SCHEMATIZING (42)
By:
August 20, 2024
One in a series of posts via which HILOBROW’S Josh Glenn will attempt to depict the intellectual and emotional highs and lows of developing a semiotic schema. Series dedicated to its target audience of one: Malcolm Evans.
A depiction of Rene Descartes’ vortices, from Principia Philosophiae (1644). In his theory, the entire universe was filled with elements of different sizes which shifted around each other. At the center is the sun, which is made up of the smallest kind of element and the bigger ones sift out and circle around it. Space is entirely filled with matter in various states, whirling about the sun.
Each star denotes by F, D, etc. is at the center of a vortex. The Sun is denoted by S.
The notion of vortices was also used to explain forces like magnetism.
Importantly, the idea of the vortices suggested that the fixed stars were actually part of a contagious universe of systems like our own rubbing against each other. This notion that the stars are suns would play an important role in future development of cosmology.
Descartes’model was overruled by Newton’s theory planetary motion but, somehow, in contemporary astrophysics, vortices are still present — in a complete different way — and triggered by gravitational field acting through the interstellar vacuum.
I find this a really helpful and compelling way to envision how “local” semiospheres interact and intersect within a larger culture.
MORE FURSHLUGGINER THEORIES BY JOSH GLENN: SCHEMATIZING | IN CAHOOTS | JOSH’S MIDJOURNEY | POPSZTÁR SAMIZDAT | VIRUS VIGILANTE | TAKING THE MICKEY | WE ARE IRON MAN | AND WE LIVED BENEATH THE WAVES | IS IT A CHAMBER POT? | I’D LIKE TO FORCE THE WORLD TO SING | THE ARGONAUT FOLLY | THE PERFECT FLANEUR | THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JANUARY | THE REAL THING | THE YHWH VIRUS | THE SWEETEST HANGOVER | THE ORIGINAL STOOGE | BACK TO UTOPIA | FAKE AUTHENTICITY | CAMP, KITSCH & CHEESE | THE UNCLE HYPOTHESIS | MEET THE SEMIONAUTS | THE ABDUCTIVE METHOD | ORIGIN OF THE POGO | THE BLACK IRON PRISON | BLUE KRISHMA | BIG MAL LIVES | SCHMOOZITSU | YOU DOWN WITH VCP? | CALVIN PEEING MEME | DANIEL CLOWES: AGAINST GROOVY | DEBATING IN A VACUUM | PLUPERFECT PDA | SHOCKING BLOCKING.