At intervals of seven to ten years, I take the classic out of the bookcase and read it again: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Many are familiar with this famous last sentence, also entitled Proposition 7.
I purchased the small slender booklet full of equations and logical sentences maybe thirty years ago. The text is full of paradox intellectual exercises and I once again read in it: Proposition 6.1251, This is why surprises never exist in logic. In music there is logic and surprise, the unexpected interrupts what appears to be a logical sequence. It may be a recurring element in a musical composition.
Or: One could pull the right-hand glove over the left hand, if one could turn it around in the four-dimensional space. Wittgenstein attempts to cross the boundaries of dimensions, which is the responsibility of the philosopher. Or of the artist. Bruce Nauman, All Thumbs 1996.
Then there is Wittgenstein’s statement on the limitations of language and that anything that goes beyond them is nonsense.
My thoughts circle around the age-old question as to whether music is a language.
“Music is not a language. Music is a different dimension.”
My current response to this is:
("Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.")
Edu Haubensak, Zurich, 24 February 2021
during a Sahara dust storm incident
Composition Grosse Stimmung