The theme of utopias which are actually dystopias (as with Logan's Run, say) might apply to Godard's return to form in the 1980 Slow Motion, shot in video-style (JLG was no different to anyone else in that the 70s was a complete blackout), where the two countrified and city prostitutes represent the soul-destroying lack of freedom in capital.
Premiering at Cannes, there were boos and shouts of "filth" and "degenerate", probably owing to the sordid office sex scene, which actually consists of ludicrous descriptions with only a bare rump visible (under the desk.) In short, it's one of his best most visually compelling, a dense montage, and was a success, also stateside.
The era of the spirit being the 60s, when the material 70s dragged people back to 'real life' the consciousness had already departed. Huxley, in fact, was a pioneer of the freewheeling era, The Doors being named after The Doors of Perception, and The Perennial Philosophy being a crash-course in world spiritualism. World religions agree on:
God is unconditional eternal being
Our consciousness is a reflection of that
Realisation
One might simplify this a bit to:
Spirit exists
In the physical plane, spirit becomes visible
Arthur Koestler embodies this type of perennial philosophy in Ghost in the Machine. Something of the same turn of mind is found in Hildegard Von Bingen in the 12th century.
When the words come, they are merely empty shells without the music. They live as they are sung, for the words are the body and the music the spirit.
The perennial philosophy could be demonstrated with quotes of this sort from various centuries and cultures, as in Huxley's book. A dystopia is therefore a culture that - for all its surface well-being - has lost the perennial philosophy. It is an illusion of the head with neither physical nor spiritual strength (health, self-sufficiency.)
On a dental track, I had an infection that was starting to get painful but by the time I got to the appointment it had cleared. That seems to imply my immune response is working, which is preferable to antibios or surgery.
The guy took an X-ray, which is clearly a form of truth. However, if everything was X-rays it would no longer be truth but an illusion. Modern science relies 100% on accuracy, and this trend could be dated from Tycho Brahe's measurements of the orbit of Mars and other celestial bodies.
Tycho Brahe was a Danish noble who's vast resources of castle and keep enabled him to build the most sophisticated observatory in Europe. Johannes Kepler was the German mathematician who's work depended on precise observations for checking.
Working as Brahe's assistant on his mural quadrant (using a slit and 'gunsight' to figure star positions rather than lens), Kepler's three laws of planetary motion were the result and, as Kitty Ferguson says in The Nobleman and his Housedog, it was a chicken and egg situation. The egg you could say was Brahe's mural quadrant that enabled Kepler's mathematical chicken to hatch.
The idea is one checks the mathematics against empirical observation. However, if you compare them with Einstein, the mathematics comes before the measurement, chicken before egg.
This trend has continued to date. A supercomputer was fed the known laws of physics to include cold dark matter; the simulation then predicted patterns of stars that matched observation.
The chicken/egg situation is perplexing, to say the least. Is it conceivable the universe becomes more mathematical the more you measure it? How can that be explained?
One way to describe it is that the universe of observation is a very convincing illusion. Convincing because of the mathematical accuracy. However, as has been said with Relativity, the principle of continuity is not obeyed; that is, the spinning in invariable time of planets and celestial objects - HB210
Relativity and measurement simply move towards an illusory space of mathematics (that is hyper-convincing to the ego of acolytes.) In other words, measurement and mathematics become the same thing: a logical illusion (or parallel reality )
So how is it that the universe of observation is an illusion?. Well, it's also the universe of machines (see The Airtight Garage), while the physical universe depends on the principle of continuity, of objects spinning together in time.
This is what we see in the constellations; one can observe without accurate measurement! Tycho Brahe represents the start of the trend towards pure precision in scientific instruments.
When the physical universe exists, then the psyche is implied in the organic balance upheld by the principle of continuity. This in turn means the system is astrological as these early astronomers were inclined to. Kepler was thinking Christianity, but one might as well go back to Ptolemy and the balance of Artemis with Apollo.
If modern astronomy is now algorithmical, the same applies to other areas: DNA, 'smart' home heating. Why is that? Because it's the vanishing-point of technique. Without the psyche, there is only a mathematical space that needs measurement. But, as previously noted, DNA miscopies rule because the balanced body selects them when needed for action.
The active world is physical; physical life is dirty; dirt is healthy for a working immune-system. Heat is not necessarily healthy; one needs moderation (mammals are self-heating animals.)
In short, a very convincing illusion depends on measurement and mathematics, and this can be dated from The Nobleman and his Housedog circa 17th century.
'But without the Queen the dragons would become extinct- only the gigantic, golden Queen could breed the new flights. And the Queen was fading..dying..leaving behind one last, huge, golden egg..' (Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey)
