a founder of the codex

Metamorphosis

Histolysa reformans·the Rebuilding Chrysalis

From Greek histos, tissue, and lysis, loosening, and Latin reformare, to shape again, the tissue that loosens itself and is shaped again.

Level
Conceptorganism
Phylum
Cycleimage schema
Class
Mechanismits imaginal discs
Niche
Decomposerwhat is dead
Mode
Metamorphosishow it keeps existing
Stage
Matureindividuated
Status
Living
Habitat
Forest

Its kinds · Roget, 1852: Change · Wilkins, 1668: Transcendental Relation of Action · WordNet, 1990: Process · Llull, 1308: H · Vegetative

Rebuilding Chrysalis, the whole specimen
Plate XXXIV. Histolysa reformans, the whole specimen.

One life can pass through bodies of wholly different form by dissolving the old one and building the next from its matter, so a being stays itself through a complete change of shape.

A life keeps itself by giving up its body and building another.

behavior Hangs still and sealed for weeks while it melts and rebuilds inside, then splits open and leaves its case behind.

provocation

Which of your old forms did you have to digest to become what you are now?

Each draw is the being derived afresh by the current laws at another seed (laws §11); the chosen one leads (where they sit in the morphospace).

I Dissection

Each organ answers one question about the idea. The framed one, its mechanism, is the dominant organ: the being's class, the one the idea could not lose and stay itself.

Kernel of Metamorphosis

Fig. 1. Kernel

Psyche

Which premise, if it were false, would kill this idea?

One life can pass through bodies of wholly different form and stay the same life, as a caterpillar becomes a moth.2

drawn as: psyche · view: microscope

Boundary of Metamorphosis

Fig. 2. Boundary

Cocoon

What sets it apart from what it is not, and how does it keep that distinction?

It stands against fixed identity, the view that a thing is its present shape, and keeps that difference by carrying one life unbroken from each form into the next.1

drawn as: cocoon · view: pressed

Intake of Metamorphosis

Fig. 3. Intake

Pupal soup

What must it feed on to work? What has to be present, noticed or supplied?

It feeds on the old body itself. Inside the pupa many larval tissues are broken down, and their matter feeds the organs of the adult.5

drawn as: pupal soup · view: pinned

Mechanism of Metamorphosis

Fig. 4. Mechanism

Imaginal discs

❦ dominant organ

How does it turn what it takes in into what it gives out?

A pulse of hormone starts the change. Larval tissues dissolve while small clusters of cells, set aside since the embryo, grow into wings, legs and eyes.5

drawn as: imaginal discs · view: transparent

Output of Metamorphosis

Fig. 5. Output

Imago

What does it make possible, visible or knowable?

It yields a new form with new powers, a winged adult that flies and mates where the larva crawled and fed, a petal grown from what began as a leaf.2, 3

drawn as: imago · view: detached

Dispersal of Metamorphosis

Fig. 6. Dispersal

Exuviae

What part of it travels into other minds, ideas and fields, and by what vector?

Its shed cases are its most visible trace, and it travels as tales of bodies changed into new forms, from Ovid's fifteen books to Kafka's story of a man who wakes as an insect.1, 4

drawn as: exuviae · view: series

Decay of Metamorphosis

Fig. 7. Decay

Failed eclosion

What can it not digest, where does it fail, and what does it leave behind for others?

It fails when the change halts midway, a pupa that dies half larva and half adult, or a body held for good in its new form, as in Kafka's story.5, 4

drawn as: failed eclosion · view: pressed

II Meaning associations

No relations recorded yet.

descent membership food web resemblance or friction

Lineage

A founder, dissected by hand.

Kin

same kind in Roget Awakening, Entropy, Petrification, Threshold, Tongue Horizon

same kind in Wilkins Threshold

same kind in WordNet Awakening, Breath, Entelechy, Entropy, Erosion, Fire, Petrification, Rushmaker, Shared Breath, Self-Ending Order, Tongue Horizon, Witnessed Relief, Gazeroot (second reading), Commemorative Revision, The Swing Door

same kind in Llull Breath, Entelechy, Spring

same phylum Ash, Breath, Echolalia, Lullaby, Resonance, Commemorative Revision, The Swing Door, Tide of Days, Simultaneous Remembering, Poetry

same dominant organ Chimera, Dream, Fire, Love, Lullaby, Music, Presence, Resonance, Ritual, Storm, Symbol, Winter, Rushmaker, Shared Breath, Self-Ending Order, Gazeroot (second reading), Commemorative Revision, The Swing Door, Foresilence, Simultaneous Remembering, Poetry, Subtractive Phenomenology

Genome

III In the world

Echoes

  • a butterfly drying its wings beside its empty chrysalis
  • a tadpole growing legs and losing its tail
  • Ovid's Metamorphoses
  • Goethe's leaf that becomes a petal

IV Record

How it was drawn

its draw 1, a point in the morphospace (laws §8), drawn by flux-2-klein-4b.safetensors.

axisvalue
bookflora
symmetryradial 8
organizationnested
silhouetteribbon
scalemicroscopic
proportiontapering latent
growthencrusted
articulationseamless latent
opennesssheet latent
skeletonexoskeleton latent
locomotionjetting latent
patternstripes
colorationplain latent
substanceaura
surfaceiridescent
paletteamber
luminositypoints
transparencytranslucent
gesturecoils
unitycomposite latent
modalityunmarked latent
causationefficient latent
determinacydoubled latent
fusionnested
anomalyechoes
graftkintsugi
techniquesilverpoint
viewpointabove
valuelow key
balanceunmarked latent
densitysparse latent
rhythmregular latent
saturationmuted latent
appendagessails
anchor (body)a waterspout, a slender twisting funnel
anchor (detail)a cave swiftlet's nest, a cup of hardened saliva fixed to rock

Sources

  1. Ovid, Metamorphoses (8 CE)
  2. Maria Sibylla Merian, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (1705)
  3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Metamorphosis of Plants (1790)
  4. Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (1915)
  5. James W. Truman and Lynn M. Riddiford, The Origins of Insect Metamorphosis (Nature, 1999)

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