Tuesday, July 12, 2005

The Tautologies

From dictionary.com:


1.) a. Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.
b. An instance of such repetition.

2.) Logic. An empty or vacuous statement composed of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it logically true whether the simpler statements are factually true or false; for example, the statement "Either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow."

Not to be confounded with the oxymoron or the paradox, the logical anomaly known as the tautology is a fascinating phenomenon.

Perhaps one of the most interesting tautologies are those that transcend languages or are resultants of linguistic misinterpretation:

1.) Pomodoro tomato is literally, translated as a redundancy,

tomato tomato/pomodoro pomodoro.

2.) Manos: The Hand of Fate (fr. wikipedia)

hands x2

Interesting also is the temporal tautology, which would be redundant based on one's context either historically or chronologically.

Siam Thai, a restaurant in San Francisco. Two places which are literally the same place, but at different times in history.

Istanbul, not Constantinople...except when it was Constantinople, after having been Istanbul originally; but it hasn't always been Istanbul, either. Essentially, it is both places because it has been both places...perhaps a technicality, but it is technically true.

Let's dispense with Yogi Berra's redundant witticisms...need I say more than the fact that they have been said?

The Four Humours;

Or, A noteworthy blip in the (admittedly short) History of Modern Medicine.
1st Asklepios (mythical),
Then Hippocrates (He of the Oath)
and Then Galen.

Disorders of the body were once symbolised by body type (physiognomy), color, and miscellaneous paradigms of attitude...these are the four archetypes which had evolved little over the course of centuries. All are believed to be a result of excess or imbalance not only of life-style or personality but of physiology and other natural factors (elements, seasons &c).
Sanguine: Blood , Air. Jolly, Lustful. Some, such as Galen, say it is the most balanced of the humours, yet synonymous with those given to baser instincts.


Choleric: Yellow Bile, Fire. Temper-prone, belligerent. Generally acidic in word and deed.


Melancholic: Black Bile, Earth. The depressed condition, Saturnine in disposition. Ironically also associated with contemplation and the introspective act of negotioating logic puzzles (voir Durer's epononymous work on the subject).

Phlegmatic: The self-same substance, Water. It it is an apathetic, lack-a-daisy and sickly state of being.

A balance of all four, apparently, would garner a sort of Temperance...but this is a subject best left to the classical Philosophers that vaingloriously search for transmutation of All Things or the Gypsies with their enigmatic (some say prophetic, some preposterous) card-based picture-plays.

~Dain Quentin Gore

A Brief Look at "Homonculous as the Eye-Taker"

This painting is based on a small homonculous I made by accident in my early youth.

Homonculous: "A device contrived to represent a living being, usually a person. Used most often in reference to the apocryphal world of the Al Kimical Arts (That is, the arts of Al-Khim, the foreigner's name for ancient Egypt). Also, a simulacra of a human being seen in the animal or plant kingdom."

~Paraphrased from one Mr.J. Randi's Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural.

The "Homonculous" in this case is in the Eye-Taker Aspect. An arbitrary decision, based on his absence of eyes. I neglected to give this fake-person anything real but my baby teeth, inadvertently qualifying it, perhaps, for the title of true homonculous (in the classical sense). At the time, my childhood fascination lie with a film by the name of Labyrinth. So I then attempted to fashion a goblin out of clay.

The reason I later wanted to make this painting was to portray how the 4 (-1=3) Humors, (as Phlematic---sickly green--would probably be rather listless) all inventions of medical imagination, would react to a further contrivance of more overtly supernatural stature. The irony, perhaps, is that the statue I had made was much smaller in scale than it is here represented. The idea is bigger than the object, as it were...

~Dain Q. Gore