Showing posts with label laws of form. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laws of form. Show all posts

Laws of Form: Why Spencer-Brown is missing the point

In his famous book Laws of Form, George Spencer-Brown tries to construct the world from the most simple. He begins with a simple distinction, a circle on a structureless plane for example. He does not say that this is the only way to begin, but makes the reader simply do it and see what is developing. In addition, he gives more handling instructions, which reduces the most possible to the least possible.

I focus on his beginnings – the distinction – and the way how this is interpreted by him (indeed): ”… every duality implies triplicity: what the thing is, what it isn’t, and the boundary between them.” By this the world is digitalized. Subsequently, he examines extensions (“… to recross [the boundary] is not to cross [the boundary]”) and reductions (“What a thing is and what it is not are identical in form”). In any case, the boundary remains only boundary, i.e. distinction.