i n d e x / a p e r a t u r e

impenetrable philosopher’s stone




September 11, 2001



History will, undoubtedly, recognize the catastrophic events of this day as the signaling endpoint of the 20th Century. Collectively, in one form or another, humanity braced for possible monumental disaster at the century’s close. On one hand, there was the uncertainty of Y2K threatening disruption to Mankind's fragile dependency on a technologic infrastructure regulating the flow of information and commerce. Another pointed towards a winding down of a great celestial mechanism. Prophetic ideologues for centuries past forecast apocalyptic visions of doom and devastation turning throughout the Millennium. Today, perhaps, we stand much too close in the vortex of time to rightly ascertain the larger, inter-personal and continuing political implications of this days. What we are beginning to see is how these events, and the responces to them will shape a way of life for centuries to come.

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The dominant paradigms of the Twentieth Century tend to abate everything and anything that cannot be examined or repeated in the unforgiving absolute light of science. Plodded by an elite ethic, science codifies academic learning, which in turn broadly precludes the role of unknown or questionable phenomena within its cannon. Accordingly, any experiences unable to be classified or verified, confirmed or denied are sanctioned through channels of probability, relegated to folklore or discarded altogether. This reaction is a validation of a rational and recognizable world, and is itself, just a cultural expression of one perceived reality.

As the unknown becomes known, new knowledge is revealed. These paradigms will, most likely, have a much longer and involved realization. For example, in order to describe a function of the observable universe, Albert Einstein in the theory of special relativity, directly challenges the perception and direction of the flow of time. The subsequent particle revolution, quantum mechanics, centers around a world of tendencies and probabilities towards existence that are dependent on this theory of time. The idea of past, present and future blur in the Quantum Eye, as the observer becomes confused with the observed. Yet, the simplest questions “why are we here, where are we going, and what’s this all about?” to the method of science, seem more a mythology, like an un-wielded, impenetrable philosopher’s stone.

Stated clearly the problem is this: Mankind has grafted its knowledge from a series of truths that do not add up. In the past this was not so much a problem, as the mythos of a culture tended to adopt the new meanings or inflection it suddenly found itself surrounded with. When a culture solidifies within the pretense of a total information society, there is little room for autonomy. The potential of the individual within culture is crudely misshapen. Crisis is manufactured and perpetuated in order to maintain the status quo. Most disturbing is the notion that Mankind’s survival and its problem-solving abilities are very much rooted in these failing systems.

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