[NetBehaviour] The half-century old tape of static and philosophy -

[Alan Sondheim]

The half-century old tape of static and philosophy -

https://youtu.be/y8nZeQusrC0 video

Now to listen to this, about 3-4 minutes of static at the
beginning - don't despair - the tape settles down somewhat into
cognitive discourse - a Wittgensteinian self-absorption - but in
pieces - as I just said out loud, it's all in my head -

Around 1968 I bought a 1968 Grundig DeJur Mini-Memo /EN7
cassette recorder. The machine was only useful for rough
dictation. I used it on and off for a few years, taking notes,
nothing more. I had a couple of cassettes. This recording is
from one of them. Consider that most of the content is 50 years
old, that most of it is in reference to my attempts at creating
a formalism or phenomenology of the world. Consider the poor
quality of the recording. I went back during the past half
century and listened to parts of it; I also tested the recording
function. The result of all of this is this soundtrack, almost a
half hour long. It fascinates me now, since it's a live record
of my stumbling and thinking through various philosophical
issues I may or may not have been ill-equipped to deal with. So
it's a performance as well, a sound track as well. The ideas
still resonate with me. There's static in the beginning which
soon clears up. Bear with it. I remember an interview I did with
a famous physicist; at one point I mentioned some of my ideas.
He replied, I don't care what you do, just don't call it
physics. Well I didn't and I don't. On the other hand there was
a physicist I knew working on quantum logic, and we had,
hopefully, fruitful conversations. I don't belong anywhere among
professions and professionals, I continue on my own erroneous
way.

Iterations and stopping and starting a philosophical discourse.
The dependency of philosophical discourse on the apparatus. The
fictivity and fragility of philosophical discourse when.
Considered either as a material object or as a signal.  .

The self-indulgence of the writer. Am I permitted to even use
the word 'philosophy'? After everything else is lost. I remember
when it all started - I was typing, perhaps 8 months ago, the
word 'when' - and it appeared on screen as 'hwen' - the first
time I saw this in any case - now there are other occurrences -
as if the writing is degraded from within - it is - in tatters -
paralleled by the tape - its degradation - a small tape by the
way, not your standard cassette - an x-ray of my mind at that
time - in those times - stumbling, backtracking - always those
interruptions - is this working - 1,2,3,4,5 - or some such -
there must be a word for this circularity -

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