Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 6 Number 3, December 2005

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The Second Coming as an Emergent property of Global Semiosis

by

Paul Andrew Powell

Introduction

The following piece is an excerpt is from a larger creative work intended for publication entitled The Second Coming as an Emergent property of Global Semiosis. It is chiefly influnced by my interests in semiotics, self-organized systems theory, and Zen Buddhism. If it can be catagorized at all, it might be described as a kind of postmodern science/fiction/philosophy/, only losely narrative, experimental in form: a collage of textual fragments. Think of Richard Linklatter's film Waking Life, or David O. Russell's film I Heart Huckabees. One reader compared it to a dialogue with Stanislaw Lem, and another called it "a successful mix of nuttiness and profundity."  I take both comments as compliments. I'm not a big fan of certainty, which I (and any number of physicists, mathematicians and philosophers) would suggest is impossible; and I think much of twentieth century art is trying to deal one way or another with the obvious unessentialness of context(s) and form. Nothing new there. But, the content in my work is somewhat original (I'd like to think, at least) in that it takes on language and consciousness and identity directly and perhaps comes up with a few new playful notions. The science of consciousness studies is generating a lot of interest. There are many angles of approach, and one of the most interesting to me is the role semiotics plays in the formation, not just of “self,” but, potentially, of reality as well. This is the subject that emerges from a converstaion between the characters here: Dr. Eva Pointsman, and a client in her therapy group, Sam Paradise. As we enter the text, the Dr. is curious about Sam's messiah complex, and also about his involvement with a fellow patient who has mysteriously disappeared. 

* * * * *

After the others had all left, Dr. Pointsman returned to the room, to the small circle of chairs, and she sat down in the chair directly across from Sam. 

“You’re starting to get some ideas about me,” said Sam, suddenly grinning.

“Dr. Pointsman wanted to say that that was the first time she'd seen him smile, but she knew she couldn't dismiss his remark.

“I'm not sure how to take that remark, Sam.” We're alone now, just the two of us. Is he flirting with me?

“You’ll take it the way the story decides.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that we are characters in a story. Everything you say and do is in a story.”

“Oh really? Hmm...no free will, I guess?”

“There is only one authentic act of free will and that is to simply let go: to cease all judgment...to say an emphatic ‘yes’ to existence.”

“Do you mind if I take some notes?”

“One other thing, however, the author thinks he/she’s writing the story. The reader thinks he/she is reading the story. They aren’t. The story writes and reads itself.”

Dr. Pointsman retrieved a pen from her purse and jotted a note on her legal pad: Seems obsessed with a range of abstruse nonsense with vague spiritual or metaphysical overtones---it’s almost pathological---obsessive-compulsive? Mild autism? Psychosis? Mild? MY GUESS: Delusional Disorder---subtype: grandiose!------somehow exacerbated by his PTSD

“For a moment I thought you we're flirting with me,” she said as she wrote.

“Do you want me to? I mean, perhaps you unconsciously projected that thought onto my words.”

Dr. Pointsman gave Sam a wry frown. "That remark you made about ‘getting ideas about you’ is latent with innuendo, Sam, and you know it. Don't play games with me.”

“Is it?” said Sam.  “I apologize. I am beginning to be able to think and speak analytically, but nuance and innuendo are much too subtle for me yet. Bringing the body in is tricky.  It will still take some time.”

Listen, Sam,” Dr. Pointsman began, in a friendly, patient manner.  Your role in these sessions is not to…not to...save the others, as you said you intend to do. Your role here is to try and heal yourself. This is a hospital...you are a patient. They way we deal with our problems here is by confronting them. And, frankly, you seem to be avoiding them. You offer nothing to the rest of us about your problems. I can only assume that you're suffering some personal pain, some emotional unrest, some anxiety...some mental difficulty at some level, or you wouldn't have sought help at this facility to begin with.”

“No. I came here because I am a Reality Mechanic, and my assignment is to re-adjust this particular confabulation, because too much awareness is getting stuck in this insidious, labyrinthine cul-de-sac you people call your reality.  It's like a weed in a garden. If it doesn't get pulled, it might overrun the garden.”

Dr. Pointsman scribbled a further note. Misanthropic (probably depressed) and all this proselytizing---this flowing nonsense----this adolescent egocentrism---and----a messiah complex!

“Sam, you are a fascinating person, and your presence here over the last few weeks has been insightful, in many ways, for the rest of us. But, I'm going to recommend that we make an appointment with Dr. Storie, so that we can further evaluate your condition, and see about a weekly private session, because I'm not sure that group work is what's best for you right now, and I think, also, at some point, we might want discuss possible medications...as an option, of course.”

Sam looked over at the door as though he saw something there. Dr. Pointsman’s eyes reflexively followed, but she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, just a door open to the corridor; though it did seem strangely quiet, and, for some reason, she became then intensely cognizant of their aloneness, together, not just in that gloomy, windowless room with its tacky, carpeted walls, but alone in the entire building, save for the night maintenance man who, she remembered, must be somewhere about. She pictured him down in some cramped and dirty basement office with his feet propped-up on a cluttered desk, a Viceroy dangling from the corner of his mouth, squinting through a haze of cigarette smoke at three-month-old People’s magazine he’d found in a wastebasket in one of the Dr.’s offices---I am the last thing on his mind.  “Is something wrong?” she asked Sam.

“I guess I won't be able to save Vivian after all,” said Sam, with a melancholy shrug.

Again, the doctor studied Sam for some clue on how to interpret this statement.  “So...does that mean are we in agreement about what I said?”

“I'll think about it,” said Sam. “I may not have to return to the group. I may be able to accomplish my mission without returning. Sometimes it doesn't take much to get the process started. There's a kind of catalytic effect. Once the new language is learned, return is inevitable...and the language is easy to learn...or, I should say...see.  It's always simply a matter of seeing. It's a bit like an optical illusion. It's always right before us. It's simply a matter of seeing it. Once you see it, you always see it.”

Sam was about to stand, when Dr. Pointsman quickly said,  “Sam, do you mind if I ask you a few brief questions?”

Sam settled back into his chair and nodded that this would be fine.

“Umm...do you ever feel as though people are staring at you?”

Sam shook his head no.

“Do you have nightmares?”

Sam offered one ironic “Ha,” then added, “only this one. But, thankfully, I can awaken any time I please.”

Dr. Pointsman raised a brow, but continued. “Do you ever hear voices?”

“You mean in my head?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Dr. Pointsman relaxed and said, “Do you believe that you are Jesus Christ?”

“That’s an interesting question”

“Do you?”

“Well, first, let me say this. It’s a complex issue, so bear with me.”

“All right.” Maybe I can pick up on his Gestalt here.

  Your ancestors were semi-conscious/automatons functioning with a kind of habituated proto-language

            * * * * *

Now, if we refer, once again, to semiological difference, of what does Saussure, in particular, remind us? That  language [which only consists of differences] is not a function of the speaking subject.”  This implies that the subject (in its identity with itself, or eventually in its consciousness of its identity with itself, its self-consciousness) is inscribed in language, is a  function” of language, becomes a speaking subject only by making its speech conform---even in so-called creation, or in so-called transgression---to the system of the rules of language as a system of differences, or at very least by conforming to the general law of differance…

                                                                                           ------Jacques Derrida

“First of all, reality is about to undergo a radical transformation. An incomprehensible, hyper-complex, global semiosis will emerge in the form of an increasingly virtual cyber-environment as information and cyber-technology begin to self-reproduce exponentially. This is ho-hum news for many of you already. Anyway, to each individual mind, or  ‘self,’ this global semiosis will appear chaotic because no human mind will be capable of grasping the vast complexity of its structure. Reality, from the view of each subjective ‘self,’ will become chaotic with no apparent context. Eventuality reality will fall apart, and it will be especially painful for those who try to hold onto meaning. The only option will be to let go into the conditional semiotic turbulence. This will mean the death of the  ‘self,’ the individual self, because the ‘self’ is a function of narrative gravity and at a certain critical point the velocity of information flow will be such that you will all be blasted from the confines of that gravity…all of you. See?”

“Ummm…are you Christ, or aren’t you?” asked Dr. Pointsman, giving up her notes and resting her chin on her fist.

“It depends…you see the central question is: How will all this information get organized?  You have to understand that at one very significant level, the figure of Christ represents a personification of a collective semiotic phenomenon that began around 500 BC. You call it the Axial Age. That’s when the concept of the ‘self’ emerged from the flow of signs. That’s when self-consciousness, and thus consciousness as you know it, appeared. It happened like this: during the Axial Age population density in certain areas of the planet catalyzed a critical threshold of social interaction. Self-referencing sub-programs latent in language centers in your brains and in conjunction with the prefrontal cortex were triggered to function. The ‘self,’ a linguistic entity, is both a property of, and organizing principle for, this flow of signs. This novel entity liberated human consciousness. So...Christ is the Word, as you say. Yes. He is the personification of the individual ‘self,’ of the presentation of felt, conscious intentions, of human self-awareness into an existential world, the organizing principle for what was becoming an overwhelmingly complex symbolic environment in ancient times. And clearly, technical societies' most fervent intention, whether it recognizes it or not, which is also the will of the Word, is to mediate enough information to establish a heavenly environment for the mediated ‘selves’ to exist in for eternity. But that’s not going to happen. History tried to be a story big enough to constrain and shape all this information and consciousness, but public history is breaking down, as is inevitable as the amount of information increases, into a plethora of relative private histories and interpretations. This eventual fragmentation into cells is common in many dynamic systems.

“Now, stay with me...you see, just as the new found ability of the brain to mediate information engendered consciousness as you know it 3,000 years ago, a breakdown in the ability to mediate information represents the end of history as you know it today and the end of consciousness as you know it as well. This is dispensationalist eschatology for a postmodern world, right? Will there be a story big enough to contain all this information? Who will write this story? Will the impending phenomena of exponentially increased information flow present you with a new Logos, a new Savior, a new catalyst to, in turn, make a conscious fact of a hitherto inconceivable way of being in a hitherto inconceivable universe, just as the emergence of self-consciousness created what was inconceivable to consciousness prior to it? Will a second Christ return as some higher-level Logos to act as a kind of catalytic converter to all this information?...to write a new story, to return as the emergence from a complex system of symbolic flow: a new constraint, a new organizing principle, another kind of ‘self,’ of an inconceivable nature, another Christ? 

           “Now, to answer your question, Am I Jesus?...You are creatures of signs, you exist in a semiotic environment, and so, just as you personified the emergence of the semiotic self as Christ, you will probably personify the next emerging semiotic constraint as Christ as well...and, who knows, somehow in the random vagaries of how history works, my name may get associated with the change, and, so, that’s why I say...it depends.”

Phenomenological cul-de-sac

* * * * *

The Dr. shook her head as though to shake off a trance.  “Well! Okay...um...so, then, let me get this straight.  You do think that you may possibly be Christ?”

“Christ. Soul. God. These are just words. Water is just a word. If you want to know what water is you have to take a sip or dive in.  Now...yes, I might be Christ, but only in the sense that my name may become a symbol for the conflation of a massive amount of information in process...yes.”

“More than a few good people would be greatly offended by what you just said.”

“Of course they would. Remember Giordano Bruno?”

“Umm...was he a patient here?”

“No, he was a Reality Mechanic like me. They burned him at the stake back in 1600 for telling the good people of Rome that life and mind were part of an ever-changing universe and that distant worlds might harbor intelligent beings. You’re right, the good people, as you call them, will always be offended by the truth, try to burn it at the stake in so many ways, because it's scary to have to let go of the ignorant concepts that pass for reality, because even fear and ignorance, as long as they are reasonably self-consistent, can hold the world together. Thankfully, courage, genius and vision do not turn away, they seek to make sense of the chaos and understand it. They struggle to redefine the world---even as their contemporaries ridicule or loathe them and scream ‘folly,’ scream ‘madness,’ even as the unimaginative and narrow-minded scream 'evil.’”   

Sam paused and Dr. Pointsman remained silent. She did not really follow or take seriously what he said, but she felt a certain passion in his voice that she did not, for clinical reasons, want to undermine.

“Ignorance can pass for reality because the first priority of thought is simply to order consciousness, because the fundamental problem of the mind is how to order individual and collective consciousness. It starts with totems and ritual, then little by little signs are agreed upon; order in the abstract emerges. That's what the fruit of knowledge did, Doctor. That's when you all fell...from the Zero. The human ‘self’ is merely another accident of evolution that evolved to help order the flow of information.  It's a trivial by-product of an informational organism too vast for the intellect to comprehend. Your universe is a vestige: a phenomenological cul-de-sac: a cosmic exile and you're trapped inside its bubble and don't know it...that's why I'm here...to save you, and...well, it's a process driven by paradox and tension and it's festering like a kind of tumor, and it must be readjusted.”                

Sam fell abruptly quiet.  “So, this is feeling,” he whispered. “This is desire. Yes, this is where it gets tricky...careful, careful.” Before Dr. Pointsman could respond, Sam continued full of energy. “If you increase energy through a fluid system something interesting happens. Do you know what that is, Dr.?” 

Dr. Pointsman managed a half-hearted shrug. “Umm, I'm afraid not.  What happens?”

“Eddies appear.”

“Eddies. You mean like whirlpools?”

“Yes.  Now if you think about it...what exactly is an eddy?  Well, it’s nothing more than the shape of the fluid responding to a physical dynamic. Decrease the flow of energy to the system and the eddy disappears.  Increase the energy and it appears again.  Where does the eddy come from? Where did it go?  Can it be said to even exist?”             

Dr. Pointsman glanced at her watch.  “I'm sorry, I'm afraid you've lost me.”           

“People used to think the sun revolved around the earth.  Copernicus showed us different.  He showed you that what you took for reality was in fact just an optical illusion. They called it a Copernican Revolution because it represented a revolutionary shift of consciousness. What I'm saying Dr. is that your species is on the brink of a Conceptual Revolution so radical that the first Copernican Revolution will pale in comparison.  You are about to see that what you take for your reality is, well, it’s nothing more than an optical illusion: the insubstantial shape of information flow.”         

Dr. Pointsman telegraphed another glance at her watch. “Sam, I have one last thing to ask you about.”        

“What’s that?”

“What did you do to Wanda?”

“I told you. I returned her to the Zero.”

“Where is she?”

“Wherever she wants to be?”

Dr. Pointsman had heard enough. “We may be able to help you, Sam. I may be able to help you. I’m going to make an appointment for you to see Dr. Storie. You’ll be getting a call.”  She stood up, very tall and erect, and slung her purse over her shoulder. Then, clipboard firmly in hand, she walked briskly out of the room.