Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form

[randydible]

In Leo’s “Absolute Infinity Demo” (blog Nov. 29, 2017), the white sheet of paper which represents infinity is exactly equivalent to George Spencer-Brown’s “unmarked state,” from his 1969 mathematical text Laws of Form. This is interesting because John C. Lilly, who invented the flotation tank and tripped hard on acid and K in there amongst his dolphins, was using Laws of Form as his “guidebook to other universes” (cf. The Dyadic Cyclone). The key difference is that Spencer-Brown’s “unmarked state” is the context for “the first distinction,” which truly is the one and only distinction and all the “forms” of Laws of Form are exactly forms of the *indication* of the first distinction. Forms are thus the emptiness of the unmarked state, interdependent arising (pratityasamutpada) in the unmarked state. The first distinction is also something profoundly present in the ultimate structure of reality on Leo’s account: the Singularity! The potential connections here are quite rich because Laws of Form was hugely influential upon cybernetics and systems theory, and continues to be influential today in math and interdisciplinary arts and sciences (Distinction: Journal of Form, The Spencer-Brown Society, Laws of Form conferences, etc.). Spencer-Brown was fully enlightened, was the Buddha Tathagata, was on lots of acid (was a hypnotist and psychotherapist, close friend of R. D. Laing) which undoubtedly afforded purification of consciousness and even complete breakthrough to the realization of nothingness. The “unmarked state” is the white light, is Enlightenment, is nothingness, is the Absolute Infinite Ultimate Reality, is God. This is a perfect cross-over with Leo’s vision! The “first distinction “ is not a static entity but the crossing-point of transcendence: it is the absolute cosmological singularity of creation from nothing, from absolutely everything. It is the ever-present origin (Gebser’s, of course, but also the phenomenological-ontological Urbewegung or Urdynamik of the great scientist and theosophical mystic Hedwig Conrad-Martius), and it is the Pure Self-Referebce that is the Spirit, Penultimate Reality. It is also the point at which the pen strikes the page in the book in which all things are written. It is also the magic point of the purple crayon in Harold and the Purple Crayon, or the magic marker of Spencer-Brown’s “marked state.” The unmarked state is the nothing, the Absolute Infinite Ultimate Reality, and it is the “page of assertion” in Peirce’s Existential Graphs (though Peirce’s metaphysics doesn’t have sufficient architectonic analogues, despite being “ceno-Pythagorean”). The point is there are so so many parallels in the convergence upon truth, in the increasingly integrated integral philosophy-as-integration, which is such a powerful resource for the advancement of metaphysical science ascending through infinity! With Leo leading the way of astonishing insights thanks to the power of that glorious divine reference-experience that is pure consciousness, integration with the mathesis universalis et scientia naturalis perennis is an opening aperture of spirit in an world that will profoundly benefit from the ultimate paradigmatic revolution that the Absolute Infinite grants!

[Leo Gura]

Heavy