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Anatomy of the Gnomon

gnome, gnomic, gnosis: from P.I.E. *gnō-, “to know”; greek γνώμη (gnṓmē), “thought”; greek γιγνώσκειν (gignṓskein), “to come to know”. the gnome is, first of all, a knower, a seer, an oracle. the gnomic is simultaneously the mystical, the enigmatic, the ambiguous. the content of gnomic knowledge, then, is mystified — unstriated. destruction trending towards henosis.

gnomic expansion is organic expansion—movement according to a thing’s concept.

The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and one might say that the former is refuted by the latter. Likewise, through the fruit, the blossom itself may be declared to be a false existence of the plant, since the fruit emerges as the blossom’s truth as it comes to replace the blossom itself. [1]

the determinations here presented exist in an organic unity only insofar as they are incompatible. the bud bares fruit, but the fruit dies and disperses the seed. this processual, negative, endlessly-abrogated self-expansion of a thing’s concept is the gnomon. the gnome is the self-expansion of the gnomon—the abrogation of abrogation.

the system of knowledge develops on its own account, according to its own concept. it sublates that which is inessential and manifests itself as the absolute idea in which it appears to hold everything within itself without externality. at the same time, however, it releases that which is internal into the external, thus maintaining the identity of the thing via an abrogative process.

the gnome converts the static into process. it annihilates territory and constructs cartographies without points. the space it occupies is indiscernible, moving with it wherever it goes. its occupation is invisible, but it does occupy. it trends against absolute space. kenotic space really appears empty. the gnome creates unspace in its machinic dynamism—it creates, for itself, a point from which to attack, from which to leap, while simultaneously destroying its origin (as is the nature of gnomon). the gnome does not occupy space (thereby annihilating it) until space is created. in the gnome’s occupying movements it destratifies and mystifies—vanishing into the excess.

In Go, it is a question of arraying oneself in an open space, of holding space, of maintaining the possibility of springing up at any point: the movement is not from one point to another, but becomes perpetual, without aim or destination…The “smooth” space of go, as against the “striated” space of chess…[g]nomos against polis, [2]

the gnome is connectivity. the gnome is a potentiality of occupation without prior stratification. whenever a striated space is left empty, it “springs up” and occupies. the gnome is a guerilla, it has no frontier—no lines of battle. it exists within the state. it is an immanent gnomatization/smoothing of striated space. it makes space blurry—vague. it even makes space, like itself, invisible, yet full. the gnome, in “producing a movement that holds space and simultaneously affects all points” [3] affectively gnomatizes all points—all monads/gnostic particles—and makes them gnome, generating a pointless topology.

the gnome represents the death of the self-conscious automaton and the creation of the digitized magician. this extends beyond the transition from wetware to dryware (a shift that is never realized). what we have, now, is unnamable—the creation of angels.

nomad science is replaced by (g)nomad mysticism, but not the mysticism of the magician-king. this is a mysticism of pure exteriority… exotericism is inextricably tied to vertical relations—the hyper-explication of and domination by a single vector of thought (science); esotericism is horizontal—an all-encompassing, rhizomatic assemblage of thoughts (mysticism).