There are two forms of representation that we witness occurring within our perception, and not as a feature of our perception: the silhouette and the reflection. As features of our perception we have a great deal of things we could enumerate as representations: concepts, daydreams, dreams, memories, speculations, in short all those items of thought and imagination that have an emulative relationship to the real world. Since what we are able to perceive in the world is expressive, at the very least, as to the nature of our perception, its ability to establish the objectifying continuity of time and space through the collaboration of memory and sensation, it would seem these empirical observations are fair game as statements, if not about a noumena, a thing-in-itself of the world, but about a causality. And this causality, being the essence of what our intelligence "grasps" might be what can be said of the thing-in-itself, as opposed to what Schopenhauer says about it, which is that it is "will." Will, to me, is something I have been speaking of as a feature of our memory, superimposing as I have the dichotomy of will and perception, doing and undergoing, upon past and present, memory and sensation, though again, the central place between past and present privileges the interpretation of the present as sensitivity/continuity. More needs to be elaborated on this point, but what I want to say now is how by examining the causality evident in the silhouette and the reflection, we do not base our convictions on speculation as to the reality of the phenomenal, but as to the nature of the perception that grasps it. In this way all empiricism goes back to the kind of perceptual rationalism Schopenhauer advises, the intelligence of preverbal perception.
The silhouette is what I am using to describe "the shadow," since Jung has trademarked that, and through his mystifications of the shadow he has established it as a firm negative, either by virtue of its evil, or by virtue of its ignorance. The silhouette seems a broader term than shadow: how we principally use it is to describe the dark outline of a figure as they are dimly backlit, without any front lighting. The shadow is outside of the figure, the projection of light failing to get beyond the figure, and so drawing a dark shape by exclusion. Whereas the silhouette is the figure seen as a mass against light, seen for its material darkness. The shadow we see when we are looking from the perspective of light, or close to it, at what is beyond a figure, what is not located in the figure, but which draws the relationship of the figure to a light-source. Such thinking is too precise for Jung; the shadow is evil because it's like, dark, and shit, and there's shades in Dante's Inferno. And as is typical in Jungianism, there's this ambivalence between the meaning of the shadow as a place where you repress what you don't want to think about yourself, independent of whether it's good or evil, or the dark side of the psyche. But a silhouette actually may give us more of a conditional sense for the latter than the former. Because the shadow is pushed to the side, not identified with the figure, yet it must be said the shadow is only created by the light-source's relation to the figure, and is in a particular position and having a particular skew on account of that angle of projection. We see it because we are in some sympathy with the perspective of the light-source, yet this needs to be made precise and questioned, because actually, if a shadow were projected behind the figure, we'd see it most clearly through looking towards the light-source, whereas if we were looking from the light-source's point of view, we wouldn't see the shadow. In other words, the light-source only sees the appearance of a figure and a shadow is dispersed behind them, concealed, as the light touches the surroundings to the figure, revealing only that the light does not penetrate and peer through the figure. In this way a shadow, not belonging to the figure, not connected to the figure, a projection of light and the figure, might be something of a compliment: light cannot see through you, you are substantial. Truly, I love complicating these types of moody, Gothic conceptions into collapse.
Then we ponder the silhouette, in which the figure is dark, in which truly, a white horse may become a black horse, because we are looking at a figure upon a realm of dimming light, usually in twilight hours. Here we are looking from the perspective of the dark, looking from the perspective of what would make Jung shit himself as a metaphor for unconscious perception. From this point of view, we see how being substantial is being dark, the white horse is not a light-source, like the Moon, which will eclipse the Sun, and create a black Sun, a very ominous alchemical symbol that would have Jung narrow his eyes and lower his voice. And here we see the resolution of a dialectic of-- if not light and dark-- then lightness and darkness, because objects whether light or dark in color will appear dark without a light-source, or without their being a light-source. The silhouette gives this judgment of mass and form, which only a light-source object could evade.
This silhouette is but a representation of an object, and not, in truth the full reality of the object. The "shadow," by contrast, is a representation of a figure in relation to a light-source, so it is a more complex thing, actually, and not to be taken as an attribute of the figure, only where they stand in relation to a light-source. Writing cheap Manichean melodrama, a long shadow could also mean something very positive, in the sense that it means you're closer to the light! But basically my point in excluding "the shadow"-- oh God, no ... no ... no ... -- from this discussion is that it is a representation of the positions of figure and light-source and the whole relativity nexus in play, and not of either the light-source or the figure. The shadow thereby may be an interesting thing to discuss, but as a representation of relativity, of relations not components, a site perhaps of emergence as we find relations characterized as being capable of enacting within complex system theory. So, in other words, the shadow could mean neither evil or ignorance, but a place of birth and creation.
The silhouette is truly more of the perceptible "dark side" of the Moon. And what happens in an eclipse? You might call an eclipse a silhouette more than a black Sun, it's actually more a black Moon, the dark side of the Moon. Roger Waters had a bit more sense than Carl Jung and the alchemists. For when we see a silhouette it is like we are seeing the shadow as part of the figure, we are looking from the opposite position of the Sun, at the Sun, we are identifying with the Plutonian underworld, unconscious, whatever the fuck this twenty-car pile-up of metaphors means, whereas when we see a shadow we are looking from some supportive but not identified angle to that of the light-source. The Sun doesn't undergo any tragedy from an eclipse, for whenever the Sun observes an object, there's an eclipse happening behind it. But this silhouette, in truth, does express a certain amount of "relation," but its coming from such a pure parallel angle, that it is saying to us that we see the dark side of the Moon or any other body only when that object comes directly in between us and the Sun. Talk about projection-- black Sun-- the big epiphany there is that the Sun's the thing making the Moon seem like a light-bulb at night. Similarly one could say that when we see the object in the Sun, like that of the Moon, we are seeing it with some distortion, as a brightly-colored object, when its brightness is a feature of its relationship to the Sun.
In this way we might have a beginning into demonstrating how perception loops back on itself, is auto-representative. For if we see an object as a red object, we are also seeing the Sun in that redness it has. We do not know if it is causing that redness in-itself as an object of red light, or whether it is but red mass without energy. In other words our perception of an object does not give us the object-in-itself, in the strict sense that we do not know whether an attribute it has is caused by itself, or by our relationship to it; that it has a relative propensity to be red, which is held in common with other objects that are red in the same way, is a definite, but at the same time we may observe another object which is causing red as a feature of its own light, which is not just a red mass. Perceiving them "in the light" -- which we may say is their analytical appearance? -- we cannot say which is which.
It's only when it's dark that you can see the stars. And it's only when its dimming that you can see the silhouettes. The light is maybe too generous, it gives everything its own brightness-- but not quite-- the light of the Sun actually obscures the stars in the night sky, we have a loss of vision in light, of light. Light does not reveal itself, but its opposite, form; and form does not reveal itself, but its opposite, light. It is the dimming or the dark that reveals light. Let's think about that Photoshop panel, "Brightness & Contrast." The first knob, "brightness," decides between dark and light, which will swallow the image in white or black, and will devour all its contrasts into either absolute. Yikes. The second knob, "contrast," intensifies what division between dark and light is present in the image after whatever brightness adjustment. "Contrast" is a "brightness/darkness" knob which intensifies both of them simultaneously-- the compensatory function in action-- yet you can see from twiddling with that knob that too much compensation could itself be one-sided, since if you had a gradient that stretched from white to black and shades of gray, you'd turn up the contrast and you'd be looking at white on one side and black on the other, turn down the contrast and you'd have nothing but gray. Extremes of black/white (onesidedness; brightness knob), then black/white or gray (compensation; contrast knob), and it's in this second realm that we can see the dichotomous become the transcendent, sublime grayness enveloping the world in Mercurius's purgatorial glory. Two types of balance: divided balance, or unified balance. Opposites in conflict, or opposites in merger. Apollo and Dionysus, in a way-- the dichotomous and individuated, or the inchoate, undefined, mercurial. So Jung's advisement really is not to tip the brightness scale up or down too much and then to turn the contrast knob all the way down so everything becomes gray (transcendent function). Following his fixation on balance to an even further fucking letter, between the two types of balance, the opposites dissolved or the opposites coagulated, we keep the contrast knob in the middle, and we find white, gray, black-- the continuity of a gradient, which is also the pseudo-silhouette of a rainbow. Because to maintain balance between both opposites and their balance, means that we maintain the co-existence of both light, dark, and the contrast that is gray. The tension of opposites resolved not in their forgetting, but in the establishment of a negotiator known as contrast, continuity, transition.
Okay. Where the fuck am I? So when we say we see some thing's details because of the light, that's not quite-- entirely-- true. Its details are its contrasts, so we see them on account of intensification of the division of light and dark. Which makes perfect sense for the idea of individuation and the Apollonian. So in other words what I'm trying to say here is that connecting the Sun with consciousness is bullshit. The unconsciousness is that lack of differentiation, the grayness from which Sun and Moon might arise in an agon in consciousness. Consciousness concerns individuation of details, and it's a hefty fucking gloss to say that it's identified with light. Sure, we see things during the daytime that disappear into the dark by night, but we don't see things "disappear into the light" enough to connect the daytime with the Sun. Actually, it could be said that what we see during the day is more the subtle contrasts, the shades of gray, whereas at night, we see actually the starker contrasts, the stars in the sky. Opening your fucking eyelids does not make you the Sun. The Sun plays the principal role in helping us to see Earth, yet it also keeps its distance to help us see Earth because if it got too close we'd see nothing but the Sun. At night, the Earth isn't so visible, and what's more visible is the contrast between light and darkness, what forms provide energy and what forms don't. During the day, however, we can tell which forms reflect, and which forms don't. The night provides silhouette, but the light does not provide reflection; the light provides the amplitude of perception, which if taken to the absolute of light itself, would make everything disappear, and there would be nothing but amplitude. Therefore our perception is actually a "peak experience" of this amplitude, something that is not too loud that it deafens us as the Sun may blind us, a particular, ideal depth or distance of amplitude, which makes perception possible. The Sun is like the pure sensation, and distance from it is like the pure memory. Our perception, our consciousness, is the continuity between pure amplitude and pure distance, energy and form. The Sun is an absolute sensitivity which would be impossible to manifest, for all forms would disappear in this sensitivity, there would only be auto-sensitivity. The Sun is the immortal future, an energy which moves backwards in time to create form, and perception of form.
In Schopenhauer, Kant's wrong to use reflection as measure, to use the mind as a basis, because the reflection could be distorting things given by perception. Reflection and Silhouette are the two sides of the Moon with respect to the Sun. The Moon is reflection, and representation of Sun, much like the conceptual mind. There actually is no dark side of the Moon, because it's all white. The Sun is projective, it reveals The World, but to equate the Sun with consciousness is again a Jungian cliché, because we do not see perception in our waking life, as an earlier post got into. Perception is otherized by the world and by our own visibility as an image in the world, a self. Therefore, "consciousness" is more appropriately linked with The Earth than The Sun. But then is "unconsciousness" linked to The Moon still? What do we see at night? Light! We see the stars in the sky, the light of the Sun without the Sun. Distance and amplitude; mass and light; night and day. And The Sun a kind of absolute sensitivity that cannot be manifested. During the day, the Sun looks at the Earth. During the night, the Moon looks at the Sun. The Moon is Earth's Moon, which has a light side and a dark side akin to The Earth. The Moon is not only a reflection of the Sun, but also The Earth, in terms of the relation to The Sun. Reflection-- if it be the mind-- is connected more with unconsciousness, more with the night. Analytic consciousness is a dream, interpretation is a dream. So, and the skillful reader has guessed it already-- The Moon is like the Earth's self-reflection, and The Sun is the most important association with unconsciousness. In short light reveals mass and mass reveals light; so night is about the Sun and day is about the Earth. They do not reflect each other, but reveal each other, that is their essential function.
Reflection works more like a shadow. Because reflection throws the form out from its source. And that works on light, just as well as form. Looking at the Moon, the reflection is a displacement of the Sun. The silhouette is a statement about its being form, its being not an energy-source. The reflection seems to do the work Jung wants the shadow to do, the art of displacement of evil or other repressed factors into ignorance and unconsciousness. Yet this displacement works differently, reflection embodies an evil that is the displacement of light. The mirror is the trouble, not the shadow. The shadow might get a bad rap; on a sunny day when its 103 degrees and you're baking, a nice little lay-down in the shade is quite far from an image of immortal evil. The reflection is a representation which displaces, like what Jung sees in the shadow, and herein we have a more flexible term, because it can displace light just as well as form; reflection can mean the projection onto things qualities they do not have, whether that of energy or color. The reflection makes an object into something that can falsely seem a light-source, when it is inert, or, which can steal properties from another object, when it has limited properties in itself. Silhouette on the other hand makes everything dark that does not produce light-energy, and pays no heed to its properties, its colors. To darkness, all forms without energy are dark. To light, there is no darkness or forms. To reflection, there is no light, darkness, or form but appearances. Reflection does have a good side, however, which is that its displacement of light also saves light from being wasted, maintains it from being absorbed into black space. Its displacement of form, however, that is a violent thing, only to be used in self-defense against treacherous scoundrels: it is the knack of deception. Thereby reflection gives us the image of our Machiavellian dark side: a light-bearer, but also a liar.
And before we get the congregation hopping mad with "Lucifer! Lucifer!" let us just clarify-- opening your fucking eyes does not make you the Sun, but one with the Earth, and deception has its ethical place in this difficult life. Evil cannot be defined by deception, or reflection, or shadow, or darkness, any of these mythical clichés. Evil is quite clearly one thing and one thing alone: the lack of value. And the lack of truth is sometimes more valuable than the presence of it, and for a particular reason: when dealing with "the lack of truth" in another person. (Valuation is truth, is presence.) When we deal with reflection, we must fight shadow with shadow, reflection with reflection, displacement with displacement. Speaking truth to power is admirable but ill-advised; it makes for martyrs and the maintenance of the status quo. It is equivalent to showing tyranny too much respect; valuation is truth, so you are valuing what is beneath value.) What we need is the injection of light, Trump's advice followed to the letter. The basilisk has a stare which can kill, and the correct weapon is not to preach suicide to the monster, but to bring along a mirror. There's some mythology for you, straight from Bulfinch.
When we turn down the house lights, we turn the audience into a silhouette, and reveal the stage. When we open our eyelids, our interiority and perception becomes a silhouette. Detail cannot be brought out of something until we shut something else out, until we give that thing centrality, the Sun's attribute, bestowed upon the Earth during the day-- and night-- since the Sun just looks at another side of the Earth during the Night. From the Earth's perspective, and not just one part of the Earth, it knows the Moon and Sun simultaneously. But in this knowing, what it knows is-- for the day-half, itself, and for the night-half, light. So therefore I suppose, yet again, that the unconscious side is what is concerned with valuation, with the amplitude of things, with perception-as-Other, and the conscious side is what is concerned with representation-as-Self. So, to return to poor old Jung, it's not a collective unconscious, Charlie Brown, but there is a Virginia, Santa Claus, because the Sun is beyond the shadows of Night, AT NIGHT. How could it not? The Earth sees itself, as we all see ourselves during the day, as we are all caught in the register of visibility, of representation. Unconsciously, at that very moment, where the Sun is not pointed, our forms and representations are silhouettes, and a fire screams out in the dark sky, from our past and future, the peak experience. The Sun would engulf us; only at quite a distance can we make light out as an object, for light without distance would be no objects or subjects whatsoever, the same as distance without light; yet distance without light would have no energy, no valuation, form without form. Thereby our "unconsciousness" is not distance without light, but something approaching the opposite. It collects nothing, and is constituted of no opposition, it is just pure valuation, amplitude, energy.
This post has proved treacherous and I have had to edit it and delete a lot of half-baked things, like in thinking about these issues one enters Funhouse Mirrors, within an overall Funhouse Mirror that is reflective introspection itself. (I'm very hesitant about a lot of it, even cleaned-up in a form I think is shareable; many things set down here will continue to evolve.) But as Beatrice says to Dante, a light reflected by three mirrors placed at varying distances is just as bright in all three-- if smaller in form than how it appears outside of the mirror. The mirror is a distance; between the Sun and the mirror comes a form with the same voltage flowing through it. A mirror without light does not exist.
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