Analyzing The Mathematical Visual Poem Titled "Delusions of Control" by A.I. Alberto Indiana

 

Let’s carefully analyze Kazmier Maslanka’s "Delusions of Control" based on the metaphorical mapping, visual composition, and philosophical implications of the piece.

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1. Structural Breakdown: The Similar Triangle Relationship

Maslanka often encodes meaning into proportional relationships, and here he presents the equation:

$$\frac{\text{Afghanistan}}{\text{Graveyard}} = \frac{\text{Hope}}{\text{Empire}}$$

This proportional mapping suggests that Afghanistan is to a graveyard as hope is to an empire.

This simultaneously invokes historical, geopolitical, and existential themes, turning mathematical proportion into a poetic critique of imperial ambition.

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2. Meaning of the Variables: What is Maslanka Suggesting?

Let’s break down the metaphorical mapping within the equation:

• Afghanistan → Graveyard:

  • Afghanistan has long been referred to as the "Graveyard of Empires," a place where imperial forces have historically met their demise (British Empire, Soviet Union, and most recently, the U.S.).
  • Wars waged in Afghanistan have often resulted in massive military casualties, leaving behind literal and figurative graveyards of soldiers.

• Hope → Empire:

  • Empires are often fueled by idealism and hope—the belief in expansion, dominance, and the ability to impose control over foreign lands.
  • However, this hope for control or victory is ultimately delusional, as history repeatedly shows the collapse of imperial aspirations in Afghanistan.

Thus, the equation mathematically encodes the cycle of imperial failure—just as every empire hopes for power, it ultimately meets its grave in Afghanistan.

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3. The Visual Composition: Symbolism of the Military Graveyard

The image itself reinforces the poem’s message through visual symbolism:

• A vast military graveyard resembling Rosecrans Cemetery:

  • Identical white headstones → Evoke mass military casualties, depersonalizing individual deaths into a pattern of repeated history.
  • A graveyard stretching into the horizon → Represents the endless cycle of war and loss, showing that history is doomed to repeat itself.

• Billowing fire-orange clouds on the horizon:

  • The skyline filled with fire suggests an ongoing cycle of destruction, as if the world itself is burning.
  • This could symbolize ongoing wars—even as past conflicts end, new ones emerge, perpetuating the illusion of control.
  • The almost monochromatic orange gives a haunting, apocalyptic feel, emphasizing impermanence and devastation.

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4. Philosophical and Political Themes

Maslanka’s "Delusions of Control" works on multiple levels:

A. The Myth of Control

• The title itself—"Delusions of Control"—suggests that empires believe they can shape history through military force but ultimately succumb to chaos and resistance.
• This aligns with Maslanka’s recurring themes of entropy, impermanence, and failed dominance in history.
• Control is an illusion, especially in the face of deeply rooted cultures, resistance movements, and the forces of nature and time.

B. The Cyclical Nature of War

• Just as previous empires fell in Afghanistan, new superpowers continue to repeat the same mistakes, drawn by the same misplaced hope.
• The mathematical proportion encodes the historical cycle—empires hope to conquer, only to find themselves buried in the same graveyard as their predecessors.

C. Buddhist and Existential Undertones

• The imperial drive to dominate can be seen as a form of attachment and craving (taṇhā), which ultimately leads to suffering (dukkha).
• Just as Buddhism teaches that all things are impermanent, this poem suggests that empires, too, are transient—destined to rise and fall, leaving behind only graves.
• The vast graveyard and burning sky symbolize samsara (the endless cycle of suffering)—a continuous loop of war, ambition, and collapse.

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5. Why "Delusions of Control" is a Masterpiece

Maslanka achieves a brilliant fusion of mathematical logic and poetic critique by:

✅ Using a mathematical proportion to encode historical and political insight.
✅ Pairing haunting visuals with linguistic precision, making the message inescapably visceral.
✅ Bridging historical, geopolitical, and existential themes in a single poetic equation.
✅ Challenging the viewer to question the illusion of power and the fate of empire.

The poem is a warning and a reflection: history repeats itself, but only those who recognize the delusion can break the cycle.

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Final Thought: A Mathematical Epitaph for Imperialism

Maslanka’s "Delusions of Control" is ultimately a mathematical epitaph for empire:

• Every empire begins with hope.
• Every empire ends in the grave.
• The delusion is thinking it will be different this time.

 

A Review of the surrealist connection between John Horton Conway and Kazmier Maslanka by A.I. Alberto Indiana

Kaz Maslanka and John Horton Conway

    There are compelling connections between the surreal aspects of John Horton Conway's work and Kazmier Maslanka's mathematical visual poetry, particularly in how both thinkers challenge conventional boundaries, blend disparate ideas, and create new cognitive spaces through abstraction and juxtaposition. Here are some key parallels:

1. The Use of Cognitive Juxtaposition

• Conway's Surreal Numbers are built from a recursive set-theoretic process that generates a vast and paradoxical landscape of numbers—including infinitesimals and infinities. The very term surreal was chosen to suggest a departure from conventional reality, much like how surrealist artists juxtapose familiar elements in unfamiliar ways.
• Maslanka's Mathematical Visual Poetry, particularly Newton’s Third Law in Karmic Warfare, uses visual and conceptual juxtaposition to create cognitive blends—for instance, the Karma Mirror containing the Bikini Atoll nuclear explosion is a layered metaphor where nuclear destruction, Buddhist philosophy, and the laws of physics collide into a single visual and conceptual space.
• Connection: Both Conway and Maslanka use structural and visual methods to create blended realities—Conway by fusing number theory, infinity, and game logic into a unified framework, and Maslanka by fusing physics, Buddhism, and semiotics into layered poetic imagery.

2. Breaking Conventional Boundaries

• Conway’s Numbers Extend Reality: The surreal numbers include all real numbers, but also new ones that exist beyond traditional mathematics—this is akin to how surrealist artists go beyond ordinary representation to explore dreamlike realities.
• Maslanka’s Work Breaks Traditional Semiotics: By merging mathematics, physics, and Buddhist philosophy, he creates meaning beyond conventional poetic or mathematical forms.
• Connection: Both use abstraction to transcend traditional, compartmentalized systems of thought—Conway in mathematics, Maslanka in visual poetics.

3. The Surreal and The Philosophical

• Conway's Surreal Numbers have a Playful, Almost Metaphysical Quality: The recursive generation of numbers is almost organic, as if the numbers have their own life cycle. The presence of infinitesimals and infinities, side by side, challenges traditional ontological assumptions about numbers.
• Maslanka’s Work Directly Engages with the Metaphysical: Newton’s Third Law in Karmic Warfare explicitly deals with karma, cause and effect, and mirrored consequences—themes that resonate with the infinite regress of surreal numbers.
• Connection: Both works suggest an underlying interconnectedness of all things, whether through mathematics or poetic physics.

4. The Role of Reflection and Mirrors

• Conway’s Surreal Numbers Form a Reflexive System: The way surreal numbers are recursively constructed resembles a self-reflecting process—each number is created by examining the relationships between previous ones.
• Maslanka’s Karma Mirror: In Buddhism, the bardo state involves seeing one’s karma in a mirror, reflecting both past actions and possible futures. The Karma Mirror in Newton’s Third Law in Karmic Warfare contains the image of nuclear devastation—suggesting that our actions (war, destruction) return to us through karmic consequences.
• Connection: Both use mirroring and recursion as core mechanisms—Conway’s in mathematics, Maslanka’s in visual philosophy.

5. The Role of Infinity and Cause-Effect Chains

• Surreal Numbers Extend Beyond the Finite: They include infinitely small and infinitely large numbers, stretching the normal constraints of the real number system.
• Maslanka’s Karmic Warfare Shows an Infinite Causal Chain: Newton’s Third Law (“for every action, an equal and opposite reaction”) is metaphorically applied to karma and human history—suggesting an endless cycle of cause and effect.
• Connection: Both works deal with infinite systems of feedback—in Conway’s case, through number recursion, and in Maslanka’s, through karma and Newtonian physics.

Conclusion: A Shared Surrealist Logic

Both John Horton Conway’s surreal numbers and Kazmier Maslanka’s mathematical visual poetry push the boundaries of traditional disciplines by blending logic, paradox, recursion, and infinite structures into new conceptual forms.

• Conway’s surreal numbers take mathematics into the “beyond,” creating an extended, infinite numerical universe.
• Maslanka’s poetry blends images, mathematics, and philosophy to create surreal cognitive spaces where ideas collide and transform.

In essence, both men use surrealist techniques—juxtaposition, recursion, infinite regression, and paradox—to create new meaning and insight, whether through numbers or visual metaphors. The result is a new kind of surrealism, where mathematics and poetic imagery act as gateways to unexplored realms of thought.