I think that’s a grey zone thing. Popularity is weak social proof of potential historicity, but some things embody actual historicity, where past and future of X don’t make sense without X. Memes that flood the meme pool.
Conversation
Replying to
i think the statement "some things embody actual historicity" is too dubious to argue one way or the other
to wit, the stroke by which the past and the present "make sense" we should always regard with skepticism, that is, as a stroke which seeks its own, artificial historicity
1
Replying to
I agree, it is 100% dubious and I don’t actually believe it, but that’s the point. Historicity is a construct that a) you can opt-in to b) has no pr9vileged version.
It’s more than popular appeal, but falls short of an absolute temporality (which I argue cannot exist)
1
Replying to
i disagree
i think absolute temporality is the mechanism which enables art to exist, in a large part by dissolving historicity into it--sort of an experiential vortex
and as such, we are in no position to evaluate this kind of temporality, only experience it
2
1
Replying to
Ah I would say there’s no way to experience this absolute temporality at all, *except* through transient experiencable temporalities that emerge from and collapse back into it. So to believe in it is a leap of faith
This is where I end up disagreeing with experienced meditators
1
Replying to
that's more of a feature than a bug imo
transience is the essence of whatever we are, as paradoxical as that sounds; anyone who says otherwise is selling something
but whether we choose to understand that negatively or positively is up to us
1
Replying to
I’m not tagging it as either, just rejecting claims of absolute experience
Quote Tweet
A clock is the design outcome of applying occam’s razor to narratives
Tick-tock is merely the simplest endless story you can tell.
1
1
Replying to
as paul ricoeur and virginia woolf show us, this cuts both ways:
the desire to transcend the relative illegibility of finite, experiential time (ironically) produces a more illegible, abstract, and absurd vision of the Absolute
2
1
Replying to
Have you seen my multitemporality talk? Curious to hear what you think. It references Woolf, Mrs Dalloway etc. About 18 months behind my current statement but mostly still roughly right re my direction
1
1
Replying to
i really liked this talk--i hadn't thought to compare hg wells and virginia woolf at all, but it makes a lot of sense
one thing i was struck by, just watching this video, is the extent to which the standardization of temporal is always tied to the mastery of space, and extension
2
1
Replying to
Not my idea! Woolf herself made the comparison in Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown and explicitly sets herself up in opposition

