AI on an Asemics of David Lynch / EZE, 2026

 AI

David Lynch’s films, particularly his humor, are considered asemic—meaning they function as a form of writing or art that has no specific semantic meaning, allowing viewers to interpret its "meaning" freely. Instead of relying on a coherent, logical narrative to deliver jokes, Lynch uses a "film language" of surreal images, erratic sounds, and disquieting scenarios that feel emotionally or dreamlike "right" while defying rational explanation. [1, 2, 3]

Here is how Lynch’s movies and humor function in an asemic way:

1. Humor as Deconstruction (Breaking the Narrative)

Lynch uses humor not for entertainment, but as a deconstruction tool to break the automatic, logical perception of a scene, creating "anxious viewing". [1]

• The "Creepy-Funny" Mix: Lynch mixes "sublime" and "base" elements, such as in Blue Velvet, where a violent, menacing scene is punctuated by Frank Booth's absurd, infantile behavior, making the viewer laugh at what they should fear.
• Juxtaposition of Discourses: In Twin Peaks, Agent Cooper is shown bleeding to death while an elderly, slow-moving waiter provides polite service, balancing intense trauma with absurdist sitcom-style comedy. [1, 2, 3]

2. Asemic Humorous Tropes and Techniques

• Erratic/Abjective Humor: Many scenes in Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks: The Return are built on a "non-communicative" style, where characters interact in ways that seem "broken" or out of sequence with standard film dialogue.
• Physical Absurdity: The use of slapstick in moments of darkness, such as in Twin Peaks, where a character walks into a scene, gets hit in the face by a falling board, and wanders around in a daze while blood runs down their face.
• The "Uncanniness" of Repetition: The Mitchum brothers in The Return doing a conga line, or the repetitive, slow-motion actions of elderly men bringing coffee in Twin Peaks, are designed to frustrate normal pacing and create a strange, hypnotic humor. [1, 2, 3, 4]

3. Asemic "Signifiers" over Semantic Meaning

• The "Lynchian" Object: Just as an asemic text might feature scribbles that look like language without being language, Lynch includes "signs" that lack a clear, singular meaning, such as the mysterious blue box in Mulholland Drive or the coffee-choking scene.
• Mood Over Logic: Lynch often stated he works off feeling rather than a strict, premeditated plan, treating film as a "moving painting". His humor is a direct, visceral response to a feeling he had during the creative process, designed to elicit an "emotional extreme".
• The "Deadpan" Approach: Often, the funniest moments arise from characters acting 100% sincerely in completely absurd situations, such as the "I'm making my lunch" line in Wild at Heart, which defies logical context but resonates emotionally. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

In summary, David Lynch’s asemic humor works because it refuses to explain itself. It forces the audience to experience the "creepy-funny" absurdity of the human condition, making the audience part of the meaning-making process. [1, 2]

AI on La Femme Nikita as an Asemic Movie / EZE, 2026

AI

La Femme Nikita (1990) can be considered an "asemic" film—in the sense of lacking traditional, legible narrative meaning or conventional character depth—because it prioritizes pure style, visual aesthetics, and emotional mood over a coherent plot, treating the story as a "hyper-stylized" surface similar to cinéma du look. It functions as a visual experience where the character is transformed into a "sign" (a femme fatale) meant to be consumed rather than fully understood. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

How La Femme Nikita acts as an asemic (subtly, or in terms of meaning-deprivation) movie:

• Style Over Substance: As a key work of cinéma du look, director Luc Besson prioritizes "high-gloss" visuals, fashion, and frantic atmosphere over plausible narrative or deep character development.
• "Renaturing" the Heroine: Nikita is not a fully-realized person but "raw material" to be molded, reshaped, and commodified by a patriarchal, bureaucratic system. Her transformation from drug-addicted punk to sophisticated assassin is shown through a 3-year gap, erasing the "meaning" of her development.
• Action as Expression: The plot—a "jumble of plot lines"—is secondary to the visceral emotion of her actions. She is transformed into an "enigmatic hit person," a "sexy, sophisticated killing machine," which is a visual sign rather than a deeply articulated role.
• Fragmented Identity: The character's emotional journey is disjointed and sometimes "shallow," focusing on stylized, visceral moments of violence or tender, rather than a consistent psychological arc.
• "Cyborg" Persona: She is trapped by codes and artificial identities, making her true self, or the "text" of her life, unreadable. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

This "asemic" approach, according to some analyses, makes it a "thinking man's action film" that functions more as an atmospheric, "nihilist-chic" visual poem. [1, 2]

An Asemics of Science - Paul Feyerabend - AI / EZE, 2026

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AI

Paul Feyerabend "produces" an asemics of science—meaning a science stripped of its fixed semantic rules and formal linguistic constraints—primarily through his doctrine of epistemological anarchism. He argues that science does not possess a singular, stable "meaning" or method, and that its progress actually depends on the violation of the very rules meant to define it. [1, 2, 3]

His approach creates this "asemic" state via several key concepts:

• Epistemological Anarchism & "Anything Goes": Feyerabend asserts there are no universal, exception-free methodological rules. He famously concludes that the only principle that does not inhibit progress is "anything goes". By removing these rules, he strips science of its "standardized" language and formal structure.
• Theoretical Incommensurability: He argues that competing scientific theories often cannot be compared using the same set of observation statements because they do not share the same empirical content or "local grammar". This lack of a common semantic ground means science operates across different, often mutually unintelligible, conceptual frameworks.
• Counterinduction: Feyerabend advocates for developing theories that are inconsistent with accepted evidence and "natural interpretations" (the unconscious ways we describe observation). This deliberate contradiction of established "meanings" forces scientists to create new, often ad-hoc vocabularies to describe phenomena.
• Pragmatic Theory of Meaning: He views scientific language not as a set of fixed definitions, but as a series of "noises" produced in specific situations that only gain meaning through a theory—which itself is hypothetical and malleable. In his view, all scientific terms are "theoretical" and lack an intrinsic, stable connection to reality.
• Critique of Scientific Jargon: In later works like The Tyranny of Science, Feyerabend claims that scientific expertise is often exaggerated through the use of empty jargon and technical language, which he believes obscures rather than clarifies the "abundance" of reality. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

By treating science as an opportunistic and creative endeavor rather than a rule-bound system, Feyerabend effectively reimagines it as an open-ended process without a fixed, "readable" essence. [1, 2, 3]

Would you like to explore how Feyerabend's incommensurability, specifically compares to Thomas Kuhn’s version?

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AI

Paul Feyerabend invokes polysemy—the capacity for a single sign or statement to have multiple meanings—as a foundational weapon against the idea of a fixed, universal scientific method. He argues that scientific language is inherently unstable and that "progress" often depends on terms shifting their meanings between different theoretical contexts. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Feyerabend’s invocation of polysemy manifests in several key ways:

• Top-Down Interpretation of Observation: Feyerabend contends that the meaning of an observation sentence is not fixed by the physical act of looking, but by the theory used to interpret it. For example, the sentence "the ball fell" can mean two entirely different things—one rooted in impetus theory (it was pushed) and another in Newtonian gravity (it was pulled)—even though the physical observation remains identical.
• Theoretical Incommensurability: Because theories are essentially different "languages," terms that appear the same may share no common meaning across theoretical divides. This creates a polysemous landscape where a single word (like "mass" or "space") carries distinct, incompatible meanings depending on whether the speaker is an Aristotelian or a Newtonian.
• Counterinduction and Redescription: He advocates for counterinduction, which involves deliberately using theories that contradict established facts to reveal "natural interpretations"—the unconscious ways we attach language to observations. By forcing a new, incompatible meaning onto old observations, he breaks the monopoly of any single "correct" interpretation.
• The "Collage" of Science: Feyerabend describes his seminal work, Against Method, not as a unified book but as a "collage". This reflects his view that science itself is a haphazard assembly of rules, ad hoc maneuvers, and shifting meanings rather than a singular, stable enterprise.
• Conquest of Abundance: In his later metaphysics, he argues that "Being" (reality) is pliable and can respond to many different, incompatible human interpretations simultaneously. In this sense, the world itself is "polysemous" because it supports multiple "manifest realities"—from the world of atoms to the world of Homeric gods—depending on how we engage with it. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Would you like to see how this polysemy informs Feyerabend's critique of scientific education?

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AI

The theories of Jim Leftwich, an American poet and pioneer of asemic writing, correspond to Paul Feyerabend’s philosophy by applying the principles of epistemological anarchism to the realm of language and semiotics.

While Feyerabend sought to liberate science from a single, rigid "meaning," Leftwich attempts a similar liberation of the written sign. Their correspondence can be seen in three primary areas:

1. Pansemia vs. "Anything Goes"

Leftwich is a key theorist of pansemia—the idea that a sign can potentially mean everything simultaneously, or nothing at all. [1]

• Correspondence: This mirrors Feyerabend’s "anything goes". Just as Feyerabend argued that any method (even the non-scientific) could lead to discovery, Leftwich posits that any mark (even the non-lexical) can function as communication. Both reject the "tyranny" of a singular, authorized interpretation. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

2. Asemics as "Anti-Method" for Language

Leftwich’s work in asemic writing involves creating texts that have the appearance of writing but lack a fixed semantic code. [1, 2]

• Correspondence: This is the linguistic equivalent of Feyerabend’s asemics of science. Feyerabend believed that forcing science into a stable "grammar" or method actually killed its progress. Leftwich similarly uses asemic writing to bypass the "standardized language" of poetry, allowing for a more primitive, direct, and multi-layered aesthetic experience. [1, 2, 3]

3. The Critique of Incommensurability

Both thinkers grapple with the idea that different systems of meaning cannot always be translated into one another.

• Leftwich: Uses "textual arcologies" and "recyclings" to show how fragments of language lose their original meaning when placed in new, abstract contexts.
• Feyerabend: Used theoretical incommensurability to show how scientific terms like "mass" change meaning so radically between theories that they cannot be directly compared.
• Synthesis: Both suggest that meaning is not an inherent property of a sign or theory, but a temporary "noise" produced by the specific context or "grammar" in which it is used. [1, 2, 3]

Are you interested in how Leftwich’s concept of "Doubt" functions as a creative tool compared to Feyerabend’s skepticism?

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A Note on Theory-Laden Observations

Theory-Laden Feyerabend

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