The Incomplete Human and His Indubitable Knowledge

Jacopo Barbari, Portrait of Fra Luca Pacioli. The gesture of Pacioli (pioneer of medievel optics) tells everything include how union of mind and eyes evolved from the medievel perspective.

Reply to comments and questions on From Ocularcentrism To Hyperreality.

The ‘Wright’ Way Or The Dome
Our ‘everyday’ is by no mean a deep one. Sustainability here instantly means the nostalgic ideal of the vernacular past, the future seem to serve nothing. These are ‘closed-door’ talk, sustainability almost sealed with a finite arrow to thermal comfort, sustainability has trimmed its own role of evolutional, cultural and intellectual fronts. When people do not form inspirational borrowing of ideas from other fields of study, architectural theory could only be an ego close-door mind games of architects, endlessly fighting whether a fake Iranian mosque dome will do or a Wrightian horizontal humility is morally right, those are the only thing that Malaysian learn.

I think the resource of publication either theoretical or graphic in Malaysia is plenty. I can find all of the books that you mentioned in any U's library, which I think is very complete, but not for the latest Zumthor's. Just that the study is academically narrowed to few historical like those by Pugin, Raskin, Jencks, Frampton and other local revivalist minded academic papers that seem intended to mould a counter-cultural mindset of people, mostly to attack the ruthless commercial copycat architecture production in the field. Student’s idea about theory has been limited to just those introduced. The sense of exploring a wider field of thinking is then blocked, don't even talk about the loneliness of the book Vers Un Architecture of L.C. on the library shelve. The monthly PAM magazine is a national shame, but a good mirror.

I've never used Amazon because I found out that I can mostly reach any of the latest theoretical writings here. Instant gratification that graphical books offer, like what Basheer is selling now, are too good to miss for most archi-graphic-geeks now, and believe me no one like to dive into the sea of text. Pallasmaa's Existential Space in Cinema is first in my searching list now. I read the interesting intro and wonder how the story continue.

On Orientation
While orientation include the ability to tell the position of a body in relation to any given point, I suggest an experiment, put a blind and a sighted concurrently on a street and see who can tell the direction of their familiar (memorized) home in relative to that give point... Without sight, minimal skill of orientating oneself could only achieved by memory through imparted practice.

On Libeskind, Prix, Gehry
Not sure about Prix, early conceived projects by the other two like the Jewish Museum, Santa Monica Place and Bilbao are great, fully rational exploration on spaces. Later work could only be explained as a total succumbent to the power of the 'architecture as commodity' and the 'Starchitect-maniacism'.

On Dualism
Well, the mind and body has never been in real connection, therefore there isn’t any missing tie between the two. The distinction, as Descartes putted as the Real Distinction, is in operation from the start. Each of them is a ‘Substance’, which can exist independently without the existence of other. Descartes said the extended body is divisible but the mind is indivisible, every thought is clear and distinct, one could never distinguish any part within oneself. It’s singular and complete. While the extended body is an external configuration of separate parts (senses, flesh and the passive muscles maybe). If Descartes argue for the possible independent operation of mind and the physical, what really happens in our biological being is slightly different, mind and body are, by certain extent, joined. The part in the brain that account for this action is what Descartes claim as the Pineal Gland. It operates between light (through eyes) (This answers our question on why the eye is so dictating), mind (soul), and bodily action/reaction. This compartment that link these separate, supposed to be distinct, independent faculties of mind and body could be the answer to the big question (and problem) of occularcentrism that we are struggling with. It is a false linkage or a violation between two things that has different nature. Therefore, the union of these two causes each of these originally singular, pure and complete ‘Substance’ rendered incomplete. The incomplete human being with his dubitable ‘knowledge’ are form by these two incomplete ‘Substances’, masterminded by the ‘third eye’ – the pineal gland.

Sketches. The Pinear Gland by Descartes. Object, light, eyes, the Pinear Gland and reaction is in linear connection.

‘Lastly, as regards the soul and the body together, we have only the notion of their union, on which depends our notion of the soul’s power to move the body, and the body’s power to act on the soul and cause its sensations and passions’ - Descartes

Architecture of instant gratification. A beauty queen does not need you to be inside to truly appreciate it, on any megazines will do.

The Dualism isn’t limited to Plato and Descartes, but in between, Descartes has been highly influenced by the philosopher priest Aquinas, Scotus and others. Even in Eastern thinking, based on what I read in Tao, already has a well developed account on that way before the French.

On Pseudo and Whore
It is interesting that you coin ‘pseudo-intellectual’, I am not sure about the truth, but let’s digest another quote of Descartes, he asked:

What can I know for certain?, I think, I am. I don’t care how much I’m deceived; I must exist before I am deceived…From the very moment that I think: I exist. That I know (and not just believe) for certain. Of myself, I have indubitable knowledge.
Provided the inconsistency of all of our knowledge (whether borrowed or synthesized from others, or it’s merely a deceived notion by the lying eyes), the only tangible, concrete truth in the world is to think: I think, therefore I am…All knowledge, old or new, are build upon bedrock and layers of past depository. The only way to save th nations sorry and painful state of regression is to untiringly borrow, steal and learn from the knowledgeable. Only those who have fully analyze and understand holistically the total environment could salvage the last tear of hope on our painfully regressive architecture.

'It is the question of building which lies at the root of the social unrest today; architecture or revolution.' -Vers une architecture (1923)- L.C.