Changes

The way that inquiry obstructs itself, or that each inquiry interferes with every other, is a phenomenon that constitutes a principal target of this investigation.  At times it seems as if the present construction is always the main obstruction to the intentions that are embodied in it, forestalling every chance of change, every hope of growth, and every possibility of progress into the future.  How do the very processes of analysis, inquiry, and reflection come to have their aims so distorted, their airs so polluted, and their purposes so perverted that the very bodies of their own past effects become the blocks to their moving on?

The way that inquiry obstructs itself, or that each inquiry interferes with every other, is a phenomenon that constitutes a principal target of this investigation.  At times it seems as if the present construction is always the main obstruction to the intentions that are embodied in it, forestalling every chance of change, every hope of growth, and every possibility of progress into the future.  How do the very processes of analysis, inquiry, and reflection come to have their aims so distorted, their airs so polluted, and their purposes so perverted that the very bodies of their own past effects become the blocks to their moving on?

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And this thought is a question:  Why?

Daniel Quinn, Ishmael, [DQ, 11]

<p>And this thought is a question:  ''Why?''</p>

| align="right" | Daniel Quinn, ''Ishmael'', [DQ, 11]

An inquiry into inquiry can start out so close to the start of its subject that it finds its subject inquiry in a state of inchoate incipience, one where no hint of reflection is yet to be discerned.  But once the action of reflection is suspected to lie beneath the manifest activity of the subject inquiry, from the effects of reflection that are discovered to issue from the inquiry in question, the analysis of this reflection can take its charge to such outrageous extremes, breaking down the actual process of reflection to its most inert levels of miniscule details, breaking up the living continuity that is appropriate to a realistic depiction, incrementally revealing the fragments of reflection that are revealed by this analysis, omitting every sense of connection and surgically excising every ligament of extenuating context, or that are incrementally and inspecting revealed by this analysis with such a myopic scope, that no trace of the overriding imagination appears among the pieces that remain, the original aspect of reflection is lost among the residual debris.

An inquiry into inquiry can start out so close to the start of its subject that it finds its subject inquiry in a state of inchoate incipience, one where no hint of reflection is yet to be discerned.  But once the action of reflection is suspected to lie beneath the manifest activity of the subject inquiry, from the effects of reflection that are discovered to issue from the inquiry in question, the analysis of this reflection can take its charge to such outrageous extremes, breaking down the actual process of reflection to its most inert levels of miniscule details, breaking up the living continuity that is appropriate to a realistic depiction, incrementally revealing the fragments of reflection that are revealed by this analysis, omitting every sense of connection and surgically excising every ligament of extenuating context, or that are incrementally and inspecting revealed by this analysis with such a myopic scope, that no trace of the overriding imagination appears among the pieces that remain, the original aspect of reflection is lost among the residual debris.

When it comes to understanding a living activity, like reflection, or inquiry, or analysis itself for that matter, there are forms of analysis that go too far in their favored or particular directions while failing to take into account the workings of significant "ligaments", or connective factors, that help to constitute and coordinate both their subjects and themselves, and on which the integrity of both depends.  In particular, the purely syntactic analysis of a reflective narrative is liable to be carried to the bounds of such extremities that no trace of reflection is evident within the functional structures of the parts that are obtained or appears beneath the few points of light that the analysis yet throws.  At this point, the instrument of reflection is broken so utterly, into so many pieces, and of such a small size that neither a close nor a distant inspection of any fraction of their number reveals any longer the aspect of reflection for which their matter was originally prized and pried into.  When this state of analysis is reached, the medium of reflection, though it is still reflective in a certain sense, scatters the ambient light of nature that remains to it and disperses its sense through an evanescent void that presents nothing more illuminating to the imagination than the shimmering opacity of an opalescent haze.

When it comes to understanding a living activity, like reflection, or inquiry, or analysis itself for that matter, there are forms of analysis that go too far in their favored or particular directions while failing to take into account the workings of significant &ldquo;ligaments&rdquo;, or connective factors, that help to constitute and coordinate both their subjects and themselves, and on which the integrity of both depends.  In particular, the purely syntactic analysis of a reflective narrative is liable to be carried to the bounds of such extremities that no trace of reflection is evident within the functional structures of the parts that are obtained or appears beneath the few points of light that the analysis yet throws.  At this point, the instrument of reflection is broken so utterly, into so many pieces, and of such a small size that neither a close nor a distant inspection of any fraction of their number reveals any longer the aspect of reflection for which their matter was originally prized and pried into.  When this state of analysis is reached, the medium of reflection, though it is still reflective in a certain sense, scatters the ambient light of nature that remains to it and disperses its sense through an evanescent void that presents nothing more illuminating to the imagination than the shimmering opacity of an opalescent haze.

The way that reflection, in adjunction to conduct, leads that conduct to a description of itself, not only in the sense of begetting an image but also in the sense of encountering a design, needs itself to have a name.  I dub this turn of reflection, through which it converts the conduct of experience into an experience of conduct, by the name "metamorphism".  The way that a reflection of the action is a sign of the action needs to be investigated further, and is pursued through the rest of this work.  An apology is due for continuing to harp on this point, but it remains a crucial point for the whole method of reflection, if it is to be a method.

The way that reflection, in adjunction to conduct, leads that conduct to a description of itself, not only in the sense of begetting an image but also in the sense of encountering a design, needs itself to have a name.  I dub this turn of reflection, through which it converts the conduct of experience into an experience of conduct, by the name &ldquo;metamorphism&rdquo;.  The way that a reflection of the action is a sign of the action needs to be investigated further, and is pursued through the rest of this work.  An apology is due for continuing to harp on this point, but it remains a crucial point for the whole method of reflection, if it is to be a method.

"Why, why, why, why, why, why?" the tiger asks itself hour after hour, day after day, year after year, as it treads its endless path behind the bars of its cage.

"Why, why, why, why, why, why?" the tiger asks itself hour after hour, day after day, year after year, as it treads its endless path behind the bars of its cage.

Daniel Quinn, Ishmael, [DQ, 11]

Daniel Quinn, Ishmael, [DQ, 11]