Post 37: Sandwich logic

There are a few objects that I can construe as viewpoints. What each object is, at least in part, is able to be used as a way to see something. This has occurred (this being the turning of an object into a viewpoint) with objects whose unique appearances are built upon, or take place within, structures that feel easily generalizable from each instance of the object’s individual presence. In other words, something can be taken away from the existence of the object, from one specific instance of its existence, while still being true to it. (To generalize is to take from one thing and bring somewhere else.) Still, the question of how true? stays close. How much truth can the generalization retain? And how far does a generalization stray from the object it comes from?

The primary example I have of an object with this ability to be generalized (somewhere along the lines this becomes an ability, but it probably more accurately starts at what is a quality of the object that leads to this being able to happen) is a sandwich. What can be generalized from a sandwich is (perhaps this connects not to an immediacy such as “is” but to a gradual continuousness like “becomes”) what I'm naming sandwich logic. A simple description of the logic: having the same top and bottom (or left and right, or, likely also other versions of having a similar kind of same this and that), but a different middle (or, again, some similarly functioning, though not-as-on-the-nose section of “middle”). Ultimately: There are three sections; one section is not like the other two; the two alike sections are separated visually by the one different section.

These distinctions--top, bottom, and middle--and their relationships to each other, apply to all true sandwiches, and enable sandwiches to be thought of in the abstract--as schemas or configurations rather than physical bulks. What is it about this nameability of a sandwich, the way we can pinpoint the parts of it, that gives it a strong abstract existence? What is a strong abstract existence? I think of it as a concrete imagined presence to something that is not actually there. Again, what enables an object to be imagined and understood when it's not there to supply the core of that itself, to have a solid identity in spite of its own absence?

I find the strong abstract nature of sandwiches to be due to a match between the way they are visually and linguistically understood--most importantly an alignment of the outcomes of each of these understandings. What I can name most generally of the components of a sandwich--a top, bottom, and middle (these three words)--lines up with how I visually perceive a sandwich--in these same three distinct sections. There is an equivalency between my in-language understanding and my in-sight understanding. (Which one of these modes set the tone for the other?) Contrastingly, I could name the three basic components of, say, a cafe table (tabletop, leg, base), but I don't also have this same three-part perception of this kind of table. It's not that I can't perceive the table as a makeup of these three units, but just that I naturally perceive it as a singular whole rather than the combination of parts. Between a table and a sandwich, a conception of an object's constitution based on parts is way more accurate to the way I see (and think of?) sandwiches. Is this because I myself have assembled a sandwich--brought its three components together into the finality of its whole, and that I haven't touched these three separate pieces of the table? That I know a table mostly as a final product, while I'm more familiar with a sandwich in an unfinished form? It may also be because the "parts" inherent to a sandwich are extremely interchangeable; the word parts means something very different in the context of this particular whole. A part of the kind of table I described refers to one of three things and must refer to one of those things--"part" is a general name for a prescribed, specific item. For a sandwich, "part" refers instead to the role something must play--there must be an item that fulfills the role of its top, the role of its middle, or the role of its bottom--and there's flexibility to what items can satisfy this requirement. It's this dual, parts-based visual and linguistic perception that shifts sandwiches away from their physicality (perception shifts focus away from what a sandwich actually is into a hazier place). To name is to make intangible is to generalize which is to broaden. Broadening feels like a way to say makes transportable. Like how an Eagle's hat can broaden the scope of the Eagles team.

While the term “sandwich” ultimately denotes something physical, the concentration of the word’s meaning is on the setup, the format, of the physical form, the actual physicality being just what fills this in, what allows the format to be realized. Every sandwich is simply an example of what the word sandwich means. The word sandwich is a line drawing and the item of a sandwich is the shading in of the drawing. Do all nouns work like this? I'm just realizing now that a sandwich is not just an item, but is also the name of a category. ...Is it? I can surely think of this word as a category term--there are a variety of items, combinations of items that can all be called sandwiches--and in this way I would say of course specific sandwiches are easily generalizable as they all occur within the already-existing general category of sandwich. But also, at least at this moment of thinking, I want to ask: Don't all names of items function of categories? If something can be named, that name must refer to other items as well, besides the one at hand. The word "pencil" refers to other pencils than the one it may at a moment apply to, and the same goes for lamp, Rubik's cube, chapstick, extension chord. What is the relationship between a general name and a category name? For an object that doesn't have a general name (I'm going to use a construction of mine as an example of this):

Taking a photo of the most boring part of a tree

does the idiosyncratic name is it is given (Taking a photo of the most boring part of a tree) also function as a category, but as a category of one item? On the other hand, I must acknowledge that there are never-ending opportunities to use general names, in which case: If the object(s) pictured above can be named a sculpture (this is both a general name and category name), what would it take for the object's particular title to outweigh this general name? How can something within a category be perceived as itself more so than as one of its category?

Here are some displays of sandwich logic:

This is your classic same top and bottom but different middle setup.

Because of how distinct the logic's structure is, how clearly it comes across, it has the flexibility to be construed in different ways:

Here is SK embodying a slight spin-off of traditional sandwich logic (this is different from the logic’s original form as the two same ends originate from the same source). It's true sandwich logic up until when you start thinking about where the "bread" ends. But I'd still call this just one step away from the classic.

This photo of me holding a gummy bear (less “of me” and more “holding a gummy bear”) is sandwich logic in the same way as the previous photo (the top and bottom are coming from the same place, which seems to highlight the way that sandwich logic is about zeroing in on what fits it form, not necessarily finding it as a carved-out whole).

This next one is an even further step away from tradition, but still abides by the logic recognizably--two sandwich bread ends (one is a photo of the sidewalk ramp leading to the Schuylkill river trail, and the other is a close-up photo of a page of my notebook that says “Daisy’s dad’s dog painting”) enclose one (photo of a flowering bush) middle. Both ending photos are similar enough in overall appearance to be called the same in the context of the contrasting center.

All of these examples are based upon sandwich logic as a point of view, a certain orienting and structuring of what can be seen. Sandwich logic proves to be not just the generalized form of a sandwich, but a generalization of whatever it gets applied to. It turns both sandwiches and not sandwiches into abstracted sandwiches. This is what interests me about generalization across the board--the strength it has as an identifier, and how it can add a specific recognizability to something that the thing may not inherently have: Does sandwich logic impose a structure or reveal one? Similarly, does generalizing get at a truth of something specific, or is truth in direct relationship with specificity (decreasing with generality)? Of course, none of the sandwich logic examples I included above are going to be mistaken, or are anywhere near being mistaken as genuine sandwiches. They are all sandwich metaphors, the logic functioning as a mode of fantasy. How much is any viewpoint, sandwich or not, a type of generalizing? How do we see and think without broadening the scope of what's before us, extending our perception to include structures and ideas that are not really present? In other words, how do we see what is actually there as what is actually there?

Flower sandwich