Gap hunting duck-rabbits with Miles, in homage to Ludwig Wittgenstein
Miles is well aware of the… —gap.
I am reading his newly [re]-formed ‘biography’ Ludwig Wittgenstein with a mawkish fascination. The way one might find a harlequined but red-&-black emo-child fascinating on first sight. And then hear the goth-child say, "Hi dad."
Miles’ previous is a biography of St Augustine of Hippo. I haven’t finished the first half of this book and Miles is quoting Ludwig quoting Augustine often and hard.
Hmmh, maybe the emo is a niece or nephew, a nibling-- almost mine.
I was up to page 69 or so, and Miles leans in:
“… the fact that man [sic] alone of all the animals has free will or the capacity to run forward into destiny— Or as I put it earlier to ‘tilt his soul’. ”
Again this lack of awareness of evolution as emergent “stuff”. Tilt, I get that. Better than the choice of inclination when translating Ludwig’s notes I guess.
Miles knows his Gödel but there is little Darwin and absolutely no Mandelbrot.
Is Miles like Scruton who nods his head towards Wittgenstein and disavows science in order to save [England] like a stay-at-home hobbit?
As if England were the entire world. England, alone of all the countries has free will or the capacity to run forward into destiny.
What did I reminisce?
I read Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius in the late 90s, it was the other book I borrowed from soon-to-be brother-in-law. I enjoy the biography so much I bought my own copy.
I soon gave that copy away as a parting gift, to Workineh Kelbasa of Addis Addiba on his visit to Hobart, attending am indigenous fire conference in 2000. We were his billet. Despite his time studying in the Netherlands, Workineh hung out by the heater and our kunanyi (the mountain) was, to him, just a hill.
Ray Monk’s bio investigated Wittgenstein’s life in terms that embedded the philosophy and the life into one narrative. A duty, of sorts, to a Wittgensteinian view of our language games.
I have often though about the phrase “duty of genius” a number of times since then, as some sort of hilarious semantic earworm. I’d play it in my head and riff. Duty of genius. The genius of duty. Duty Sergeant Genius. Mr Genial Dutiful. Leading nowhere. Duty is not a word we use anymore, certainly not in terms of living day to day.
Ray Monk uses it to bring a sense of that expectation that was held on entrance into WW1 that the Empires each and several inculcated into their youth who were entitled to preferment and wealth.
The word duty tastes metallic now. And speaking of empires, currently, the last European rumpy remnant, Ruzzia, is still dying, and like many death cults, kills its poor and unpreferred sons for no reason at all, not even duty.
It would appear Fukuyama's end of history is not yet evenly distributed, so war is still attractive to the narcissists we do not keep out of power. It's narcissists who repeat history in rhyme and or otherwise.
That book-- Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius --is where I came from to go gap hunting with Miles, whose biography is an altogether different beast to Ray Monk’s.
Miles also is bound to write something Wittgensteinian. But the binding is not duty, but a tilt torturous.
A riff now on ‘tortured genius’.
Is a tortured genius tortured by their genius?
Or, are they a genius who happens to be a tortured soul?
I suspect the latter in most cases. Miles says the sexuality is bound by his genius. Ray says his sexuality is dutied out by his time. You can swap in any of life’s elements in for sexuality: love, philosophy, teaching, family, war, industry…
At this stage, at about page 45, I am thinking does Miles see Wittgenstein as the Christ? Like the Christ figure, that version of the myth wherein the historical reality of the person is less important than the mythic power. What would the christ figure do?
His previous biography is on St Augustine of Hippo.
Torture in the Christian lifeworlds is a key feature of the passions of Christ. Fourteen stations of torture. So, yeah, duty might be unfashionable, but the valorisation of tortured sacrifice— I am not keen on this.
Tilting at windmills is a better thing altogether.
What did I learn?
Wittgenstein was all for more punctuation. So am I. More on this in a #laterdate post.
Reaaction
For Miles, it is not that the… —gap tortures [us], but mechanical logic does, as some sort of corruption, as if that were all language was, that all languages are but computer code that compel us to obey. A mytho-poetic grammar, only without the poetry. A glamour darkly, for, I paraphrase Miles:
With our souls we lean into the future, the gap before us, and live!
Miles assumes the soul gaps the fill as it fills the gap into tomorrow, while, says Miles, language tortures us into the already-happened (logic= the past). When/where logic/language fails (nod to Gödel) us, all this is torturous reality gone-by.
Reminds me of the “upside down” in the netflix serial Stranger Things.
“Wittgenstein’s life as christ figure can be a model for us,” I still think this is where we are headed.
Why this torture but? Is it this tilting? This souling? Or is it this language holding us back from such a soulful tilt?
because language cannot lead us (on)?
because logic is tortured by the… —gap of itself?
I am paraphrasing but, yeah, Cradle of Filth anyone?
Miles’ tilt is basically a non-animal animism. Spirit based animism? Soulism. Soulfulism? Because: humans alone of all animals.
My position is close but differs because of Darwin and Mandelbrot, (I compose). There is no need to soul the… —gap.
I guess it’s good he doesn’t quite fill the gap, but he doesn’t quite not fill the gap.
Nor is there a need for a god as some kind of random nonsense generator to maintain reality. God as joker.
God save us.
Anyway I will finish this book and see how I go. Not currently sure if there will be a final review. (as at May 2024 there is not).
Originally appeared on substack in 2023.
