Muddle

Muddles as lesser macroinformation:

My theory of macroinformation argues that as information emerges from the difference between background and foreground, "0" and "1" ... More complex information emerges from more complex differences.

When we say "Jesus" (a man) "Christ" (something numinous, divine, magical, impossible ...) we are invoking differences far more complex than zero and one, ordinary background and foreground.

I have been emphasizing that macroinformation, information complex (and abstract) beyond the first several levels of informational complexity (informational possibility, data, metadata, metainformation), often suspends, in tension, between polar opposites, between paired (and more complexly related) complements: data like the road bed, macroinformation like the (suspension) bridge.

But: the contrast between life and death, ordinary manhood and magical divinity, male and female, Yin and Yang, Eros and Thanatos ... in other words, paradox, is not to be confused with mere muddles. There are profound contradictions (which are invaluable) and there are mere muddled contradictions, which often combine stupidity with dishonesty. The latter may also be studied under Macroinformation; but they are not sterling examples.

When Shakespeare’s Cleopatra spoke of her former love for Julius Caesar as her "salad days," SHE was being stupid and dishonest: muddled (and trying to infect others with her muddle). Ah, but Shakespeare was stretching the envelope for poetry. Macroinformation at a new level.