Riemann Sphere

My last post on constitutive exceptions made me think (again) of the Riemann Sphere (it's been at my elbow for a couple of weeks now).  The Riemann Sphere maps the Complex Plane (x,y) onto a sphere of unit diameter with its center on the z axis.  Every point in every direction maps via a straight line to the 'north pole' of the sphere to a single point on its surface. 0,0 on the plane is touching 0,0,0 on the sphere. As the points go to Infinity, their mapping on the surface forms an ever-decreasing horizon around the north pole.

The Riemann Sphere is (maybe) an interesting illustration of the power of a king, or of God.  Or maybe I am about to succumb to theosophism and pieces of my brain are falling away like a wet cake (to quote Bernard Black).  The Riemann Sphere is definitely like something about my previous post, but what?

The complex plain, stretching to infinity in every direction, is where we naturally are, stuck all on the same level, with no meaningful orientation possible, and the infinite always infinitely far away in every direction.  On the sphere though, by recognizing a third dimension, the infinite becomes a specific locus. It becomes knowable.  The infinite plain is now visible and transformed into a finitude that is no smaller.  Similarly polities, by the addition of an existence out of the plane, become comprehensible while retaining their complexity.  Similarly ourselves, by the addition of an existence out of plane, become comprehensible while retaining our complexity.

So a reader poll: is it this just a bad case of wet cake?
And who doesn't wish they were a mathematician after reading about the Riemann sphere at wikipedia?  It's a pretty great sphere.

(All this in turn reminds me of my interest in dimension vs degree, about how new dimensions are the richer way to grow a model, and every connection between two neurons in the brain is a dimension, a degree of freedom.  Which in turn reminds me of the cybernetic principle of requisite variety - that a control system must have more degrees of freedom, more options, than the system it controls - only variety can destroy variety. It always seems to me that a group of people actually has less requisite variety than any individual, and hence that no individual should be governed by any other, and especially not by a parliament of them.  But that, I think, is untrue stated so baldly.  It depends on the group culture - a strongly norming culture does destroy variety. A more permissive one enjoys and uses the variety of each. We western democracies are, I suspect, the nearest approach by far to optimal government. But the constitutional monarchy may be better than direct democracy)

Constitutive Exceptions

Giorgio Agamben has caused some excitement with his political theory of the exception.  The political world is one of bio-power - of cooperation and competition among persons.  But underlying that world is the real world in which a person is also just an intelligent animal.  This is the condition of bare life, and Agamben ties it to homo sacer , a special class of condemned person in ancient Rome.  The conditions on homo sacer were rather like those on Cain after he killed Abel - no longer part of society, yet unable to be killed, living a-politically.  (Cain of course, marries a woman from another city, in a verse that has caused a lot of literalist christian fibonacci calculations.)  Agamben's framework can be interestingly applied to Guantanamo Bay and my wife tells me of some work applying it to elite cyclists, where their rights are almost completely surrendered to training, anti-doping rules and competing.

I have been interested in the other end of the scale.  Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan argue that there is something healthy about having a human being as your constitutive exception - that humans need to honor political power, and that it is safest to reserve the greatest honour for unweilded, unweildable power like that of a constitutional monarch and leave those responsible for actually getting things done trying to earn glory by getting things done.

I'm sure this is not a very original connection, but the Queen of England is something of a homo sacer, especially in relation to the machinery of government.  Being England, she is not ever permitted in the House of Representatives - practically, to prevent her or her heirs from taking over power.  But more importantly, to prevent a breakdown of the symbolism of the throne.

This reminds me of something from Lacan that was covered in Tim Morton's lectures - that we all have a store of imaginary dreads stored up from the terrible time of total vulnerability in our infancy - and that what is so destructive about torture or sexual abuse is not that they make real what is supposed to function symbolically in imagination.  Similarly, pure, directly elected democracy is a recipe for mania and despair, for unjust meritocracy, while the constitutive exception of a monarch at once enlarges and bounds the world.

Supernormal Stimulus

-edited to increase number of sequiturs -


The question of an R18 classifications for videogames is wandering the ether in Australia.  There is a distinction being drawn between violent media and interactive violence, so R18 content can appear in films, but if a game uses the same event involving the player, then it is refused classification.  Some gamers say that the net result is that a lot of material that is not bad enough for a Refused Classification is released at M15+, the unintended consequences being that teenagers get access to what should be R18.


I think the interactivity question is actually secondary, because people consume so much of their media from the internet, which is always interactive.  We are all in some control of and choose the imagery we consume. 


Some psychological research into images of violence shows that we automatically identify with the dominant party in a violent act, so that it is almost impossible to show violence in story, moving image, without causing identification with the strong.  It is obviously an adaptive trait to admire and side with the powerful. The brain is always interacting, and the parts that take action are busily calculating what they would do, will do if called on. In watching violence, we see ourselves, and usually we see ourselves committing it.


I think what frightens people about these games is that otherwise healthy, normal people are powerfully engaged by them, and don't behave the way we might wish at other times. Games become interests that powerfully draw attention from people.  And attention = care = love.


Brains are built to be sensitive to some things - food, sex and violence most obviously in humans.  In nature, the vulnerability to stimuli is a vital survival trait - birds are addicted to feeding their young, and that's a good thing (this much is borne out by science) - but it's surely not unreasonable to think that most animals would be similar.  But it is possible to hack that addiction for benefit.  





This reed warbler (I think?) has what it thinks is the biggest, hungriest reed warbler chick in the world.  And long after the cuckoo chick's appetites have outstripped the hunger of a nest of young reed warblers, the parents will continue to work harder, exhausting themselves to the point that they are less likely to survive another winter. 


This is supernormal stimulus - it's when your brain has a monotonic valuation function for certain stimuli* - the more it goes up, the better your brain tells you it is, the more it absorbs your attention and overwhelms the other things you should consider.  Supernormal stimulus is too much of a good thing. Your anime girlfriend has eyes the size of her breasts and both are three times the size of her mouth and waist, better than any real girlfriend, or physically possible human. Even though she only interacts with you through your phone.  And of course, pornography.  And opera.


Is there a defence against supernormal stimulus?  I'm not sure. Controls of context are good, but the vulnerability itself can only be undone if you can stop the consciousness capture, stopping it being monotonic, by plumbing in all of life.  If the reed warbler could see the possibility of fledging next season's nestlings, this season's monster child would appear for what it is.


For further reading, you could maybe try Harvard psychologist Diedre Kemp's Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose. 


Related subject - a guy called Arch Hart has some books advocating against sensation-seeking as a way of life - he wants to help people with exciting jobs, exciting hobbies, exciting lives who are exhausted and dejected take pleasure in a simple stroll through a place of their own. This is all very well, Arch, but can't we find a way to have our cake and eat it?


*By this, I mean it just keeps going up and up and up.

Short note

Bookish has the lovely poem from a nineteen year old fighter pilot in World War II Britain, which begins:


    'Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
     And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.'


Go read the whole poem - magical, wonderful words, especially if you know your Spitfires and Hurricanes.


You may be surprised as I was to find that 'To fly, the dream of man and flightless bird alike' is not part of it.

Absurdest Project

Arguing in the comments of ABC religion online with atheist philosophical naifs.  It's hideously fruitless, yet I can't look away.

My Perfect Manhattan @ My House

3 bourbon, 1 sweet vermouth, 1 dry vermouth, bitters & orange bitters, glace cherry.
Good, simple luxury.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7

Sketchup is better, much better than I realised

Another plug for Google's Sketchup - it turns out that I was wrong about its limits.  It is able to do very precise dimensioning. I should remember to check out instructions next time, before concluding this or that can't be done.  Desktertainment V2 is on the way.

(New problems for it though - printer?  charging post for phones etc?)