On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 2:49 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
> <http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/pound.jpg> > > <http://multisenserealism.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/asterisk.jpg?w=595> > > Part of my approach to making new sense of the universe involves indulging > in meditations on unintentional symbolism. Any pattern that catches my > attention is a potential subject for intuition voodoo. Usually it pays off > eventually, even when it seems absurd at first. > > In this case, I was thinking about the # and * symbols that were inserted > into our visual culture obliquely, as extra buttons on the telephone which > flanked the 0. Taking this as my cue to relate this to the multisense > continuum, I compared the symbols graphically, etymologically, and > semantically. > > The pound sign (hash, hashtag, number sign) seems to me a dead ringer for > the Western-mechanistic pole of the continuum, while the asterisk (star) > fits quite nicely as the Oriental-animistic pole. > > Here’s how it breaks down: > > # – number sign, so quantitative and generic. The symbol is one of four > lines crossing each other at right angles to yield nine implicit regions of > space. The slant provides a suggestion of orientation – a forward lean that > disambiguates spatial bias and implies, subliminally, an arrow of time. > > In the age of Twitter and Instagram, the hashtag has become an important > cultural influence. It is interesting with respect to mechanism in that it > refers to accessing a machine’s sorting algorithms. It is a note to the > network of how this term should be handled. We have appropriated this > satirically so that we recapture it for our own entertainment, but also as > a kind of show of affection for and familiarity with the technology. > > In direct contrast, the * is am icon which is used to interrupt one level > of attention to direct the reader to another level – a footnote. Instead of > relating to numbers, the * is a wildcard that can be related to any string. > It stands for “all that is preceded by or follows”. Contrary to the > cellular modularity of #, the * is a mandala. It implies kaliedoscopic > sensibility and fractal elaboration. It is a symbol of radiance, growth, > life, unity, etc. > > There’s some interesting threads that connect the * with mathematical > terms such as Kleene closure <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleene_star>(more > commonly known as the free monoid construction). Just the words ‘free > monoid construction’ ring in my ears as an echo of what I call solitrophy – > the constructive progress of teleological unity…the creation and solution > of problems. > > Also the use of *asterisk* for heightened emphasis links it to the > significance of euphoria or magnified feeling (and the euphoria that is > associated with significance or magnified prestige/importance). Wikipedia > mentions the use of # by editors to represent where space should be added > on galley proofs. The use of * is, by contrast associated with repetition > of a particular thing – a replication. This is a tenuous but deep > connection to the origins of space and time in the difference between > syntactic-public sense and semantic-private sense. > > The name ‘pound sign’ seems to be fairly > mysterious<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2461>. > It does not seem to be related conclusively to either the English currency > or the Avoirdupois weight. Both references, however, have very tempting > subliminal associations to the Western pole of empirical domination. On the > other side, the name asterisk means ‘little star’, from Greek and Latin. I > can read into that a reference to ‘as above, so below’, as the twinkling > point of light reproduces in miniature that which is the grand solar source > of life on Earth. > Nice text Craig, thanks. I may disagree with some of your ideas, but you never bore me. A nice synchronicity: I've just been working on a domain-specific programming language. This language has an exotic operator that connects vertices in a hyper-graph. The operator is very fundamental to the language, so I wanted to give it a one-character name. My first thought was #, but I rejected it because I found it aesthetically offensive. Then I considered * and I liked it, but it would be confusing because it's commonly used for multiplication. So I ended up using the lower-case x. Telmo. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
