Field Notes #3
Alien, Neom, Guenon...
After a very intense couple of weeks, I’m back with a few links and a few thoughts:
I appreciated a lot Jonathan Pageau’s analysis of the symbolism of aliens and above all his analysis of the Alien franchise:
NEOM
Here is a weird project that seems straight out of a sci-fi video game: NEOM
Apparently they want to build a self-sustainable utopian city in the middle of the desert.
All decisions seem to be top-down, such as a “5 minute rule of transport“ makes you 5 minutes away from essential services.
What could possibly go wrong?
Like with all futurist scams, suckers can essentially donate money (they call it investing) to the project, that’s supposed to come out around 2030. CoiNcIdEnCe ?¿
Symbol categories
I recently learned about the UCS, the ultimate category system for sound, and it is really useful for identifying and categorizing sounds.
I wonder what the equivalent of this would be in symbols:
Lower symbols fit within a higher category.
For example: car, bike and boat fit within the vehicle category, and so on and so forth.
I guess this depends on the given level of analysis, but still it could be useful to come up with a hierarchy of these categories.
For example for analyzing folklore stories, there are patterns that emerge upon cross-sectional analysis, whose identification and categorization might add value and empirical structure to the interpreter (like in music interpretation and performance?).
Art
Elon Musk talking about Elden ring:
Games are good when they combine good puzzle mechanics with a good story and beautiful art.
Same is true for music. Imagine an immersive experience involving these same media. A concert with beautiful art that relates to that period.
Music
Interesting adaptation of Faure’s romance: with an organ
Brilliant short talk on the arts in our current era and a brief story of Webern. Recommend it for the artists:
I did a remix for a mau5trap competition:
X
Alex Jones talking to Elon Musk on his comeback to the X platform.
Going into it I didn’t expect it to be so interesting of a conversation, they talk about the WEF, taking risks, globalists, free speech, having kids…
Books
From René Guenon’s introduction to the study of the Hindu doctrines:
meditation on symbols (visual or heard, dhikr, repetition of the Divine Names) is an integral part both of initiation and of spiritual realization.
So far Guenon argues a strong case for the West being heavily influenced in its conception (ancient Greece) by Eastern thought, and how ever since we came further and further away from that source while the East remained essentially the same.
He also briefly mentions as a matter of fact, that there were epochs “a long time before history” that we can attest to. Which reminded me of Graham Hancock’s theories on his Ancient Apocalypse documentary.
Questions
What will be the next big impact technological breakthrough?
How long until X eats all of its competitors? What happens then?