Volition as obsidian blade

When one dances or otherwise moves in tempo, and gives oneself, to a received rhythm, it's far less likely that the nuances and intricacies of that rhythm will be picked up on and consciously registered.

Stop dancing, step back, and listen - just listen - and don't move. The rhythm now registers as a series of patterns, patterns available for a conscious tracing, and the craft behind the construction can perhaps slowly unfurl itself like a pennant.

And once one has discerned craft, one is that much closer to discerning intent, as devices on a distant standard glimpsed through the fog of war.

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Some of the most advanced examples of order come to resemble chaos, so much so that they become more than casually indistinguishable from one another - I'm thinking of the frenetic and esoteric scales employed in certain forms of jazz and the "avant-garde" in instrumental/'classsical' music, as well as certain examples of modern and contemporary fine art; in particular the Ligeti opus "Symphonic Poem for 100 Metronomes" immediately comes to mind: imagine the cacophony of 100 metronomes set to different tempos all going off simultaneously, but each according to a rigorously worked-out and implemented prior plan (the score, in fact), such that the apparent web of noise can be as nearly exactly duplicated for repeat performances as any other performance of a symphony, perhaps even moreso.

What separates order from chaos, as precisely as an incision, is not any property inherent in the apparent structure, or lack thereof, of the object of investigation, but rather the presence or absence of intent. This, of course, immediately poses certain philosophical and ontological quandaries, but books have been written on much less.

9, 13 May 2003