Diachrony in synchrony - how poetry can change the world

Diachrony in synchrony - how poetry can change the world

John Bjarne Grover

It happened on 19 september 2019 that I was sitting at my workdesk and suddenly - as by a historic discontinuity - there were before me two small dictionaries I had got from younger sister Tone Helene Grøver in probably the early 80's or late 70's - probably a christmas - a greek-norwegian (blue) and a dutch-norwegian (red) pocket dictionary.

These were suddenly before me - but had they been there a few moments ago? I had not noticed them, and I certainly had not recently been in need of them and therefore put them out myself, but it is true that I had been on a brief trip to Italy the day before and had looked up the yellow pocket italian-english dictionary just before I left. Had these other two pocket dictionaries followed at the same time - or was it a moment of magic? I had done a little work on the desk before I discovered it - and would probably have noticed them, but entirely certain I could not be.

Around the same time, I had looked at an alphabetized list of hebrew words - doublewords from Genesis, written left-right for technical reasons - on the computer screen when suddenly I observed that in one of these words (ADMUNI) the two leftmost or first alphabetic letters (which determined the position in the logical alphabetized order) moved by itself on the screen to the righthand end of the word (leaving the form MUNIAD). I looked at how the word was changed and then moved stepwise leftwards to adjust to the leftmost margin (this is likely to be Zeno's 'moving rows' paradox) before they slipped back again. Clearly the effect of this is that the word would have gained a different position in the alphabetized list - at least for a brief period.

The thesis is that diachrony is synchrony when logical order is semantic assignment. This suggests that the historic discontinuity of the two sudden dictionaries GREEK and DUTCH norwegian which I got from sister Tone Helene Grøver occurred on the desk before me in the context of the movearound of the alphabetic hebrew letters on the monitor before me - whereby the AD-muni (means sth like 'golden hair') was changed into muni-AD (moneta, coin, or taxi) and thereby, by being susceptible to be moved down the alphabetized list, would receive a new semantic assignment from the corresponding verse of the gospel of Matthew. In fact, if this were the one and only change, it would shift from entry #7 = Matthew 1:7 down to entry #816 but since the 7th then was lost it would be moved one step up to the adjacent position #815 = Matthew 24:2 - cp. Matthew 1:7 on 'order of generations'. A possible comment there is also in the list of true doublewords and in the 1071 list - but these have not ADMUNI on place #7 and I think it was #7 that changed.

This means that the logical order would be changed (from #7 to #815) in the same context as the location of the material objects (dictionaries) were changed. One recognizes the old alchemical strategy of making gold (as for the ex nihilo piece of gold I made on 10 may 2018) in AD-muni vs muni-AD.

One concludes from this synchronic discontinuity in the context of logical order and semantic assignment that the diachronic discontinuity of my odd grammar in 'Der Dornenstrauch' could have been influential in calling forth this historic discontinuity on my desk.

I look up the poem I associate with this story of the two dictionaries in TEQ (The Endmorgan Quartet) - that is #554, the first poem in the section 'The sting of Egypt' in TEQ book 9 "...to be an emperor..." inluding the wording: "Visits her sister Ganda. / While sister sleeps - / waterclock which starts bleeping: / Blop... Blop... Blop..."

Now to find the proper poem in DDS (which contains 440 poems against the 1719 poems of TEQ) I take 440 * 554/1719 = 141,8 = DDS absolute enumeration #142, which is relative enumeration #107c:

107c

Gedanken wird von Zeit zu Zeit
in das Poetische artikuliert.
Da finden sie sich ohne Wirbel und Streit
und weiden ins Poetische zu weit
mit das Historische synkronisiert.

Aber warum sind die Gedanken da
wo immer sie in Prosa leben kann?

The dictionaries seem to have landed 'ohne Wirbel und Streit' on the desk. The only odd grammar I find is 'mit das Historische synkronisiert' which should have been 'mit dem Historischen synkronisiert'. That is 5/7 through the poem.

I first look up chinese cardinal #142 from the 214 system of Mathews:

Clearly this sign looks like the computer monitor with the 'egyptian' mid line over which the letters crossed when 'AD-muni' changed to 'muni-AD' - and the low crossbar describes the probably ex nihilo movement of the two dictionaries.The dutch was to the left and the greek about mid way on the desk.

It is noticed that without the lower crossbar (the movement of the dictionaries, that is here) of this CHONG, what is left is the standard sign ZHONG which means 'China'.

The radical 107 (for the relative enumeration) in the 188 system likewise looks interesting.

Next I look up the correlates to 'Der Dornenstrauch' relative #107c, given on p.946 in vol.4 (see also this file from which it is possible to compute most of it when one knows that there exists also a poem #107ga in addition to #107g):

Relative enumeration: #107c
Absolute enumeration: #142
Moses: 1-6-5 (= Genesis 6:5)
Rigveda: 1-14-8, 1-9-4, 1-3-11, 1-35-6, 1-32-11

Genesis 6:5 is quite interesting: It contains 15 words (when strokes are removed) and the word 15 * 5/7 = 10,71 = word #11 is LiBU = nms 3psm of LBB = the heart, life = thought, will = INTENTION. My translation of Gen.6-5 is this:

Fearing God, the brand of being many
breaking in pieces from the red land
that which is place (form),
breaking in pieces by the intention
that which is time

which is quite relevant to the historic discontinuity of the dictionaries and the movement of the alphabetic letters. It is the word 'intention' which corresponds to the grammatical error of line 5 out of 7 in DDS 107c.

Next I look up the words from Rigveda - each word found by computing 5/7 through the verse:

1-14-8 = jihva(ya) = the tongue
1-9-4 = ahasata = a day (black and white days), on a specific day
1-3-11 = yajnam --> yajna = worship, devotion, prayer, praise, act of offering/sacrifice, fire
1-35-6 = iha = in this place, here, in this book / system, at this time
1-32-11 = vritram = VRIT = to turn around, revolve, roll, proceed +RAM = to halt? (hence 'vritram' = 'roll after'?) Boethlingk: eine bestimmte Pflanze/Metrum; Stiel eines Blattes / einer Blühe/Frucht/Schal; Brustwarze; ein best. kriechendes Tier (Raupe), die Eierpflanze

One notices the 'Raupe' and the 'wormy' insect of the chinese radical.

The vedic references can in fact be seen to contain the name of the younger sister 'Tone Helene Grøver' - 'tongue whole day down G (this place)' + the revolving 'röver' - plus the idea of devotional sacrifice by fire. Boethlingk is apparently not on the same tracks - but my knowledge of the sanskrit is too limited for evaluating this. It seems to be Monier-Williams who is on these ideas. These be what they are, the intention of the hebrew fragment anyhow looks relevant to the discontinuities and the chinese radical.

Next I look up the mirror poem to #554 which is #1166 which includes the notion of "A SUDDEN SHIFT FROM LIGHT TO DARK OR VICE VERSA". The sudden shift from light to dark has a correlate in the sanskrit 'ahasata'. Could be my younger sister had been brought up with looks out the window on certain weekdays and dates? The poem includes "On the fourteenth of Friday: / - Did your mère look out your bedroom?"

The hebrew to #1166 (BLXIIN LA AMRT LN - from Talmud Erubin the Vilna edition folio 14b line 9 from the bottom of the page text) looks interesting: It seems to mean sth like 'in the beautiful women - [not] the joined, the lodged'. The issue is the lechi which is the sidepost in a door or rather gate opening - here the sidepost of the monitor where the movement took place. The Mesorah translation goes: "...but in the case of lechis, you did not tell us this".

What should have been the sanskrit reason of Tone Grøver ? It could have been the wish to solve the 'roll after' as a fundamental problem of Norway - possibly even the program of who looked out the window at a certain day - if that were the mythological story.

To tell the truth, I dont believe that my younger sister shot Indira Gandhi - but there seem to be traces of the mythology in the linguistic substrate - and that is probably where the idea comes from.

The conclusion is anyhow that the grammatical oddities of this poem of mine match the theory of historic discontinuity quite well - in its diachronic aspect.

It is an opening door in the monitor, in the 'China' ZHONG, in the doorway to another reality - which is possible because humans are 'the brand of being many' (Gen.6:5 in my translation).

Mit das Historische synchronisiert: That is how it could have looked if language history had taken another path - but then history on the monitor screen and on the desk could have done so as well. When the letters and dictionaries moved contrary to normal limitations of causality, that is because a door had opened to another reality wherein history could be restored to what it should rather have been.

It means that the poem in the book suggests another history - wherein Indira Gandhi is not shot after all.

But that is not obtained by removing the hebrew 'intention' by way of a new holocaust - a la the mythological 'Tone Helene Grøver' no longer having this intention of an act of sacrificional fire. It is accomplished by way of an understanding of the semiotics of the fundamental theorem of linguistics which opens to other realities.

Neither is it a solution to blame me for the 'octogon' as the indirect cause (in the mirror poem #1166) of the historic problems - when the Mesorah translation suggests "...but in the case of lechis, you did not tell us this". A secret lover? It is not by keeping this hebrew idea under the rug that history is rescued.

It is mystic and poetic inquiry that is the solution - and it is also this which brings society forwards to new information technology.

But how could I 'feel' that 'bei das Historische' was right and 'bei dem Historischen' was less good if I had not consulted the matrices of hebrew and sanskrit references in advance? I mean, how could 'the sister Ganda' thereby come to restore the 'disaster Gandhi'? The answer is that the poet 'feels' it intuitively by its poetic value - not by peeping in the solution in advance.

Three theses

1) It is only the poetry that brings real progress - the analytical study of it at best surfs on the achievements of the poetry.

2) The only valuable thing in poetry is the good intention. Of course poetry can also have an entertainment value by way of appealing forms, but this is at best of secondary value.

3) It is the poet's work to bring the good intention to the forms of poetry - that includes to change the basis of society for making that possible.

This means that the poet's work is to change the world: If you say something and then want to say something more, if the second line rhymes with the first it must be called a miracle if you have been truthful in your saying: Of course one can stand there half-lying for making the lines rhyme, but that is not necessarily of so very good intention, and for a real rhyme (or equivalent formal constraint) you must first change the world (not by power but by good intention) and thereafter the lines can rhyme truthfully. That is what brings value to the world, to the society - by way of the good intention.

Sources:

Böhtlingk, Otto von: Sanskrit Wörterbuch - in kürzerer Fassung, Sieben Bände. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited. Delhi 2009.

Mathews, R.H.: Chinese-English Dictionary. (A Chinese-English Dictionary Compiled for the China Inland Mission by R.H.Mathews, Shanghai: China Inland Mission and Presbyterian Mission Press, 1931). Revised american edition 1943. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Monier-Williams, Sir Monier: A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Oxford at the Clarendon Press 1979.

Talmud Bavli, the classic Vilna edition, vol.7, Tractate Erubin. Mesorah Publications Ltd. New York 2005.