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Quality Duality
"Re-Grand Opening Sale"

the fundamental duality is between duality and non-duality
within this fundamental duality
duality itself is a duality between duality and non-duality
in and of which we may speak as between linguistic and biological -
non-duality itself is a non-duality
in which we may not speak of linguistic or biological
for they are fused in nonduality
hence the confusion:

we "observe" two dualities
that between "faith and reason"
and that between "language" and "biology"
but in fact "faith" and "reason" are being used metaphorically
for fundamental non-duality and duality, as expressed in language -
"faith" means language expressing non-duality, "reason" duality
hence faith and biology are each as if shadows of non-duality
cast upon duality from different directions, faith refracted





styles of thinking - some unnameable

thought forms upon a spectrum of forms:
an "image", a "word", a "number", etc. - some unnameable - -
thought exists as perception and other brain events, and
in thinking becomes thought, and manifests -
during this process of manifestation,
visual, verbal, etc. traits accrue - some unnameable - -
a thought expressed into the world
appears coherent (integrous, meaningful, true)
when formed from the concretions of those traits
which comprise it by nature - some unnameable




upon

a symbol can point to marks upon relevant spectra
but when it tries to point to a spectrum
it points to that spectrum as a mark upon a different spectrum
for example

- gay and straight are marks on the spectrum of sexual orientation
but "sexual orientation"
doesn’t communicate the spectrum of sexual orientation
it communicates a mark upon a different spectrum,
on which also lie the spectrum of gender and the spectrum of sex,
and upon other spectra, perhaps

- friend and enemy are marks on the same spectrum as cooperation and competition
but "the spectrum of both friend and enemy and cooperation and competition"
doesn’t communicate the spectrum of both friend and enemy and cooperation and competition
it communicates a mark upon a different spectrum,
on which also lie the spectrum of business and personal and the spectrum of parent and child,
and upon other spectra, perhaps

so
language fails or
language obstinately refuses
to recognize the reality of reality’s spectral nature
language stands out into existence by claiming an identity
it claims an identity
by means of the speaker’s fictitious sense of self
(the material cause of which is the subject of this poem)
a mark upon the continuity of the real




In Titling Itself, The Poem Permits Itself

In a world of disappearing personal privacy,
maintenance of the state’s privacy becomes difficult -
as channels interconnect, we need not even redescribe.
Ways to win without force or secrecy:
by priority,
by inevitability,
by aesthetic immediacy,
by the mystic means of moral judgment,
by the grace of language, in which conflict is irrelevant.

In the physical world, the agent is immoral
- because physical agency is violence -
but in the word world, a physical agent is the substrate of existence
- because a word exists only through some linguistic agency.
An Utterance, seen from within language,
is comparable to an act of gravity or time in the manifest world;
seen from within language,
what is comparable to violence is silence -
secrecy, lies, inattention.

To thwart the growth of moral language
is to hack an eden mercilessly apart.

(in commenting upon itself, the poem absolves itself)




philosophy poems, brian brock, 2022-2023