Examples of recursive matter

Examples of recursive matter

John Bjarne Grover

On this page I have put out samples of 'recursive matter', that is matter ex nihilo, or probably ex nihilo. (Some will raise eyebrows - such as #27 - while others are more standard - like #26a). The oldest pieces here are from early 2014 or late 2013 when this phenomenon started with the writing of 'Der Dornenstrauch' up to the finding of what probably is a 'lapis philosophorum' in the autumn 2014. There still come a piece now and then - and they often have high salience for understanding the current situation. They are here listed in mostly order of occurrence, the most recent first. Originally this page listed them in the opposite order and with a 'preface' or warning that I was not certain if everybody would experience them in the same manner as I - but this worry has been tuned down and I now consider this a harmless and very interesting field of study. The original preface is given at the end of this file.

The philosopher's white stone - which probably is considered to be the ex nihilo matter par excellence - is given in element 11 - and I have added a few new details from it recently. I long had the theory that ex nihilo matter tended to occur in dimensions of 8 mm, 16 mm, 32 mm - and I have even found a few 64 mm - but I have left this theory by now. I dont know what could have been the reason for it originally. For a general theory, see this file.

49. Three wedges (could it have been petrified onion slices?):
Wedge 1
Wedge 2 - the tip end
Wedge 2 - looks like Paramaribo
Wedge 3

48. 18 august 2020

47. The dog of Bangladesh
The dog seen from the right
The dog seen from the left
The dog is just 12,3 cm long

46. This I found on the floor some months - probably in fact a few years - ago: I believed (without spectacles, though) that it was a normal piece of bread and put it in an envelope which I found again a few days agp and it still is quite freshlooking - clearly not ordinary bread-stuff
Crust 1
Crust 2
Crust 3
Crust 4
Crustdetail

45. Gold!! Or at least it looks like gold. 28 feb 2020.
The front side of the gold
It resembles the fox
The back side
I notice that the turned back side exhibits clear traces of the chinese sign for 'fox' - here from Mathews dictionary - source given at end of this file.

44. This was found on the side of the bathroom scales in november, in Vienna
Equus
Vercus
Quercus

43. 20 november 2019

42. The 'skate' - a tuft of wool that sprang from my forehead - 'ex nihilo' if not from the towel I had then just used:
The skate
Detail from the skate

41. Two 'scapulars' - both of them extremely 'spröde' - they broke in two with a slight touch only:
The first scapular
The second scapular

40. A proof of the existence of ex nihilo matter
It happened on 20 april 2018 - I studied Liedtke's book on Vermeer on page 58-59. It rested there for a while and I turned the leaf back onto page 57 when suddenly I spotted a clot of jelly stuff on the opening page 57. Since the pages of the book had rested flat against flat, and since the clot was quite elevated and fresh and wet and there was no mark on the opposite page 56, it is not really possible that this clot had existed before I started turning the page. This has happened to me once before - while reading poetry of Machado - turning a page onto the next poem in the book there was such a big fresh clot under the lifting page. It is quite convincing - in contrast to many other circumstances when it is not really possible to be totally sure about the ex nihilo character. There was some dust or fine hair patterns on the clot - I put it under the microscope and photographed it. The clot provided some resistance - it could not have been of bodily origin but not really 'rubber' either.
The clot on the page in the book
Detail of the clot seen under the microscope

39. Gold!
Today, on 10 may 2018, I made my first piece of real gold, as it seems. It isnt big but it looks like gold under the microscope. I was writing on a white paper when this suddenly was there. As I lifted it up, it seems that a tiny part of it fell off - could be the upper part of the 'tuflja'.
The gold from the one side
The gold from the other side

38. A piece of bread, gingersnap style
This is the piece of bread I found on the carpet in my home some weeks ago - I photographed it but the photos disappeared somehow and I could not find the breadpiece again. Now on 5 may 2018 I suddenly found it again on the edge of my table - I believed that I had looked there before but didnt find it. If such matter can hop into reality maybe it can hop out and in again? Hopefully there hasnt been criminals here borrowing it for some days. Here are two types of photos showing different aspects - it looks like a circuitry program under the microscope camera:
Bread 1
Bread 2
Bread 3
Bread 4
Bread 5 - length = 2,71 cm = Euler's constant

37. The turning of the lapis philosophorum

36. The lion
My book title 'A sister of Toukhraud' (TEQ book 7) could be in reference of my 'fundamental theorem of linguistics'. If the book title itself is included in the counts, then there are three occurrences of the words 'sister' and 'Toukhraud', otherwise two. One of the two occurrences inside the book is this, from TEQ poem #400: "Jaja, a sister of Toukhraud. / I remain the heart which remains / under the filthy plane". The ambiguity enters into some correlations with a 'dandelion' in work I am currently elaborating on my work desk and which I should hope were not plundered by surveillance.
The 'dandelion', the 'Löwenzahn'
The 'dandelion' in another view

35. Peanut butter
It is not impossible that this peanut butter, which occurred with strange suddenness in my palm, could be of some ex nihilo nature.

34. Clot
This clot of some jelly-like stuff with hairs entangled occurred suddenly on the edge of my hand, opposite the thumb - could be it is half a centimetre or so in length. It resembles slightly a small bug I found flat on the inside of the cover of my 'Stillhetens åndedrag' - but I think that must count as a normal house- or garden bug and that the correlation was rather insubstantial.

33. Vollkornbrot
This I found in early march - it looked like a piece of 'Vollkornbrot'. It was too big to get all of it under the microscope and I took a photo of the 'gingersnap'-shaped (parallelogram) piece with camera but cannot find it again. Could be 'Falconbridge' and norwegian 'folkeskole' ('primary school') are enough reason to include it here. In 2008 I photographed this grafiti in Athens.

32. Batman
On 24 march 2018 I found this 'Batman'. Some days earlier I had found a 'twitter'-bird and a 'strongman'-arm on my bathroom mirror - but I have to confess that even if these occurred with surprising suddenness, I cannot know with certainty whether they could be some sort of 'salve' (for reaching some salve against eczema down to a point on my back I have to use a wooden spatula and it could have been flung off in that movement - but probably not?) that had flown through the air and landed on the mirror surface - where a photo taken a little aslant shows the substance and its mirror image. 'Bathman' it could be - a bird and a man's arm. The 'batman' itself is of a more complex form and apparently ex nihilo:
The 'bird' on the bathroom window
The 'aram' on the bathroom window
The bird and the 'strongman' arm on the mirror
The ex nihilo piece looking like an ancient bird
The ex nihilo bird further down - its 'feathers'
The 'bat' is the same piece on the other side (turned around)
Closeup of the head of the 'bat'

31. Cardiff / Beachy Head
Cardiff / Beachy Head - Map of Beachy Head - (For the Beachy Head, see also this file).
Closeup of Cardiff - Map of Cardiff
If the 'wigwam' of 4. below 'means' the word 'pisatelj', it can be noticed that the present interpretation of 'Cardiff/Harding' can be used to decipher the 'christian wigwam' of 4a. below as a variant of the word 'Wohnungsauflösung': The 'V' is the same 'radiant head' as in the Vilnius tree-revelation, and it gets folded for the 'double V' in a similar way as in Vilnius. The 'Ohnung' is then likely to be the 'flag' that blows in the wind above the structure, and the 'sauf/lösung' = 'cardiff/harding' can be seen in the structural similarity with the present piece.

30. A piece of potato peel on the threshold to a new threshold
Already the day after (20 jan 2018) I published the previous #29 (19 jan 2018) I know with reasonable certainty that the threshold to the entrance room (between wood and ceramic tile floor) was free of anything such, but after I had gone for an evening walk and came home, I later discovered the following piece which looks a little like potato peel. It lay on the threhold to the threshold like #28 below had done. I had peeled potatoes for dinner earlier in the day but this is a little darker than the rest of the peel in the garbage. On the evening walk I was followed for a while by a probably disabled man who had problems with lifting his feet properly from the ground. (Of course if burglars have been in with 'mystic matter' they should confess to the police).
The piece under the microscope
The same piece 'xrayed'

29. A new piece on the same threshold
The piece published below as #28 was found on 8 january. On 9 january there were new things on the same threshold, but these seemed to have natural explanations (a plant). However, on 14 january I crossed the threshold again and found a piece there which looks like the same as the first, but on a new location. On 8 january I had also taken some photos of the first piece with light through it - and when I now did the same with the new, even the inside was nearly the same. If the one xray is slightly more curved than the other, that could perhaps be due to some dry-up phenomenon. Or is it like the two stigmas reported below (#3)? 'Stig-ma' could mean 'my threshold', 'my step'. Since I cannnot find the first again among the other rubbish that lay on a nearby table-edge, I suppose it is the same.
This is where I found the new piece
The front side of the new animal
The back side of the new animal
The first animal xrayed
The second animal xrayed

28. On the threshold to the threshold
On the threshold to the threshold I found it
here in a closer view
The front side of the animal
The front side of the animal in more artistic look
The back side of the animal

27. A piece of plastic - like my white metre poetry?
You can see the scissored edge
It is 3,33 cm in one direction
An attempt to adjust it to Euler's constant?
A day or two later a 1,9 * 4 cm paper strip also appeared

26a. The squid
Front part of the squid
Back part of the squid

26. A piece of wood
You think this is ex nihilo? (It probably is)

26. The pizza
Un pezzo di pizza

25. The guardian cat
Guardian cat

24. The otherwayround
An otherwayround
Detail of the otherwayround

23. The two avatars
were perhaps reals for some political things, but could be they were not.

22. A visual revelation ex nihilo
took place in Budapest once in a baker's shop - I was lined up in a queue which went from the counter to the door and suddenly the woman who was selling was like lit up in her face when seeing something in the door - and I turned and saw a man standing there at the end of the queue. I had not seen him arrive - and his sudden appearance seemed to surprise the bread-selling woman who dropped the contact with the one first in the queue and addressed the man in the door, at the end of the queue. He had a flat trolley on four wheels with a handle raised up in the one end - a pipe going up from the one corner up to hand height along the short end of the trolley and down to the other corner, and on the flat trolley board there lay two plastic bottles apparently filled with orange juice. (I dont know if they contained 'soma'). Of course it could have been a normal scene - the man arriving without at least me noticing it - but somehow it had the quality of a 'revelation'. It combines with the acoustic one of 21 above to e.g. 'Stillhetens åndedrag' poem #7 and 'POLAKK English Bloggi' poem #8.

21. An acoustic revelation ex nihilo
took place in the summer 2016 (if not 2015, which it could have been) - I was in a bar in Venice not far from San Pantalon for (probably) a morning brioche and (certainly) a coffee and was standing next to a japanese woman who ate a chocolate pudding when suddenly a voice was pronounced clearly and reasonably loudly in the air above our heads: "� un ragazzo" it said. I don't know if others heard it as well but cannot exclude that. As far as I remember, she had said she was japanese and I said I was norwegian when this happened, and I think she asked what it meant and I said (as far as I remember) it means a young male - I dont think the word (at least normally) is used for a small or newborn 'bambino'.

20. The lobster
Lobster

19. Morning matter
Detail 1
Detail 2
Detail 3

18. The pea and the brown sugar cube
The princess on the pea 1
The princess on the pea 2
A cube of what looks like brown sugar, appr same size as the pea or a little bigger
The cube side 1
The cube side 2
The cube side 3
The cube side 4
The cube side 5
The cube side 6

17. The eucharist fish
I found this 'christmas present' on the floor carpet on Christmas Eve 2014 -
it was an orange coin-shaped object that slid magically out of shape when I pressed just lightly with thumb and index on the flat sides and it took on the shape seen here

16. The two tacks
New metal in the shoesole probably 'ex nihilo' on 2 april 2017
The old tack went in the shoe
The new tack fell probably 'ex nihilo' out of the air at 13:29 (UTC +2) on 10 april 2017
It fell down in this wash-basin 'cymbal' with a KLANG

15. The space traveller
The space traveller upper part - she was found in my bed on 5 november 2015.
The space traveller lower part
Her head, neck, shoulder, back seen from behind

14. Some other occurrences.
The archaic nail
The archaic nail in the shoe
The second white stone
The second white stone
The flower under the shoe
Closeup of the same flower
The indian inspects the shoe-flower - same indian as Finnegans Wake under point 6?

13. The ESP & ESP - found on 20 january 2014:
The ESP-ESP
The ESP-ESP annotated
The back side of the ESP - looks like a powder- or caviar-box

12. The Evlyn shoe - found on 20 january 2014 - is it 'Evlyn Underheel'?
The shoe
The shoe annotated 1
The shoe upright
The shoe annotated 2
The shoe annotated 3
The shoe annotated 4 (see the last poem in TEQ book 2)
The other side of the shoe
The other side of the shoe annotated

11. The 'lapis philosophorum' - with details from the story of Christ:
The 'lapis' - the sleeping eagle or sheep
The kitchen salt that created water above itself and 'burnt' under the water
Detail: The 'frog' - is it the suffering Christ?
Detail: A 'mountain' form - is it 'Calvary?
Detail: The face with the upwardspointing nose - is it 'resurrection'?
Detail: Peter's denial (foretold)
Detail: The institution of the Lord's supper
Detail: The Gethsemane?
Detail: A riddle - is it 'the unknown day and hour' (Mk.13:32-37)?

10. The mind-matter formula:
The piece with E=MC²
The same piece with lettering annotated

9. The philosopher:
Philosopher with focus on double möbius strip
Philosopher with another focus
Philosopher's theory in more detail

8. The wickerwork:
The wickerwork piece - the 'gate'
The same - showing twin towers tooth on Manhattan map
Manhattan lower end - at Statue of Liberty and jewish cultural centre
Annotated with SHAH and 444 outlines
Upper left detail - the door handle
Same detail annotated
The latch-notch mechanism on the lefthand side
Sam detail annotated
The green piece resembling the wickerwork piece

7. The scroll:
Closeup showing the gauze textile character
The thread and knot
Clear traits of a plastic wrapping
The scroll is long and thin
Apparent foam on the scoll near the wrapping knot
Apparent foam on the scoll near the wrapping knot

6a. Three pellets
The three pellets

The curve

6. The graphics:
Wolf-dog and poultry
Young pianist
Woman kissed in moonlight by man with beatleshair
A scene in the park
The main archetypes
James Joyce 'Ulysses' - sort of 'ab-lysses'
James Joyce 'Finnegans Wake' - crystallized from 'Ulysses'
The indian's daughter and wife - 90 degrees turn
Restaurant 'Ganesh' - with Oberkellner 4444, Casanova, Sopranistin
The procession - cp. also the dustbin photo.
Woman walking her dog or vice versa
A saviour with grail in the sky
Santa's reindeer garage - one of the mechanics removing a pebble from a hoof

5. The biscuit:
The broken bread front/upper side
The broken bread back/lower side

4a. The 'christian' wigwam:
The 'christian' wigwam seen from the front
The 'christian' wigwam seen from the back

4. The wigwam:
The 'wigwam' seen from the front
The 'wigwam' seen from the back
Closeup of the lower character
Closeup of the upper character
The lower Janus with long nose
Lower character stares at the woman

3. The two similar foot 'stigma':
This 'stigma' piece was in a shoe
This very similar one was found at the foot of the bed
A detail of the latter

2. The fox - a piece of 'folded stone':
The fox

1. The brown matter - or is it just some coffee bean?
The 'brown matter'

The original preface - originally called 'Read this first'

Here are the examples listed which I have referred to in articles. I emphasize that studying recursive matter is perhaps not totally safe.

For once, healthy mystic logic tells that if these pieces of matter are 'recursive' in the sense of containing the own perceptive logic in its architecture, then the pieces are so to speak the truth itself - and that cannot be unhealthy. However, society and culture can of course be quite offroad relative to this truth, and therefore it is fully possible that a study of them can lead to distortions caused by deviances relative to the historic reality one lives in.

Secondly, it is probable that the occurrence of recursive material is far more common than one should think and that it has an important role to play in the long-distance contact between people and a culture-regulating function. Where does all the dust in the vacuum-cleaner really come from? The bag is full after only a couple of weeks - while the carpets aren't that much worn! Therefore it is perhaps not the presence of such matter which could constitute a problem but rather the study of it.

Thirdly, it is not well known what recursive matter really is. I must tell that I personally collected these pieces which I have photographed here (among several others) during a few weeks of intensive work in early 2014, through which I all the time felt quite well. But after the studies were over, I first developed an unpleasant pressure behind the eyes, like in the 'wigwam' piece. This went down after a few days. I then acquired a real 'shiner' or 'vizor' from the 'fox' piece - it lasted for a week and then went down again. Several weeks later things happened which brought my skin in disorder - and I developed heavy rash all over my extremities after a closer study of the philosopher piece. Oedema made the back of the hand and the instep of the feet swollen. It is possible that this was because of a 'hatred campaign' of political character, but the possibility cannot be excluded that a study of the pieces of recursive matter can lead to disorders. Could be these two are one and the same: When one studies these matters, public authority power gets nervous. One recalls how the chemists who worked with radioactive matter developed diseases which they could not understand before principles of radiation had been understood. It is not impossible that something comparable could obtain for this phenomenon, although one guesses that it would have a sort of semiotic basis.

A comment on some of the pieces: In october 2014 I added the socalled 'christian' wigwam (4a) to the below samples. I found it on 8 march 2014. In april and throughout the summer I developed socalled 'Scharlachs' on both hands in the fleshy region of the back of the hand between thumb and index. The 'Scharlach' is a sort of scarlet discolouring of the skin which behaves like a sort of 'quasi stigma' but runs water instead of blood, and it looks like an infection under the skin (although it probably is not). I do not know the medical conception of this - but clearly old superstition could have been lifted over into modern politics in an attempt to play on oldfashioned fear. The interesting observation is that the 'Scharlach' on the left hand looked like the 'wickerwork' piece below and the one on the right hand looked like the 'christian' wigwam. Why 'christian'? Because it has a strange 'smoke signal' on top of the wigwam which reaches over the back of the hand towards the normal stigma point. The 'christian' wigwam has a notable 'button' (which was on the right thumb) and a 'president hewn in stone' like the american presidents in the mountainside - with certain 'Tuthankamon' glory around the head. I guess that this piece is the reason for those mountainside giant sculptures of the US presidents. I notice also that when Indira Gandhi was assassinated in front of a 'wickerwork gate', it is of course not impossible that it was because of this 'wickerwork' piece of recursive matter. It is my interpretation that these two pieces were on the scarlet-lilac discolouring of the hands - that is because they looked like in my personal recognition of it. But clearly if the 444 days of Teheran served to index the 'wickerwork' piece in conjunction with the concept of 'oedema', it could have been for these two pieces of 'hand Scharlach'.

I add that I cannot remember if the photos of the 'christian' wigwam were left-right mirrored by the computer program or not. Could be, could be not.

I found the 'lapis philosophorum' (#11) at the end of the work with the 'Linien die prägen die Sterne über uns'. It took me some time to understand that it was a piece of 'recursive matter'. After having studied the details, I understood that it probably is an old trotter in the business who try to reduce true mysteries to trivial jokes. It is well possible that this stone is the same as Beatles' 'Yellow submarine' or the 'Muppet show'. When 'lapis' comet is visited by a 'Philae-Rosetta', it could be just this - and indeed some photos from the comet resembled closeups. The 'lapis' is traditionally the goal of alchemy - the philosopher's stone, the philosopher's egg - the 'ugly duckling' etc. Funny how humans like to miss the point. Could there have been somebody into my home for leaving the stone in my kitchen? Could be - but in late october I suddenly found a white pill in my mouth (it felt as it detached from the crown of a tooth like an old filling and produced a strong taste on my tongue) which likewise seemed to be 'ex nihilo' - I could have eaten an anti-ödema pill earlier in the day but I do not think it would have been the same. Could be the pill was a proof that the 'lapis' was authenthic. Click here for a photo of the pill - to the left the remains of another pill I found on the kitchenbench probably the day after, in the middle the pill I found in the mouth (in late october), and to the right the only possible pill I could have consumed earlier in the same day.

I prepared a piece #27 but removed it since it was not the time for it. Later in the day there even came yet another piece that I microscoped and photographed on my computer but did not publish. A day or two later my internet computer was attacked by a virus after I clicked on an URL on the internet - a video came up, a man showed his back and something resembling this ex nihilo form came through his shirt and the machine reported malware after I had turned it off and on again. It is such a pity with that sort of puerile and destructive reactions (if the computer was under surveillance, that must mean) to the work I do. The new #27 is something else - which also is delayed some days from I found it on 6-7 december 2017 - how 'ex nihilo' it is I dont know.