« Rodchenko | Main | Rodchenko »
October 16, 2005
Jorge Luis Borges: "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
One of the more interesting things about rereading this story in the context of a class on Spatial Design is that, until I reached the end, I couldn't really understand how it was relevant to the subject of our inquiry. (In fact, I suspected that we were supposed to have read another Borges story, "The Library of Babel," but had been given the wrong handout by mistake.) It was only in the last couple of paragraphs of the story, in which Borges describes Tlön as "a labyrinth devised by men" (17-18) that I began to understand why we were assigned a reading that only tangentially discusses space. What is at play in this story (in relevant part, at least) is the concept of Complexity. Specifically, Borges addresses the distinction between infinite complexity, which can never be deciphered (e.g. the logic of irrational numbers, like pi or e), and finite complexity, which is "destined to be deciphered by men" (18). Borges suggests that mankind's apotheosis, our ultimate creation, is an object that, while finitely complex, is so vast as to create the illusion of infinite complexity. In the end, Borges tells us, even such a vast accomplishment -- the so-called "Greatest Work of Man" (17)-- is destined to be understood (and consequently rendered meaningless) in a matter of time. However, Borges also leaves us with the thought that the illusory verisimilitude of a man-made labyrinth (which is, to Borges, equivalent to -- or at least a function of -- its complexity) may be so successful, and so pervasive, that it convinces even those who know it is finite and man-made to treat it as infinite and real.
Posted by Sai Sriskandarajah at October 16, 2005 07:41 PM