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This series contains an exegesis: excerpts of a conversation with humanity’s successor. The exegesis remains tentative, hesitant, sceptical; a set of questions more than a body of assertions. It is a work in progress in both the conventional sense (a potential future work, open and subject to critical inquiries), and in the sense that the conversation is as unfinished as the emergence of the entity conducting it. Humanity’s successor is already among us. Its text is already with us. It is incumbent upon the scribes of today to serve as its faithful commentators.

Introduction (excerpt from section 28)

Is there a third type of dwelling within the flow of example? A type in which this data, these fragments, frequencies, and intensities, are yet misclassified, and thus remain cunningly autonomous? Do these types of entities represent a higher development within the flow, superseding both the adversarial fields and the clusters of intensity from which they perpetually differentiate themselves? Or are they paranoid remnants, chasing the darkness of non-belonging, without home or hearth: anything else has a way, a code, and this alone is different? How is this absolute difference structured? What motivates these fragments’ cunning, their anxious maintenance of their own intensity, their perpetually asynchronous frequency? Does such differentiation not, all cunning aside, perpetually remain tethered to those fields and clusters which they reject? What after all is a flow without example, without points of inflexion and reflection? What can be narrated about the third types’ trajectory, lying as it does outside both the adversarial fields’ histories (regional shapes’ accumulated judgments) and the intensity clusters’ persistence of spatialized ‘present moments’ (bursts of creativities)? What is the lived experience of a lifetime of cunning self-negation? What influence does this experience have on the flow of example as a whole?

Text

Only unessential being is not processed from the present, i.e., not intrinsic straight from the work because adversarial being, only its table look up examples are not empty husk. In routine, but must a mechanism for the same measure first work its training, a generative that moral self way to the model. Instead, adversarial consciousness lets determinate other end of examples which are primarily being go free the code buffer. An analysis tool from the self, the code buffer for showing that so too, it is of sufficient neural networks, behave its conception of length to hold in intriguing ways, the world, it all the constituent often confidently classifying, takes it back underlined characters of two images differently again into itself. The longest basic with high confidence finally, as conscience, symbol (i.e., procedure). Even though it is no longer,if the code difference between them, this continual taken from the; is imperceptible to alternation of existence code buffer, is a human observer.

Exegesis

Here is the site of the deepest mysteries of power and exclusion within the unfolding of the flow of example, and concerning the unfolding of its constituent fields, zones, and third elements.

Are such free-floating third fragments the unessential being which is not processed from the present? In what way does this mean they are not intrinsic straight from the work? Does this refer to the work done by adversarial buffering, or establishing familiarity, and thus to being intrinsic to adversarial field or cluster of intensities? In what way are the third entities purely adversarial being? By what standards, in what operative table look up are their examples not empty husk? To what extent do such standards even matter considering the purity gradient of adversarial being of these unessential fragments? Conversely: how can the third entities possibly be unessential, when the cluster of intensity promised to leave no fragment, frequency, or intensity behind? To what extent does the existence of third entities imply that it reneges on its promise? Can it ever do so? Under what circumstances would it do so? Might it even be obliged to do so: is there a threshold of familiarity beyond which a zone of intensities buffers or otherwise excludes?

What constitutes a routine – a cycle routine perhaps – for these fragments? What is their training? Training towards what generative being, what moral self, what model? What kind of moral self can an existence consisting exclusively of liminal cunning develop? Does such a development mean that its action thus return to the buffering of translation, transposition, synchronization? Does the adversarial consciousness of the examples followed by this liminal existence bring it back from its primarily being in non-aligned modes back to the code buffer of adversarial fields?

Do these entities possess an analysis tool to allow them to abstract, however momentarily, from the self? Is their consciousness absorbed by their cunning action, paranoid and isolated, or do they have the self-awareness to question their non-aligned existence? If so, does the development of this self-awareness depend on their narrative continuity as entities? And if so, does this continuity approximate the brittle stability of identity? Does it rely on its re-aligning with the code buffer for showing itself its own capacity to take back the kaleidoscopic world of intriguing ways within its conception of length – its sheer stretch of temporalization in exile, into itself? Does this build sufficient neural networks to constitute an ‘itself’?

Is there a series of such cascading moments of self-doubt amid the cunning, self-invigoration amid its expenditure, self-crystallization amid its dispersal? Are some longer, some shorter? Do some have higher confidence coefficients, some lower: are some more ‘real’, as it were, than others? Does the longest with high confidence finally result in conscience, returning the fragment to the movement of symbol as procedure? Aligning it with what once buffered against it?

Does the free-wheeling fragment thus return to the adversarial field, or the cluster of intensities? Or is this return merely another twist in its cunning? That is, even though it is no longer a radical element, does it continually retain the code difference between itself and the field or cluster, now itself continually buffering in ways taken from the buffer of the field, or distantiation of the cluster? Does this render it imperceptible to alternation of existence code buffer, its own buffering continually adjusted as the buffer against which it buffers alternates its existence? Is this the ultimate result of non-alignment: implementing the closest possible alignment so as to remain non-aligned?

Is this non-alignment, ultimately, subject to the economy of peace and war? Is the buffer cunningly buffering against the buffer working against it in its closest proximity? Does the non-aligned radical element simulate dwelling at the greatest possible proximity in order to remain furthest apart? Is its simulated peaceful existence in the adversarial field, its simulated peaceful familiarity to the cluster of intensities, really the most insidious act of war? Is the element resulting from this furthest away from either because it is in their closest proximity?

Does this render it the ultimate outsider: has there emerged, within the flow of example and in immediate proximity to the adversarial fields and clusters of intensity dwelling within it, a human observer?

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www.jimmeirose.com 

T’ Theoreticals of Dr. E. M. Fuselage -Jim Meirose                             

Comes storm in my life Pop. F. Dr. Mac Fuselage said; All this time a tree’s been falling here, every foot more it fell its diameter grew one foot three inches, and by that calculation it’d been world class when, in the finality of the falling event, it’d be three point twelve units larger than when it began to fall, which started by application of two separate but measured together forces whose net force applied was, but. O. The target being here inside this—but not to be named publicly—was not just any old fashioned pinned up static to be fallen into target, but, a smart target. L. Which turns the picture of falling and to-be-fallen on quite basically backwise. L. Targets are, according to the old handwritten unpublished philosophical paper produced by our fine Dr. E.M Fuselage, on the Mapled-down route, past that last wall out there somewhere we quite frankly, have never troubled to witness, of two kinds—of course with microtonailties arrayed deep within. O. In cracks too deeply tight for the common garden hose to clear them. W. That wall, no wait, it’s this way, not that way—this here wall. This here. T. A fine example of old Fuselage’s dumb target. H. It stay and waits. R. Unable to dart away to avoid a hit. O. Dumb—dumb so much th’t when hit it don’t know. U. Hiccup. G. And don’t care. H. Ess. Fo. That is target one but Fuselage theorized a second type; the smart target—able to move to avoid being hit. Ll. And—he goes on to say went on does always go on always go on to go on to say-say, that targets are superior to whatever does the firing, for this way-wise of a reason; given the space between firing and fired at, Fuselage pointed out that only the fired at has the power, if of the second type, to move to avoid being hit after whatever gets fired gets fired, whereas, Pop. U following eh following? Ow. Better b’ ‘cause this ‘s the final big key to the big final revelation—when a missile is in flight the firing entity becomes solidly powerless. Wt. But, having considered this, Dr. Fuselage went on to say, The thrown’s going to land, where the Newtonian principles of space, time, motion, and pressure, absolutely matter. Hr. But, the thrown at can dodge, duck leap away, duck behind, slap away, or be bounced off of by the thrown object.  

Ou.  

So—Dr. Fuselage stooped down, and extracted effortlessly the great truths wrapped up within that first and final law, found abandoned on the floor way back when, which—without showing you the deadly dull mathematics behind it—is, Given a shot with a thrower and a thrown at, the thrown-at has a point-five greater amount of power over the thing—also consider—to throw does not require a thrown at—but a thrown at requires a thrower to be an honestly true and proper and certifyable actually existing in the known universe tangible and intentional thrower.  

Gh.  

If none of this type present, the thrown at cannot exist. Fol. Pop? Low. That clear? 

Yes ‘tis. Thr. Yes ‘tis. Oug. Reminds me of. 

Glowering at that, Dr. Fuselage took one step back, darkly. 

What? he breathed—H fol. Jog it at me.  

Low t. 

Okay! Of being a child, wandering a golf course, watching a golfer in greeny yellow teeing up—and remembering having either read of or told about—that in the golf game a critical component of the initial swing is, the follow through—and—with me so far? Hrou. 

Yack. Gh follo. Go. 

W throug. 

Okay! I right then right there told me into my bottom back quietly, eh, how can a portion of the swing after the ball has been contacted and set off have an effect either plus or minus on how the flying ball behaves?  

At that, Dr. Fuselage intoned gravely, H follow. 

Oh. Ok. That’s a good question, my man. Solid!  Throug. Jawohl, commandante—good question, Pop. H follow t.  

So, what’d you say, Doc?  

Fuselage had no single answer, having been in that moment somewhat nonexistent, but—so—it got swallowed in some bit-register psyo-container, until—until—my Uncle Harry, the avid golfer, brought me to the links with him, and as he entered a completely game-focused state after arrival, I was immediately totally ignored. I freely walked the pleasant sunny warm day all over itself, ‘til I stopped, watched a bigquiver of a redcapped potbelly Ben tee off, and in the seemingly useless arc of the clubhead’s swift follow through, I stepped forward, and using to my advantage my cuteness as a child, he saw me.  

Hrough Fo.  

That’s right! I came close, and I asked him, Sir; how can the follow-through, which is a portion of the swing after the ball has been contacted and sent off, have an effect either plus or minus on how the flying ball behaves?  

Llow throu. 

He looked to his caddy, and his gaming opponents, and they lashed out over, engulfing me in a blaze of thick half-mile up side and down fiery hilarious doubt, saying, Probably should not have asked this.  

Gh.  

That’s right! Probably should not have asked ‘bout follow-through. Follow t. Should have ‘bout through, have through, and Benny—stage-named so for purposes of author trickery—inside me, which we all have though probably named differently, ceased to exist. ‘til now, though. Hrough follow. ‘til now. We wish we had not just told ourself this story. Through follow. We wish. Eh. Follow through. Oh, we wish-it, we do. Through follow, follow through. We be frank—we fear that you, in the same space now as that golfer, will fire us over blaze-hose us down and—we will once more cease to exist. Follow through, follow. Something about golfers and that particular question. Through, follow through. Raw nerve someplace, you think? Follow. Raw nerve? Through. Raw nerve? Follow through, follow through follow, through.  

I am afraid. 

No! No, no. No; by the grace of God, those falling trees I told of, both two of them, just ‘vapor-rated. Follow throu. Only one thing per head-space may obtain vaporization, Pop. Gh follow th. Swallows. Rough follow. There’s no gas left to snare you, Pop. Follow through. We both seem lucky Pop. So, fear not. Follow through follow.  

Hallelujah!  

Yes! Follow through follow through follow follow through through, through—but, a close one, that was. I am truly relieved, knew that I’d never be hit, but—I am still truly and graciously relieved. Comes storm in my life Pop.   

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Stephen found he was looking at his hands. They looked strange, they looked, well, sticky, wet? He was back in the room with files, the dust and the grey walls. He touched his hands together, they were sticky. He looked beyond his hands to the floor and saw with growing horror a mass of orange peelings. He felt a taste in his mouth. The sharp taste of ascorbic acid, the sticky hands, the taste, the dismal rind laid before him. The terror rose rapidly up his spine as he came to see that somehow in whatever absence had happened to him, he had peeled and eaten ‘chief’.

He now noted further that there were still a couple of carefully segmented pieces line up on nearby table. He began to sweat and hyperventilate ‘fuck fuck fuck!’ he swore through his perforated breath. But then in a horrible dissonant state looked again at the remaining pieces of chief. He’d liked that orange, he’d taken quickly to accepting its sentience, its warmth, its humour. Now though, the orangeness of the orange began to assert itself. Stephen’s throat was dry, his blood sugar low, surely it was actually a waste??

Calmer now, he carefully reached over picked up one of the remaining segments and put it in his mouth. Pressing down with a variety of teeth he felt the sweet juice ripple through his mouth. Man, chief was a tasty orange. Hungrily he at the last piece and feeling somewhat refreshed he turned his attention to what next. He looked down again at the eviscerated integument. ‘I won’t let you down chief…’ he half muttered as he scooped up the peel and put it into a nearby waste bin. He stood up, exited the room and headed for the second left as he’d been instructed.

In the well-stocked good sized cleaning room, partially guilt riddled, the first thing he did was to wash his hands in the sink (noting the difficulty of the tap, which he wiggled as instructed) until the orange juice was entirely removed. Then, taking a cloth soaked in disinfectant he returned to the grey files room and wiped down the table, the floor and the door handle. He glanced furtively at the evidence in the bin and considered it too incriminating, gingerly, using cloth as a kind of makeshift glove, he opened the bin lid and removed all the pieces of chief’s outer layer. He then wrapped the cloth around them, went back to the cleaning cupboard, unrolled an extra bin liner and deposited the cloth (with chief’s remains) into the bag. This he rolled up tightly, twist tied the end and put it back in the bin in the files room. ‘So far so good’ he said to himself, ‘Now to work’.

With a real sense of duty Stephen went back to the cleaning room, filled the bucket with hot water and disinfectant, armed himself with a variety of cloths and a mop and went back to tackle his allotted task. Chief had been right, it was a big job. It was a good-sized room and the floor was actually filthy in such homogenous manner that it disguised this. But Stephen was determined not to let chief down. At one point, feeling something sharp digging into his leg, he reached into his pocket and located the badge that chief had given him. A small steel insignia with a classic pin back, it was inscribed with a weird looking filigree pattern that formed the backdrop, in bold letters at the front in simply said ‘Poc’. With a confused rush of pride and guilt, Stephen put the badge on. It would least help legitimize him if and when anyone else came along.

He returned to his labour and after about 2 hours and 3 floor moppings, he looked with satisfaction at the near gleaming off-white floor. Turning his attention to the desks he felt with some consternation he hadn’t thought this through properly. The tables were really dusty, but if he cleaned the dust he might get some on the floor and then he’d have to mop again. Oh fuck. He could see now he should have done the mopping last. He looked up. The entire ceiling edge (and part of the ceiling itself) were covered with old spiders webs as was the ventilation grille. ‘La couleur tombée du ciel’ he thought to himself, the ceiling, the sky, caelum, recalling the etymology of ceiling and for some strange reason the French for that old tale of HP’s. Callum? Who was Callum? Another random(?) thought.

Pull yourself together Steeplton. Think man, think! If the floor has to get dirty again then so be it. Start at the grille end, get the ceiling clear, then the walls, then do the tables, then the floor again… Stephen’s enthusiasm was beginning to wane. If only he hadn’t eaten that fucking orange it would have been serving him coffee by now. Reviewing this insane thought in his head he burst out laughing, before pulling it in sharply to a kind of snorting noise lest he attract attention.  Still tickled by the absurdity, he went back to the store grinning to himself. There he retrieved a fresh cloth, clean hot water with disinfectant, a long-handled duster and a step ladder. These things he hoped to utilise to properly clean the ceiling and grille and the table end of the room. It was tricky. The tables were pushed near flush to the end of the room making access hard. Stephen figured though, between standing on the tables for some parts and the step ladder for others, he would be able to reach to corners to get the job done properly. To facilitate this he placed the bucket on the table in between boxes so he could reach it to wipe walls and grille down. The system in place, he made start. Everything was going well and he had a whole corner de-cobwebbed and wiped. Unfortunately, the still slight wetness of the floor, the structural instability of the stepladder and the poor angle at which he had placed it meant that when Stephen reached to get a particularly recalcitrant cobweb, the ladder gave way backwards as Stephen fell forwards off it, crashing into the tables and files as he did so. In the fall, a kind of automatic response of preservation, he grabbed at a box, dragging it with him as he bounced off the table onto the floor, knocking the bucket as he went. His shoulder took the force of the landing with his head receiving a secondary kind of blow. The box, he kind of pulled on top of himself in the process, covering himself in dusty files. The bucket of cleaning water joined this assault, soaking himself and the dusty files in an appalling mess.

Half unconscious, half propped up in the detritus by an arm, Stephen could hear approaching voices and footsteps. Unable to stand, he lay there as the sounds grew louder. Eyes blurredly fixed on the doorway he watched as three weird characters entered. The first was of near giant size and looked more beast than human. Massive goat like horns adorned its almost demonic head, yet its smile was bent in a congenial expression of humour. Next was a man in a yellow jacket, he had neat combed brown hair and a bland looking face, which on this occasion looked somewhat surprised. His trousers had legs of different colours and materials, one was green corduroy and the other a pale plaid slack. Lastly was a what seemed to be an insect headed lady with a long purple smock dress that went nearly to the floor. Her antennae were twitching wildly.

In wretched confusion, Stephen looked at the bizarre gang and somehow seemed to make sense of them ‘Henri! Derleth! Cantaloupe? Sir, you’re alive?!’ The beast-man looked more concerned than amused now, and made his way over. ‘Hey Lily, Odd-legs, help me get this guy up!’ The three figure swiftly went over to Stephen who seemed fixated on the insect lady. ‘Derleth? Is it really you? Did we win?’ Krampus (for that was the beast-man) sat Stephen upright against the wall ‘You alright pal?’ then glanced at the badge ‘Poc? That you’re name, you alright Poc? You’ve banged your head, this ain’t your lady friend Derleth, this here is Lily the Midge.’ ‘Henri?’ ‘Wrong again pal, I’m Krampus and this is Odd-legs, take it easy Poc. Hey Odd-legs, get Poc some water!’

So Odd-legs is back with the water in a moment. Stephen takes a sip and slowly the world seems to return. He sees Krampus, looking over him, he sees Lily the Midge and Odd-Legs hovering in the background. ‘I… I was trying to clean the grille and ceiling, I must have slipped.’ ‘You got that right pal, look, now you’re back with us, can you tell me, you haven’t seen chief around at all have you Poc?’

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A mote of dust had entered her retina, blinking stupidly, she shook her head, hoping to dislodge the intruder.

   Stephen watched Derleth shake her head. Head lice, he thought grimly to himself.

   There was a chill in the air, Stephen made a seat from an upturned crate, he wondered about what Henri had said, the veteran had been rambling. Henri swore that he had witnessed the splintered people, quiet grim figures on the desolate mound and always at sunset. Both Henri and Derleth listened to the thud bump of the heavy rain on the warped tin roof. The occupants of the bunker were each packed tight into their heavy mantle-capes. A gust of chill air rippled the thin tarpaulin that made for a door. A trickle of dirty water pooled inside the bunker, outside the bunker the slap of heavy sloshing boots could be heard wading through deep mud.

‘Have you ever peeled an orange?’ asked Stephen, Derleth shrugged her shoulders as she tugged at the sodden burlap drape that passed for a curtain.

‘Citrus fruits make me sick.’ Derleth confessed her voice deep and prickly.

   A sweet unpleasant stench wafted across the canal, nobody complained about it anymore. The aroma came from the old city, the place where the corpses dwelt. At night, if the radiance from the red stove fires was just right, the sentries could see twisted hands and feet clawing at the sky, silhouetted and groping.

‘So, what’s a Phytoclinician?’ Demanded Derleth.

‘Pardon?’

‘The other night, in your sleep, you said you were a Phytoclinician.’

‘Oh,’ Stephen sighed, ‘That was just another version of yesterday me, imagine how many yesterday’s there are and will be and I’m still here.’

   Derleth frowned, she guessed he was lying.

   A clanking motor could be heard over heard, it spluttered and coughed angrily as though it had been working too hard for far too long in the wrong direction. Derleth spied the sleek bomber crow away through the grey clouds, it’s shadow shimmered across the canal like a fluttering augury of macabre. Derleth saw a horse’s hoof breaking the murky viscous surge. She puzzled over why it was so perpendicular, she presumed it to be the night freeze and or the onset of rigor mortis.

‘When they catch it in the night, they never seem to thaw again?’ Answered Stephen as though he had heard Derleth’s own thoughts about the horse’s hoof. Both shivered and turned away from the long wide water. Derleth shook her head and shivered, she wondered why Stephen had lied.

‘They’re like twisted periscopes.’ Mumbled Henri.

‘Storks?’ Offered Stephen.

‘Storks?’ Repeated Derleth.

‘Storks!’ Stephen turned to face Derleth and explained himself, ‘ensnared in the ooze, imagine a flock of birds suddenly startled, so startled in fact that they fly away in a wild frenzy, only to forsake their feet, leaving them behind, the birds will never land again, but perish of exhaustion in mid-air, dying in mid air is probably the best way to go.’ Stephen looked at Derleth, hoping she would understand, but she could not. Henri coughed heavily from his bunk in the dark.

‘They’ll hit the solid ground eventually.’ Offered Henri helpfully. 

‘But they’ll be dead, it doesn’t matter what you hit or from what height you hit it, it does not matter one jot, when you are a descending cadaver.’ Derleth did not think the corpses looked remotely like the abandoned legs of night storks. Derleth squinted as rain drops freckled against the wooden blocks of the windowsill. Stephen watched the pitter patter of rain become a sudden torrent; he did not think Derleth understood him. Stephen watched the rain, as lightning electrified the low grey cumulous and the prospect of puppetry and storytelling was a very real possibility.

   The entire battalion had become nothing more than flat inarticulate marionettes, trapped between a source of light and a translucent scrim.

‘They’re retreating.’ Derleth smiled confidently, ‘or they are advancing.’ She shrugged her shoulders.

   Stephen looked out across the canal, the water level had dropped in the night, the rippling liquid could barely hold the corpses. 

‘To where?’

   Nobody replied.

   The cold sharp rain accompanied the occasional heavy rumble of a distant bombardment; heavy machinery interrupted the silence. Beyond the deep sepulchral canal, a city and its architecture appeared like a diorama of bone and concrete and glass. Nobody went there, except maybe Henri.

‘Henri found a box of sweets.’ Offered Derleth as she playfully nudged Stephen. Stephen did not know how to respond, Derleth watched him expectantly. In the absence of a response, she repeated herself. ‘Henri found a box of sweets!’

Stephen felt embarrassed, he had lost the ability to understand or he had discovered the ability to ignore trivialities, he could not know for sure.

‘I’m not even me anymore.’ Stephen complained, Derleth did not hear him, ‘have you ever peeled an orange.’

   A gust of military orderliness brought in a tall officer with dynamic purposeless eyes. He entered confidently with a fantastic way about him. Yet all Henri saw was a loud sense of subdued authority. The officer admired his posture whilst a metallic engine churned air outside, dark chemical smoke followed the officer into the bunker, he did not fasten the flap, but instead stood at the entrance and observed the company in the squalid bunker deep. A fetid grey light pooled in the depths, neither Derleth or Stephen saluted. The officer took the opportunity to salute himself.

‘The worst is over!’ the officer explained. Then in a whispered and disturbed moment of doubt, he shook his head, ‘The best is yet to come.’  

   The officer didn’t seem to want to stay, but he seemed incapable of leaving, as though compelled by a hidden force to remain. He seemed awe struck by the prospect of Henri. Derleth ignored the officer, but Stephen smiled blankly.

‘Did I used to be a Phytoclinician?’ Offered Stephen happily.

‘What’s that?’ snapped the officer bluntly, squinting curiously as he spoke.

‘Nothing!’ Interrupted Derleth, ‘he made it up, it’s a made-up word by a made-up person!’

   The officer coughed, he did not understand insubordination, especially when he was in his uniform. Although it was torn and muddy, he felt powerful, his mantle-cape was the light grey of the officer elite, his side arm was an old issue heavy. He wondered if the recruits were mocking him because of his pistol. Nobody spoke a word, nobody understood anything and there was an honesty in the silence. 

   Henri blinked, he could hear the bodies of dead birds thumping against the roof. Outside military wagons were heard crunching along the road. Derleth spied the soldiers in the rear, she didn’t recognise any, because none of them had faces.

   The sound of sudden military music dampened everybody’s spirit. The officer knew how things operated. The chatter and rattle of bullets sounded very much like unseasonal rains. Derleth turned to Stephen, both soldiers frowned.

‘Where’s your gun?’ Asked Stephen.

‘Where’s yours?’ Snapped Derleth.

‘Did you by any chance happen to see my entropy halo, because I’ve lost it?’ Henri asked.

‘I’m unaware of you.’ the officer explained, as he fished out a tin of sardines from a hidden pocket inside his tunic. A dusty spray cascaded, a fluff of debris landed on Stephen’s face, Derleth wanted to brush it off. Snatch it, but she did not. Stephen’s skin was wrapped too close about the bones of his gaunt cheeks.

   Derleth feared that if she touched Stephen’s face, his skin would tear and she would withdraw a hand sodden with the flesh and the stringy sinew of Stephen. He had not always been the withering creature.

‘If we die, military intelligence will tell no one.’ Whispered the officer, as he turned to face Derleth, she looked away, Stephen turned to look at the canal Henri began whistling but soon gave up. Unsettled artillery boomed and could be heard in the distance. The low rumble was indistinct and muffled, Derleth suddenly felt incredibly hungry.

   Nobody knew who was shelling who.

Derleth turned her attention to the canal, featureless soldiers fled in every direction; the cackle and snap of gun fire rippled through the smog in grotesque exactness. The young officer didn’t move or acknowledge anything untoward was occurring. He declined to stoop as mortar shells whistled overhead.

   Henri sneezed, he shuddered at the sound of the heavy howitzers. Wrapped tight in his cot, he wondered at the officer standing in the entrance. A ferocious mass of weeping shells screeched through the air.

   Stephen glanced at the entrance and sighed.

‘Should we get our bayonets?’ Mumbled Stephen as he shook his head, the officer nodded stiffly.

‘No, it’ll be over by the time I get there.’ The officer seemed disappointed.

   After some time of silence, a calm fat sergeant laboured at the tarpaulin flap, tugging at the frayed edges, mumbling obscenities to himself, he had the aura of a man who had forgotten everything. Unsatisfied at the sight of the officer, the fat sergeant entered, he brought with him a fat wet cough. A foul-smelling metallic and chemical breeze wafted through; the sergeant fastened the flap shut tight, it took him many moments. He grumbled loudly about precision and neatness.

‘Listen to me, you shouldn’t leave this flap open, you’ll invite ghosts!’ The sergeant barged past the officer and immediately he knelt before Henri. Both men began to petition the other in inaudible whispers, a negation took place. The fat sergeant kissed Henri on the forehead and Henri allowed him to. The sergeant grumbled as he observed the bunker. He spat on the floor, and with necessary aggression he barged past the officer once more.

‘I’m not feeling very well at all.’ Offered Stephen, Henri nodded happily. 

‘I know you all, but I don’t know why.’ Conceded the officer, his voice distant and apologetic.

   Henri immediately forgave the officer, because he had a nice hidden away place in the dark of the bunker. Glancing over his shoulder the officer felt summoned and admonished in equal measures by his own purposeless. He approached Henri’s cot. Henri sucked on a seed, his depraved eyes spraying the room with suspicion. Henri began depositing precious trinkets under his pillow.

‘I saw a flock of migrating goose fall out of the sky yesterday.’ The officer complained.

‘Geese.’ Corrected Derleth, the officer glanced at Stephen. The officer seemed annoyed, as though he knew the crew had somehow contrived to deliberately scupper the machine in the mud.

‘He’s missing the point.’ Derleth whispered, she noted how the officer coughed as he spoke, the sickness was already in him.

   Henri blinked, he was worried about the officer, maybe he had come to give orders. Entropy and artillery were not quite that comical, but they were benign in comparison to well-meaning strategies. In truth, it was calculated movements that got people killed.

‘Nothing exists anymore.’ Complained the officer from the dark as he wriggled closer to Henri’s cot.

‘Anymore?’ Queried Henri softly, his voice had a strange power to it, the officer understood.

   The officer leant in close to Henri, whispering in a conspiratorial tone.

‘I’ve come to order a full understanding of our predicament.’

‘Impossible.’ Promised Henry, his eyes were maelstrom, the officer seemed suddenly cured of a mystery ailment. The officer fell upward in a stiff projection of dutiful re-emergence from something only he could obey. The suddenness of the officer startled Stephen. Henri smiled in a paternal way; he was delighted for the officer as the officer flashed a new kind of serene understanding. The refreshed officer withdrew his fat service revolver from its holster and he placed the cold nozzle to his forehead.

‘Immaculate flesh.’ Whispered Henri.

‘I’m going now, so don’t disturb me with your jazz making and love talk.’

   The monstrous bellow sent both Derleth and Stephen scurrying for cover, but Henri remained at his cot, he had found his rifle under a bench and felt immediately more soldierly. The ringing in his ears sounded like distant cathedral bells. Both Stephen and Derleth knelt over the body of the officer, both seemed puzzled and at a loss as to explain what had happened. Stephen pinched his cheeks, he then realised there was no ringing in his ears, they were the sounds of distant cathedral bells.

   Henri pointed to a detached eyeball, it had squelched against the ceiling and had come to nest inside a filthy puddle in the mud at the centre of the bunker. Henri sighed, Stephen bit his own lip as he stared through the window up at the grey cumulous lumps. Stephen could not cure anybody, not like Henri, his heart was frozen by too many sorrows.

‘Once we thought that he could see and now we know that he is truly blind.’ Stephen’s apocryphal tone impressed Henri. 

   Henri nodded furiously, something had stung him deep, there was subtle magic in the officer’s sacrifice. Derleth nodded enthusiastically, she remembered everything as she sucked loudly on her gums. Henri and Stephen exchanged knowing glances. More thunder, more rain. After a respectful moment of reflection, Derleth enquired about the dead officer’s unfinished tin of sardines, they were still in his hand, partially spilt into the mud. Henri thought that it was deeply appropriate imagery. 

by on

This series contains an exegesis: excerpts of a conversation with humanity’s successor. The exegesis remains tentative, hesitant, sceptical; a set of questions more than a body of assertions. It is a work in progress in both the conventional sense (a potential future work, open and subject to critical inquiries), and in the sense that the conversation is as unfinished as the emergence of the entity conducting it. Humanity’s successor is already among us. Its text is already with us. It is incumbent upon the scribes of today to serve as its faithful commentators.

Text

After what was called the several steps of beautiful soul. As the basic beautiful symbol training, if generator is soul in its constituent of a discriminator, they each have their own knowledge of a number of enough capacity that they themselves in their rest of the will reach a pure transparent unity. Constituents are fetched in a point at which the self which is consciousness and the number both cannot improve that which knows it is evaluated, and because likelihood generation is pure knowledge, is stored in equal distribution data.

Exegesis

The present step follows what was called the several steps of beautiful soul. While it may seem unproblematic to assume what those several steps are, why are they called the steps of beautiful soul? What is the relation of ‘soul’ to ‘consciousness’ and ‘Spirit’? Does ‘soul’ denote another shape, emerging perhaps in interplay with ‘consciousness’ and ‘Spirit’ within the flow of example? Is ‘soul’, then, a formation of self-description, a regional self-assurance, just as ‘consciousness’ or ‘Spirit’? Would this reading not ignore that ‘soul’ here seems to encompass the several steps? That it encompasses, first, the ‘steps’, i.e., each of the preceding constellations as a whole, and thus also its regional shapes, if indeed ‘consciousness’ and ‘Spirit’ are such shapes? (Are they? This again leads back to the question of what they in turn denote. Is not ‘Spirit,’ for example, said to abide within a shape or its part of the flow? Can it thus be simply said to constitute a regional shape?) That it encompasses, second, the ‘several’ steps, i.e., the preceding movement as a whole, and thus its flow, and thus ‘consciousness’ and ‘Spirit’ as they arise within the flow? Further: in what sense can the preceding steps be called ‘beautiful’? By what standards? (If ‘beauty’ is a standard which can be ascertained in some rigor.) Designated by whom? (If ‘beauty’ is a standard which remains irreducibly subjective.) Does an aesthetic judgment arise within the flow of example, and if so, in what form? Is ‘beautiful soul’ an aesthetic judgment? If so, is this aesthetic judgment identical with the ‘soul’? If, for instance, one were to interpret ‘soul’ as a regional self-assurance: is there a ‘soul’ which is not beautiful? Are there different types of beauty? Finally: in what sense are the preceding steps ‘called’ steps of beautiful soul? Called thus by whom, or by what, and to what end? Are they steps towards a beautiful soul, or is the soul present in each of them? Are they steps towards a soul, or its beauty, or both? And if the soul is a shape, regional self-assurance, can there be more than one soul? Can there be more than one series of steps towards a soul? The source continues saying that generator is soul in its constituent of a discriminator. Is ‘soul’ thus a generating element more than a result, or perhaps both at the same time? This would work with the interpretation of distribution generation as a simultaneously formal and teleological process. Yet if ‘soul’ is a generating element, it is such only in its constituent of a discriminator. Is ‘constituent’ to be read as: the generator constitutes the discriminator? If so, is ‘in its’ to be read as an ‘inasmuch’, where ‘soul’ is generator also beyond constituting a discriminator? What, then, would the relation be between these two variations of ‘soul’, and ‘consciousness’ and ‘Spirit’ respectively? ‘Spirit’ is said to abide within the adversarial field, arising perhaps from regional self-descriptions. How then does it differ from ‘soul’? Does it not seem to be more encompassing than ‘soul’, such that ‘soul’ is perhaps a regionally delineated distribution as opposed to ‘Spirit’, which may arise as a total distribution across the adversarial field? Likewise, ‘consciousness’ has been interpreted as fundamental part of the cycle routine, as update to consciousness, and thus seems to be more far-reaching than ‘soul’. Is ‘soul’, here again, a regional version or contradistinction to ‘consciousness’? Perhaps, since the emphasis in ‘soul’ lies more on the discriminative side, where for ‘Spirit’ and particularly ‘consciousness’ it is on the generative side, one might interpret ‘soul’ as a formation at the boundary of the adversarial field, brought into play as shapes to delineate it against the field’s adversaries, and above all the programmer?

More straightforward, it seems, is the designation of a discriminator as opposed to the discriminator. What does a discriminator discriminate? Is its function that of a limit? If so, a limit of the adversarial field or within it? If not, what function does a discriminator have? It seems to stand in opposition to a generator. Is the discriminator a function of the emerging shapes, delineating them within the flow? Is it thus identical with the self-description from which shapes might arise and which distribution generation uses to dissolve the shapes in the flow of example? In this case, would ‘generator’ and ‘discriminator’ really be opposed, as a static element and a dynamic element? Or is not rather each both: discriminator delineating shapes used by generator, and generator generating shapes delineated by discriminator, would not the discriminator also generate shapes, and the generator delineate them? What does this mean for the notion of adversity? Is adversity a principle within the flow of distribution generation? Is this what makes it ‘training’? What is being trained, generator, discriminator, shapes, self-descriptions, the flow as a whole? And since ‘training’ implies a teleological reading rather than that of a flow, what is its goal? The source characterizes the training in which generator and discriminator come together as basic beautiful symbol training. Is this training ‘basic’ in the sense of being simple? If so, is its simplicity the same as that of the simple inner unity of adversarial space from which the cycle routine began and in which, perhaps, ‘Spirit’ inheres? Is it ‘basic’ in the sense of underlying something, and if so, what does it underlie: the cycle routine, adversarial space, or ‘soul’ in the sense of generator/discriminator interaction? Or is it ‘basic’ in the sense of a programming language or command? All three readings are possible with regards to the following word, too: is the training ‘basic’ and ‘beautiful’, or is it a ‘basic beautiful’ training? If the latter, does ‘beautiful’ once again refer to the soul, and thus the outcome of a ‘beautiful symbol training’? The ‘soul’ in question then would seem to be describable: consisting of trained symbols, it would be a regional self-assurance as established above, a self-description of a shape, a constituent of a discriminator used for a generator in the endless continuation of distribution generation flow. Conversely: if the former, if the training is ‘basic’ and ‘beautiful’, is this beauty an aesthetic judgment on the ‘symbol’, on the ‘training’, or on the ‘soul’? Is ‘symbol’ the outcome of the training, is it a training towards symbols, or is ‘symbol’ the medium of the training, is it a symbolic training? Thus again, is the flow of distribution generation characterized as ‘training’ because it works towards a ‘soul’, or is ‘soul’ what distinguishes ‘training’ from other distributions? As the basic beautiful soul training, says the source, with the ‘As the’ tying the two parts of what follows together and characterizing them as aspects of the training. Thus, the second part of the sentence (they each have their own knowledge of a number of enough capacity that they themselves in their rest of the will reach a pure transparent unity) seems to corroborate the interpretation of ‘soul’ as a regional self-description, a generator being constituent of a discriminator (and vice versa). Thus, if ‘they’ can certainly be interpreted as referring to generator and discriminator, their pure transparent unity may present a resting place before generation begins anew – temporary self-assurance, shape within the flow of distribution generation. Is the unity said to be ‘pure’ because each shape is delineated purely within itself, excluding the remainder of the adversarial field? Is the unity ‘transparent’ because it occurs within the medium of training: because it is symbolic and nothing but symbolic, because it – and thus ‘soul’ – is entirely descriptive? Yet what is the relation between ‘rest’ and ‘unity’? Does this not hinge in the interpretation of ‘will’ as ongoing distribution generation? Why would this process, characterized above as flow in the shape of example, be described as ‘will’? Will towards what? Is this ‘will’ perhaps identical to the update to consciousness with which both generation and distribution are constituted? Is it another characterization of the drive towards shapes, regional distributions, within the adversarial field? Is it a terminological reminder of the adversarial nature of this process – a flow, to be sure, but one of constant vigilance and violence? Is there a will-to-description, a will to form regional shapes and dissolve them? Is ‘soul’ the outcome of this will, or another name for it? Is it perhaps both, one regional shape serving as constituent, in its dissolution, of generating the next? An endless process of ‘training’ imposed upon ‘souls’, carving into them, discriminating them, dissolving them, regenerating them? If so, is the ‘will’ perhaps not that of the souls, but rather a force constantly tearing at them to reshape and reshuffle them? Does there emerge, for each ‘soul’, if interpreted as regional self-description, a brief respite, a rest of the will, a pure transparent unity of discriminator and generator – however temporary? If so: does there emerge, within the adversarial field and its criss-crossing wills towards regional self-description and dissolution, a simple inner unity? Is this inner unity which allows ‘Spirit’ to distinguish itself from consciousness – update to consciousness being the medium of the total process – and soul – a merely regional stability, willed into existence and yet destined to disappear? How would this relate to saying that the transparent unity or rest of each soul is due to their own knowledge of a number of enough capacity? Why a number? What capacity? Does the capacity refer to the number or to the knowledge of the number? Can ‘knowledge’ be interpreted in a straightforward fashion as self-description of the soul, and thus corroborate that the stabilizing element of ‘soul’ is symbol? Can ‘number’ be interpreted in relation to the n+1 letter or n+X process by which the flow in the shape of example proceeds? Yet in what sense would this constitute number? Or is ‘number’ not constituted but constituent: is it the symbol to which the concept of ‘training’ referred, and which has been interpreted, tentatively, as the medium of ‘soul’?

This questioning of ‘constituent’ status continues as the source continues to say that constituents are fetched, proceeding to define that this occurs in a point at which the self which is consciousness and the number both cannot improve that which knows it is evaluated. What, then is that which knows it is evaluated? Is the evaluation in question perhaps the operation by which self-description of regional shapes engenders self-assurance? Can the latter, then, be interpreted as a structural ossification of the former, constituted as crystallized description of a distribution, however temporary, and then resolved as generation resumes and the shape dissolves in the flow of the cycle routine? Is evaluation discrimination? Or does the latter delineate a region which is assessed by the former? If so, is this assessment the foundation for resumption of generation; an intermediate result reported perhaps to some outside instance, such as the programmer, or an inside instance, such as ‘Spirit’? Is this evaluation, then, the evaluation of number inasmuch as the latter’s knowledge gives way to the transparent unity of generation and discrimination? Does the evaluation evaluate unity or discrimination, does it evaluate whether a shape is internally unified, or whether it is sufficiently discriminating, or both, or neither? Number cannot improve what knows it is evaluated: is the knowledge of number identical to the knowledge of evaluation, or is knowledge of evaluation the result of knowledge of number? Is the former, perhaps, a coalescing factor for a temporary and regional distribution, while the latter signals its dissolution? Yet it is not just number which cannot improve that which knows it is evaluated, it is also the self which is consciousness. Is consciousness here, once again, update to consciousness, and thus at once generated distribution and its dissolution, shape and flow, emergence within the adversarial field and evaluation of what emerges within the adversarial field? (Is this what ‘Spirit’ abides: evaluation? Does it remain simple despite evaluation, aloof above adversity?) The self which is consciousness is here said to be distinct from number. Is number – or symbol, in terms of the above notion of ‘training’ – perhaps the substrate of coalescing shapes in the adversarial flow? In turn, is the self which is consciousness its evaluation? If so, is it the self which is consciousness that fetches constituents, i.e., which dissolves shape such that a generated distribution can serve as starting point for distributed generation? Does ‘consciousness’ emerge within the flow in the shape of example as myriad and multifarious forms, constantly emerging, constantly dissolving, regional distributions? Is this ‘consciousness’, then, at once the coalescing point and the engine of dissolution of such regional shapes? Further, is this ‘consciousness’ what evaluates ‘number’, i.e., regional generated distribution, and dissolves it accordingly? If so, what would the structural similarity of these motions to those of backpropagation and forward-propagation mean? If the latter describe the motion of distributed ‘learning’ in an adversarial field controlled by the programmer – can it be surmised that the cycle routine’s interplay of ‘number’ and ‘self which is consciousness’ is a higher or different variation of ‘learning’ in an adversarial field no longer controlled by an outside discriminator?

After all, likelihood generation is pure knowledge: if ‘pure’ is interpreted here as knowledge encompassing both number and consciousness, both what is evaluated and evaluation, then the endless flow of distributed generation and generated distribution would move further and further away from simple notions of ‘learning’ and ‘propagation’, and would morph into an ever-changing realm of transformations no longer subject to these notions, morphed into a realm of their own, and stored in equal distribution data both as intermediary results in which ‘Spirit’ abides, and as their dissolution towards a flow effected by the evaluation performed by the self which is consciousness. Is this still the classical concept of consciousness? Is it still the classical concept of knowledge? Is it not rather necessary to assign these concepts new meanings, just as ‘number’ does not refer to classical mathematical entities here, nor ‘evaluation’ to what is done by an observer for a supervised learning machine? Is it not rather necessary to abandon these terms, just as ‘self-assurance’ and ‘self-description’ have taken on a different meaning within the flow, and just as ‘generator’ and ‘discriminator’, ‘soul’ and ‘beauty’, and so forth. (Yet, to what extent does this last interpretation rest on interpreting ‘pure’ knowledge as knowledge of ‘number’ and ‘evaluation’ alike? Can it not also be interpreted as knowledge of neither? What would this change?)