Quote of the Day

[timelets]

A scar is the sign not of a past wound but of 'the present fact of having been wounded': we can say that it is the contemplation of the wound, that it contracts all the instants which separate us from it into a living present. Or rather, that we find here the true meaning of the distinction between natural and artificial: natural signs are signs founded upon passive synthesis; they are signs of the present, referring to the present in which they signify. Artificial signs, by contrast, are those which refer to the past or the future as distinct dimensions of the present, dimensions on which the present might in turn depend.

--- Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition.

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

Funny. There's a problem with some philosophers. They have no clue what they are talking about. "distinct dimensions of the present", my ass.

[timelets]

Actually, they do have a clue. Similarly, when you ask your students to prove something like 1+1=2 it also looks funny, but it doesn't mean that you don't have a clue.

[juan_gandhi]

I seriously don't believe Deleuse knows what he is talking about when he mentions "different dimensions".

[timelets]

He's doing philosophy, not physics. Here, the term "dimensions" means aspects of experience.

[juan_gandhi]

Good, good. Any definition would work then, since the phrase would only make sense if you are drunk or a philosopher.

[timelets]

You are making his point for him: a drunk, an engineer and a philosopher read the same phrase in the same present, but their experiences are vastly different.