a founder of the codex

Silence

Tacitaria plena·the Full Quiet

From Latin tacitus, silent, and plenus, full; a silence that is never empty.

Level
Conceptorganism
Book
Humoresthe apothecary's book of humours
Phylum
Scaleimage schema
Class
Intakeits wick
Niche
Decomposerwhat is dead
Mode
Religionhow it keeps existing
Stage
Matureindividuated
Status
Living
Habitat
Archive

Its kinds · Roget, 1852: Organic Matter · Wilkins, 1668: Spiritual Action · WordNet, 1990: Cognition · Llull, 1308: G · Sensitive

Full Quiet, the whole specimen
Plate XXXIV. Tacitaria plena, the whole specimen.

Silence is never the absence of all sound but a frame in which the sounds that louder ones hid can be heard, so it is a way of listening.

Silence is a way of listening, not an absence of sound.

behavior Grows quieter the more closely it is watched, and its surface fills with the faintest marks of what is heard in it.

provocation

Which sound in the room were you not hearing until now?

Each draw is the being derived afresh by the current laws at another seed (laws §11); the chosen one leads (where they sit in the morphospace).

I Dissection

Each organ answers one question about the idea. The framed one, its intake, is the dominant organ: the being's class, the one the idea could not lose and stay itself.

Kernel of Silence

Fig. 1. Kernel

Room tone

Which premise, if it were false, would kill this idea?

Silence is never empty; when every sound we make is taken away others are still heard, so silence is a way of listening rather than an absence.3

drawn as: essence · view: microscope

Boundary of Silence

Fig. 2. Boundary

Cloister

What sets it apart from what it is not, and how does it keep that distinction?

It is kept by a frame, a rest in a score, a minute of silence, the rule of a house; outside the frame the same quiet is only a pause.1, 3

drawn as: meniscus · view: cast

Intake of Silence

Fig. 3. Intake

Noise floor

❦ dominant organ

What must it feed on to work? What has to be present, noticed or supplied?

It feeds on the small sounds that louder ones hide, breath, blood, wind, the hum of a room, and on the ending of every other sound.3, 4

drawn as: wick · view: pinned

Mechanism of Silence

Fig. 4. Mechanism

Custody of the tongue

How does it turn what it takes in into what it gives out?

By withholding speech and music it turns attention outward to what was always there, or inward to what was waiting.2

drawn as: still · view: transparent

Output of Silence

Fig. 5. Output

Pin drop

What does it make possible, visible or knowable?

It makes audible what was masked, and gives speech its weight, for what is said after it is heard differently.2

drawn as: tincture · view: pressed

Dispersal of Silence

Fig. 6. Dispersal

Bar rests

What part of it travels into other minds, ideas and fields, and by what vector?

It travels in rules and gestures that ask for it, the monastery's hours of silence, the minute of silence, the rest written into a score.1, 3

drawn as: scent · view: in situ

Decay of Silence

Fig. 7. Decay

Anechoic chamber

What can it not digest, where does it fail, and what does it leave behind for others?

It cannot be total; even in a room built to absorb every echo Cage heard two sounds, his nerves and his blood. Imposed, it becomes censorship and leaves the unsaid behind.3

drawn as: sediment · view: detached

II Meaning associations

gave rise to · holdsgives tooffspring, by symbiosisoffspring, by successionoffspring, by symbiosisoffspring, by successionfeeds · output → intakefeeds · output → intakeAfterlisteningLingering EarHesychologyStillness GaugeThe Shaping PauseJointing PauseSubtractive PhenomenologyLantern of LessQualiaInward EyeMusicWaiting Songmaker

descent membership food web resemblance or friction

Lineage

A founder, dissected by hand.

Offspring

AfterlisteningLingering Ear, Postaudia expectansby symbiosisHesychologyStillness Gauge, Hesychometra gradataby successionThe Shaping PauseJointing Pause, Pausiphonia articulansby symbiosisSubtractive PhenomenologyLantern of Less, Aphaeresis sensoriaby succession

Food web

  • feeds its output → the intake of Qualia
    Silence makes audible what was masked; Qualia feeds on sensation as it is lived. Quiet is where lived experience can be noticed at all.
  • homology its kernel resembles the kernel of Qualia
    Both say that something is present that a plain description leaves out, the small sounds under the quiet and the felt quality under the account.
  • feeds its output → the intake of Music
    Silence makes audible what was masked and gives what follows its weight; Music feeds on a listener's expectation, which a silence holds open.
  • feeds the output of Music → its intake
    Music makes time audible; Silence feeds on the ending of every other sound, and music's endings are the most shaped of all.
  • homology its boundary resembles the boundary of Music
    Both are kept by a frame, Silence by a rest or a rule, Music by order in ratios and beats. The rest in a score belongs to both.

Kin

same kind in Roget Amber, Breath, Chiaroscuro, Chimera, Entelechy, Music, Vertigo, The Common Lung, Shared Breath

same kind in Wilkins Faith, Fear, Nostalgia, Volition, Knowing Trust, Witnessed Relief, Witnessed Relief (Mycelia), Fear's Breath

same kind in WordNet Apophenia, Dream, Faith, Memory, Qualia, Volition, Afterlistening, Simultaneous Remembering, Hesychology, Subtractive Phenomenology

same kind in Llull Chimera, Fear, Qualia, Vertigo, Babelhum, The Common Lung, Shared Breath, Fear's Breath

same phylum Entropy, Patience, Hesychology

same dominant organ Faith, Fear, Patience, Prophecy, Resonance (Automata)

Genome

III In the world

Echoes

  • John Cage's 4′33″
  • a minute of silence
  • a monastery at night
  • the rest in a score

IV Record

How it was drawn

its draw 3, a point in the morphospace (laws §8), drawn by flux-2-klein-4b.safetensors.

axisvalue
bookhumores
symmetryspiral
organizationsegmented
silhouettebell
scalehand
proportionswollen
growthaccretion
articulationtethered latent
opennesslattice latent
skeletontest latent
locomotionwalking latent
patternspeckled latent
colorationwarning latent
substancebark
surfacevelvety
paletteobsidian
luminosityinner glow
transparencytranslucent latent
gesturegathers
unityunmarked latent
modalitypossible latent
causationformal latent
determinacydoubled latent
fusiongraft
anomalynone
graftmirrors
techniquestipple
viewpointbelow
valuehigh key
balanceleaning
densitysparse latent
rhythmalternating latent
saturationvivid latent
appendagesbladders, comb rows
anchor (body)a comb jelly, an oval glassy body with eight rows of beating iridescent combs
anchor (detail)a caddisfly case, a tube built from collected grains and fragments

Sources

  1. The Rule of Saint Benedict (c. 530), chapter 6, on restraint of speech
  2. Max Picard, The World of Silence (1948)
  3. John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings (1961)
  4. R. Murray Schafer, The Tuning of the World (1977)

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