Well, we're closing in on the end of chapter 2, and just in time for the second anniversary of the blog! There's really just two sections left. I think we should construe the longer first one (from pg. 116 after the Borges quote to pg. 126) as revisiting the three different repetitions from a structural or systemic perspective. Accordingly, this section breaks down into three parts, one for each figure of repetition. There's various ways to understand these three, which I think recur throughout Deleuze's work. We've talked about them here as form -- process -- the realization that processes are forms and forms processes. Deleuze has called them Habit -- Eros -- Thantos in this chapter. In What is Philosophy? he and Guattari will talk about concepts -- conceptual personae -- the plane of immanence, and in A Thousand Plateaus we find assemblages -- abstract machines -- the plane of consistency. You might also call them object -- subject -- transcendental field or thought -- thinker -- image of thought. I might describe the way they appear in this particular section as dynamic system -- singularity -- chaos. Obviously, there's not one true version of the trinity, so we shouldn't worry if our mileage varies for each description. As far as I can tell, the only thing preserved though all these transformations is that #1 and #2 start off as qualitatively distinct, but in #3 are considered 'the same' -- held together as different by a sort of fractal reflexivity. Step 3 is the crucial one that gets us all the way to difference in-itself, but it requires the initial difference between steps 1 and 2 (or maybe more accurately produces their identity as an effect). Step 3 also internalizes the difference between steps 1 and 2, which means that in a sense all three steps are different aspects of the same process.
... difference must immediately relate the differing terms to one another. In accordance with Heidegger's ontological intuition, difference must be articulation and connection in itself; it must relate different to different without any mediation whatsoever by the identical, the similar, the analogous or the opposed. There must be a differenciation of difference, an in-itself which is like a differenciator, a Sich-unterscheidende, by virtue of which the different is gathered all at once rather than represented on condition of a prior resemblance, identity, analogy or opposition. As for these latter instances, since they cease to be conditions, they become no more than effects of the primary difference and its differenciation, overall or surface effects which characterise the distorted world of representation, and express the manner in which the in-itself of difference hides itself by giving rise to that which covers it.
Anyhow, let's get down to cases and cover the first part of the section (pg. 116-119), where Deleuze discusses dynamic systems theory. The section starts off with an interesting reference to Leví-Strauss, and we might almost call it Deleuze's structuralist take on metaphysics, since the idea is to isolate a structure of relationships of differences between terms without any intrinsic importance to what the terms are in themselves. The same theory can then apply to physical, biological, psychic, literary, and philosophical systems indiscriminately. All of these are described as intensive systems because they couple one set of differences to another.
In physics, people normally define an intensive variable as one that doesn't change if the system is cut into pieces. So things like pressure, density, and temperature are intensive because if I took a cube of gas (at equilibrium) and sliced is into 8 smaller cubes of gas, these variables would be the same in each of the small cubes as they were in the original big cube. The extensive properties are the ones that would be reduced by 1/8th in this example -- volume, mass, number of molecules of gas, etc ... If Deleuze is referring to this typical definition it's a bit oblique. Given the structuralist context, I do think he means to convey that intensities are systems level or bulk properties that don't apply to atomic units individually. As a consequence of the definition of an intensive variable, it doesn't make any sense to ask what the temperature or pressure of a single gas atom is; these are only defined for a collection of atoms. Similarly, the structuralists emphasized that the meaning of a signifier is based on its usage in a whole language context. In other words, the signifier is arbitrary. It's role is just to be different from other possible signifiers. It has no inherent connection to what it signifies, and doesn't even have the ability to point to it by itself, but only acquires this ability because of its role in the structure of the language. This is all to say something fairly obvious but perhaps often forgotten: a language is a system that relates differences between words to differences between ideas -- this is how it's able to mean anything at all.
Beyond the reference to a systems level or contextual property, I'm not quite sure why Deleuze refers to differences of differences as intensities.
The nature of these elements whose value is determined at once both by their difference in the series to which they belong, and by the difference of their difference from one series to another, can be determined: these are intensities, the peculiarity of intensities being to be constituted by a difference which itself refers to other differences (E-E' where E refers to e-e' and e to f.-f.' ...).
He may be referring to the way a change in intensity can produce a qualitative change in a system. For example, changes in temperature are associated with phase transitions in a material that result in discontinuities in its behavior -- ice, water, steam. If you try to divide up an intensive variable itself (instead of dividing up the extensive size of the system in question like in the standard definition) you find that it doesn't divide smoothly but breaks up into regimes or zones. Which is to say that quantitative differences (in the energy you supply in the form of heat) cause other qualitative differences to appear (in phase of matter). This is the interpretation Manuel DeLanda uses in Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. You might think of language too as a system filled with differences that lead to phase transitions. How far do I have to change my articulation of the phoneme b/v before "bat" becomes "vat"? What quantity of pause do I need in my speaking to distinguish the redneck who "eats, shoots, and leaves" from the qualitatively different panda who "eats shoots and leaves"? Any system of coded communication is intensive in this sense, as continuous differences in physical signifier lead to discontinuous differences in the meaning. This turns out to have been one of the main assertions of structuralism -- social, literary, and psychic systems are all structured like a language.
... words are genuine intensities within certain aesthetic systems; concepts are also intensities from the point of view of philosophical systems. Note, too, that according to the celebrated 1895 Freudian Project for a Scientific Psychology, biophysical life is presented in the form of such an intensive field in which differences determinable as excitations, and differences of differences determinable as cleared paths, are distributed.
Finally, the reference to Freud here gives us another interesting way to think of intensive systems. An intensity is an energetic difference or excitation that gets coupled to another energetic difference in a process of discharge, or clearing a path through a field of such excitations. The lightning strike image implicit here is one of Deleuze's favorites. Now we can see the lightning strike of thought directly associated with the dynamic system that is the brain. In the end, how different is a thought from a lightning strike if both are literally a cleared path of electrical discharge?
Actually though, while it's fundamental to his overall work, Deleuze doesn't come back to the concept of intensity in this particular section. Instead, he focuses on the three components or moments of an intensive system -- coupling, resonance, and forced movement.
A system must be constituted on the basis of two or more series, each series being defined by the differences between the terms which compose it. If we suppose that the series communicate under the impulse of a force of some kind, then it is apparent that this communication relates differences to other differences, constituting differences between differences within the system. These second-degree differences play the role of the 'differenciator' - in other words, they relate the first-degree differences to one another. This state of affairs is adequately expressed by certain physical concepts: coupling between heterogeneous systems, from which is derived an internal resonance within the system, and from which in turn is derived a forced movement the amplitude of which exceeds that of the basic series themselves.
It seems clear that Deleuze is describing the classic dynamic system, a set of coupled oscillators. The initial series are the two oscillators, each of which is characterized by a frequency at which it alternates between the differences that define it as a (square wave) oscillation. These two are then coupled to form a single system where they can communicate with one another and pass energy back and forth through a process of mutual resonance. Finally, if the frequencies are adjusted correctly, a resonant feedback loop can develop where the oscillators reinforce one another and their amplitude increases indefinitely.
Naturally, since this is our third time through the theory of repetition, we've already seen these elements. Habitus was a repeating oscillation that couples repetitions in an environment to the repetition of forms in that environment. Eros was like the resonance between the internal and external, real and virtual, needs of that form -- the sexual and self-preservative drives that keep it intact and extend it. Then Thanatos was like a resonant feedback loop between real and virtual that blows the whole form apart.
Above all, however, the syntheses of the Psyche incarnate on their own account the three dimensions of these systems in general: psychic connection (Habitus) effects a coupling of series of excitations; Eros designates the specific state of internal resonance which results; and the death instinct amounts to the forced movement whose psychic amplitude exceeds that of the resonating series themselves (whence the difference in amplitude between the death instinct and the resonating Eros).
I really like the concept of resonance here because it conveys a sense of the way the series interact without touching, so to speak. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is about the best image I can imagine of forced movement leading to a death instinct. Of course there's a real physical force involved, but this huge bridge blows apart in light wind as if by magic. The concept really nuances our simple billiard ball notion of causality, even as that applies to this simple static structure. Because the bridge has its own structure with a certain resonant frequency, the relatively small amount of instantaneous energy supplied by the wind can, if applied with the correct frequency, manage to add up and tear the whole bridge down. The pendulum swings further and further in a forced movement driven by some invisible source. If you extend this idea to apply to a non-equilibrium structure that already has its own internal source of energy, then even a tiny amount of external energy could set off a huge resonant motion if delivered at the correct frequency. This sets up a communication mechanism a lot like language, where the minuscule amount of sound energy transmitted to me when you say, "pass the salt" actually manages to accomplish quite a lot of work in the world, essentially because you are pushing me at a frequency I was already tuned to, so to speak. In other words, resonance is a mechanism for generating what seems kinda like spooky action at a distance. The force that's doing the work seems almost invisible, or at least to cover itself over. Instead of working like a cause, it acts like a trigger. We'll come back to resonance in the next post as well, when we talk about the dark precursor.
Together the three components -- series, resonance, feedback -- form a dynamic system. It's not completely clear, but I think that Deleuze is going as far as saying that the behavior of this system actually creates space, time, and meaning. Which is to say that he's proposing a sort of metaphysics here. We've already explored the meaning part a bit in the context of structuralism. Words in a language can only refer to something because the language has a structure of its own. The corollary of this is that the world (whether physical or ideal) has to have a structure of its own to serve as the object of reference. The two sides each have a structure of differences, and then these series of differences get coupled together and resonate. Coupled 'oscillators' is essentially a structuralist reworking of the theory of meaning.
I'm a little more vague on how the system would create space and time.
Once communication between heterogeneous series is established, all sorts of consequences follow within the system. Something 'passes' between the borders, events explode, phenomena flash, like thunder and lightning. Spatio-temporal dynamisms fill the system, expressing simultaneously the resonance of the coupled series and the amplitude of the forced movement which exceeds them.
I have the impression that he's taking the amplitude of forced movement between the oscillators as constitutive of space here. And perhaps the resonance, which you'll notice has effectively replaced the idea of any identity or correspondence between the series, is meant to serve as the basis of a repetition that defines time? I suspect Deleuze will come back to spatio-temporal dynamism at a later point, and we are only seeing a brief glimpse here (as we saw with intensity).
Though perhaps we actually do get another indirect clue about how to think of space-time in this section. Deleuze goes on to talk about the type of subject that his definition of a dynamic system might support. It's an important question because it's hard to see how this world of differences of differences would support anything like the stable identity of a subject or self.
The system is populated by subjects, both larval subjects and passive selves: passive selves because they are indistinguishable from the contemplation of couplings and resonances; larval subjects because they are the supports or the patients of the dynamisms.
At first I was tempted to read larval subject and passive self as synonyms in this passage. But Deleuze is extremely careful with his language and actually seems to be referring to three different entities here. There are two types of passive selves -- the local passive self of the first synthesis of habit that was a contemplation of coupled series (habitus), and the extended passive self of the second synthesis of memory that was a contemplation of resonances (eros). Then a larval subject is meant to be distinguished from these passive selves as an active form of identity. However, this should not be confused with the reality based active ego we saw in the second synthesis. Instead, I think the larval subject is meant to be the active but fractured I, the subject that appears only when the ego dissolves into narcissistic reflection in the third synthesis. This synthesis is the movement that constitutes the peculiar activity called thought.
Now that I've stumbled onto it, this interpretation clears up a lot of dangling bits that hadn't quite come together for me. For example, if we search under "larval" we find a couple of puzzling passages.
Selves are larval subjects; the world of passive syntheses constitutes the system of the self, under conditions yet to be determined, but it is the system of a dissolved self. (pg. 78)
This active but fractured I is not only the basis of the superego but the correlate of the passive and wounded narcissistic ego, thereby forming a complex whole that Paul Ricoeur aptly named an 'aborted cogito,. Moreover, there is only the aborted Cogito, only the larval subject. (pg. 110)
The "system of the self" is precisely the system of the three syntheses. It culminates in producing a full blown thinking self in the third synthesis, but it only produces that self as fractured, or aborted, or dissolved. Which is to say that the full self is the larval subject. It's this larval subject that supports and suffers from (is the patient of) thought.
The reason we're calling the subject "larval" also becomes apparent now. It is produced as a system of difference differentiating itself. This is the egg. The embryo. The body without organs. An undifferentiated system capable of differentiating itself. A place where program and product have become entangled. The support for the dynamics of difference. I knew we would come back to embryogenesis.
In effect, a pure spatio-temporal dynamism, with its necessary participation in the forced movement, can be experienced only at the borders of the livable, under conditions beyond which it would entail the death of any well-constituted subject endowed with independence and activity. Embryology already displays the truth that there are systematic vital movements, torsions and drifts, that only the embryo can sustain: an adult would be torn apart by them. There are movements for which one can only be a patient, but the patient in turn can only be a larva.
So the space-time fabricated by the systems we're talking about here should be imagined as the developmental space of the egg. A space that progressively twists and folds as intensities of chemical concentrations pass across it and through which the organs differentiate themselves -- difference creating more difference. But in this case it's not the differentiated bodily organs that are developing, but the differentiated thoughts of a thinker who has dissolved in (and been produced by) the activity thinking.
In this sense, it is not even clear that thought, in so far as it constitutes the dynamism peculiar to philosophical systems, may be related to a substantial, completed and well-constituted subject, such as the Cartesian Cogito: thought is, rather, one of those terrible movements which can be sustained only under the conditions of a larval subject.
There's a lot of paradoxical confusion still lurking here that I'll need to come back to untangle. The larval subject that does the thinking seems to be produced only at the end of the the chain of syntheses. Yet the image of the embryo seems to point us in the direction of the starting point of difference, or the space in which thinking develops itself. This confusion is deliberate. It's inherent in the paradoxical image of (the chicken or) the egg. But it also implies some confusion between the thinker and the thought, or even worse, between the creator of the space, the things that come to occupy it, and the space itself. Like we said at the beginning, somehow 1, 2, and 3 are all the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment