MORNING IN THE FOUNTAIN
Some days are definitely better than others. Absolutely. It's been a while now since my friend, the genius mathematician who doesn't want to be called a genius – but he can't dictate around here – has been bugging me to write an article together. But today we both decided that that won't do. It's not good enough. I mean, why an article when we can do a whole book? As we have exchanged ideas on the first chapter “The Uncountability of Nothingness” of now well under its way book: Morning in the Fountain: Infinity in the Provisional, we got energized by the idea that it would be interesting to apply the Banach-Tarski theorem to the isometrical transformation of one nothingness into two identical nothingnesses. And why not? We are after all disciples of Cantor's cult of infinity, so I'm sure that we'll hack it in no time whatsoever. Indeed, there are enough wonderful things around that will keep us mentally tall, in a heightened state of excitement... and formless. As Cioran put it: “Infinity leads to nothing for it is totally provisional. ‘Everything’ is too little when compared to infinity [...] The penchant for form comes from love of finitude, the seduction of boundaries which will never engender metaphysical revelations [...] Let us live in the ecstasy of infinity, let us love that which is boundless, let us destroy forms and institute the only cult without forms: the cult of infinity.” (On the Hights of Despair, 99-100)
Comments
this book will be a damn good one, i promise.
Horia is good with the operators in an infinite string, and I with the sets, so we'll see how it goes. But I must say that I'm excited that he wants to do this with me. Yesterday I found myself laughing hard when I consented to his teasing statement on FB, in which he adamantly refutes the position I assign to him: “no, no, no, I am not a genius. You are,” he said, and then continued: “I've already started working on the book! That is, thinking about the content of the first page; the rest will anyway be just a logical consequence of it:).” Ha, ha, indeed. Horia gets me, which is fantastic. But this also made me think of a wider cultural context and history. Whether people have been ready to learn or not, the Romanian hierophants of all ages have always tried to teach formlessness. We'll see if we can continue that tradition.