Point identity and identification with a point

Going Nowhere through Not-knowing Where to Go (Part #3)

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The above arguments together call for "correlating" the significance of the following:

• Existence of a point: Does a point really "exist"? In what "space"? How is that existence is to be comprehended? When a point is made, where is it made, other than in recognition of that fact through making a mark? Aspects of the question have been explored with respect to the "calculus of indications" deriving from the much-cited work of George Spencer-Brown (The Laws of Form, 1969).
  
  Related questions are explored with respect to unidimensionality, notably in some statistical methods (Peter M. DeMarzo, Dimitri Vayanos, Jeffrey Zwiebel, Persuasion Bias, Social Influence, and Unidimensional Opinions, 2003). The latter argues that persuasion bias implies the phenomenon
  of unidimensional opinions; that is, ithe convergence of individual opinions over a multidimensional set of issues to a single "left-right" spectrum. Of further interest is the inferred dominance of "suboptimal" unidimensionality under certain conditions (F. Gregory Ashby, Sarah Queller and Patricia M. Berretty, On the dominance of unidimensional rules in unsupervised categorization, Perception and Psychophysics, 61, 1999). Unidimensionality may signify without depth or scope.
  
  Far less clear are considerations of undimensionality and nondimensionality which might be understood as characterizing a point and the nature of ts possible existence. Undimensional has been concerned speculatively (Not to be Undimensional Conscious is the second album by Disharmonic Orchestra, released in 1992) and with respect to politics (Hani Zubida and Doron, Gideon, How to Coerce a Multi-Dimensional System into a Undimensional Frame, World Political Science Review, May 2009). Nondimensionality might be understood as the final condition of the process of nondimensionalization, namely the removal of units from an equation involving physical quantities by a suitable substitution of variables.
  
  A point could be understood as essentially dimensionless, in the light of understanding of a dimensionless quantity, namely without an associated physical dimension. It is thus a "pure" number, and as such is always treated as having a dimension of 1. Dimensionless quantities are widely used in mathematics, physics, engineering, economics, and in everyday life (such as in counting).
  
  Greater significance is potentially to be associated with considering a point to be in some manner infinitesimal. In mathematics infinitesimals have been used to express the idea of objects so small that there is no way to see them or to measure them. The intuitive notion of an infinitesimal difference is readily comprehensible. In their exploitation the key insight has been that objects could still retain certain specific properties, such as angle or slope, even though they were quantitatively small.
  
  
• Concentration of identity in a point: Identity may be understood (and experienced) as especially focused at a "point", as in the "one-pointed" concentration, recognized as necessary in many disciplines and sports. This has been extensively explored in the much-cited work of Eugen Herrigel (Zen in the Art of Archery, 1948). Anecdotal accounts of torture may also refer to the manner in which identity is experienced during the process -- as being reduced to a central, focal point or concentrated there.
  
  Some uses of scintilla, otherwise understood as an iota or a spark, are of relevance to any individual identification with a point (as indicated by Steven M. Rosen (Dreams, Death, Rebirth: a multimedia topological odyssey into alchemy's hidden dimensions, 2013). This has been developed by alchemists, as noted by Carl Jung (Mysterium Coniunctionis: an inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy, 1963), later published in the Collected Works of C. G. Jung (1970, Vol. 14, pp. 48-56) with the following comment:

  The alchemical doctrine of the scintilla or spark is presented, the symbol of the eye is examined and its significance is explained in psychological terms. The concept of spark or scintilla is found in the writings of Meister Eckhart, Heraclitus, Hippolytus and Simon Magus as well as in those of the alchemists. Alchemists defined the spark as Archaeus, the fiery centre of the earth which is hermaphroditic, consisting in a conjunction of male and female. The parallel to Adam Kadmon, the original man of Jewish Gnosis and the product of the conjunction of sun and moon, is noted. The significance of the eye as a symbol of the scintilla is discussed and related to the doctrine of Gnosticism and Manichaeism. The psychological analysis of the eye and sun as symbol and allegory of the consciousness, which is the mark of the ego complex, is compared to the alchemists' view of the union of the scintillae to form gold (sol) and the Gnostic goal of reintegrating atoms of light. [Gerhard] Dorn's concept of the scintilla, an invisible sun in the centre of man and a fire point created by tension of masculine and feminine principles in Mercurius, is examined as in [Heinrich] Khunrath's description of the scintilla as elixir. The resemblance between Khunrath's concept and that of Monoimos is noted.

• Recognition of point identity: Demystification of an individual as a point by society, especially as formalized by administrative procedures and academically inspired surveys, models and simulations. This contrasts with the question of the nature of individual identification with such a point, as a point identity. The issue may acquire special significance in target acquisition for purposes of the assassination of the unwanted.
  
  
• Individuality and "point-making": Here the issue is how an individual identifies with "making a point", whether in an argument, in sport, or otherwise -- as being intrinsic to the process of self-assertion, self-actualization, and self-definition, as variously understood -- "making one's mark in life". This raises the question of how the dynamics of making a point can carry a sense of identity -- perhaps as the (wave)form of an elementary catastrophe.
  
  As is evident in many forms of discourse, "making a point", or the effort to do so, is experienced as an expression of identity -- even an assertion of identity. This may seek or require a corresponding process by others -- in "accepting a point" so made. This complementarity could be considered exemplified in conception as a consequence of "intercourse" -- communication understood biologically or as a dialogue process ("Human Intercourse": "Intercourse with Nature" and "Intercourse with the Other", 2007). In the light of this argument it is strange that a "proto-individual", as an egg prior to conception, is of the size of a period in a printed text, with a sperm smaller than that.
  
  
• Whether collectively or individually:
  
  
  • the subtlety of a set of principles, upheld as guiding or governing behaviour, is articulated in a configuration of points as a pattern of connectivity. Hence various initatives, expressed metaphorically as efforts at "connecting the dots".
    
    
  • a "point", experienced as "high" or "low", may provide a focus for decision-making or constitute a "turning point" in a pattern of choices
    
    
  • in relationships with any "other", much effort at "making a point" is directed such as to "make a hole" in the pattern of connectivity upheld by the arguments of the "other" as "connective tissue" essential to the "social fabric". This is most evident in political, religious and academic discourse
    
    
  • any point made by an "other" may indeed prove to be an attractor, but may well be misunderstood, or completely "missed". The latter may reinforce perception of otherness as a disruptive source of meaninglessness -- possibly of incommensurable styles.

There are then profoundly curious implications to the relationship between:

• identification of "identity" with a point
• identification of guiding principles with points (as articulated by "bullet points")
• any fundamental sense of pointlessness
• the preoccupation with making (or tearing) "holes" in the arguments with which others identify -- rendering them "pointless", and those identified with them as effectively "nobodies" (if the "point" somehow embodies that identity)
• the physical manifestation of this destruction in existentially dramatic form:
  • in the construction and firing of bullets and missiles to destroy the physical identity of others -- through creating perceptible points and holes in them. Of relevance is the exploration (discussed below) of the mysterious nature of "holes", and their relationship to points, by Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi (Holes and Other Superficialities, 1994).
• the degree of investment in destroying the mysterious (point) identity of others by use of weapons designed visibly to "make a point" in their bodies, possibly expanded into a "hole". Also strange is the training and focus required to ensure the delivery of such "point-making capacity" -- and the principles of honour and duty with which such action is imbued.
• the manner in which aspects of physical ballistics are used metaphorically in conventional strategic responses to opponents, whether it be "bullet points", "ammunition" or "targets", as discussed elsewhere (Enhancing Sustainable Development Strategies through Avoidance of Military Metaphors, 1998; Missiles, Missives, Missions and Memetic Warfare, 2001). The potentially problematic relation between "projects" and "projectiles" may be explored in this light. It is of course evident in the efforts to "target" those of other cultures with propaganda. This suggests the merit of exploring the nature of "cognitive ballistics" (Cognitive Ballistics vs. Derivative Correlation in Memetic Warfare, 2009).

This "correlation" is strangely evident in the conflation of experience -- and the metaphor through which it is illustrated -- in Zen in the Art of Archery (1948), about which the author writes:

(...) The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art (...)

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