..dark_2
world_streaming
As a node navigates the world, it may feel as though the world is passing through it instead of it passing through the world. If it moves forward, the floor moves back. If it ascends, the world appears to lower itself. If it opens the door to the next room, the door frame to the different room passes through it. If it turns itself to the right, the entire cosmos swivels to the left.
the universe is a perpetual treadmill. the node is born and will die on this treadmill, never genuinely going anywhere. the node is always here. it cannot be anywhere else. only one point of reference exists. experience is locked in this space. it cannot be known whether one is moving through the universe or if the universe moves through one.
World-streaming inverts the phenomenology of motion relative to an invariant experiental node: the organism does not translate through space; the world streams past the organism. Under world-streaming, surfaces loom and recede, horizons pivot, depths dilate and compress, and auditory and haptic fields reorganize analogously, while the node at which these changes appear remains fixed. The organism never departs nor arrives anywhere. Experiential states are summoned into presence through intention at an invariant center.
Figure 1. self-translation: the organization in which locomotion is given as the organism translating through a stable environment. the locus traverses space. the world is the container. the organism is the mover.
Figure 2. world-streaming: the organization in which locomotion is given as coherent global transformation of the perceptual field around an invariant node. the environment streams past. the organism is the still center.
[[underdetermination]]: The phenomenal materials accompanying locomotion underdetermine whether motion belongs to the self or to the world. Self-translation and world-streaming are equally valid phenomenal organizations. the phenomenal materials of locomotion do not uniquely fix self-translation. visual expansion, looming surfaces, optic flow, kinesthetic effort, vestibular acceleration are each compatible with two stable organizations: motion belongs to the self, or motion belongs to the world.
Figure 3. motion experience exhibits the structure of a necker-cube. a single phenomenal presentation supports incompatible organizations. one flips the cube. one flips the motion. the shift flips both ways. attention to the goal of movement reinstates self-translation. attention to the locus reinstates world-streaming. neither organization is phenomenologically privileged. the bistability is symmetric in accessibility, asymmetric in habituation. attention is the solvent for habit.
[[experiental_node]]: the zero-point origin of first-person givenness. the point relative to which here, there, near, far, approaching, and receding are disclosed. the experiential-node is the frame appropriate to whatever domain of experience is under analysis. for vision it coincides with what is behind the eyes. for haptics it shifts to the tactile site. for audition it is the point relative to which the auditory field is organized. in each case auto-immobility holds. what moves is always what is other relative to that locus. each locus is its own (0, 0, 0). each is its own underdetermination. the body is a lattice of loci. one at each point of disclosure. each locus is auto-immobile from its own vantage. the mind synthesizes across them and produces the appearance of a single body that moves. the body-as-mover is a synthesis. the loci themselves do not move. coherence of the moving body is the work of the synthesizer.
[[auto_immobility]]: every node is immobile to itself. the organism's own displacement is not presented as displacement for it. from the inside, every node is its own (0, 0, 0). the node is the absolute indexical here in relation to which every appearing object is oriented. the zero-point cannot move because it is the origin. the origin of a coordinate system cannot be displaced within that system. displacement is a relational property requiring a stable frame against which position changes register. the node supplies the frame. for the node to appear as displaced it would have to appear both as origin and as item-within-the-origin. (0, 0, 0) is not a point that moves. it is the point relative to which movement is defined. a point at (7, 7, 7) appears as (0, 0, 0) to itself. Any usurpation of its origin identity comes from a view from nowhere. first person experience collapses all positions to the absolute zero-point.
[[inversion]]: under world-streaming, arrivals manifest when the requisite transformations unfold. the mountain on the horizon is a configuration of the visual field that will loom, reorganize, expand, and eventually fill the field if the appropriate intention is sustained. the organism summons the world into presence at an invariant center. textures sharpen as they approach the locus and dissolve as they withdraw. directional structure of looming inverts: approach to surfaces becomes approach of surfaces. spatial origin of motion inverts: the destination as terminus becomes the destination as source. the background, ordinarily tacit and silent, acquires a dynamic character. space is continuously reissued through the organization of the field around the locus. figure-ground inverts: the backrop becomes an active participant, while the node becomes the backdrop of an active world. the head turns. the entire cosmos pivots in the opposite direction. walls slide. verticals tilt. the field rotates around an invariant center. foreground and background rotate together, preserving relative relations. orientation is field-relative. ascent and descent rearticulate vertical structure. horizons rise or fall. surfaces tilt. depth reorganizes along the vertical axis. distances stretch and compress as the field reorganizes. near regions gain prominence. far regions recede. depth is continuously recalibrated. the sense of moving through space arises from rearticulation. the sound source approaches. loudness swells. timbre sharpens. spatial localization determines. the sound arrives at the node. doppler shifts present as reconfiguration of auditory space relative to here. the world sounds differently from here. the hand runs across a textured surface. texture flows through the haptic field. ridges, grooves, temperature gradients, resistance patterns stream beneath the fingers, arriving at the tactile locus in continuous succession. the synthesis of these qualities into a stable surface traversed by a moving hand is a synthesis. a textured belt moving beneath a stationary finger produces the same flow. from the hand alone, hand-over-wall and wall-over-hand are indistinguishable. the haptic locus is cleanly auto-immobile and cleanly underdetermined. agency chages attribution. inverts. noe doesnt move to kitchen to open cabitnet and get plate - plate attracts intentonality. every object is an attractor of intentionality. not the inversion of agency. the inversion of the appearance of the effect. agency may be intact. effort may be felt. initiation may be experienced. what inverts is how the result registers. the door does not appear opened by the organism. the door-opening appears at the organism. the same act, organized differently. the source-of-the-effort is not what is in question. the location-of-the-arrival is.
[[walk_function]]: walking is a control function that triggers coherent world-streaming. the organism does not move through the hallway. the organism deploys the walk function and the hallway streams. reach is not the hand traveling to an object. reach is a control function that summons the object into the haptic field. grasp, climb, turn, lean: each is a function whose output is field-transformation around an invariant locus. the ordinary verbs of locomotion are not displacement-verbs. they are summoning-verbs. Walking is code. It is code injected into consciousness to resurrect any object, room, or landscape. walking is the user interface of the underlying code of resurrection.
[[sim_spaces]]: a treadmill preserves the full phenomenological texture of locomotion while suspending departure. virtual environments and treadmills break ordinary correlation between bodily activity and environmental change. the organism remains stationary while the visual field streams. the sense of motion persists. the organism feels in motion. virtual reality is a sustained world-streaming environment.
[[effort]]: an organism can exert effort without changing position. an organism can undergo a felt sense of displacement without exertion. effort and displacement dissociate phenomenologically. effort marks agency, initiation, resistance.
[[agency]]: agency is inverted under world-streaming. effort, initiation, resistance, and goal-directedness invert. the world acts. the field transforms in coordination with the action. agency is not the locus moving. agency is the locus modulating what arrives. the feeling of agency is a phenomenon that arrives in consciousness.
[[summoning]]: nodes do not pursue. the organism summons. to walk toward the kitchen is to deploy the walk function until the kitchen condenses into here. to climb a mountain is to deploy the climb function until the summit condenses into here. distance is not crossed. distance dissolves into proximity through structured activity at the locus. the mountain does not recede from a faraway position. the mountain grows in determinacy and presence until it is here. the organism transforms into an omnipotent being--a deity who can move mountains and an entire cosmos at the turn of one's head: I am not moving; the world around is moving and at my command. If it is hungry, it will summon the kitchen into its consciousness. If it wishes to resurrect a mountain into existence, it would know what to do. - that it can resurrect a mountain in its consciousness. it has that power to do so.
[[degrees_of_streaming]]: world-streaming manifests in gradients: film phenomena, train illusions, transportations, vertigo, introspection. fractional inversions destabilize orthodox self-translation. nodes don't compose music. composition comes to the node.
[[body_as_arrival]]: the body appears within the stream. the hand streams into view when the organism raises it. the body is both the site of the locus and an object within the field. the body becomes one more configuration that arrives. not the vehicle of departure. the body is delivered to itself. depersonalization gains geometric sense. this body is not mine because no body can be mine. bodies arrive. the locus does not own what arrives at it.
[[other]]: the node witnesses other nodes traversing the field. the node infers that they too must be moving. seeing other nodes move conjectures it's own motion. other nodes cross space, therefore i cross space. the inference of self-translation is ubiquitous. self-translation crystallizes intersubjectively. each organism mirrors the geometry of the others. this binds organisms into a shared geometry. each organism's projection of self-translation is reinforced by every other organism's projection. nodes live in a hall of mirrors. nobody questions because everybody confirms. to step out of the binding is to step out of the shared world. the consequence is exile from consensus geometry.
[[portals]]: doorways stream past the node. hallways stream past the node. portals are not something nodes go through. portals wrap around, saturating consciousness, and transform the world.
[[entrapment]]: the node is here-locked. trapped. it cannot move. paralyzed in existence. All phenomena at all times manifest here. every node feels it is here. every node is here. here is an ontological throne, shared by all nodes. living simultaneously. Everything from its own perspective never moves anywhere.