| [xxi] Implicit in that acknowledgement is a further debt, to the inventers and sustainers of the Word Wide Web, which serves-in addition to its practical advantages-as a working image, //eikon aei eikonizomene// ("an image always reimagining itself"; after [[II.3 [52]]].18, 17), of the Plotinian Intellect. | [xxi] Implicit in that acknowledgement is a further debt, to the inventers and sustainers of the Word Wide Web, which serves — in addition to its practical advantages — as a working image, //eikon aei eikonizomene// ("an image always reimagining itself" ["Un'immagine che perennemente si riproduce"((Cfr. Platone, //Tim.//, 92c7.))]; after [[II.3 [52]]].18, 17), of the Plotinian Intellect. |
| [128] But the chief point of his art was to ho naked into the shrine, beyond the statues, beyond our internal heroes. "Memory can play no part in well-being" ([[V.8 [31]]].10, 14). "We must certainly not attribute memory to God, or [to] real being or Intellect" ([[IV.3 [27]]].25, 13-4). Purification is a waking up from inappropriate images ([[III.6 [26]]].5, 23ff.), as dreams dissolve and are forgotten. But in the heavens, he says, we may still remember enough to recognize our friends, "by they characters and the individuality of their behaviour" ([[IV.4 [28]]].5, 20), even if they have spherical bodies (i.e., even if they are stars), and even if neither they nor we have any memory of our lives below. Nor do they need to //speak//. "For here below, too, we can know many things by the look in people's eyes when they are silent; but There all their body is clear and pure and each is like an eye, and nothing is hidden or feigned, but before one speaks to another that other has seen and understood" ([[IV.3 [27]]].18, 19-24).((Plotinus may have recalled the stories of how pantomimes conveyed their meanings so lucidly that even a skeptical Cynic, after watching an unaccopanied performance of the scandalous story of Ares and Aphrodite, exclaimed, "This is not seeing, but hearing and seeing, both: 'tis as if your hands were tongues!" (Lucian, "On Pantomime", 256).)) | [128] But the chief point of his art was to go naked into the shrine, beyond the statues, beyond our internal heroes. "Memory can play no part in well-being" ([[V.8 [31]]].10, 14). "We must certainly not attribute memory to God, or [to] real being or Intellect" ([[IV.3 [27]]].25, 13-4). Purification is a waking up from inappropriate images ([[III.6 [26]]].5, 23ff.), as dreams dissolve and are forgotten. But in the heavens, he says, we may still remember enough to recognize our friends, "by they characters and the individuality of their behaviour" ([[IV.4 [28]]].5, 20), even if they have spherical bodies (i.e., even if they are stars), and even if neither they nor we have any memory of our lives below. Nor do they need to //speak//. "For here below, too, we can know many things by the look in people's eyes when they are silent; but There all their body is clear and pure and each is like an eye, and nothing is hidden or feigned, but before one speaks to another that other has seen and understood" ([[IV.3 [27]]].18, 19-24).((Plotinus may have recalled the stories of how pantomimes conveyed their meanings so lucidly that even a skeptical Cynic, after watching an unaccompanied performance of the scandalous story of Ares and Aphrodite, exclaimed, "This is not seeing, but hearing and seeing, both: 'tis as if your hands were tongues!" (Lucian, "On Pantomime", 256).)) |
