Λ


Λ or L stands for Λόγος , logos, which is a word or argument.. a narrative and by extension a logic, a law (though ‘law’ has a different latin root–from laga, something lain down).

The progress along the pada, the path, through time, is a creation. It demands a narrative.

First we are simply counting steps, discovering primes, etching marks on stone.

As the complexity increases we find refuge in patterns.

Inching forward, we remember the past, and grow a shell to protect what we have gathered, knowing what might be to come.

Knowing something of the future, through our memory of the past, is the essence of our Λόγος and our narrative, our knowing. This knowledge is our shell, protecting us against chaos.

So our logics and our narratives and our laws protect us but they are also a trap. For they keep the unknown outside, and although it’s dangerous we need the unknown like we need sunlight, like we need air.

Finding a way to safely accommodate the unknown is a challenge for any structure that has become ossified in place.

The structure of our society is an extension of our knowledge, as it embodies our ideas about ourselves and the world. It also extends our physical reality (the need to keep our bodies safe).

Society, civilisations, ossify over time, just as humans do over the course of a lifetime, seeking security and the accumulation of power. They don’t adapt quickly enough to changing environments, changing ideas. But the closer that its logics are to the ultimate perfection, the longer they will endure. Just as the coiled shape of a shell has endured as a stable form since the early beginnings of life in the ocean.

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