Center for Strategic Communication

On the topology of dreams

[ by Charles Cameron — a poem that’s far too philosophical to work as poetry, Laramée’s Apparatus, and Alyce Santoro’s philosoprops ] . The logic of poetry is, más o menos, dream logic, and so I’ve been pondering the logic of dreams and...

Getting deeper into Koestler

[ by Charles Cameron — on creativity at the intersection of the fleeting and the eternal ] . Centaur, displayed in the International Wildlife Museum, Tucson, AZ ** You know Lao Tzu’s “uncarved wood” (pu) — and Spencer Brown’s “Mark” or “first...

Reversals and blowbacks

[ by Charles Cameron — cf. boustrophedon, enantiodromia, ouroboros, paradox, unintended consequences ] . I have had this graphic around for a while: As you can see, I originally intended it to accompany a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: We should be eternally...

What the PK Dickens?

[ by Charles Cameron — conceptual echoes in a PK Dick bio-flick ] . ** I have just been watching Mark Steensland’s movie, The Gospel According to PK Dick, and a couple of fine parallelisms – echoes, really – struck me. I’m going to start with one quote from the...

When the problem is a moving target

[ by Charles Cameron — the AUMF and “wickedness” ] . The essence of the insight that Horst Rittel and more recently Jeff Conklin bring to our attention under the rubric of “wicked problems” is the idea that what is viewed as a problem...