#niklas luhmann

[fundgruber]

Rainald Goetz mit Niklas Luhmanns 'Das Recht der Gesellschaft'.

Rainald Goetz. Celebration. 90s Nacht Pop. 1999, S.126-127

[maaruin]

I think there would ba a place for Large Language Models in academic writing. Because the text is not the end, it is the means by which to make an argument accessible to the public. The production of academic text often works like this (in an idealized form):

You research.

You develop your argument.

You outline how to present the argument in the text.

You write the text.

You proofread and adjust the text.

If ChatGPT was capable of doing Step 4 well, there is no reason why it shouldn't be used. Especially because some people who have brilliant ideas are bad at communicating them, making it torturous for me to read their works. Maybe I would have had less trouble with Luhmann's systems theory if he had let an AI write his texts. (Like, he is really interesting, but I am doubtful I will ever bring myself to read one of his full length monographs.)

[irinaeunoia]

Cards I have yet to install in my Zettlekasten

[fabiansteinhauer]

Formen

Wir gehen im folgenden davon aus, dass Formen zügig und/ oder gezogen sind. Sie sind zügig/ gezogen und bilden als Form auch ein Trajekt. Sie haben Falten. Dass sie Falten haben, heißt auch, dass diesen Formen involviert ist, was sie hinter sich gelassen haben oder ausschließen sollen. In gewisser Hinsicht sind sie diplomatisch und tragen Entferntes mit. Die Grenzen der Form gehen mitten durch die Form, durch die Form kommt die Grenze vor; diese Grenzen sind Kreuzungen oder Versäumungen. Die Form sondert das Informelle nicht aus, ist vom Informellen nicht ausgesondert. Jenseits der Form findet man andere Formen. In der Form geht die Form nicht auf: sie kann von ihrer Negation und von ihrem Anderen durchzogen sein. Zügige und faltige Formen sind keine reinen Formen, das sind Formen, die in ihrer Präsenz und Gegenwart nicht aufgehen. Ihnen hängt etwas an, sie haben mehr als nur sich und sind mit sich nicht eins. Diese Formen sind keine ersten und keine letzten Dinge. Den Begriff der Fiktion und denjenigen der Vorstellung assoziieren wir eng mit dem Begriff zügiger, gefalteter Form. Dass Formen Einheiten bilden, das behaupten wir nicht. Wir behaupten, dass dasjenige, was wahrgenommen und/ oder kommuniziert wird Form ist.

Für die Rechtstheorie heißt das, das wir das positive Recht nicht mit der Form und den Rest der Normativität mit informeller Kultur oder informellen Institutionen identifizieren. Wo eine Norm ist, da ist eine Form. An jeder Passage oder Stelle, an der oder durch die Differenz operationalisiert wurde, da ist eine Norm und da ist eine Form. Die Beispiele für Formen, an die wir denken, entstammen der Mediengeschichte. Es gibt zwei ideale Beispiele: Letter und das Tafelbild (Tabula picta). Diese Beispiele dienen uns, weil sowohl Letter als auch Tafelbilder in ihrer Form entzweit bleiben, darum über zwei Schichten weiter beschrieben werden.

Die Reproduktion von Formen, von der Luhmann spricht, assoziieren wir mit einer Geschichte und Theorie des Nachlebens der Antike, das heißt gleichzeitig: mit einer Vorstellung von Archäologie, nach der der Mensch von Natur aus ein phantasiebegabtes und 'aufsitzendes' Wesen ist, das mit Illusionen eine ungewisse Zukunft hat, bis es stirbt. Dieses Wesen lebt in gewisser Hinsicht asymptomatisch, lebt zum Tode hin so, als ob es überleben würde. Wo dieses Wesen aufsitzt, da sitzt es den Formen auf, die wir u.a. für zügig/ gezogen und faltig halten. Es mag Formen geben, die beides nicht sind, die also nicht auch Zug sind oder Züge haben, die keine Falten haben und deren Grenzen damit nur eindeutig sind, sondern Grenzen sich auch nirgends wiederholen. In Bezug auf Wahrnehmung und Kommunikation gehen wir davon aus, dass man eine Form wahrnimmt - unter Wahrnehmung einer anderen Form und unter Wahrnehmung von etwas anderem als Form. Man kommuniziert Form - mit anderer Form und mit anderem als Form.

Es kursiert in Deutschland die These, mit der Form der Schrift und im Objekt des gedruckten Buches habe eine Umstellung von Bildern auf Begriffe stattgefunden. Das wird für die Religion und sogar für das Recht behauptet, in der Kombination aus religiöser und rechtlicher Vorstellung lässt sich schon erahnen, dass so etwas von Staatsrechtslehrern behauptet wird. Wir gehen von Verhältnissen aus, wo das Vethältnis zwischen Bild und Begriff als Ablösung nicht der Fall ist, wo aber Formen eingeführt werden, die auf Schrift und Buchdruck so blicken lassen, als ob sie Mündlichkeit und Bildlichkeit jeweils als ein Anderes hinter sich gelassen hätten. Die Form der Schrift kann Mündlichkeit und Bildlichkeit auf eine Rückseite schlagen, der Buchdruck kann als Form und als Medium Formen und Medien mittragen, die, obschon er sie mitträgt, dann andere Medien und Formen, sogar überwundene Medien und Formen seien sollen. So kann der Buchdruck das Dogma der großen Trennung tragen, wie etwa bei den Juristen, die behaupten, mit ihm habe gesellschaftlich eine Umstellung von Bildern auf Begriffe stattgefunden.

[nunc2020]

Während einer Taxifahrt von irgendeinem Flughafen, versuchte Kittler Luhmann zu erklären, dass im Gegensatz zu sozialen Systemen digitale Schaltkreise ohne Input und Output nicht existieren können. »Herr Kittler«, antwortete Luhmann, »so war es schon in Babylon. Ein Bote reitet durchs Tor. Die einen (wie Sie) fragen, welches Pferd er reitet; die anderen (wie ich), welche Botschaft er bringt.«

Friedrich Kittler, Unsterbliche. Nachrufe, Erinnerungen, Geistergespräche, München 2004, S. 97.

[ouruncriticalmess]

Niklas Luhmann | Soziologische Aufklärung. Aufsätze zur Theorie sozialer Systeme | Band 1 (4. Auflage 1974)

Niklas Luhmann (December 8, 1927 – November 11, 1998). As the most important German-speaking representative of sociological systems theory and sociocybernetics, Luhmann's systems theory is one of the classics of 20th century sociology.

Cover-Art: Hanswerner Klein

[toletoletole]

Theoriebezüge in der systemischen Therapie

In einem sehr lesenswerten Beitrag, der als Open-Access-Artikel im Psychotherapie Forum erschienen ist, beschäftigt sich Elisabeth Wagner aus Wien mit der Relevanz systemtheoretischer Theorien für die klinische Praxis. Im Abstract heißt es: „Die enorme Binnendifferenzierung der Systemischen Therapie bietet zwar eine nützliche Vielfalt an Interventionsmöglichkeiten, führt auf der theoretischen…

[meanypunches]

Below are two book reviews I’ve previously written of academic texts that discuss the John Carpenter film Halloween (Compass Intl Pictures, 1978). Again, I’m curious how many other academic texts miss the mark so severely when it comes to discussing this classic horror film. Is the supernatural a blind spot in the academic subsystem? A blind spot in all of our systems of ‘control’? The systems that Niklas Luhmann would call ‘society’s most important subsystems’ —

Halloween (Devil's Advocates) by Murray Leeder

Even though he gets it right in the synopsis on page 10, the author cannot escape the subtle trap of the exchange between Loomis and Laurie at the end, and he misquotes Laurie’s line as a question (“Was it the boogeyman?”) on page 80 and also on page 99. Strangely as I said the synopsis on page 10 gets this line right- “It was the boogeyman.” (see page 10) But why did no editor catch the discrepancy between page 10 and the quote on pages 80 and 99? At least if they were sincere in this error you would expect the editor to align all the quotes of this scene in the movie to match. I have recently become aware that there is a controversy about what Laurie Strode actually says on the internet, but for an academic text to include such an egregious misquote of the film should be a surprise, except that at least one other academic text also misquotes the film, so I am no longer surprised, only wondering about this possible blind spot in the academic system/mind. Perhaps this is one example where redundancy may become information, a review of redundant errors. An accurate viewing of the film demands an acknowledgment that Laurie says “it was the boogeyman”, a statement. Why this book gets it right on page 10 but then fumbles on page 80 and again page 99 is disturbing and suggests the risk of trusting in academic interpretations as any kind of authoritative reading of any folk or popular text. It is clear that the author’s analysis on page 80 that Laurie “needs reassurance from Loomis” is necessarily rendered inaccurate. Loomis’s agreement with Laurie’s statement should be read not as reassurance (at least), and possibly as capitulation on the part of an authority that has failed. Such an inaccuracy (twice!) about a key moment in the film casts the rest of the author’s analysis (and quotes?) into doubt as well. I wonder how many other academic texts misquote this film?

Film, Folklore and Urban Legends by Mikel J. Koven

Why didn’t I like this book more? It is perhaps because I am a fan of horror films and in this social role I find myself to be one of the ‘folk’. When some highfalutin’ professor type starts spoutin’ hot takes on my favorite movies, I take offense, especially when I find those takes to be (to put it politely) completely wrong . . . hahaha. Certainly there is useful information here, but some of the author’s ideas appear ridiculous. When the author says for example “[s]ex is merely an extension of neglect as a result of poor babysitting” (p. 124) or argues that the most noteworthy message (“interdiction”) of many slasher films is “to be responsible when babysitting” (p. 126) to me it seems a bit disconnected from the experiential reality of these movies. Not that this type of function cannot occur at all in modern society, but overall each observer may walk away with something much more organic, even ‘vital’, ‘messy’ or even ‘disorganized’ as I would say. The academic approach perhaps feels overly rigid in adherence to an intellectual dissection of what is truly a ‘vernacular’ or ‘living’ program of artistic communication. (Systems theorists call it ‘autopoietic’ or self-generating.) This is what academics do I suppose, ruin “entertainment” with “analysis”, but nonetheless I have read academic texts on horror films that seem to ‘get it’ much more than this one does.

Perhaps Koven’s understanding of folklore is more on point, at least with regards to the “tradition” of folklore, but regarding these films (a ‘living’ tradition of folklore I would argue, despite the complexity of the medium) Koven almost seems to be desperately searching for a reasonable explanation, when in fact I would argue that these films legitimately function so as to undermine or subvert attempts at rational discourse. When Koven discounts “entertainment”, he has perhaps like Jason Vorhees tumbled directly into Crystal Lake. This then is the difficulty or paradox one could say of academic analysis of vernacular forms, a paradox of which Koven appears largely oblivious until perhaps the last chapter in this piece. He does admit that not all slasher films “function as ‘social script’” (p. 127), but that in some of the films “[camp] counselors are responsible and professional.” (p. 126)

Here is where my mind spins out into space. I would easily make the leap to fear of growing up, also known as the fear of sex and death. Freud said a lot about sex and death. My take is that all of this is ultimately about control.

Academics are obsessed with control, ‘social scripts’, descriptions of conformity/deviance and yes, analysis. Koven dismisses the Freudian approach based on “who tells these legends [and the audience] to whom . . . the films [are] primarily addressed” (pp. 124-25), but his alternative of ‘social script’ theory feels petty and unconvincing. You can go round and round with this until you twist yourself into a pretzel, or you can admit perhaps you are projecting onto the narrative of the film your own desire. I will admit this, but as a fan, please forgive me if I attempt some ‘vernacular’ or ‘amateur’ exegesis.

The author’s academic analysis of the classic horror film Halloween is so painfully superficial that, in addition to the issues I raise above, it makes me doubt much of the rest of his ‘social script’ theory. About John Carpenter’s Halloween, Koven argues that the explanation that “Michael Myers . . . is ‘the Bogeyman’ [is] false.” (p. 117) Koven would have us believe that Michael Myers “‘does not transcend the laws of nature as we know them.’” (p. 117, quoting Todorov 2000), which makes me wonder whether Koven actually watched the film.

Many commentators, myself included, would agree the antagonist Michael Myers is ultimately revealed as a supernatural monster, and I would add further in this context that this is the type of ‘postmodern’ monster that explicitly subverts control. (see Isabel Pinedo’s article “Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary Horror Film”, 2004) All the adults, police and psychiatrists cannot control the supernatural mystery of consciousness anymore than they can protect children from growing up.

As a child Michael wears a clown mask, a clown costume, which suggests the notion of the Bitter Carnival and the abject hero, clown or jester. (see works by Mikhail Bakhtin and also Michael André Bernstein) The academic, in attempting to describe a rational or causal meaning of the film, becomes merely another grown-up putting on a clown suit (a paradoxical mirror of the abject hero) and trying to control or stave off the inevitable chaos of death.

Why are they taking Michael Myers up to the judicial hearing about his possible release? “Because that is the law,” says the psychiatrist played by Donald Pleasance. It is this rational control of the ‘grown-ups’ - i.e. “the law” - that forces the psychiatrist to go through the motions, even though he knows Michael Myers is “the evil” that should “never . . . get out” amongst the rest of society.

This is about “fate” as they say and not about rational control. Like the English class discussion in the film’s first act, the question becomes whether “fate” does not have to be merely about “religion” (possibly supernatural) or whether “fate” (connected here to evil or death) can be merely a “natural element like earth, air, fire and water”. The kids teasing Tommy about “the boogeyman is gonna get you” frame this issue as whether the boogeyman is of this world or the next. This world of the grown-ups provides no answers here. The “law” provides no answers - grown-ups are merely going through the motions that provide no measure of real safety or control against evil. Neither does psychiatry - the academic or scientific system as Luhmann would call it. The social system of adults (“society”) is of no use against “the boogeyman”.

We are like teenagers “exploring uncharted territory”. The cops are clueless as the sheriff stands outside a hardware store with the alarm bell ringing and says “probably kids” before rattling off a serial killer checklist of equipment- “all they took was some Halloween masks, rope and a couple of knives”. This is no child but the good Doctor Loomis understands also that “this is no man” but rather “something” that is “purely and simply evil”.

I do not disagree that folklore, films and urban legends are capable of performing functionally within society as communication does, but here we see this certain paradox of elite academics studying the ‘lore’ of the ‘folk’. The author Koven would have us believe that “both slasher and urban legends demonstrate the ideological functions of maintaining categories of normalcy and transmission of belief traditions”. (p. 127) He seems to take issue with “the conservative ideology of these films [that] ‘perpetuate[s] a climate of fear and random violence where everyone is a potential victim’”. (p. 127, quoting Freeland (1995))

This makes me laugh. What a square this guy is. Having lived through the golden age of horror movies and watched a bellyful at too young an age I can say that the effect on me was just the opposite. These movies nurtured a countercultural attitude in me (and other fans too I would say from my interactions with them) that is the exact opposite of the academic fantasies this bozo is spouting.

Please forgive my use of the ‘folk’ term (‘bozo’) here but I can’t help myself. This guy’s ‘social script’ theory is so wrong it pains me, and I cannot help but descend into colloquial derogations. As Schechter argues elsewhere, the central issue with folklore may be “who commands authority, amateurs or experts” (Schechter 51) Academics in applying their expertise to folklore cannot help but steal some of the authority from the subject, aka ‘the folk’.

Koven’s idea here is that “whenever ‘just entertainment’ is presented before us, ideological analysis needs to be done”. (pp. 90-91) He fails to see that audiences merely entertained by tales appealing to the mythic or legendary or yes, even the supernatural, may intrinsically grasp what overly analytical or rational thought may only obscure. Koven is willing to admit that “[w]hat now needs to happen is for proper audience studies to be done on actual audiences’ interpretations” (p. 132) If his analysis gets such basic interpretations about a classic genre film so wrong, I wonder what terrible work he might make of understanding what audiences understand about these films.

Beyond the “author’s proof” at the climax of John Carpenter’s Halloween of “the POV shot from Loomis looking to the barren ground where Michael landed [to validate] the author’s position on the subject of the boogeyman’s existence”, after Laurie says “It was the boogeyman”, Dr. Loomis responds, “As a matter of fact, it was.” (see John Carpenter’s Halloween and also analysis by James Barker available at: https://thebarkbitesback.wordpress.com/2018/10/21/it-was-the-boogeyman-a-look-at-john-carpenters-halloween/ )

It cannot be overstated in this context, the importance of Dr. Loomis saying this, to identify, label or mark Michael Myers as a supernatural entity, something outside of science. Dr. Loomis is an authority figure, a scientist even, and his admission is seen as a surrender on the part of authority - here encapsulating all of law enforcement even, a collapse of differentiation, as Dr. Loomis is also a vigilante figure who has taken the law into his own hands. Beyond the political, legal and scientific subsystems of communication, Loomis has become also a religious figure, a shaman one could say, who can see the spirit world and recognizes the evil force with which he must contend as falling outside of scientific understanding. Folklore in essence finds itself in opposition to society’s “most important subsystems” as Niklas Luhmann might describe them (see Luhmann’s Theory of Society vol 1 page 17).

Much later, Koven does discuss this idea of “official” vs “unofficial” belief, but for me it was too little too late. I do understand that these articles stretch across a period of time and were written separately and not as a connected piece initially, and I do not deny the underlying folkloric discussion as grounded in some valuable research and source materials that have some use for the student. The material about framing experience based on belief definitely resonates and is valuable. Still Koven’s distinction between “presentational (we are witnessing . . . ) and representational (the phenomenon occurring is usually subjective, and we only have the participants’ word . . . )” is largely overwrought and naive, (pp. 162-65) as even he admits that “[o]f course, the entire show is mediated, as it is on television”. (p.167) Both film and television are heavily edited and narratively driven (regardless of whether it is ‘documentary’ or ‘reality’ genre) so always both “presentational . . . and representational” in this sense. This is similar to the problem with videotaped police confessionals that are often more about the situational context of the taping itself and the viewing, rather than the confession alone. I could go on but I will spare you, and say only that academically perhaps this offers some useful background material, but my gut or ‘vernacular’ reaction to much of the “ideological analysis” (re)presented here is that ‘the emperor is wearing a clown suit’ or simply, ‘what a bozo!’

[dipnotski]

Niklas Luhmann – Tutku Olarak Aşk (2023)

Eğer tarihsizmiş gibi görünüp doğallığın dokunulmazlığına itilen fenomenlerin tarihsel olarak oluştuğunu ve toplumsal olarak koşullandığını, dolayısıyla değişime açık olduğunu göstermek sosyal bilimin göz ardı edilemez meziyetlerinden biriyse, Niklas Luhmann ‘Tutku Olarak Aşk’ta aşkın modern tarihinin izini teorik inceliği ve empirik titizliği elden bırakmadan sürerek yirminci yüzyılın usta…

[beauty-is-terrror]

The Systems Theory by Luhmann is just 🤌🏻

[lost-at-seven-pm]

Wenn man nicht so viel herausbekommt, dass man selber reagieren kann oder dass man dem weiteren Verlauf der Kommunikation folgen kann, schaltet man ab und schließt sich selber aus. Dann hat die Kommunikation in Bezug auf die Inklusion von Teilnehmern einen Teil ihrer Kapazität verloren. Und das ist im Verstehen bewusst. Man passt auf, man hört hin, man denkt mit, wie immer schwach oder, das hängt natürlich von dem Kontext ab, wie immer fasziniert, und schafft ständig die Möglichkeit, die Fortsetzung der Kommunikation mitzutragen. (...) Das heißt, wenn die Kommunikation läuft, kann unterstellt werden, dass ausreichendes Verstehen vorhanden war - immer eingeschlossen ausreichendes Missverstehen.

Niklas Luhmann, Kommunikation als selbstbeobachtende Operation

[uranium420]

Hello! I wrote this symposium presentation for my master's degree in artistic practise in 2022 :) If you would like to cite this symposium please message me off-anon and I will give you the details needed :)

I considered adapting this presentation into essay format for tumblr, however that would be a massive effort, given that all my sources for this presentation are not formatted for the essay structure.

This is NOT a quick read, but I appreciate you even considering reading :) thank you!

It’s 2nd  December 2001, near the Enguri Dam, Georgia. Three men walk into a nearby forest, looking for firewood. The winter sun sets early so the men decide to spend the night in the forest and take the wood back to their trucks the next morning. Around 6pm they find two strange objects, cylindrical in shape, and 15 cm in length. The snow around these objects is melted, and the wet soil is steaming from the heat. One of the men picks up one of the objects, and drops it immediately, as it is too hot to hold. They decide to use the objects as personal heaters, while they sleep in the forest waiting for daylight. They begin to feel sick; so sick they don’t sleep, and spend all night vomiting. The next morning they only load half the firewood into their truck, they are exhausted. 

It’s 22nd December 2001. All three men are admitted to hospital. On 23rd January 2002, one of the men is discharged from hospital. On 18th March 2003, a second man is discharged from hospital. On 13th May 2004, the third man dies, having never been well enough to leave.

What they found were radioactive sources of Strontium-90, removed from radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which were scrapped and abandoned upon Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union, and the termination of the project for which they were to be used. They killed one person, and injured two more. They held no warning signs, marks, or messages.

Art has been used as a form of communication ever since people have been making art. It can transcend current language barriers by virtue of shared cultural ideas and representational imagery, especially in the modern day where we have more access to shared culture and art than ever.  Art is hard to define, and there still isn’t a consensus on what it is, however, as journalist Daniel Oberhaus notes, many people know it when they see it. He also notes that cultural context plays an important role in the understanding of art; a urinal is not art, unless it is displayed in a gallery. In The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art, Arthur Danto explicitly states that it was a urinal, until it became a work of art- the cultural knowledge of an art gallery changes the meaning of the piece. Niklas Luhmann in his essay The Medium of Art explores the idea that works of art exist to communicate meaning before anything else; that they are produced of a medium, and then become a medium themselves, one of communication. So what do we do, then, when neither consistency of language nor culture is guaranteed? What do we do when art must communicate messages to people so far in the future we cannot make any assumptions about the preconceptions a viewer will bring, or the culture in which they operate? What do we do when the message we have to bring to them is extremely important, and does not leave room for misinterpretation? 

One message that is incredibly important for humans now to send is marking our long term deep geological nuclear waste repositories as dangerous and the areas above them as uninhabitable. However, working with nuclear isotopes, and their long half-lives, confronts us with the aforementioned questions; the message is extremely important, cannot be misinterpreted, and we can safely assume any viewer will share no language or culture with us today. 

Most storage involves transuranic elements- that is, isotopes heavier than uranium- used for both creation of nuclear arms, and nuclear power stations, with two of the most common contaminants being Plutonium-329 and Uranium-235. This is the half-life of Plutonium-329. 

And this is the half-life of Uranium-235. 

And this is the time scale on which people have had to think to design warnings for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, in New Mexico, USA- licensed to store waste from nuclear arms development which opened for operation in 1999, and is due to be backfilled between 2025 and 2035.

Gabrielle Hecht said of the issue in 2018, “It is not just that ten thousand years exceeds human design horizons. That sort of time scale exceeds human language horizons.”

To put a bit of context to these unthinkably large numbers and the issue with communicating over time spans on this scale, this is a fragment of Old English from the Franks Casket, written in Anglo-Saxon runes. This is estimated to have been written only 1,300 years ago. It is unintelligible to English speakers today.

And to put that onto the timeline, we can see the distance in time between the Franks Casket and now is tiny compared to how long the warnings need to last. In his letter declining the invitation to join the Sandia National Laboratories report on nuclear waste markers, Carl Sagan described the problem as such:

“... artistic conventions, written and spoken language… might, for all we know, change drastically. What we need is a symbol invariant to all those possible changes. Moreover, we want a symbol that will be understandable not just to the most educated and scientifically literate members of the population but to anyone who might come upon this repository.”

Sagan brings up a very important point: the need for any symbol to be universally understood, regardless of the viewer's education, age, or cultural background. This, I think, is the largest obstacle we face, given that we didn’t even have this problem solved until 2007, despite having infinite access to research the people that live now.

In 2001 the International Atomic Energy Agency and International Organisation for Standardisation were faced with the challenge of making a new symbol to denote immediate severe radiation hazard after a 2000 incident, where three people in Samut Prakan province, in Thailand, died from radiation exposure after coming across a cobalt-60 source, previously used for cancer radiotherapy, in a scrap yard. The source was secured properly (although not disposed of properly), and displayed the proper warning symbols, but it made no difference, because the people didn’t recognise the symbol, and none of the written warnings were in Thai. 

The original warning design was conceived at the University of California Berkeley Radiation Laboratory in 1946, by a group of people who were doodling out designs that could be used to symbolically represent radiation hazards. Nels Garden, one of the scientists involved in the designing process, gave insight into the design in letters sent after the event. The design was supposed to represent an atom emitting radiation. The first design was this one, with the magenta trefoil on the blue background. Magenta was chosen because it didn’t conflict with any existing colour coding rules, and the ink was expensive, which they hoped would ensure people did not use the symbol frivolously and reduce its impact as a warning. The blue was chosen because there were no other blue warnings and labels used in radioactive work of the time, meaning it was distinctive, however it received criticism for being low visibility, as well as the fact that blue was not supposed to be used on warning signs, as it fades quickly.

In 1948 yellow was standardised for the sign at the Oakridge National Lab, following requests for a standardised colour scheme, after a committee viewed the magenta symbol stapled to different coloured cardboard, and deemed magenta and yellow the best combination. Until its final standardisation by the American National Standards Institute in the 1950s, there were a few variations of the symbol. In 1974 the ISO approved a design for international use, in which the trefoil is black instead of magenta.

And, in a town in Thailand, none of that mattered. Faced with foreign language warnings and a symbol none of the scrapyard workers recognised, the immediate danger they were in was not adequately communicated by the trefoil. The 2001 assignment, the New Warning Symbols Project, needed a symbol that would unfailingly communicate “danger, run away, do not touch.” In 2007 they presented the high level sealed-source ionising radiation symbol. In target groups of children of many nationalities, the trefoil symbol meant something like a propeller or a windmill, and the colour yellow did not indicate the immediate life threatening danger. In many more tests conducted around the globe, they settled on the current design as being the one that most clearly portrayed the message without words. Of all the symbols tested, skull and crossbones was the only one that consistently conveyed the meaning of “this may harm you so much that you will die.” The yellow was replaced with red to move the warning from “caution” to “active danger” in the eyes of viewers.

The result of the research echoes what Sagan wrote in his letter to Sandia Labs, recommending skull and crossbones as symbols to be placed around the WIPP, which he said has “unmistakable” meaning, referring to pirate flags, bottles of poison, and Nazi divisions- all things which are bad and to be avoided; although the report itself points out that in Mexico bones are considered to hold life force, so alternative messages would also be required, especially considering the WIPPs proximity to the US-Mexico border, and Oberhaus points out that it only emerged as a symbol of toxicity relatively recently, that is- recently on the scale of radioactive isotopes, with no guarantee it will last.

The first published attempt to solve the problem of producing a universally understood message that is as clear in 100 years as it is in 10,000, though posed as a thought experiment rather than as part of government action like the at the time recently formed Human Interference Task Force, was the 1982/1983 poll in the Berlin Institute of Technology’s Journal of Semiotics, which asked “How do we tell our children’s children where the nuclear waste is?”

The suggestions with the least amount of subsequent research (or, at least, subsequent research in English) are, with one exception, the most conceptually mundane, so I will only give an overview of the exciting one. Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem suggested satellites that endlessly transmit the messages back to Earth. He also proposed encoding messages into the DNA of plants that he dubbed Atomic Flowers which would replicate and renew into forever. He suggested that the plants be only grown in the vicinity of the repositories, and contain information about the danger of the camp. The major issue with this, pointed out by Lem himself, was who would ever even think to decode DNA for a hidden message? And if the message was known about would they consider the decoding an endeavour worth pursuing.

Two of the suggestions connected to this poll are more fleshed out, the Ray Cat Solution and the Atomic Priesthood.

The Ray Cats solution is my personal favourite, in theory. In reality it's wholly problematic, for ethical reasons. 

Ray Cats proposes genetically engineering cats to change colour in the presence of radiation, and the message will be passed down and preserved via fairy tales, poems, and nursery rhymes- which are typically long lived and cross-culturally intelligible. It hopes to build off the superstition surrounding black cats- either bad luck or good luck depending on where you are, and your cultural background. 

One such cultural marker was a song written 2014 by physicist turned musician Chad Matheny, also known as Emperor X, who described the brief as to create a song “so catchy and annoying it might be handed down… over a span of 10,000 years.” It was titled “10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories”

Beyond the song, there isn’t much art here. There’s a lot of science, and a lot of ethics, but little has been considered artistically.

The concept from this poll which has been expanded upon the most is the Atomic Priesthood, suggested by linguist Thomas Sebeok, and it is currently being developed by the Atomic Priesthood Project- a collective of artists working towards preserving the messages of the dangers of nuclear waste and their locations. The Atomic Priesthood is built from the principle that the Catholic Church has survived with a pretty consistent message for 2000 years, and had to convene groups to enact significant change in their doctrine. For example, they would create rituals and myths surrounding the consequences of disturbing the waste. They would dictate which areas are forbidden, and dictate what retribution awaits those who disobey, literal or metaphysical. Issues with this idea arose almost immediately, for example schisms akin to the Protestant Reformation distorting the message, and what happens if Nuclear Atheists emerge, denying the existence of the danger?

Despite the issues, a lot of lore, doctrine, and rite has been established for the Atomic Priesthood. They have worked in collaboration with many artists across many disciplines, including Dana Sherwood, Helen Lee, Duy Hoang, Claire Beaumont and many more.

One of their projects, beginning in 2017, was to develop nuclear warning monoliths. They used the WIPP as a base, and followed the guidelines set out in the 1993 Sandia Labs report on Expert Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and came up with the Black Sun Rose. They are interlocking monoliths, following a Penrose  pattern - meaning they can be tiled infinitely outwards. The blocks are to be cast from black dyed concrete; concrete being readily available and extremely long lasting, and dyed black to discourage animal and human habitation on the site, due to its absorption of New Mexico desert heat. The structure must be at least 4 square miles, large enough to fully cover the underground footprint of the site. At this size, it will also be visible from space. 

They will also use glass for the embedding of written messages. Glass will be used as it is the most geologically stable and chemically inert material that can be mass produced. The messages will be produced by embedding coloured rods in clear glass, making a sort of 3 dimensional font, based on the work ‘Alphabit’ by Helen Lee. The letters can then be fused into one large wall, with the rods being slightly curved to bounce sunlight through the rods, using the same principle as fibre optic cables. This will cause the walls of text to illuminate. The properties of the glass mean that any writing system or image that can be embedded in this way will not be obscured or removed by damage. This seemingly solves the issue that arises with stone carvings, where chipping of stone can make the message unintelligible. 

The rose structure will be perimetered by kiosks, containing the glass panels, and they will warn people to leave, and of the danger, in various languages and through pictograms. There will also be “deep dolmen” and these will be created of the same penrose blocks as the rest of the structure, and be entirely enclosed, with no way of access except removing one of the large blocks- a daunting, but not impossible task, depending on the technological level of the people who find them. The hope is that uncovering something, anything through means of brute force and excavation will be enough of a satisfying result for intruders that the actual danger remains undisturbed. The information stored in these will be much more in depth than what is displayed in the kiosks, but also redundant, such that if they are never opened, the message of the whole site remains intelligible and complete. 

As of 2020, these designs are just a proposal. 

The largest body of research and design concepts comes from the aforementioned 1993 Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant produced by Sandia National Laboratory for the United States Department of Energy. 

One of the things it covers is the use of pictograms. Working under the assumption that any language spoken today will be gone, they decided that using pictograms along with written warnings would stop the warning signs from becoming entirely obsolete after the extinction of current languages.

The pictograms are more faces and less abstract representations. Usage of Munch’s The Scream was done to portray “abject horror and terror”, and the report concludes that usage of faces is most suitable for cross-cultural intelligibility, as the expressions associated with fear, apprehension, and disgust, are universal. A 2009 study by Matsumo and Willingham analysed the spontaneous expressions produced by congenitally blind, non-congenitally blind, and sighted athletes, and found that there was little difference between the facial emotion configuration between the groups, and no difference at all cross-culturally. So using faces is likely a good call, because unless humans are wiped out and replaced by something else, there shouldn’t be much major change in cultural understanding of expressions, as at least something about them appears to be innate. 

They also considered large structural designs that would go on to inspire the Atomic Priesthood’s Black Sun Rose. As well as emphasising the fact that the structures need to only deny land habitation and produce deep emotional response in the viewer, the report described the designs as provoking feelings of “danger to the body”, “fear of the beast”, “dark forces emanating” and “abyss.”

A 2012 study showed that shapes with sharp abrupt angles are associated with emotions with abrupt onset, such as surprise and anger, and a 2021 study showed, using 3d objects instead of 2d drawings, spiked objects being associated with unpleasant, uncontrolled and high arousal emotions, and we can see this from the designs presented in the report, although no specific research of the kind is mentioned.  

The structures are separated into two groups:

Shapes that hurt the body, and shunned land. 

The report describes them as such: 

Danger seems to emanate from below. The shapes suggest wounding forms, like thorns and spikes, even lightning. They seem active, in motion cut and up, moving in various directions. They seem not controlled. Walking through it, at ground level, the massive earthworks crowd in on you, dwarfing you, cutting off your sight to the horizon, a loss of connection to any sense of place.

And:

An image of an enormous black hole; an immense nothing; a void; land removed from use with nothing left behind; a useless place. It is a massive effort to make a place that is fearful, ugly, and uncomfortable.

An anomaly both topographic and in roughness of material. An enormous landscape of large-stone rubble, one that is very inhospitable, being hard to walk on and difficult to bring machinery onto. It is a place that feels destroyed, rather than one that has been made. They are deliberately irregular and distorted cubes. The cubic blocks are set in a grid, defining a square, with 5-foot wide’’streets” running both ways. You can get “in” it, but the streets lead nowhere, and they are too narrow to live in, farm in, or even meet in. It is a massive effort to deny use. It is an ordered place, but crude in form, forbidding, and uncomfortable.

None of our designs use any of the regular or “ideal” geometric forms. Why? The geometry of ideal forms, like squares and cubes, circles and spheres, triangles and pyramids is a fundamental human invention, a seeking of perfection in an imperfect world. Historically, people have used these ideal forms in places that embody their aspirations and ideals. In our designs, there is much irregularity both of forms and in their locations and directions, yet done by people with obvious knowledge of pure geometry. This shows an understanding of the ideal, but at the same time a deliberate shunning of it... suggesting we do not value this place, that it is not one that embodies our ideals.

And will any of this work?

No. At least in my opinion.

Already the WIPP and its warning messages and structures have become memes; framing the forbidding spires as cool formations that must be there to protect the valuable treasure below. 

A tumblr user compares an image from the Sandia  National Labs report to the meme Loss.jpeg, and jokes that Loss will be interpreted in the future as a nuclear waste warning. And it’s funny, I think it is a funny bit, but underlying a lot of the jokes about these markers is a resignation that we already know none of this will prevent intrusion into the sites. 

Physicist Woodruff Sullivan points out in the report that it’s largely a self correcting problem anyway. Nothing is as good a deterrent for disturbing nuclear waste as the consequences of disturbing nuclear waste; but that view requires people to potentially die over and over as each new generation finds the site. 

But on the prospect of a more artistic warning, Jon Lomberg succinctly states that:

One. Art is ambiguous

Two. Art is an end in itself. 

Three. Art draws people to it. 

And I am tempted to agree with him. 

As “One can hardly imagine a more titillating prospect for archaeologists of the future.”

And here is the 10,000 year earworm.

List of Figures:

Figure 1. International Atomic Energy Agency (2014) The Radiological Accident in Lia, Georgia. Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency. pp. 14

Figure 2. Duchamp, M. 1917, replica 1964. Fountain. [Readymade] At: London: Tate Modern. T07573

Figures 3, 5 & 7. Chung, N. (2018) Radiation Symbol (1948)  Available at: https://medium.com/fgd1-the-archive/radiation-symbol-1948-fcc2ddc33ff0

Figure 4. Origin of the Radiation Warning Symbol (Trefoil) (no date) Available at: https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/articles/radiation-warning-symbol.html 

Figure 6. Prototype Trefoil Warning Sign with Yellow Background (1948) (no date). Available at: https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/warning-signs/prototype.html 

Figure 8. Trauth, K.M., Hora, S.C. and Guzowski, R.V. (1993) ‘Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’, Office of Scientific & Technical Information Technical Reports. pp. G-13

Figure 9. Hargreaves, A. 2022. Literally just a photograph of my cat, Luna. [Photograph]

Figure 10. Matheny, C. (2014) 10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories. Available at: https://emperorx.bandcamp.com/album/10000-year-earworm-to-discourage-settlement-near-nuclear-waste-repositories 

Figures 11-13, & 15-20, Black Sun Rose (WIPP) (2017). Available at: http://www.theatomicpriesthoodproject.org/artists#/black-sun-rose-wipp 

Figure 14. Lee, H. 2018. Alphabit. [Glass murrine, stainless steel, aluminum, acrylic, LEDs] Available at: https://pink-noise.org/portfolio/alphabit/ 

Figure 21. United States Department of Energy (2004) Permanent Markers Implementation Plan. Carlsbad: Washington Regulatory and Environmental Services an affiliate of Washington TRU Solutions, LLC. pp. 23

Figure 22. Munch, E. 1893. The Scream. [Oil, tempera, pastel, and crayon] At: Oslo: Nasjonalgalleriet. NG.M.00939

Figure 23. Trauth, K.M., Hora, S.C. and Guzowski, R.V. (1993) Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.  Albuquerque: Sandia National Laboratories. pp. F-115

Figures 24-31. Trauth, K.M., Hora, S.C. and Guzowski, R.V. (1993) Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.  Albuquerque: Sandia National Laboratories. pp. F-61-F-75

Figure 32. Love How This Implies That After The Downfall Of Humankind That Doge Is The Species To Supercede Us. (2020) Available at: https://parakavka.tumblr.com/post/635856004706418688/

Figure 33. #super honourable place. (2022) Available at: https://epilepticsaints.tumblr.com/post/696755723763367936

Figure 34. alright. well.  (2021) https://wumblr.tumblr.com/post/646314177178255360/wumblr-alright-well-after-a-quick-speedrun-of 

Bibliography:

Atomsemiotik (no date). Available at: https://www.chemie.de/lexikon/Atomsemiotik.html 

Barrett, R. and Stephens, L. D. (1978) A Brief History of a “20th Century Danger Sign.” Berkeley: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7cz9p0m6#main 

Benford, G. (2001) Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia. New York City: Avon Books

Dahlstrom, D. (2007) ‘New Symbol Launched to Warn Public About Radiation Dangers’, International Atomic Energy Agency. Available at: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-symbol-launched-warn-public-about-radiation-dangers 

Fakultät I Geisteswissenschaften: Bd_6_Hft_3 (no date). Available at: https://www.semiotik.tu-berlin.de/menue/zeitschrift_fuer_semiotik/zs-hefte/bd_6_hft_3/

Griffenhagen, G. and Bogard, M. (1999) History of Drug Containers and Their Labels. Madison: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy. 

Hecht, G. (2018) ‘Interscalar Vehicles for an African Anthropocene: On Waste, Temporality, and Violence’, Cultural Anthropology 33, no. 1

Human Interference Task Force (1984) Reducing the Likelihood of Future Human Activities That Could Affect Geologic High-level Waste Repositories. Technical Report. Columbus: Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation. Available at: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6799619 

Ialenti, V. (2020) Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now. Cambridge: The MIT Press. 

International Atomic Energy Agency (2002) The Radiological Accident in Samut Prakarn. Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency. Available at: https://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/pub1124_scr.pdf 

International Atomic Energy Agency (2014) The Radiological Accident in Lia, Georgia. Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency. Available at: https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81061875.pdf

Jess and Zak (2016) “The Puzzling Meaning and Origin of the Radiation Sign,” University of California Research blog. Available at: https://ucresearch.tumblr.com/post/148796081116/the-puzzling-meaning-and-origin-of-the-radiation 

Kawahara, S., and Shinohara, K. (2012). A tripartite trans-modal relationship among sounds, shapes and emotions: A case of abrupt modulation. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 34, pp. 569-574. Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/47b452vw  

Lin, A. et al. (2021) “Feeling Colours: Crossmodal Correspondences Between Tangible 3D Objects, Colours and Emotions,” Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445373 

Lodding, L. (2007) ‘Drop It and Run! New Symbol Warns of Radiation Dangers and Aims to Save Lives’, International Atomic Energy Agency Bulletin, 48(2),  pp. 70-72. Available at: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull48-2/48202087072.pdf

Macfarlane, R. (2019) Underland: A Deep Time Journey. London: Penguin Books

MacKenzie, C. (2006) ‘Reducing the Risk from Radioactive Sources’ International Atomic Energy Agency Bulletin, 47(2),  pp. 61-63. Available at: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazines/bulletin/bull47-2/47202006163.pdf 

Matheny, C. (2014) 10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories. Available at: https://emperorx.bandcamp.com/album/10000-year-earworm-to-discourage-settlement-near-nuclear-waste-repositories 

Matsumoto, D. and Willingham, B. (2009) “Spontaneous facial expressions of emotion of congenitally and noncongenitally blind individuals.,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(1), pp. 1–10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014037

Oberhaus, D. (2019) Extraterrestrial Languages. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Origin of the Radiation Warning Symbol (Trefoil) (no date). Available at: https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/articles/radiation-warning-symbol.html 

The Franks Casket/The Auzon Casket. ca. 700. [Whalebone] At: London: British Museum, Britain, Europe and Prehistory. 1867,0120.1

Trauth, K.M., Hora, S.C. and Guzowski, R.V. (1993) Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.  Albuquerque: Sandia National Laboratories. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2172/10117359

United States Department of Energy (2004) Permanent Markers Implementation Plan. Carlsbad: Washington Regulatory and Environmental Services an affiliate of Washington TRU Solutions, LLC. Available at: https://www.wipp.energy.gov/library/permanentmarkersimplementationplan.pdf 

United States Department of Energy (2018) Site Markers. Available at: https://wipp.energy.gov/pdfs/site_markers.pdf 

[zenithabovemarshland]

Astrology of Zettelkasten

An example of adapting to oppositions in the birth chart

What is Zettelkasten?

I went into a deep dive about zettelkasten yesterday. If you havent heard of it, it's a system of knowledge-keeping. It contains one idea on an index card that links to other cards (like a wiki). It's an information collection system with the primary aim of connecting ideas into knowledge (1).

A famous user of the zettelkasten was the sociologist Niklas Luhmann.

Luhmann's Astrology

In his essay "Communications with Zettelkastens", Luhmann personifies his zettelkasten and calls it his "communication partner" (2), which is interesting to me because it implies an emotional relationship to... information. And sure enough, Luhmann has Moon in Gemini (3) (sense of security and goodness in the collection of many ideas).

His Moon opposes a Sun-Saturn conjunction in Sagittarius (instinct to establish structure in meaning, one that can adapt to changeability).

On this point, I like this quote from his Wikipedia page: "Luhmann himself described his theory as "labyrinthine" or "non-linear", and claimed he was deliberately keeping his prose enigmatic to prevent it from being understood "too quickly", which would only produce simplistic misunderstandings." (4) A great example of the control and imposition of Saturn, and how the Sun contradicted the Moon in his work. But it's also an expression of his Mercury-Neptune square--obfuscation in communication.

Luhmann's Moon is conjunct the North Node, and the Sun is conjunct the South Node. This is really interesting because the comfort point (South Node) opposes his comfort planet (Moon). Suggests a dominance of the Sun, frequent shedding of meaning-making strategies (he was a sociologist who developed social theories; checks out), and learning to value intellectual dabbling (which perhaps he does in the zettelkasten). (Subordination of the Moon is also supported by the Mercury-Neptune square, which could also indicate a relinquishing of thought, or a cutting-off from one's own thoughts for some period of time. Because Mercury rules his Moon, the same detachment applies to the Moon.)

A few other interesting, first-glance configurations to think about: Jupiter conjuncts Uranus Rx--big innovation. The Mercury-Mars conjunction suggests a more physical expression of thinking. It also suggests his knowledge should be actionable. Both of these are principles of the traditional zettelkasten system. And the Mercury-Mars trines the Jupiter-Uranus--one facilitates the other, and vice versa. These configurations, in my opinion, lend to his staggering production of literature--Luhmann wrote 70+ books and 400 articles (according to Wikipedia (4); other sources cite 50 books and 600 articles (1)) in his career, which he credited to his use of the zettelkasten.

I'll digress to discuss my favourite thing in Luhmann's chart: Pluto Rx in Cancer. Since my interest is in generational and ancestral astrology, this is so interesting to me because the Pluto in Cancer generation had the imperative to redefine "home"--family and nationality; things "within bounds"--particularly the how secure they were as social structures. The ruler of his Pluto, the Moon, is in Gemini, so he did this by collecting and thinking through ideas. He was a social scientist who worked (among other fields) in systems theory, a theory that studies social groupings!

(He was also conscripted as a child soldier in WWII and taken as a prisoner of war at 17 (4), which is a very sad but apt manifestation of Pluto Rx in Cancer inconjunct his Sun. I wish we had a birth time for him so we could see the houses, but alas.)

Luhmann's Story Exemplifies Adapting to Oppositions

Balancing "Neuropathways"

What I find so fascinating about Luhmann's chart is how the zettelkasten system seemed to have resolved the opposition in his chart. And we can see how the zettelkasten system not only suited his Gemini-Sagittarius opposition, but that it also suited the other configurations in his chart.

I like to think of the birth chart a bit like a map of neuropathways, the ones that are easy and immediate for us and others that are less preferred. In this case, the Mercury-Mars and Jupiter-Uranus configurations are only loosely associated with the Moon-Sun opposition--so loosely that I personally wouldn't bother to bring it up in a consult. But even so, it helped resolve the conflict between the Moon and Sun.

One way to relieve a grand cross in a birth chart is by getting in the middle of the chart--balancing the influences by finding the common ground between the planets. T-squares are the same, but because they're missing a planet to oppose the apex planet, sometimes they need to look outside of themselves to resolve the tension. And this brings me to the other thing I find so interesting about this example: the synastry between Luhmann and the guy who invented zettelkasten.

Synastry

Wikipedia says the commonplace book is the predecessor of the zettelkasten method, but a guy by the name of Conrad Gessner came along in the 16th century and started using cards instead of a bound notebook (5). Looking at Gessner's birth chart (6), it doesn't surprise me that he brought his ideas into a form that he could touch, reposition, and map out--he is very likely a Virgo Moon (comfort in material tidbits, organizing, and fiddling).

I wonder about being able to use one's birth chart to describe one's works' influence (to an extent) (because 'to know the artist, look to their art' and all), and so we'll experiment with that now in a synastry chart.

Luhmann's Moon-Sun opposition is suddenly given an out from its tension: Gessner's Aries Mercury is sextile Luhmann's Moon and trine his Sun and Saturn (7). With this, instead of grappling with the subordination of the Moon in the opposition, he can rely on the externalized Mercury to bridge the discord.

We know in Luhmann's chart how his Mercury-Mars conjunction is afflicted by Neptune. But in this synastry chart, Luhmann's Moon is (likely) trine to Gessner's Aquarius Mars. This does a few things: first, it brings in a reliable fixed quality to Luhmann's very mutable chart (and zettelkasten is a singular system of knowledge that is meant to last a lifetime; Luhmann had 90,000 cards in his system when he passed (1)); and second, it creates a stronger pathway to his natal Mercury-Mars aspects, because Gessner's Mars sextiles Luhmann's Mercury-Mars conjunction.

Discussion

In this synastry, Luhmann acquires relief from ambiguity, too-muchness, and the tendency to undermine his own thoughts. Zettelkasten is a tool that gives him access to a way of thinking and doing that he normally has to struggle through Neptune to get to. It does all that, but then still connects him back to himself with more clarity.

I've picked out some of his points about (his experience with) zettelkasten from his essay (2).

First, he stresses the importance of imposing a structure on the system, which makes it capable of "communication" (meaning: understanding your own thinking process). This is Gessner's Mercury connecting Luhmann's Moon and Saturn: the trine between Saturn and Mercury is an imposition of structure, and the Mercury in sextile with the Moon is an easy flow of communication.

He talks about the zettelkasten mimicking the processes of our own cognition, which is signified by the Moon, Mercury, and Saturn, all. Second, a few points he makes suggest to me that with this system he's able to experience his Moon. He argues that when trying to make connections between ideas, there is an element of something like chance. There is a kind of "right timing" in the epiphanies, which is very Moon-ish He also calls his zettelkasten "a second memory", and memory is a signification of the Moon. In the synastry chart, Luhmann suddenly has access to his Moon through Gessner's Mercury.

Last, he talks about the importance of keeping a "permanent address" for each index card, like a little ID code, so that it can be referred to forever. When you try to create a hierarchical order to your cards, you trap yourself into a singular system of thinking for life. You want your zettelkasten to be fixed, but still adaptable and responsive to the ways your thinking changes through a lifetime. Which is a perfect explanation of Gessner's Moon in Virgo, Mars in Aquarius. But it's also hinting that Luhmann relies on the fixed Mars sign he acquires in their synastry.

Discussion of Issues and Implications

So I don't think the whole synastry part of this write-up is a very reliable argument. It's an experiment on my part; I'm just playing "what if". But it makes me wonder about our systems and methods of doing things. We know that we're attracted to people and things that light up our birth charts in interesting ways. And looking at both Luhmann's and Gessner's charts against my own, I can see how the zettelkasten method could be really helpful to me. So maybe I'm not so far out in left field as I think I am.

What I find really compelling about all this is the resolution of Luhmann's natal opposition. Remediation can be complicated, but this is a great example of how external guardrails can facilitate the remediation, and maybe help us find ways to anticipate what a successful technique is more likely to be for us.

I was talking to a friend about remediation options for her own chart and she seemed disappointed to hear that manipulating our environment is a strong option, maybe because she didn't feel like external changes are good enough, permanent enough or authentic enough. (I'm speculating; I don't know why she seemed disappointed.) But the zettelkasten method to Luhmann was something that was very much a part of him. In this essay it sounds like it was his best friend. It was a huge part of his career. And it was something that came from outside of him. So this could be an example of how remediation techniques are lasting and authentic.

Another issue with this whole thing is of course that I used a lot of Wikipedia. It's also too bad that we don't have birth times for Luhmann and Gessner and can't do more to see how the charts moved over time.

Anyway, if you read this whole thing I am sending you twenty-five spiritual dollars :p Thanks, and let me know what you think! Do you have any examples from your own life of stuff like this?

Lazy References

(1) Extensive blog on the zettelkasten system (2) "Improved Translation of "Communications with Zettelkastens"" (3) Niklas Luhmann's birth chart (4) Niklas Luhmann's Wikipedia page, retrieved December 28, 2023 (5) Zettelkasten Wikipedia page, retrieved December 28, 2023 (6) Conrad Gessner birth chart (7) Synastry chart between Niklas Luhmann and Conrad Gessner

[tothelasthoursofmylife]

I read Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimität (Love as Passion: The Codification of Intimacy) by Niklas Luhmann a few times, flipped through it back and forth, forth and back countless times, read and re-read passages again and again. It's a dense read, being an academic work; it's full of the "standard" long sentences, the elevated language, and many, many untranslated parts, but after having gone through it multiple times and making notes, the text is now worn down to a strange kind of familiarity (though I would never call myself a master of the text, still).

However, there is a single sentence I get stuck on every time, ever since I first read it. It's the only sentence that was familiar from the start; it's the only sentence I can find in a heartbeat:

"und je befremdlicher ein Liebesgeschehen nach außen wirkt und je deutlicher es sich vom Normalverhalten absetzt, desto sicherer können die Verliebten sich wechselseitig gleiche Motive unterstellen."

Here is the official English translation which pales compared to the original German, unfortunately:

"and the more surprising a love affair appeared to the outside, and the more clearly it distanced itself from normal behaviour, the more certain the lovers could be of themselves ascribing to each other the same motives"

What makes me particularly unhappy about the translation is that they turned "befremdlich" into "surprising." "Befremdlich" means strange, outlandish, disconcerting, and it contains the word "fremd" which means unfamiliar, foreign. A possible definition for it is "eliciting an unpleasant wonderment." "Surprising" simply does not fit, as it is too broad. The text refers to strange, not merely surprising, love in particular, to love that seems odd to everyone but to itself.

Why I am telling you all this? Because, of course, I got and get stuck on that sentence every time because it reminds me so much of Cloudia and Undertaker - and, of a sentence I wrote and that has still not seen the light of day yet, though it's been waiting patiently for 9 years now.

And that's how old Watchdog of the Queen is as of today. The hold this fic and ship have on me, to make me unable to let go of it and make me see echoes of it elsewhere.

Thank you, as always, for reading this story of mine. This is still the best, nicest place I carved out for myself in this fandom; thank you for keeping me company here. To another year and another and...

----

*That sentence's footnote is worth mentioning too:

"However, empirical research has repeatedly shown distinctions between men and women to exist, i.e. above all the tendency of men, at least at the beginning of a relationship, to fall in Romantic love much more than women."

[fabiansteinhauer]

Polobjekte

1.

Polobjekte sind Objekte, die bestimmte Regungen händelbar machen sollen, nämlich Regungen, die aus einer Drehung/ Rotation/ oder aus Routinen resultieren und in der Kehren, Kippen oder Wenden vorkommen. In der kleinen Passage vergleicht Niklas Luhmann Objekte mit dem Gesellschaftsvertrag und er erwähnt dort mindestens ein Polobjekt, nämlich den Fußball.

Warburgs Staatstafeln arbeiten anders: er übersetzt Verträge in ein Objekt und ein Objekt in einen Vertrag, der führt ein 'vertragendes und verfassendes Objekt' vor: die Doppeltafel, die sich aus den beiden Staatstafeln 78/79 zusammensetzt. Er vergleicht nicht, er übersetzt.

2.

Wunderbarer Witz: Luhmanns Hinweis auf erfundene Objekte, deren Aufgabe darin läge, soziale Systeme mit Redundanz zu versorgen: Könige und Fußbälle! Der Fußball ist ein altes Polobjekt, er ist Fortuna als Ding. Der König hält Polobjekte in der Hand: Einen Stab und einen Globus. Die Gesellschaft versorgen beide in einem Sinne mit Redundanz: Sie kuratieren die Redundanz, besorgen die Redundanz für anderes; das ist eine Redundanz, deren Namen Luxus oder Überfluss ist und deren Verlauf saturnalisch, saturiert und doch unersättlich erscheinen kann (also einen melancholischen Verlauf nehmen kann), der dazu noch phobisch (leuchtend/dämmernd) und damit polar erscheinen kann. Luhmann spricht knapp von Redundanz, aber er wäre der letzte, dem man erklären müsste, dass in dem knappen Wort Redundanz eine Überfülle an Informationen steckt. Es hat zwar an eigener Redundanz die Gesellschaft genug, aber Objekte lassen zumindest trainieren.

3.

Das schöne Redundanz: man weiß nie, ob nicht doch gerade dasjenige, was an ihr ausgelassen werden soll, weil es sich so verzichtbar gibt, nicht doch alles verändert.

[nunc2020]

„Alles Recht kommt in und durch Rechtskommunikation zustande.“

„Die Wirklichkeit ist das, was das System als Wirklichkeit herstellt.“

Thomas Vesting, Recht als autopoietisches System, S. 43 in

Lars Viellechner [Hrsg.] Verfassung ohne Staat

Gunther Teubners Verständnis von Recht und Gesellschaft