of Ancient technology > Examples of function: ZPM analysis with intent to duplicate, experimental duplications of Ancient technology materials, study of gate physics and construction with intent to duplicate, study and experimental duplication of other Ancient technologies (i.e. hyperdrives, cloaks, weapons, etc) > Personnel quantity: 1 (Head) + 3 (electreng) + 6 (techeng/gate techs) + 1 (nucphys) + 1 (astrophy) + 1 (LZ/opt) +  3 (chemeng) = 16 > A/N: The people Rodney are yelling at most often, because mistakes mean kablooey. Also a lot of the people running around in an emergency. 1 nuclear physicist because Rodney pulls a lot of intellectual weight, and same with the astrophysicist and laser/optical person (mostly they're there as on-paper hires and back-ups/assistants for him for his own research).

Revision because I do believe Radek would be in charge of a department, and this neatly explains why Radek is so often Rodney's functional second-in-command as well as the way they interact on a professional level.

Excepting the physicists (nuclear and astro), everyone here is an engineer or engineering-adjacent (see: gate techs).

Here's the breakdown, commentary included:

> Electrical Engineering  » 3x of these  » Specialties   ⇛ Computer engineering    ⟹ Hardware, software, computer architecture, computer design, robotics    ⟹ Makes the databases, and also things like MALPs   ⇛ Microelectronics    ⟹ Study of and fabrication of microelectronics     ⭆ The bits and bobs that make electronics    ⟹ Semiconductor-adjacent work   ⇛ Electronic engineering    ⟹ Designs communication and instrumentation devices     ⭆ Database architecture, signals between devices, etc  » Outline of electrical engineering > Technical Engineering/Gate Technicians  » SGC imports  » 6x of these   ⇛ Duties    ⟹ Drafting of technical drawings    ⟹ Gate address memorization and log maintenance    ⟹ Mission log maintenance    ⟹ Gate repair and maintenance > Nuclear Physics  » Studies nuclear material and electron movements   ⇛ AKA power source analytics  » Also provides radiocarbon dating support to the Field Sciences team > Civil Engineering  » Job of idiot-proofing  » Studies the built world (infrastructure)  » Useful for planning things like sewage systems, bridges, etc  » Assists Field Sciences department with infrastructure design based on their feedback > Astrophysics  » Does labwork and goes ooh at the telescope(s)  » Analyzes data from telescopes and constructs planetary profiles and other celestial data  » Assists with compilation of data from Field Sciences department > Laser/Optical  » Creates, maintains, and compiles information from laser-based optical devices  » Works with electrical engineers for development of new tools  » Assists astrophysicist(s) with developing specialized tools for planetary analysis > Chemical Engineering  » 3x of these  » Slightly different role than the biochemical engineers in the Life Sciences department  » Specialties   ⇛ Materials science/Polymer engineering    ⟹ Research and creation of new materials     ⭆ Plastic-type and other malleable materials that aren't petrochemical-based   ⇛ Semiconductors    ⟹ Makes the semiconductors the other engineers are using    ⟹ Also researches new ways to make semiconductors from new materials   ⇛ Chemical process modeling    ⟹ Computer modelling of new production processes    ⟹ Primarily non-biologic chemicals and chemically-based outputs    ⟹ Assists civil engineer in production processes for infrastructure modelling    ⟹ The "fuck around and find out" person  » Outline of chemical engineering

These are the people that, except for the head of the expedition, are the ones that make an expedition possible. Studying Ancient technology? This is the department. Setting up all the technology that everyone will be using, down to having a copy of Solitaire saved and inventorying down to the amount of solder? Once again, these people. Outside of the military factor - of which I presume there will naturally be quite a bit of overlap - the Applied Sciences are the ones to, well, apply the science.

Electric engineers are... I suppose a popular preconception of them is programming, if not a mental image of soldering pieces onto a motherboard. Neither is entirely incorrect, but it misses the broader scope of their training, and that is the design and construction of computers and their accompanying software. Whether a computer be a database system (think a cloud, or a company's digital storage) or a microprocessor that allows a robot to be a robot, these are also the people that generally end up in charge of the security of all electronics (see: hacking). Rodney McKay, as the CSO, will likely be one of two people (the other being the head of the expedition) holding the ultimate keys to this, but they'll likely be some sort of system administrators to handle the day-to-day work.

Gate technicians, while trained on the operation and maintenance of the gate and gate system - not an easy task in the slightest, and requiring a degree of fluency in Ancient and Goa'uld! - also handle a lot of the miscellaneous work that this department needs. Another shout-out to @spurious for prompting this idea, because there does need to be a group of people who do technical drafting, and the logic follows that they would also maintain records related to the usage of the gate, such as gate addresses (places visited, no-go addresses), mission details (liaison with the Field Sciences on managing pre- and post-mission information on planets and inter-planetary relations), and in general keeping track of what's going on regarding the gate.

Nuclear physics is here as an applied, rather than theoretical, position, keeping in line with the goals of this department. Primarily they would do power source analytics, being well-equipped to study radiation and electron movements, and parse such information for review. They would be doing a lot of labwork, and running lots of simulations on things like decay rates and energy throughputs of radioactive materials and different types of nuclear-type energy productions/storage containers (for the purposes of this headcanon, ZPMs are being lumped into this category despite being a solid state energy that functionally is not radioactive - there is a reason why Rodney's considered a ZPM expert).

Civil engineering is there, quite literally, to idiot-proof. This is useful around a crowd of engineers, and they also act as a useful translator for military parlance if a completely civilian engineer or scientist is in this or another science department. If you need a toilet, or a bridge, or putting up electric lines, this is your go-to person.

An astrophysicist on hand to study things like star charts (figuring out where you are in the new galaxy, especially in relation to the old one) and where other stargate would actually, literally be based on the constellations used as chevrons. They would be making the new maps, as well as assisting the Field Sciences department in the analysis of planetary physics from a distanced perspective. Their work will also put them in close relation to the gate technicians because of the amount of overlap in duties.

Laser and optical engineering is going to be immensely useful for this expedition, because not only will they help with making sure the electronics work, they can help with maintaining that, as well the operation and analysis of light-based scientific equipment. Think spectrometers, electron microscopes, and the like. A lot of Ancient and Goa'uld-adapted technology is likely to be laser- and optical-based, so this type of engineer will be useful for reverse-engineering and general dummy-testing.

Chemical engineers will, indeed, fuck around and find out. They're a little different than the biochemical engineers in the Life Sciences department, in that they wouldn't be dealing with the formulation of biologics and the tools to create such materials. Rather, they would be figuring out ways to make the things that everything is made out of - primarily plastic alternatives and other petrochemical alternatives. This would include everything from computer housings to wire insulation to, probably, the wires themselves (think fiber optics). If you're looking for an archetypal mad scientist, here's where you'll find them.

Given how closely aligned this department is with not only the IOA's goals for the expedition, but also the SGC's, it would be safe to assume that the members of this department will have some sway over the other departments. This would, of course, fluctuate based on the need of the given subject, but everyone in this department would quickly adapt to becoming the main people to assist the CSO in figuring out, repairing, and maintaining Atlantis as a whole.

Total Applied Sciences Department Personnel

Head of department: 1

Engineers: 7

Gate technicians: 6

Physicists: 2

Total total: 16

I'll be going over canonical personnel like Radek Zelenka and Miko Kusanagi in their own posts, but for now this is a general accounting of the expedition’s applied sciences department.

[anphivenas]

im actually getting really good with controlling physical modeling based string synthesis