Learning to Play in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

Transcendence, Elucidation, and the Music of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

6.54:

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them – as steps – to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

A book on music theory could say something very similar: These passage serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands them eventually recognizes that they are not musical scores, when s/he has used them – as steps – to climb up beyond them. (S/he must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after s/he has climbed up it.)

S/he must transcend/overcome/rise-up-through/learn-the-use-of music theory, and then s/he will be able to read/play music aright.

3.263:

The meanings of primitive signs can be explained by means of elucidations. Elucidations are propositions that contain the primitive signs. So they can only be understood if the meanings of those signs are already known.

The meanings of notes on a score can be explained by means of elucidations. Elucidations are propositions that show how the notation of the notes are used. But, the notation of the notes can only be understood if those notes are already known (and this can be done by playing the note on an instrument).

3.26:

A name cannot be dissected any further by means of a definition: it is a primitive sign.

A musical notation of a note cannot be dissected any further by means of a definition: it is a primitive sign.

3.3:

Only propositions have sense; only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning.

Only scores can be played; only in the nexus of a score does the notation of a note have meaning.

3.221:

Objects can only be named. Signs are their representatives. I can only speak about them: I cannot put them into words. Propositions can only say how things are, not what they are.

Only aspects of music can be named. Musical notations are their representatives. I can only speak about them: I cannot put them into words. Scores can only say how a piece of music is played, not what piece of music is played.

3.22:

In a proposition a name is the representative of an object.

In a score a musical notation is the representative of an aspect of a piece of music.

3.144:

Situations can be described but not given names. (Names are like points; propositions like arrows – they have a sense.)

Pieces of music can be scored, but cannot themselves be musical notations. (musical notations of notes indicate keys on the keyboard; scores are like arrows insofar as they show the dirrection of a piece of music).

3.141:

A Proposition is not a blend of words. – (Just as a theme in music is not a blend of notes.)

A Proposition is articulate

A Score is not a blend of notes. – (Just as a sentence is not a blend of words.)

A Score is articulates the music, but it is not itself the music.

4.011:

At first sight a proposition – one set out on the printed page. For example – does not seem to be a picture of the reality with which it is concerned. But neither do written notes seem at first sight to be a picture of a piece of music, nor our phonetic notation (the alphabet) to be a picture of our speech.

And yet these sign-languages prove to be pictures, even in the ordinary sense, of what they represent.

4.013:

And if we penetrate to the essence of this pictorial character, we see that it is not impaired by apparent irregularities (such as the use of ♯ and♭ in musical notation).

For even these irregularities depict what they are intended to express; only they do it in a different way.

4.014:

A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all stand to one another in the same internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world.

They are all constructed according to a common logical pattern.

(Like the two youths in the fairy-tale, their two horses, and their lilies. They are all in a certain sense one.)

4.0141:

There is a general rule by means of which the musician can obtain the symphony from the score, and which makes it possible to derive the symphony from the groove on the gramophone record, and, using the first rule, to derive the score again. That is what constitutes the inner similarity between these things which seem to be constructed in such entirely different ways. And that rule is the law of projection which projects the symphony into the language of musical notation. It is the rule for translating this language into the language of gramophone records.

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is like a book on music theory. A Book on music theory tells you how to read and write music, employ and understand how to make use of musical notation, and sets out the basic rules of harmony. But a book on music theory is not itself a book of music, and it certainly is not itself music. It is about music. By analogy, the logic of the Tractatus is like the logic of music theory. And since only actual sheet music can be understood as reflecting actual music, so too only actual proper propositions can be understood as reflecting an actual state of affairs, that is, have sense. Propositions about the rules of propositions do not reflect actual states of affairs, they simply show one how to go about making propositions that in fact do actually reflect actual states of affairs. Back to the music analogy, music theory does not reflect any actual music; rather, it shows how one can go about writing music (by musical notation) that in fact does actually reflect actual music. Let me put it this way: If I ask a pianist to play me a piece of music, and I put in front of him a book on music theory, the pianist will respond that my request of him to play the book of music theory is nonsensical. But if I put in front of him a piece of sheet music of say Beethoven’s Fur Elise, then there is no confusion. It makes sense to play the sheet music, but it doesn’t make sense to play the book of music theory.

In the analogy, the book on music theory is the Tractatus (or any philosophical work) because it simply elucidates how to use musical notation in order to play music. The propositions of natural science on the other hand are sheet music; they have sense. But one cannot play the music depicted by the sheet music if one has no grasp of musical theory (if one does not know the meaning/use of the musical notation). Therefore, the pianist must first learn the music theory, s/he must learn to read the music learn what it means in practice (i.e. the note ‘middle C’ means push the C key in the middle of the keyboard).

Furthermore, one must throw away the ladder that is the book of music theory before one can ever really get down to playing the music. The pianist must first learn the theory, but to play the actual music s/he must transcend the theory, must let it recede to the background, in order to play the music aright.

The world is a musical phenomenon. It is all rhythm and melody, pitch and timbre, and above all feeling. Everything is vibrations of the self, the out-flowing of consciousness in a grand creative joyful jam session.

What Wittgenstein fails to account for, to push the music analogy, is jazz. That is; on the fly riding the wave group music, the energy that is the essence of truly great music that arises by virtue of the positive feedback effect between performer(s) and audience. This is something that no musical notation can capture, and cannot be adequately explained; it must be experienced. This is the mystical. Of course knowledge of the logic of music and musical notation/theory is likely a necessary condition for even getting to the point where such a mystical musical experience is possible, but nevertheless it cannot be expressed. I guess that means we must be silent about it. But we must point to it, since it is the very core of true music. True music can be felt in the silence that follows it. The silence is deafening. It is the silence not only of the notes, but of the audience; nay of the entire universe. It is the mystical silence of reverence. When we come together to play music and to have a good time and all that entails, we are playmates with God, creating out of creation.

windows

DJ.SPOCK

my logic is sound. my codes are flawless.

don't you realize?

that

you

,

right here

,

and right now

,

are sitting smack in 

the middle of the beatific vision?

computer analysis of the network of citations in a university library

The most contemptible thing

The most contemptible thing about dreams is that everyone has them. The delivery boy who dozes against the lamppost in between deliveries is thinking about something in his darkened mind. I know what he's thinking about: the very same things into which I plummet, between one and another ledger entry, in the summer tedium of the stock-still office.

-Bernardo Soares

Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected...

For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at last he came less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all. This always made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing interest in our tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits entirely. When one day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while. He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He had investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he said, that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for his return.

"And you are going away, and will not come back any more?"

"Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it has been pleasant – pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see each other any more."

"In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another, surely?"

Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer, "There is no other."

 

A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words might be true – even must be true.

"Have you never suspected this, Theodor?"

"No. How could I? But if it can only be true – "

"It is true."

A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before it could issue in words, and I said, "But – but – we have seen that future life  seen it in its actuality, and so – "

  

"It was a vision  it had no existence."

I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me. "A vision? – a vi – "

"Life itself is only a vision, a dream."

It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand times in my musings!

"Nothing exists; all is a dream. God  man  the world  the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars – a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space – and you!"

  

"I!"

"And you are not you  you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream -- your dream, creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me....

"I am perishing already  I am failing  I am passing away. In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever – for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!

"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago  centuries, ages, eons, ago! – for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane – like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell – mouths mercy and invented hell – mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...

"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks -- in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream  a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought – a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"

He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.

Honour is a gift a man gives himself

Father, will McGregors ever be kings again?

All men with honour are kings, but not all kings have honour.

What is honour?

Honour is what no man can give you and none can take away. Honour is a gift man gives himself.

Do women have it?

Women are the heart of honour, and we cherish and protect it in them. You must never mistreat a woman or malign a man, nor stand by and see another do so.

How do you know if you have it?

Never worry on the getting of it. It grows in you and speaks to you. All you need do is listen.

-Raibeart Ruadh MacGregor

Homer in the moonlight

Since I have nothing to do and nothing to think about doing, I'm going to describe my ideal on this sheet of paper -

The sensibility of Mallarme in the style of Vieira; to dream like Verlaine in the body of Horace; to be Homer in the moonlight.

To feel everything in every way; to be able to think with the emotions and feel with the mind; not to desire much except with the imagination; to suffer with haughtiness; to see clearly so as to write accurately; to know oneself through diplomacy and dissimulation; to become naturalized as a different person, with all the necessary documents; in short, to use all sensations but only on the inside, peeling them all down to God and then wrapping everything up again and putting it back in the shop window like the sales assistant I can see from here with the small tins of a new brand of shoe polish.

All these ideals, possible or impossible, now end. Now I face reality, which isn't even the sales assistant (whom I don't see), only his hand, the absurd tentacle of a soul with a family and a fate, and it twists like a spider without a web putting back tins of polish in the window.

And one of the tins fell, like the Fate of us all.

- Bernardo Soares

What is Grass?

Nosce Te Ipsum

The old woman gives you a cookie and points to the cross-stiched sign that hangs above the kitchen door.

"It means, 'Know Thyself'", she says, drawing a cigarette from the pack she pulls from her apron pocket.

"The thing is," she pauses to strike a match, lighting her cigarette, inhaling slowly, "you never know, do you?". She exhales, the smoke casting a blue aura over the kitchen table at which she has seated herself heavily.

You blink, look away, out the open kitchen window. The sunlight casting slight shadows on the old sink and floor through the whisps of smoke. "Why am I here?"

"Ahh, yes well. If I told you that, you'd already know, wouldn't you?"

You look at her, a confused line crossing your face.

She leans back in her chair and looks up at you. "So why are you here?"

"I don't know. I don't remember. I was walking down the street, walking home. Then I opened the door and....I.....uh......."

"Go on, eat your cookie. Maybe it'll help."

"It's weird. I don't really remember getting here. Am I in the wrong place? Oh god, I'm sorry, I must have been completely lost in thought or something and wandered in, oh I'm so sorry. I should go..."

"No, no. Stay. It's alright. I like the company."

"But I'm not supposed to be here."

"Then where are you supposed to be?"

"I.....I.....can't seem to......", you look around, behind you through the kitchen door. It leads out into a living room. "I just can't seem to remem.......sorry I just....I"

"Hey there, don't worry about it. The only place to be right now is where you are, right now. And don't worry about that old sign, I just like the way it looks over the door there. Don't take it seriously."

"Who are you?"

"Well, that depends I suppose, on who you are."

You feel a bit dizzy, keep looking around, over your shoulder, out the window, back to the old woman smoking her cigarette at the kitchen table. "But I....I should be...."

"Look hon, don't worry about it. Why don't you sit down and eat your cookie. We'll talk awhile and get you all straightened out. I promise."

You look around again, then move to the chair opposite her, pull it out and sit, awkwardly.

"Go on, take a bite. I promise you'll like it, and by the time your done you'll feel right as rain."

You look at the cookie in your hand, raise it to your mouth, and take a bite.

Willy Wonka quotes poetry

One of my favorite lines comes from a nineteenth century poet named O'Shaughnessy. The poem is an Ode from O'Shaughnessy's Music and Moonlight. In the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with Gene Wilder, Wonka quotes the first two lines.

 . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , .

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems

We, in the ages lying,

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself in our mirth;

And o'erthrew them with prophesying,

To the old of the new world's worth

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song's measure,

Can trample a kingdom down

Great hail! we cry to the comers

From the dazzling unknown shore;

Bring us hither your sun and your summers;

And renew our world as of yore;

You shall teach us your song's new numbers,

And things that we dreamed not before:

Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,

And a singer who sings no more

The Curse of the Modern Age

The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart. It is the curse of the modern age.

Nature, in her wisdom, had made us so that we could not look into our own eyes, at our own face. The only way to do so was to assume the properly humble position of stooping over to look at the reflection in a pond or stream. But now we have proven too clever for our own good. We live in the age of narcissism. Remember him? Narcissus? The cruel hero of Greek myth, renowned for his beauty, who upon falling in love with his own reflection in a pool of water could not tear himself away, and so he sat, stooped over looking at himself until he became the flower that to this day bears his name.

In all this there is deeper meaning for us who stare at the modern mirror. I'm not talking about the mirror in your bathroom, I'm talking about the mirror you are looking at right now. Turn off your monitor and you will see the face of the future of humanity. Our eyes looking out to an endless sea of ourselves, we transcend the shackles of our physical selves and become avatars in the new frontier; the undiscovered country.

Beautiful, but so tragic.

The man who invented the mirror poisoned the human heart.

So turn off your ipod, get off the phone, and for God's sake tear yourself away from this accursed mirror! This...what is around you and in you right now, this very instant that you read this word.

You are sitting right smack in the middle of the beatific vision. THIS IS IT! You are in it, but most importantly you are the eye that sees it. So just enjoy it.

But if you still are not convinced, maybe Howard Beale can.

TURN IT OFF!!!

Pleasure, Pain, Help, and Harm

The question: can that which does not feel pleasure or pain, be helped or harmed?

Can you harm a rock? No Socrates.

Can you harm the wind? Certainly not, Socrates.

Can you harm the green slime on the shady side of the rock? I don't think so.

Can you harm the fungi that grow out of the slime? Seems wierd to think that you could.

How is the term 'harm' related to 'violence'? Is 'to harm' the same as 'to do violence to'?


Harm -

O.E. hearm "hurt, evil, grief, pain, insult," from P.Gmc. *kharmaz (cf. O.N. harmr, O.Fris. herm, Ger. harm "grief, sorrow, harm"). The verb is from O.E. hearmian "to hurt," and ousted O.E. skeþþan "scathe" in all but a few senses.

Violence

late 13c., "physical force used to inflict injury or damage," from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. violence, from L. violentia "vehemence, impetuosity," from violentus "vehement, forcible," probably related to violare (see violate). Weakened sense of "improper treatment" is attested from 1590s. Violent is attested from mid-14c.1 In M.E. the word also was applied in reference to heat, sunlight, smoke, etc., with the sense "having some quality so strongly as to produce a powerful effect."


Violate

1432, "to break" (an oath, etc.), from L. violatus (see violation). Sense of "ravish" is first recorded c.1440.

Violation

1432, from L. violationem (nom. violatio) "an injury, irreverence," from violatus, pp. of violare "to violate, treat with violence, outrage, dishonor," perhaps related to vis "violence, strength."


Hubris

1884, from Gk. hybris "wanton violence, insolence, outrage," originally "presumption toward the gods," of unknown origin.

Bite your palm

I'm up late, reading aand writing, study study study. I'm so close to the end I can almost taste it, I just wanna take a big bite of the freedom and satisfaction of a job...done. But the closer I get the more I feel like a little boy trying to bite his palm. You pull the fingers back with your free hand, try and expose the flesh in the center of your hand, gnashing of teeeth, all biting in thin thin air. The teeth never do sink in. Even when something is as close as your palm, you still might not be able to get at it. We can't have everything we see.

I'm going to stop now, stop writing this. I'm going to try again. I can almost taste it. So close...

The Blog of Doubt

I doubt, therefore nothing.

You know, I walk around a lot in this city. And a lot of the time things come to me on these walks. Sometimes I'm walking to the coffee shop downtown and suddenly I am struck with the perception of a pattern, an order in things that I was hitherto blind to. I'm not talking about transcendent universal truths here or anything as grandiose as all that. Just ideas, sometime big sometimes small. Like how the integration of centralized computer control in heavy traffic areas would not only speed everything up, it would take the wheel and the gas pedal away from YOU! or me for that matter, or that dick with the big truck. Let's face it, people are terrible drivers. I am, you are, he is and she is too. Bus drivers suck, truck drivers suck, minivan drivers suck, little cars suck, cube van drivers suck; YOU ALL SUCK!! WE ALL SUCK AT DRIVING!!!!!!

so for christsake, we've got to save ourselves from ourselves. We have the technology, we can make it better. You can still have your damn car, your trusty mule, but you have to have a device installed on it to drive in busy areas.

Anyway that's the kind of crap I start thinking about. Have you ever seen the movie 'Network'? Peter Finch plays a TV newscaster who becomes the mad prophet of the airwaves. its good, really good. Trust me. Finch has this monologue that keeps haunting me. He walks into the studio and sits down at the new desk in front of the camera, on the air in 3...2...1...

I don't have to tell you things are bad, everybody knows things are bad.

Watch it here.

and here.

and here too.

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that is unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.

-Wittgenstein