[Fis] Fwd: Re: Fis Digest, Vol 113, Issue 14--From Lou

[Pedro C. Marijuán]

[Resent by PCM]

-------- Mensaje reenviado --------

Asunto: 	Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 113, Issue 14
Fecha: 	Sun, 23 Jun 2024 01:47:57 -0500
De: 	Louis Kauffman <loukau at gmail.com>
Para: 	Mark Johnson <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com>
CC: 	Krassimir Markov <itheaiss at gmail.com>, fis <fis at listas.unizar.es>, 
55mrcs at gmail.com



Dear Mark,
It is important to understand context, and such understanding asks for 
an understanding of "the whole".
There are examples in mathematics that I find illuminating where we have 
a structure that can be regarded as a continuous whole in a certain 
context, but it can also be projected into a structure that consists of 
interacting parts. This happens in topology quite naturally, and much of 
the topological discussion is devoted to a kind of mathematical 
metrology of wholes and parts.

I include below two pages about this topological theme, from my essay 
Sign and Space written in the 1980’s. It is possible that fis cannot 
take an inclusion. If anyone wants the excerpt of the whole paper, I 
will be happy to send it. This note is my second letter today to fis. 
But this is the end of the week, so I presume that I can “speak” again 
in a day.

[PCM Note : the mentioned attach. has been dropped by the server]

I recommend reading this evocation wholes and parts in relation to knots 
because it is not so well known in this light. On the one hand we have a 
whole form in the shape of a closed circular knotted rope or 
mathematical closed knotted curve. On the other hand, the simple act of 
projection divides the knot into an interrelated collection of pieces. 
We can study how these pieces interact and how they change when we move 
the knot or change the projection. The pieces are circularly 
interconnected and so are susceptible to a self-referential description. 
Knot theory and algebraic topology more generally are devoted to 
understanding wholes as best we can, either from the wholes as given, or 
via an analysis of parts AS CONSTRUCTED relative to the wholes. 
Projection is a form of such construction.
All of this mathematical work leads to many thoughts about cybernetics, 
information theory and the positions of radical constructivist thought.

In regard to playing and performing music, I am very interested in what 
goes on in improvisation. For example, we were performing “Dark Eyes” as 
Klezmer Group before an audience yesterday, and I was quietly, off the 
chart, accompanying the person singing. And I felt my way into the key 
of it and into a low register personal rendition of it on clarinet. He 
called on me to solo and put the mike nearby and I was happily in what I 
was producing from my own producing. This sort of experience is beyond 
parts, but one is very aware of holding key, melody, intention rhythm 
and of projecting all that through the channel of the playing. One does 
not stand outside that whole. One is, if one is, an aspect of the whole.

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
Best,
Lou


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