This post is a little different than usual. I wrote the following in my notebook over the last week or two, with no real plan in mind. I enjoyed the slow pace of work. The change in format produced quite a different feel than my typical post, which I would bang out in a few hours after some rough outlining. I hope you enjoy.
I.
The world is the totality of bodies in motion, interconnected by conduits, flows, actions and reactions, forces and repulsions. What is is energy, transferred without end. A problem is a bulge, movement bound within a closed system, a restlessness of energy that cannot escape. Life is thus a problem.
A solution is a conduit. Motion bursts forth, or trickles or hisses out, snaking beyond the barrier. A problem can have many solutions. But it only takes one good solution to exhaust the problem. All solutions eventually lead to new problems, except death, the ultimate solution.
In the world of culture, all problems are personal problems, to someone. In this way, Man is a battery, but also a seed. No problem can be fully spoken, but speech transforms my problems into our problem. And some problems can only be solved together. That said, “society” cannot have a problem, because it is not a body but a space shared by us.
II.
Wherever there is life, there are problems. Many are in the process of being solved. I cannot affect most problems.
All problems exist in time. Problems — and therefore solutions — differ with respect to time. Some are one-and-done. The solution drains the problem entirely, and transforms the landscape, such that the problem cannot recur, although surely new problems will form. Other problems are recurring. Recurring problems require open conduits to solve, because energy must flow again and again and again as tension restores itself. The former type we call singular, the latter we call recurrent.
Different vantage points, with different compositions of objects, can make recurrent problems look singular, and vice versa. A “societal” problem is often said to be “solved” by a single organization that performs a service, but this is really two solutions: (1) the singular foundation of the organization, and (2) the recurring functioning of the organization. The problem solved by (1) is enacting a new system from the space of potentiality, and the problem solved by (2) is maintaining energy flows between the system and its external participants. (1) creates an enclosure, a boundary, while (2) maintains motion. (1) is a question of action, (2) is a question of work, of labor. Singular solutions, like (1), are events. Recurring solutions, like (2), are processes. Events can take place within processes, but all processes must begin.
III.
All problems are personal problems — to someone. All problems I want to address are personal problems, to me. Before I can solve a problem, its energy must rest uneasily within me, seeking outlet. Desire begins as a vagueness, a tension, and blossoms into a fantasy once I imagine a solution. In the fantasy, my problem is solved, whether work, sex, food, or otherwise. Since fantasy is what I can imagine, I must have knowledge to fantasize.
Some problems are solved before a fantasy arises. I take an action and feel satisfied, and I know nothing about why. If I can repeat this, I’ve learned something about myself. But one cannot plan, or decide, without a desire. It is desire that orients me toward solving problems.
Not all desires are my own. I can solve other peoples’ problems, but only if I can establish a link, or bond, between us. Our problems slot into each other, like “desiring-machines”, connecting up. For desires to connect, they must have interfaces. Others must figure into my desire, whether as friends, customers, competitors, etc. My solutions thus produce ripples across the chain of links, as energy flows forth and transforms us, transforms society. But I cannot know how this will happen, only that it might happen on account of my actions. The butterfly flaps its wings, a storm thunders.
IV.
The art of problem-solving is the art of problem-finding. The art of critical thinking is the art of problem transformation. More precisely: each problem is singular as energy is the material plane, and material is all, but problem statements are manifold, possible statements forming intersecting planes of knowledge which overlay the material.
A good problem statement naturally reveals its solution. A bad problem statement produces contradiction, unsolvability. The problem statement itself is a formal relation expressed on a plane of knowledge. Math problems are archetypal problem statements.
We each have our preferences as to which planes we see on. Some prefer social-historical, others material, others psychological, and so on. Critical thinking, or problem transformation, involves mapping the same problem to another plane. To map correctly, one must have a sense for the energetic shape of the problem, but that shape is not something one can know directly. Problems are ultimately gestalts revealed via interpolation across intersecting planes of knowledge. A single plane is not enough, as the problem is then a mere discontinuity, a gap or swirl, rather than an object of energy.
A plane of vision necessitates a subject who sees, a body of knowledge situated on the plane. The self is the arc cut across planes of knowledge by our situatedness as knowing subjects, as bodies of knowledge. Thus the self is a gestalt; the self is itself a problem.
V.
If we, hesitantly, accept that the self might be a problem, it lands us in something of a pickle.
The first issue: we recognize that death would solve our problems, for us, and yet we choose otherwise. Why? Perhaps because, on another level, death would simply leave our problems unsolved. Certain planes of our existence would remain as problems, yet they would become others’ problems, not ours. So we choose to live, because we can at least contribute to solving our own problems while we remain alive.
Second issue: how can we come to know our problems, as they originate from the place where we ourselves see? Well, how does anyone see themselves? With a mirror. But mirrors are always planar, or distorted, and the self exists on many planes. Each mirror not only gives us an incomplete picture, as with our view of all problems, but a biased one, as the mirror must reflect from its position apart from us, the viewer. So, our capacity to see ourselves is further limited, as a mirror is always situated elsewhere.
Friends can mirror, doctors can mirror, religion and philosophy can mirror, even television and film can mirror, producing an image of ourselves for ourselves. The mirror we use to state the problem is key, because we may find that the problem we see is really someone else’s problem reflected back on us. We might also discover that some solutions create more problems than they solve, although these new problems of self may be invisible from the frame of the original “solution”. And yet, we will feel these invisible problems as a vagueness, because the self as gestalt slips under our knowledge, and makes itself heard. Indeed, we cannot see ourselves sans mirror, but we can always hear ourselves. Even in an anechoic chamber, one can hear the blood rushing beneath their ears.
And so we must take care to listen, even as our actions remain guided by sight. If we ignore the whispers, we may eventually discover that our problems have not been solved, even as our time grows shorter. And what could be worse than a restless death? Our ghost, our unsolved problems, will outlive us, and trouble those it encounters, who will hear, feel, but may never see.
VI.
Let’s say we avoid such a fate. What is the nature of a solution to the self?
The aim, in essence, is to transform the recurring, biological energy of life into a solvable problem. This means discovering a problem statement of the self, which permits open channels, solutions, that persist over one’s lifetime.
To do so, we must maintain desire, as desire orients us toward problem-solving. And desire comes from fantasy, so the only way to maintain a desire forever is to have a fantasy which can never be fully achieved. Think of, say, the afterlife. If judgment occurs at the moment of death, then the problem of the afterlife can never be fully achieved, completed and settled, so long as one still lives, still sees. The desire to go to heaven is maintained, as the end is always out of reach. This is just one example; history works just the same as heaven, one wants to end up on the right side.
Depression is the loss of a problem statement of self. It may feel as though a veil was lifted, but really one has reached the end of a road, and then stepped outside the car, grasping the opportunity to look around now that there’s no place else to go. But in truth, one can step outside at any time. It may even be helpful, to affirm that one is indeed not lost. For if we are lost, we may give up, which is a position no different than the end of the road.
If there is such a thing as happiness, then it must be a long drive in the country, where one knows the general direction but not the destination, leaving ample time for detours and scenic viewpoints along the way.
Miscellania
I made a couple tweets I liked and a couple memes since my last post. First, the memes:
Now for the thoughts. First, why ownership is “structurally narcissistic”:
Next, a thread on world-scale problems (written before the above essay):
On Ender’s Game:
On The Doors vs Pink Floyd:
And finally, a silly little depressive poem:
That’s it for the digest. Seeya around!
Song of the week:
I'll be straight with you, I don't know that I made heads or tales of this--but as an admirer and advocate of anything unstraightforward, I like it nonetheless. I also appreciate that in trying to solve the selfproblem, you forsook your usual style. It was like methodological ego death.