1 If we take 0 as it has traditionally been seen: the simultaneous is more comprehensive than the successive; therefore, toward 0, the simultaneous increasingly turns into the successive. The circular is the successive that lies closest to the simultaneous; that is, when the simultaneous begins to decline—and it always declines toward the successive—it becomes circular, and the circular, which is, of the successive, the most comprehensive and closest to the simultaneous, diminishes toward a finite successiveness.
In fact this is true, but given how little we know, and how small we are (compared with the total force of reality), from the perspective of our ignorance, simultaneity increases toward 0.
0 and 1 are relative labels, when you criticize the mathematical product and say it’s worthless, «you’re not using things without depending on them»1, «you’re like the revolutionaries who hire generals and laugh at them»2: this is the natural relationship we have with success and victory.
Contempt for those who copy should not be extended to original people (more comprehensive and simultaneous), since that implies a contradiction: the person who contradicts himself thinks that success or victory, taken in the least comprehensive sense, can be original, when success can only be modern—its duration does not depend on that (on being modern), though it has no choice but to appear in the modern.
2 “Premature” conjunctions, things stuck together that are not joined by an explicit conjunction but are joined; they strike us as anxious because they are expressed at the inner rhythm, «where everything is already done»3; this happens all the time, even when we do not notice it, since everything, one thing beside another, could be expressed with an explicit conjunction.
3 The problem of the product “mathematician” comes from the fact that those same associations, which cost him so much work, are already given by the hunter’s conquests, which he achieved without breaking a sweat, or one could say, with another kind of conquest, one that, if not superior, at least contains within itself the cook’s efforts—without belittling his cause.
“It does not follow from this that the hunter who kills a wild animal must also be the cook who prepares it for dinner. By chance, a cook might also go hunting and shoot well. But he would draw the wrong conclusion if he thought that, in order to shoot well, one must be a cook. That is how mathematicians appear to me when they claim that, when it comes to physical things, one is incapable of seeing or discovering anything unless one is a mathematician. They should be satisfied if someone brings them something to the kitchen, so they can sprinkle it with their formulas and prepare it as they please.”
Of course the hunter too, later on, perhaps, may become a good cook, but what he prepares will be much more comprehensive and simultaneous.
4 Human congeniality relates by way of relative criticism.
5 Claiming to be an expert in success and victory is nonsense, since success, like the fruit, is a product, a result, a conciliation, not mastery but the result of mastery.
There comes a point in mastery when it is the lack of success, of fruits, that hurts, can even make one ill: are internal fruits not perhaps the beginning of a cyst, a parasite, a tumor?
HH: It is nonsense to claim to have the secret of success, since success, victory, the fruit, are the result of mastery, not a means to an end. But then is it nonsense to seek the secret of success?: are there not, even in success as fruit, the seeds of the future, the possibility of transcending time? As Leibniz said: «This is the best of all possible worlds»; Voltaire’s criticism of him is superficial. Is it the overvaluing of success—the unearned complacency «in success»—that is ridiculous?
6 Perhaps there is nothing to criticize, and then the critic would be only a contradiction—yet even this could offer its guidance. Losing the guidance, that would be something else.
7 In the fruit, even if it were a random victory, can we say there is no value in the claim, no mastery, if there are seeds?, if the fruit is food, if it is beautiful?
This was the problem Darwin ran into: even the aleatory or random has things that come from outside that chaos; there are things outside history in every history.
8 Imagination multiplied by itself passes from an unreal vertical line to a universe parallel to the real line, imaginary.
“Cézanne wants to create a new reality in the painting: «parallel to nature». Good. It then falls to criticism to determine whether his parallels meet at infinity or not.”
The simultaneity of that imagination, unlike its Cézanne-like succession, produces the third dimension Jünger speaks of:
“…Here too, the ever greater brevity of the stages of development is astonishing—from the camera obscura, through photography and the cinematograph, to television. We may expect the transition to the third dimension; then things will begin to grow uncanny…Conceived as a mirror, film too has a depth of its own, which may perhaps contribute to the third dimension of the cinematograph. Certain properties of organic substance are also important here.”
9 The difference between using Codex Astra and ChatGPT 6 Pro (Astra too) is valuable; for some reason the dialogue between the two adds something. Codex brings an emphasis on originality in the work, while ChatGPT brings the study of that originality in the common environment
10 This recalls the difference between «the special and general analysis of a situation»4; something similar is missing in the estimates of the danger contained in the full development of AI.
It makes sense for a specialized group to worry about the danger of AI, but it is a mistake for there to be a general concern.
The same mistake was already made with nuclear energy: it is right for a small group to worry about its dangers, but the general armageddon never came to pass. Maybe this is why energy is in short supply today, which is one of the reasons a specialized group is insisting on shifting the concern onto everyone.
Nuclear energy did not destroy the world; today the world lacks energy. It makes no sense to delay AI, just as it made no sense to delay nuclear energy, at least not to the extent that we have.
But people don’t want others to regulate AI; this can be checked with a survey. This would be the general analysis of the situation (which is better than making some dumb generalization, as the specialists are doing; they are being irresponsible, even if they think otherwise).
The specialist is already clear on what «their» job is: to be careful and to worry. They shouldn’t screw everyone else over because they don’t «fully» accept their responsibility. Special responsibility is a prerogative to be proud of, not one to extend to everyone.
References
- Ernst Jünger — Pasados los setenta, Diario V (1991 -1996)
«Descartes shares Nietzsche’s alienation with Pascal and Spinoza, that is, with minds that stamp their mathematical gifts into a system and, in doing so, perceive only «the seductive golden glint on the belly of the serpent vita.” In this regard one wonders whether thought cannot attain a force akin to music, one that submits to the art of measurement without needing it. Calculators, plans for fortresses, musical instruments then arise “in passing»».
- Ernst Jünger — La Tijera, Af. 227.
"…That civil war penetrates very deep is confirmed, among other things, by the fact that in it the soldier fails, the one who had distinguished himself in battle against foreign enemies. He is replaced by the revolutionary, who appoints generals and laughs at them, and who also liquidates them if they become inconvenient. The sign of the beginning of this turn in the times is the first blood illegally shed".
- Goethe
- Ernst Jünger — Máximas y mínimas a El Trabajador
- Goethe — de una traducción al ingles por David W. Wood
It does not follow from this that the hunter who kills a wild animal must also be the cook who prepares it for dinner. By chance, a cook might also go hunting and shoot well. But he would draw the wrong conclusion if he thought that, in order to shoot well, one must be a cook. That is how mathematicians appear to me when they claim that, when it comes to physical things, one is incapable of seeing or discovering anything unless one is a mathematician. They should be satisfied if someone brings them something to the kitchen, so they can sprinkle it with their formulas and prepare it as they please.
- Cézanne y Ernst Jünger — Pasados los setenta, Diario V (1991 -1996)
Cézanne wants to create a new reality in the painting: «parallel to nature». Good. It then falls to criticism to determine whether his parallels meet at infinity or not.
- Ernst Jünger — La Tijera, Af. 162 y 248.
…Here too, the ever greater brevity of the stages of development is astonishing—from the camera obscura, through photography and the cinematograph, to television. The transition to the third dimension may be expected; then things will begin to grow unsettling. -162 LA Teijera …Conceived as a mirror, film too has a depth of its own, which may perhaps contribute to the third dimension of the cinematograph. Certain properties of organic substance are also important in this. -248 La Tijera