Talk:Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius/Archive 2

message: Borges mentions Schopenhauer many times in his fables, especially in A New Refutation of Time. However, in Tlön, etc., his reference to that philosopher seems to have been irresponsibly fabricated. He wrote that Schopenhauer "...formulates a very similar doctrine in the first volume of Parerga and Paralipomena." This doctrine of "pantheistic idealism" is that there is only one subject and that this one subject is every being in the universe. I have searched this volume and can find no such doctrine. On the contrary, Schopenhauer asserted that each individual observing animal is a unique subject, having its own point of view of the objects that it experiences.
152.163.100.11 12:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schopenhauer 

message: Cut from article "Boris Baruq Nolt – non-fictional, caballist referenced by his anagrammatic name in the title of the story." This was cited only with a blind URL: http://remi.schulz.club.fr/perec/secret2.htm. Someone had commented in an HTML comment, "I can find no references to this alleged person that are not linked directly to this story. Is there some independent confirmation that such a person ever existed or is this just a prank? This linked article merely refers to an "imaginary" Bulletin that alludes to Borges's story." Exactly. This is almost certain a (dry) joke. I would need to see a much better citation before I'd agree that this belongs in this (featured) article. - Jmabel | Talk 03:39, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Pinkville 13:42, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supposed cabalist 

message: A minor quibble: how exactly is this man's name spelt?  In my book of Borges poems he is listed as a translator with the first spelling; the Wikipedia article gives it likewise.  However, on this page both of the other spellings are used.  As there is obviously a contradiction on the page (or the remarkable coincidence of three such similarly-named men who are all Borges scholars), I wish to fix it.  I simply ask first whether there is some other Reed of whom I am ignorant.  Adso de Fimnu 02:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty certain it should be "Alastair Reid". That's what my copy of Borges: A Reader says. - Jmabel | Talk 01:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Library of Congress Names Authorities agrees, s.v. "Reid, Alastair, 1926-". Pinkville 02:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Alastair Reid, Alastair Reed, Alistair Reed?

message: Just an idle observation: 
:In another language of Tlön, "the basic unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective," which, in combinations of two or more, are noun-forming: "moon" becomes "airy-clear over dark-round" or "orange-faint-of-sky."
::That [use of adjectives as the major part of speech] resembles some Old Norse kennings, don't you think? I doubt that has a place in the article, but it's an interesting thought. -- Beobach972 02:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Borges read Old English, and I believe Old Norse... Interesting. Pinkville 03:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tlön language and Old Norse 

message: The one in the article seems dead - here's one which works  but I don't know if it's the same translation. Haukur 11:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation link 

message: I found this sound in another region of Tlön (Urkh, Jectbus u Klang). I think it can be interesting to hear how music sounds, when when it's subjectivity is detracted (c.f. language). Mr. Bogres (Urkh, 1957) took a well  known, subject-based, piece of music ("Raindrop"-Prelude Chopin op. 28 no. 15 Db-Major) and demonstrated this process.
Bernhard Schleiser, Hamburg - Germany  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.144.61.175 (talk) 05:42, August 29, 2007 (UTC) 
Today I reinserted the link to the "subject-retracted" version of the Chopin-Prelude.
Waiting for discussion: Bernhard Schleiser  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.144.65.151 (talk) 10:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:External links for our policy on external links. I still see no relevance for this item. Except for the title of the musical piece, which is a reference to Borges, I see no connection with the story this article is about. Other editors, please speak up if you have an opinion on including this link. EdJohnston (talk) 16:52, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I can see adding the link, with context, to the article section titled Inspiration for real world projects, though it's of borderline notability at best. I don't see it as appropriate to External links. Pinkville (talk) 19:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your response. Do you have any suggestions as to how we should check out its notability? Ask for third-party sources commenting on the music?  EdJohnston (talk) 19:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have deleted it per WP:EL. (If we'd let any kid make an MP3 on his computer, name it after something famous, and post it on the related Wikipedia article – we'd be inundated.) The first step criterion for notability is that the author of a derivative/inspired work should be notable enough to have his own Wikipedia article first (and survive an AFD). And that's just the first step: if Bart Simpson tagged "Tlön" on his school, that would surely warrant an explanation at the Simpson's episode article (encyclopedic annotation of a reference), but not a converse mention of the Simpsons episode in the Tlön article (trivia). — Komusou talk @ 20:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Pinkville (talk) 20:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm really astonished about your reaction! What is the link to this piece of music? Let us call it an poetic experiment about the relation between fiction and reality (c.f. Borges). It is a similar thing with the relation between "hlör u fang axaxaxas mlö", "Upward behind the onstreaming it mooned" and "              " (insert the rising moon - as external link? would this link be excepted?). I think it wouldn't be so bad for Borges, Tlön, Wikipedia and also Bart Simpson himself (!?) if Bart Simpson would "tag(ged) "Tlön" on his school". The way how the relation between fiction and reality is handled is the way how men are acting with themself and their world. I'm sure that this is one of the lessons of the reading of Borges. So: What is to be done? - Bernhard Schleiser  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.144.87.134 (talk) 07:08, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Sounds of Uqbar "sounds like chopin played badly" 

message: Borges also mentions in passing the duodecimal system (as well as others), but never elaborates on the fact that this is inherently a refutation of the changeability of things due to nomenclature - a number may be renamed under a different counting schema, but the underlying value will always remain the same.
Would the same value expressed through different numbers not simply make the value a hrön? An entity called into existence through a (possibly misunderstood, hence the shift in counting systems becomes possible) belief in its existence or the shadow of the memory of its existence? As per Borges,
... la operación de contar modifica las cantidades y las convierte de indefinidas en definidas. El hecho de que varios individuos que cuentan una misma cantidad logran un resultado igual, es para los psicólogos un ejemplo de asociación de ideas o de buen ejercicio de la memoria.
Thus, to a Tlönite, decimal 12 and duodecimal 10 are not really the same; one (ultimately both) only exists because it is expected or willed to exist. Their consequences (as far as "consequences" exist on Tlön) are the same; the same entity they are not. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 15:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Numbers

message: What is the license and copyright of the work? Aren't the links to the full online text violating Wikipedia rules? If not, should someone move it to Wikisource? 91.132.141.80 (talk) 15:52, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, copyvios, thanks for pointing that out. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:15, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: License

message: : 'In the epilogue set in 1947, Earth is in the process of becoming Tlön. The fictional Borges is appalled by this turn of events, an element in the story that critics Emir Rodríguez Monegal and Alastair Reid[8] argue is to be read as a metaphor for the totalitarianism already sweeping across Europe at the time of the story's writing. Their remark seems only a small extrapolation from a passage toward the end of the story:
::    Ten years ago, any symmetrical system whatsoever which gave the appearance of order — dialectical materialism, anti-Semitism, Nazism—was enough to fascinate men. Why not fall under the spell of Tlön and submit to the minute and vast evidence of an ordered planet? Useless to reply that reality, too is ordered."'
"Only a small extrapolation"---this is poorly phrased.  Does it mean that it's not a stretch from the Borges quote to the conclusion that he's talking about the spread of totalitarianism?  Or that it is a stretch---a major point drawn from small evidence?  I'd argue the former, that it's a major point of the story, quite in keeping with Borges' political views and with contemporary philosophical takes on totalitarianism's Big Lie: such ideologies, to stay alive, must constantly reinforce their adherents' beliefs in imaginary enemies, internal and external, that justify the subjugation or even denial of the individual.  For example, Borges here anticipates Nineteen Eighty-Four's "doublethink."  
Gribbles (talk) 17:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spread of "hrönir" as metaphor for advance of totalitarianism in '40s Europe 

message: Literary: I think the article misses some references to other Borges' tales. I recall a sentence where it's said that all books in Tlon contain a single plot but with all it's possible variations. That's the same idea he develops in "El jardin de los senderos que se bifurcan", published in the same volume (Ficciones). The idea of an encyclopedia containing a whole world resembles the "La biblioteca de Babel", where the library contains the whole world too. I think I may be missing many other of the thematic connections with this tale and the others. A section about the tale and the rest of his work would be nice. Anyone wants to try? We should mention the figures of the laberynth, the mirrors and the theme of the infinity too.--Rataube 17:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have something citable… - Jmabel | Talk 17:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't see the "stretch": "La crítica suele inventar autores: elige dos obras disímiles - el Tao Te King y las 1001 Noches, digamos -, las atribuye a un mismo escritor y luego determina con probidad la psicología de ese interesante homme de lettres...": In the Irby translation that I have handy, "The critics often invent authors: they select two dissimilar works - the Tao Te Ching and the 1001 Nights, say - attribute them to the same writer and then determine most scrupulously the psychology of this interesting homme de lettres..." - Jmabel | Talk 17:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Carrying on from Jmabel, it's not a question of interpreting Borges, the school of literary criticism is that which he describes in the text. This has nothing to do with the Romantics or anything else in our world (as far as this article goes, anyway). Pinkville 17:57, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe I didn't read it carefully enough or the text was edited since my last comment. I thought it said there was an implied chritic of some kind to a real-world school of chriticism. But since the sentence starts with "In the context of the imagined world of Tlön", I have no objections. Of course, the theme could be read as a challenge to those chritics that focused too much on authors' biographies (the romantics for example), but that's another story.--Rataube 21:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Borges is most surely referring here to psychologism, I should think.
I don't know if this should go here, but "Buenos Aires at this time was more of an intellectual center than it is in the early 21st century" doesn't seem too NPOV to me. Buenos Aires is, in fact, an intellectual and artistic center in Latin America, and widely respected as one throughout the world. It leads in the performing arts, with acts as De la Guarda and world-renowned authors and directors. The University of Buenos Aires is on par with its european counterparts, especially in the humanities and social sciences. The so-called New Argentine Cinema has been the object of critical acclaim in most film festivals. Nevertheless, it's influence is poorly received in english-speaking countries, perhaps because of the linguistic stretch, but hinting at deeper problems in academic and cultural exchange. Eventhough I'm removing the cited sentence, it shows the limitations of NPOV, as it usually is USA-POV. As often, and probably unavoidably, occurs, neutrality is just hidden ethnocentrism.201.250.194.147 06:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

text: As a matter of fact, the whole paragraph was so extremely condescending I made significant changes. I'm not sure of them, but at least I think now it's less valorative, even at the cost of making it less "poetic". The prospect that the article could have been written by a porteño frightens me, since it would be much self-pityful and uninformed. I hope it's only condescendence.201.250.194.147 06:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Last time I checked, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" itself was written by a "porteño". He did not fare that bad... And to the heart of the matter: I'd favor a very dry exposition without any passing of judgment, or none at all. elpincha 14:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the article appears to have been written by Jmabel, from Seattle, who didn't fare "that bad" at all. I may have sounded pretty harsh, but it was because I found that specific part so condescending, and because I think it goes to show the limitations of NPOV (which, although limited, is, I agree, better than nothing). Reading Jmabel's user page, I can understand his predicament. He had to start from scratch in the subject of argentine intellectuality, since there is little work in the english language. Nevertheless, I recall having seen Beatriz Sarlo's book about Borges (a seminal work in the field) online somewhere, but I don't remember if it was in english or spanish. This problem is obviously the result of the deep divide beetween english-speaking and non-english-speaking intellectuality (which can also be seen in university rankings, which only account for research in the english language, for example). Thus, I commend Jmabel's work (the article itself is thorougly detailed), but make a point of the NPOV problem, since his comment was factual, based on the information he had available. Being this the first time I build up the courage to edit an entry, I think I will continue to do so in the future, since wikipedia could be a good tool, I think, to conquer this divide. 201.250.199.224 02:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a book by Beatriz Sarlo available on the web, in English, Borges: a writer on the edge, originally published 1993. Mentioned in this article's reference list.  The reference list needs some work.  EdJohnston 01:32, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Themes, references, figures, etc 

message: The author of this article asserts that,
This story is not the only place where Borges engages with Berkeleian idealism and with the related 20th century philosophy of phenomenology. Phenomenology privileges psychical phenomena over physical phenomena and "brackets off" objective reality as unknowable.
I would tend to differentiate far more strongly between Berkeley's idealism and phenomenology, and I believe that to describe the latter as a "related" philosophy is misleading, since phenomenology is not derived either in whole or in part from Berkeley's thought but from Husserl, Brentano, and so on in its transcendental form, and from Heidegger in its existential and hermeneutic form. Also I would suggest that characterising phenomenology as privileging psychical phenomena over physical phenomena is also misleading, since phenomenology does not draw the abstract psychological distinctions implied, dealing rather with direct intuitions of phenomena as they appear in the life-world. As such, I think phenomenology has been wrongly attributed here as something very idealistic and abstract, when it is in fact an extremely existential and worldly approach. Phenomenology only brackets objective reality because it is a purely descriptive discipline, not a prescriptive or explanatory discipline; as there is no intention of giving accounts as to 'why' phenomena appear, only 'in what way' or 'as what', it has no need of a criteria of objectivity. Also, it should be noted, that Phenomenology names a varied collection of different phenomenological approaches, and that not all of them, or even the majority, would consider objective reality as unknowable. 
In summary: Phenomenology is very much distinct from Berkeley's idealism, has altogether a different basis, and should not appear so proximately related to his name.Lethal humour (talk) 20:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, yeah I agree. Phenomenology is improperly defined here. Although it may be said to priviledge 'psychic phenomena' etc, maybe, it would be misleading to say it "brackets off" objective reality as unknowable. What bracketing and the relationship between the individual and the world in phenomenology mean, even based on the wiki article for phenomenology, is something different from what this story's article says. Even in Husserlian phenomenology, and especially in Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's, the phenomenological reduction, the 'bracketing,' is a device that is deployed so as to gain the knowledge necessary to properly understand the existing world. There is no doubt we can know reality, as for up to what point it varies according to the philosopher, but few if any say it is unknowable. Phenomenology is after all a descriptive science, under description is real phenomena. The only reason one might say that objective reality is bracketed as unknowable is because of the specific metaphysical meaning of 'objective' that is under critique by phenomenology. In Being and Time for instance, Heidegger quotes Kant in saying that, "It is the scandal of philosophy not to have been able to prove the existence of the real world." But no, Heidegger replies, the scandal of philosophy is that it keeps trying. Phenomenology knows the world is there, all we have to do it says, is observe what happens and begin to reshape our understanding of it. (my first post here in wiki discussions so apologies if the formatting is off)
68.173.125.51 (talk) 06:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Philosophical Themes 

message: I have removed the following sentence: "'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius' has the structure of a detective fiction set in a world going mad." First of all, there is no "crime," so describing what happens in the story as resembling detective fiction wears the idea of the detective genre thin to the point of non-existence. And while the idea of "a world going mad" may be vaguely applicable to the end of the story, it hardly seems useful as a characterization of what the story is about. 850 C (talk) 15:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removing sentence 

message: The article uses the word "Mlejnas" for Tlön's partner-world in Uqbaran mythology. The version I have (Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley, cop. Penguin Putnam Inc. 1998) uses "Mle'khnas". Which is the proper spelling? Noaqiyeum 02:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Proposing the uqbar be merged into this article. It looks like that article has some history as a hoax and is now limited to simply being about the fictional place in this story. Unless I'm missing something significant, there certainly are not sufficient sources about Uqbar as a topic sufficiently distinct from this story such that it should have an independent article. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:53, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm... the article claims "there is at least one real place with the name Uqbar, in Algeria" and cites a source in the bibliography section ("The Encyclopaedia of Islam"). ♠TomasBat 16:15, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Proceeded with the merge, as the initial case seems sound and the "Hmmm" reflects only an observation consistent with the text on both pages and consistent with a merge. Klbrain (talk) 21:28, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Is the phrase "Axaxaxas mlö" at all connected to the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras who is notable for his observations on the moon, eclipses and other cosmic phenomena?--Mr. 123453334 (talk) 06:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anaxagoras connection? 

message: I found this entry confusing...are Tlön & Uqbar separate fictional worlds? Or are they the same world? Or is one a part of the other? 69.125.134.86 (talk) 00:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: From the first paragraph of the Summary section, Uqbar is the name of the country and Tlön is the name of the world or region where the country exists. "Orbis Tertius" would seem to be the Latin phrase, "third world," presumably a reference to Earth as the third planet from its sun. With the commas, the book's title becomes a full place name. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 03:32, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

text: This is inaccurate. Uqbar is country referenced in the anomalous copies of the The Anglo-American Cyclopaedia. The Anglo-American Cyclopaedia says Tlön is a mythical world in Uqbarian mythology. In Section 3, the narrator claims that an organization called Orbis Tertius created Tlön by writing the Encyclopedia of Tlön. The origin of Uqbar is never explicitly explained, nor is the contradiction between the Anglo-American Cyclopedia's account of Tlön and the narrator's account in the third section. I wasn't sure where to put this, but I'm editing out the claim that section three explains the origin of Uqbar, for the reasons stated here. Numenetics (talk) 21:07, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

text: Uqbar is supposed to be a country in this world, near Iraq. It does not really exist but only in a fake entry of a pirated encyclopedia. There Borges, in this story, learns that in Uqbar legends always refer to two imaginary places, Tlön being one of them. Later we learn that Uqbar was there only to introduce the main invention, Tlön, to the world. Tlön has its own encyclopedia, and it is intended to be translated in the future into its own idealistic language; such translation (that metaphorically could be the intrusion of Tlön in the reality of Earth) will be called "Orbis Tertius". Trucoto (talk) 17:40, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tlön, Uqbar? 

message: :I see that
In another language of Tlön, "the basic unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective," which, in combinations of two or more, are noun-forming: "moon" becomes "airy-clear over dark-round" or "orange-faint-of-sky."
was replaced by 
In another language of Tlön, "the basic unit is not the verb, but the monosyllabic adjective," which, in combinations of two or more, are noun-forming: "moon" becomes "round airy-light on dark" or "pale-orange-of-the-sky.""Tlön…", p.115
Arguably, it's just as good a translation of the Spanish, but I don't believe that it comes from the cited source. There are several published translations of "Tlön…" floating around, and I suspect that someone chose a different translation without changing the citation. - Jmabel | Talk 17:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation and citation 

message: The references to the text of the story in this article contain page numbers that are meaningless since no specific translation is cited.  Whatever translation is being used seems to be a strange one; I don't understand why anyone would render "morosa" (literally, "delayed") as "inadequate".  (The translation in Labyrinths has "delinquent"; Collected Fictions has "laggardly".) 2601:C6:4100:F980:E9E2:B094:1EB3:F374 (talk) 13:57, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  References to and quotations from the text