The Mirrors
of Tuzun Thune reads a
bit like Plato’s riddle of the cave. “The people watch shadows projected on the wall from
objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these
shadows.” Are
we humans but shadow projections of an infinitely more verdant universe, in
Howard’s case, on the other side of the mirrors?
Howard’s
descriptions are somewhat reminiscent of Francis Stevens’ Claimed
Sometimes it seemed that he gazed upon hard shallowness;
at other times gigantic depths seemed to loom before him. Like the surface of
the sea was the mirror of Tuzun Thune; hard as the sea in the sun’s slanting
beams, in the darkness of the stars, when no eye can pierce her deeps..
As one might
notice, the sea can be mighty illusory, as can the sun. So can the air..and
what is earth but merely wads of clay? Yet together is a symmetry formed that
has the feel of unspeakable truth.
A mirror is one
facet of this illusory world, and in a way is the most convincing. Yet a mirror
is also the least real, since it is composed of light beams; so it is a
combination of “truth” and physical non-existence.
This is the
sense that Tuzun Thune uses in his hall of mirrors. His tongue takes Kull away
from the sense of his corporeality - Grace Slick’s Be Young You Hyborian
Bridge 73. A tongue – or a language – is articulate reality. This is the
reality we live in and –actually – a lot of that takes place behind this very
same hall of mirrors.
Mathematics is a
language, and you remember Hyborian bridge 73 says that “mathematical
vistas were opened-up” by crystal diffraction (Ramachandra)? Crystal
diffraction is simply another type of mirror illusion; light is bent and an
angular image formed.
I’m not saying
it’s not real; it’s a combination of “truth” and physical non-existence.
Physical existence is our bodies, our corporeality. Diffraction patterns are
mathematical entities created by light. Since light is non-corporeal they have
no physical existence.
Like Kull’s
“entity” on the other side of the glass, they exist (in light), they are not
our shadows. They speak another language – mathematics – which is essentially a
creation of light (diffraction). It’s the angular language of crystals which is
both logically true and a logical fallacy in terms of our own physique, which
is fairly disordered and pliable (to use Bruce Lee’s expressions).
The body is not
ordered in terms of straight lines and angles – like a crystal – only in terms
of symmetries. It therefore makes some sense to think of the cosmos in terms of
symmetries – however naïve that may appear to the acolytes of the mirror
illusion.
Yes, but that’s
because a mirror is highly convincing (to the head). Let me give a concrete
example. If you walk through a town you see a lot of signs; you could follow
them, and they would be “true”. They also tend to exist in a universe of
straight lines and angles. There also exists another universe of symmetries;
you could also follow that one, but the signs would not be as concrete!
So it’s no
wonder Kull was “mazed”. A mirror is devilishly confusing; it’s the combination
of “truth” (image) and the mathematical non-physicality that drags us into a
language of acolytes; the tongues that speak a mixture of “truth” (image) and
physical non-existence, merging us into a world of (their) minds, and away from
(our) bodies.
The nations pass and are forgotten, for that is the destiny of man.”
“Yes,” said Kull. “Yet is it not a pity that the beauty and glory of men should fade like smoke on a summer sea?”
“For what reason, since that is their destiny?
Yes, the
“destiny” that leads inevitably to AI – algorithmic language that articulates
the aims of the acolytes (of the head). So it’s all about tongue, or as the
song says,
“The tongues
of some men are made of silence
And your eyes
will listen - “Be Young
You”
Perhaps these
are the laconic rovers who work pack-horses and mule-trains with a shotgun on
their saddle? This is a different destiny, for one skins rabbit or bones a
fish. One is then living, experiencing the cyclical sense of things dying,
being eaten, morsels being scavenged, the squawk of the crow in the pine.
This primitive
physical existence is no less than the origin of culture and all its products.
To forsake our own origins does feel weirdly like being dragged through Tuzun
Thune’s mirrors.
“See and believe,” droned the wizard. “Man must believe
to accomplish. Form is shadow, substance is illusion, materiality is dream; man
is because he believes he is; what is man but a dream of the gods? Yet man can
be that which he wishes to be; form and substance, they are but shadows. The
mind, the ego, the essence of the god-dream — that is real, that is immortal.
The land of
pure-ego, of course, is the non-physical land of mathematical AI, articulate,
algorithmic, and we know where that leads (see Katie Bouman’s black hole
Hyborian Bridge 60).It seems to lead to a reality that is not physically active and therefore
cannot revive through decay (via hunting, carrion).
The heads (of
acolytes) may not be physical but cannot deny the physique (Claimed1),
and so the result may well be physical boredom. Again, this seems to relate to
Grace Slick’s quote on numerical compulsion (Hyborian bridge 62/1), that
relates to the physique and attitudes of boredom.
Since we can’t
escape from the physique, you could say that it is our destiny, whether or not
we use our heads or our bodies. If that is our destiny, then it has to be
related to the physical universe – of sun, moon, planets – which again the
acolytes deny.
What you could
say is that acolytes are adopting attitudes of boredom in their own physiques,
and that the alternative is something like Bruce Lee’s intelligent body,
whereby the attitude is the exact opposite of boredom, a vital awareness and
response to threat. One has to be aware (to catch fish) and in surroundings
that fit our bodily needs.
Anything that
exists in the head – in the ego – cannot exist in physical reality of the body
that is active in the field. But it’s this physical reality that revives through
decay, and that has strength and purity.
Something Ic Waes
If this universe
is the physical universe, then it does seem to have a certain naivety. And
poetry, if you include Papa Hemingway. The naivety is that of the hunter, the
adventurer who sails the sea or roams the forest, the river. The places that
don’t have straight lines or angles but have cosmic symmetries. Now, according
to the universe of order (illusion) these places are just real estate, hence
Bolsonaro’s razing of Amazanian forest for intensive cattle raising..and so
forth.