here: "The Hole at the Center of Vision"

Comments are of course appreciated kvdi@earthlink.net

 

Stolto! a cui parlo? Misero! Che tento?
Racconto il dolor mio
a l'insensata riva
a la mutola selce, al sordo vento...
Ahi, ch'altro non risponde
che il mormorar del l'onde!

[Aí! Com quem falo? Mísero! O que tento?Confesso a minha dor à praia adormecida, à pedra silenciosa, ao surdo vento... Não há quem me responda, só o murmurar das
ondas!]

Giovan Battísta Marino, "Eco", La Lira, XIX

Isso é o tipo de coisa que a gente faz como avaliação parcial para cadeira por estas bandas.

Sim, isto está beirando a insanidade completa.

During the Enlightenment a few ideas were proposed that have slowly begun to dominate Bible scholarship which are just false (and sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly deny the divinity of Christ).  One example is Spinoza.  In his Treatise on Religion and the State he writes:

"Sober and literal statements do not move the soul; if Moses had said that it was merely the East wind (as we gather from a later passage) that cleared a path for them through the Red Sea, it would have made little impression on the minds of the masses he was leading....But when interpreted literally, it is full of errors, contradictions, and obvious impossibilities-as that the Pentateuch was written by Moses."

This claim is contradicted by Jesus when he was on the road to Emmaus.  He began His explanation of the crucifixion saying, "Beginning with Moses and all the prophets..."  He also asserts several times in the Gospels directly that Moses wrote the Pentateuch.  I think His testimony is a little more dependable than a disaffected and misguided philosopher who was excommunicated from his congregation for heresy (which Spinoza was).  In "Nature and God" Spinoza represents our "problem of evil" as our struggle to reconcile the evil of the world with the goodness of God and concludes that good and bad are mere human inventions which are not relative to God but our own individual tastes and desires.  Couple that with his later statement in the same piece of work that "neither intellect nor will pertains to the nature of God."  That all sounds like prime time moral relativism to me, but his thoughts and ideas have crept into Christian theology, so much so that it is taken as a matter of fact by so many "Bible scholars" now.  I have begun to hear this garbage come out of the mouths of priests almost every time they speak about the Pentateuch.

Of course the first thing I read was the commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (I wrote a defense of the traditional view of it's authorship here) and was delighted to see both sides of the story presented.  The authors of the commentary on the Gospel of Mark seem to have more of an open mind than any other Biblical scholars I have heard or read, other than Father Marconi (an historical documentarian and Dominican priest who visited Anchorage and gave several classes on the Apostles John and Paul).  In fact Fr. Marconi is the only Catholic priest I have ever heard give more than the biased, one-sided, liberal view of the "Q" document which is part of a theory that alleges Matthew, Mark and Luke came from a "source" document written by an unknown author who may or may not have been an Apostle.  My question is, why does a church which claims to be Apostolic in nature resort to an unknown author of the most basic texts of our religion when we have reliable documentation that asserts the same texts to be written by those who we claim founded our church?  The idea of the "Q" Document also came out of the Enlightenment period from the German Skeptics.

Apart from the commentaries on the books of the Bible that present a traditional (and in my humble opinion a correct) view of the books of the Bible there are articles dispersed throughout the Bible that address specific questions such as the relationship of Christianity to other religions, the reliability of the Bible account and archaeological evidence that support the claims of the Bible.  One article in particular asks the question "Is Evolution fact or fantasy?"  The conclusion is that the part of evolution that is true is not very interesting and the part that is interesting is not very true.  This has been my view ever since I heard of Darwinian Evolution, so of course I was delighted to see another write such a view.  There are brief biological outlines of prominent Christian Apologists as well as "Twisted Scripture" excerpts, which describe how various religious movements have erroneously interpreted Holy Scripture throughout the Christian Era.  My only beef with it is that it leaves out the Apocrypha (which could only be expected seeing as to who put the edition together).  Over all the Apologetics Study Bible is an excellent  Bible and I recommend it for everyone.

I have always been fascinated by Spinoza's defintion of a body as found in the Second Part of the Ethics. Not because it reflected some proto-physics, but because it allowed a radical revisioning of what defined boundaries between persons, and between persons and things. What seems implicit in such a definition is that something of a cybernetic recusivity surrounds and defines any isolated "part" of the Universe, yet, a recursivity that only comes clear by taking a perspective. One understands that really for Spinoza the entire Universe composes a single such body.

Here is Spinoza's famous Ethics  defintion, and an even more elementary and bold one from his much earlier Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being (KV)

Ethics: When a number of bodies of the same or different magnitude form close contact with one another through the pressure of other bodies upon them, or if they are moving at the same or different rates of speed so as to preserve an unvarying relation of movement among themselves, these bodies are said to be united with one another and all together to form one body or individual thing, which is distinguished from other things through this union of bodies (E2p13a2d)

KV: Every particular corporeal thing [lichaamelijk ding] is nothing other than a certain ratio [zeekere proportie] of motion and rest.

Yet, such a vision for Spinoza is more than an instructive imaginary relation, it indeed is a proto-physics, a concrete real which must be accepted as such. There is a certain sense in which Spinoza's conception of a body must be reconciled with the "facts" of contempory physics if we are to geta stronger impression of the truth of his metaphysics and psychology. As Spinoza wrote to Blyenbergh, "Ethics, ... as everyone knows, ought to be based on metaphysics and physics" (Ep 38). At a general level, in Spinoza's own terms, if his physics is radically wrong this may pose serious doubts as to his Ethics (an entirely rationalist reading of his philosophy notwithstanding). And concordantly, one might assume, new information in physics could have a rippling effect across his philosophy and Ethics.

It is not my aim here to explore these wider meta-questions, but rather to for a moment pause upon a change in my own thinking. I had always taken Spinoza's above defintions just as I explained, fantastic frameworks for revisioning the world as it common-sensically and historically has come down to us, intellectual opportunities for instance to see the connections between bodies in a Batesonian or an Autopoietic sense. This still remains. But I came to realize that when Spinoza is thinking about a "certain ratio" (as Shirley translates) or a "fixed manner" (Curley), he is thinking of something quite quantifiable, something numeric. I had of course loosely thought that this was the case, but until recently I had never strictly thought about it.

Spinoza's Objection

There is an interesting, rather provocative point in Spinoza's letters to Oldenburg, as he is reporting back to this Secretary of the Royal Society on the progress of his brilliant neighbor Christiaan Huygens. It seems apparent from what Spinoza reports that he has had intermittent, but somewhat substantive discussions on not only optics and lens-grinding, but also on physics. Huygens, by what history tells, had corrected Descartes' rules of motion, and done so through experiment. Huygens was quite interested in the rules of motion for he had invented the pendulum clock way back in 1656 (the same year he had discovered the rings and a moon of Saturn), and for a decade was focused on improving it. Spinoza reports back to Oldenburg Huygens' disagreement with Descartes, but tantalizingly also speaks of his own disagreement, in particular, with the sixth rule of motion:

Spinoza: "It is quite a long time since he [Huygens] began to boast that his calculations had shown that the rules of motion and the laws of nature are very different from those given by Descartes, and that those of Descartes are almost all wrong...I know that about a year ago he told me that all his discoveries made by calculation regarding motion he had since found verified by experiment in England. This I can hardly believe, and I think that regarding the sixth rule of Motion in Descartes, both he and Descartes are quite in error." (Letter 30A)

Oldenburg: "When you speak of Huygens' Treatise on Motion, you imply that Descartes' Rules of motion are nearly all wrong. I do not have to hand the little book which you published some time ago on ‘Descartes' Principia demonstrated in geometrical fashion'. I cannot remember whether you there point out that error, or whether you followed Descartes closely to gratify others." (Letter 31)

Spinoza: "As to what you say about my hinting that the Cartesian Rules of motion are nearly all wrong, if I remember correctly I said that Mr. Huygens thinks so, and I did not assert that any of the Rules were wrong accept the sixth, regarding which I said I thought that Mr. Huygens too was in error." (Letter 32)

Many commentators have not been able to make much headway when interpreting Spinoza's objection to Descartes sixth rule of motion, for at the very least, it seems woven to his other rules, and the objection should have spread far wider than this, as in the case with Huygens. Alan Gabbey (The Cambridge Companion ) for instance simply finds it nonsensical. And Lachterman in "The Physics of Spinoza's Ethics", really almost avoids the issue altogether. (Wim Klever has taken the question directly on in "Spinoza and Huyges: A Diversified Relationship Between Two Physicists", tying it to a Cartesian difficulty in explaining cohension, while Rivaud finds what seems to be an untenable conceptual connection between speed and essence in his "La physique de Spinoza".)

I certainly am not one here to solve the question, but it did get me thinking about how Spinoza conceived of a body, and what a "certain ratio" meant to him.

Descartes' Sixth Rule of Motion and Spinoza's Defintion of a Body in the Short Treatise

Below is the sixth rule of motion to which Spinoza found objection. It essentially describes what would ideally happen if two bodies of the same size, one in motion and one at rest, struck. Descartes suggests that if the moving body had four (4) degrees of speed before impact, after impact the ratio would be 1:3, with the body at rest taking on one (1) degree of speed, the bodies rebounding:

Descartes:51. Sixth rule.
Sixthly, if body C at rest were most accurately equal to body B moved toward it, it would be partly impelled by B and would partly repel it in the contrary direction. That is, if B were to approach C with four degrees of speed, it would communicate to C one degree and with the three remaining would be reflected in the opposite direction.

Huygens reportedly showed through experiments at the Royal Society that instead all the degrees of speed would be imparted to the body at rest, and the intially moving body would then be stopped, and it was to this, as well as to Descartes' rule that Spinoza expressed an unspecified objection. But this is not the ultimate point here for me. I was rather struck by an early note on Spinoza's defintion of a body found in the Short Treatise , which proposes the same ratio of 1:3 that Descartes used to illustrate his sixth rule, here below stated as the ratio of motion to rest, and not as "degrees of speed":

Spinoza: Short Treatise, notes to the Preface to Part II:

12. As soon, then, as a body has and retains this proportion [a proportion of rest and motion which our body has], say e.g., of 1 to 3, then that soul and that body will be like ours now are, being indeed constantly subject to change, but none so great that it will exceed the limits of 1 to 3; though as much as it changes, so much does the soul always change....

...14. But when other bodies act so violently upon ours that the proportion of motion [to rest] cannot remain 1 to 3, that means death, and the annihilation of the Soul, since this is only an Idea, Knowledge, etc., of this body having this proportion of motion and rest.

What is striking to me is that such an elementary numerical value for the definition of a body would occur to Spinoza in this context. Alan Gabbey wants us to point out that this ratio of 1:3 is found in editorial notes, and my not even be of Spinoza's hand, though I am unsure if Spinoza would have allowed such a strong example to slip through if it was alien to his thinking. Provocative is that the context for this proposed illustration of a "corporeal equation" (as Matheron has named it), of 1 to 3, is that it is the human body that is being discussed and not abstract solids such as those Descartes discusses in his physics. Even if Spinoza does not imagine that the human body might actually retain such an elementary 1:3 ratio of motion to rest, somewhere in his conception of the human body there is an affinity to such an simple math. One for instance would not be describing a super computer whose mark would be its complexity, and turn to such a number. It would appear that at least figuratively Spinoza at the time of the Short Treatise  thought of the human body as elementarily composed such that its conatus expressed a homeostasis that was comprehesible and simple. The numerical value of 1 to 3 held perhaps a rhetorical attraction.

By the time of Spinoza's geometrical treatment of Descartes' philosophy, the proposed illustrative values that Descartes included in his rules for motion are no longer there. Spinoza generalizes them apart from any particular equation. One could see in this perhaps already a distancing from some of Descartes' assertions, and Oldenburg tells Spinoza that he looked over Spinoza's exposition of Descartes to see signs of his disagreement, finding none.

What the sixth rule Meant for Spinoza

For my part, if we take Descartes' sixth rule at face value, and imagine the interaction between two bodies of the same size, one at rest, one in motion, we get a glimpse into the kind of change Spinoza thinks makes a body. For once the supposed transfer of a degree of speed occurs, the two bodies are now in communication. As long as they are not interacted with by other bodies their ratio will remain 1:3, and they would be considered an "individual". And if one of those bodies interacted with another body so as to change its speed, immediately one realizes that if the idea of a single body is to be preserved the definition of parts needs to be expanded so that the ratio is to be expanded across a host of interactions. One sees how the definition of a body as a body is entirely contingent upon how you calculate.

Wim Klever finds in Spinoza's 1665 objection to Descartes' sixth rule (made almost 4 years after the writing of the Short Treatise ) a testament to Spinoza's thorough-going commitment to a physics of immanence. This could be. But one could also imagine the case that Spinoza had been caught up in a conversation with Huygens at the Hofwijck estate and was entirely caught off guard by Huygens' sweeping dismissal of Cartesian physics, which up to that point had been a touchstone for most scientific thinking in Europe. Spinoza's objection to the sixth rule may have only been a reaction, one that prudently and instinctively placed himself between Descartes and Huygens, on a single point, a point he could not elaborate on.

But what was it about Huygens' correction to Descartes which may have also given Spinoza pause, especially if Descartes' rule for the transfer of motion between two equal bodies, one moving, one at rest helped frame Spinoza's general notion of what makes a body? Would it not be that there was a complete tranfer of motion from one to the other, that one stopped and the other started? Because Spinoza envisioned bodies moving together in community, and integrated communication of impinging interactions that could be analyzed either in terms of their recursive cohensions (for instance how the human body can be studied solely in terms of its own internal events, as one might say, immanent to their essence), or in terms of extrinsic interactions which "through the pressure of other bodies" cause these internal events, the intuitional notion that a body in motion would deliver all of its motion to another body at rest, and not be rebounded simply defied the over all picture of what Spinoza imagined was happening.

I suggest that somewhere in the genealogy of Spinoza's thought about what defines a body he found Descartes sixth rule quite suggestive. The idea that two bodies which do not seem to be in communication, one moving, one unmoving, (an essential perceptual differential which allows us to distinguish one thing from another in the world), suddenly can appear in communication from the change they bring about in each other in collision, now departing at a ratio of speeds, helped Spinoza psychologically and causally define the concrete yet contingent composition of an individual. The corporeal equation of 1 to 3 standing in for the possibility of mathematical determination which could conceptually unite any two parts in a single body, given the right analysis.

But when Spinoza encountered Huygens' thorough dispatch of Cartesian mechanics we can suspect that Spinoza came in contact with his own theoretical disatisfactions with Descartes. As we know, Spinoza was part of a small cadre of mathematicians and thinkers which found dissatisfaction with Descartes idealized optics, something that no doubt formed part of his discussions with fellow-lense grinding and instrument maker Christiaan Huygens. And too, Spinoza likely felt that though Descartes' mechanics provided an excellent causal framework for rational explanations of the world, his determinations lacked experimental ground. It would seem to me that Spinoza's objection to the sixth rule of motion poses something of a revelation into the indeterminancy of Spinoza's physics. The sixth rule may have played a constructive role in his imagination of what a body must be, but in particular in view of Huygens' confirmed rejection of the rule, it became simply insufficient. Spinoza's physical conception of a body stands poised between a Cartesian rational framework of causal interaction and mechanism, which proves lacking in specifics, and the coming Newtonian mechanics of force. However, in such a fissure, one does have to place Spinoza's notion of immanence.

Autopoiesis Comes?

Signficantly, and something which should not be missed, is that the definition from axiom 2 of proposition 13 of Part 2 above is not the only conclusive one that Spinoza provides in the Ethics. Lemma 4 under axiom 3 actually provides a view of the body which does not require that the parts themselves remain in a fixed ratio to each other. Rather, it is only the ratio itself that must be preserved:

If from a body, or an individual thing composed of a number of bodies, certain bodies are separated, and at the same time a like number of other bodies of the same nature take their place, the individual thing will retain its nature as before, without any change in its form [forma].

This allows us to see that by the time of his writing of the Ethics, Spinoza's notion of ratio, the aim of his mechanics, is far from what Newton would develop. The causal histories traceable through interactions between bodies certainly were signficantly important for Spinoza, but it was the preservation of a mode of interaction which really concerned Spinoza's focus. That all the bodies that compose and individual could conceivably be replaced, without that individual being considered as changed (as for instance we know of nearly every cell of the human body), is something that Newtonian physics would not enumerate. It is within this conception of preservation that I think Spinoza's mechanical conceptions have to be framed, in the entirety of an effect between bodies, the cohesiveness of the modal expression.

One need only turn to something like Autopoietic theory (both those of life by Maturana and Varela, and suggestively of social forms by Luhmann) to see a lineage given from Spinoza's Lemma 4 description:

The defintion of a living thing understood to be a self-producing machine:  "An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network." (Maturana, Varela, 1980, p. 78)

On the difference between "organization" and "structure":  "...[I]n a toilet the organization of the system of water-level regulation consists in the relations between an apparatus capable of detecting the water level and another apparatus capable of stopping the inflow of water. The toilet unit embodies a mixed system of plastic and metal comprising a float and a bypass valve. This specific structure, however, could be modified by replacing the plastic with wood, without changing the fact that there would still be a toilet organization."
(Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 47)

Where Lies Spinoza's Physics?

Spinoza's immanent connection between physics and metaphysics in a turn toward a decisive ethics, is one in which any outright mechanics must be understood beyond simply A causes B, and the appropriately precise mathematical calculation of what results. If Spinoza's physics (and even its relationship to Descartes who preceded him, and Newton who followed him) is to be understood, it is this recursive relationship between parts that has to be grasped, the way in which parts in communication can be analyzed in two ways, along a differential of events internal to a horizon, and events external to that horizon, interior and exterior, even with a view to the conceived totality. It seems that it is this replaceable nature of body-parts in composite that qualifies Spinoza's physics as interpretively distinct, and what allows it to place within the domain of cause not only questions of material interaction, but also psychology and belief, and ultimately social values of good and bad. 

What it seems that Spinoza was most concerned with in his assessment of a physics is the kinds of concrete reactions which ground our selective ability to usefully distinguish one thing from another, a usefulness that ever trades on the community of rational explanations with share with others. The result of this physics is an ultimate ground upon which we can and do build our own mutual body of social wholes, our own physics of decisions and distinctions. Physics both ground and distinguish us for Spinoza, always suggesting an anatomy of joined, contiguous parts; it is an anatomy that guides the effortless butcher's knife that ideally, knowingly, seldom would need sharpening.

This doctrine contributes to social life, insofar as it teaches us to hate no one, to disesteem no one, to mock no one, to be angry at no one, to envy no one; and also insofar as it teaches that each of us should be content with his own things, and should be helpful to his neighbor, not from umanly compassion, partiality, or superstition, but from the guidance of reason, as the time and occasion demand.

Spinoza, (Et2.p.49.s.IV.C)

Até vale traduzir esta:

Esta doutrina contribui para a vida em sociedade no sentido que nos ensina a não odiar o próximo, não caluniar o próximo, não desrespeitar o próximo, não ter raiva do próximo, não invejar o próximo; a doutrina também ensina que cada um de nós deve estar contente com suas próprias coisas, e deve ajudar seu vizinho, não por compaixão sobre-humana, parcialidade, ou superstição, mas com o auxílio da razão, como o tempo e a ocasião demandam.

Baruch, onde eu assino?

---

Disclaimer: por favor, tenham o mínimo de discernimento. É claro que eu não vou virar um Spinozista, até porque eu tenho vergonha na cara. Mas que a promessa do esclarescimento é algo que a gente precisava repensar nesta época de superstições bobas e hiperbolices.... O projeto pedagógico da modernidade, o Habermas e o Rawls tinham razão, continua aberto - e por mais que a gente queira brigar com a linguagem dos iluministas, eles continuam se impondo como inevitáveis. O tempo e a ocasião, demandam que a gente volte a pensar para além de nossa zona de conforto.

Morro seco, mas morro um modernista. Mil vezes melhor que as alternativas, estou cada vez mais convencido disso. Além disso, todo mundo sabe que a pós-modernidade morreu de velha - ou, dependendo prá quem tu perguntar, nasceu morta, a coitadinha.

Erst mit Galileo ging, streng genommen, das mythische Zeitalter zu Ende. "Der Mythos braucht keine Fragen zu beantworten. Er erfindet, bevor die Frage akut wird und damit sie nicht akut wird."(Hans Blumenberg). Seit Galileo stellen die Wissenschaften nicht nur Fragen, sondern beantworten sie auch, und jede Antwort wirft (mindestens) eine neue Frage auf.

Das Buch der Natur sei in der Sprache der Mathematik geschrieben, hatte Galileo verkündet. Das ist seither zum Gemeinplatz westlicher Bildung geworden.

Descartes hatte die Welt in zwei Substanzen zerteilt, eine res extensa, die Materie, die sich durch ihre räumliche Ausdehnung zu erkennen gibt, und die res cogitans, den Geist, der außerhalb von Raum und Zeit ist. Doch eines ist ihnen gemeinsam: die mathematische Struktur, und an der erkennt man ihre gemeinsame

Abkunft vom selben Schöpfergott. Spinoza tat die beiden Teile wieder zusammen, bei ihm ist es die eine, geistige Substanz, die sich selber ausdehnt, "deus sive natura", und wie tut sie das? "More geometrico", auf geometrische Weise! War bei Descartes Gott ein Mathematiker, so ist die Gottnatur bei Spinoza Mathematik. Isaac Newton, der erste Systematiker der modernen Physik, betitelte sein Hauptwerk " Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica", die mathematischen Grundlagen der Naturphilosophie. Und Leibniz endlich, der die strenge Naturwissenschaft in Deutschland eingeführt hat, überlegte ernstlich, ob nicht Gott selber in mathematischen Formel spräche!

Die Herrschaft des Rationalismus war Herrschaft der Metaphysik. Die Metaphysik sei aus der abendländischen Wissenschaft inzwischen vertrieben? Nur die metaphysische Verpackung ist gefallen. Der Kern bleibt. Der Einfall, die Gesetze der Mathematik seien gleichzeitig die Gesetze der Vernunft und der Natur, bedarf keiner zusätzlichen Metaphysik. Er ist selber metaphysisch.

Die Mathematik ist nicht, wie unsere eigne Schullaufbahn vermuten macht, aus dem kleinen Einmaleins hervorgegangen. Zwar hatten die Babylonier ihr Interesse auf die Arithmetik konzentriert; aber sie dienten ihnen nur zur Astrologie. Mathematik entstand erst, als die Griechen Thales und Pythagoras die Zahlen in den Dienst der Geometrie, der Anschauung räumlicher Verhältnisse nahmen. Das Leitbild der Mathematik - die vollkommene Gestalt - ist ästhetisch. Ihre Verfahren sind Anschauung und Konstruktion. Auf etwelche sinnliche Erfahrung - über die man streiten könnte - ist sie nicht angewiesen. Sie begründet sich aus sich selbst, und nur so konnte sie zur Grundlage der allgemeinen wissenschaftlichen Methode werden.

Aber ist nicht gerade die Geometrie aus den Dingen der Welt abgeschaut?!

Plato kannte fünf vollkommene Körper: Kugel, Würfel, Pyramide; Zylinder, Konus.

Es sind die jeweiligen dreidimensionalen Kombinationen von Kreis, Quadrat und Dreieck. Drei Dimensionen sind 'vollkommener' als zwei, bzw. Körper sind vollkommener als Flächen.

Hat man eines von denen 'von der Natur abgeschaut'? Mehr oder minder runde Formen kommen in 'der Natur' vor; Kugeln nicht. Kugel 'entsteht' als Idee des vervollkommneten 'runden' Körpers. Wobei Vollkommenheit ebenb keine logische, sondern eine anschauliche, eine ästhetische Qualität ist! Finden sich Würfel, Pyramiden, Zylinder usw. in der Natur vor? Es finden sich Formen, die wie fehlerhafte Annäherungen aussehen. Damit sie so aussehen können, müssen die reinen Formen dem inneren Auge aber schon gewärtig sein. Und das geht nur, wenn das innere Auge die Konstruktion aus Kreis, Quadrat und Dreieck schon vorgenommen hat! Das ist eine erhebliche Abstraktions- und Reflexionsleistung.

(Abstraktion und Reflexion sind nur zwei Sichtweisen auf denselben Denkakt: Absehen auf das jeweils Wichtige ist zugleich Absehen von dem jeweils Unerheblichen.)

Denn zuvor mussten vor dem inneren Auge die Flächen selber konstruiert werden! Allein den vollkommenen Kreis kann man in der Außenwelt sehen – am wolkenlosen Himmel.

Es ist ja denkbar, dass der Anblick des einzig perfekten Kreises – der Sonnenscheibe – und ihrer imperfekten Parodie, des Mondes – den Anlass zur Idee anschaulicher Vollkommenheit gegeben hat; aber eine erfahrungsmäßige Abstraktion aus dem Anblick vieler perfekten Kreise war es nicht: weil es nur diesen einen gibt; und eine Reihe imperfekter Karikaturen – die werdenden und vergehenden Ringe auf dem Wasser usw... Nachgemacht werden kann dieser eine perfekte Kreis aber nicht auf 'anschaulichem' Weg; er muss konstruiert werden aus Punkt und Radius: wieder eine Abstraktionsleistung.

Die andern beiden Grundformen finden sich nicht in perfekter Gestalt in den Natur vor. Sie müssen – vielleicht in anschaulicher Analogie zur Sonnenscheibe – erdacht werden, um bemerken zu können, dass sich in der Natur… unvollkommene Annäherungen vorfinden.

Und erst nach all dem können die fünf perfekten Körper erdacht werden; und kann man sich einbilden, diese Idealentwürfe lägen ihren unvollständigen natürlichen Nachbildungen "in Wahrheit" zu Grunde; in einer verborgenen Wahrheit selbstverständlich.

Die Arithmetik hat ältere Wurzeln, die bis zu den Babyloniern zurückreichen. Ist nun die Zahl ein "Naturverhältnis"? Beruht sie nicht darauf, dass die Dinge 'im Raum' eine Grenze haben und man sie neben einander stellen und also zählen kann? Das sieht nur so aus. Tatsächlich zählen wir die Dinge nicht neben-, sondern nach einander! Und das geschieht in der Zeit.

Paläoanthropologen haben aus frühester Vorzeit Stäbchen geborgen, die in regelmäßigen Abständen mit Kerben versehen sind. Sie interpretieren sie als Zählstäbe, die Vorläufer der Zahlensysteme; nämlich so, dass ihre Hersteller den Daumennagel auf die erste Kerbe gehalten haben: "zuerst..."; auf die zweiter Kerbe: "dann..."; dritte Kerbe: "und danach...". Da wird das zeitliche Nacheinander der Zahlen archäologisch sinnfällig!

Und wem die erwähnten Zählstäbe der Paläontologen als Indiz zu dürftig scheinen, der kann es ja mit einem Gedankenexperiment versuchen.

Was immer Zahlen sonst auch noch sein mögen, eins sind sie ganz bestimmt: Zeichen. Was muss man bezeichnen? Etwas, das man nicht stets vor Augen hat und doch 'behalten' will. Denn auf alles andere kann man mit dem Finger zeigen. Kleine Mengen hat man stets vor Augen: 3 Äpfel, 4 Beine usw. Bezeichnen müsste man größere Mengen. Mit welchen größeren Mengen könnten aber unsere Vorfahren - ihres Zeichens Jäger und Sammler - regelmäßig zu tun gehabt haben? So regelmäßig, dass sie sie dauerhaft bezeichnen mussten?!

Sie waren Nomaden; große Vorräte kannten sie nicht. Bleibt also übrig - die Zeit. Die Zeiträume müssen bezeichnet werden: wie viele Tage bis Vollmond, Sonnenwende und Tag- und Nachtgleiche, Jahreszeiten, Jahre... Gerade Nomaden, die ihr Leben buchstäblich durch Zeit und Raum führen, müssen mental Zeiträume 'vorweg nehmen' können, müssen wissen, 'wie lange wir brauchen bis...' - z. B. bis zur nächsten Wasserstelle. Denn solange sie keine Wanderkarten und keine Tachometer haben, können sie Wege nur als Zeit darstellen. (Noch im Mittelalter wurden Ackergrößen als 'Tagewerke' gemessen.)

Sagt nicht aber schon der gesunde Menschenverstand, dass eins und ein zwei sind? 'Ursprünglich', d. h. in unmittelbarer sinnlicher Anschauung, kommen Zahlen nur als Ordnungszahlen vor: als Nacheinander in einem 'an sich' ununterschiedenen Zeitverlauf: erstens, zweitens, drittens… zählen kann ich so noch nicht. Denn es könnte bedeuten: erstens ein Lufthauch, zweitens ein Elefant, drittens eine Untertasse. Um aus den Momenten im Zeitverlauf ein Werkzeug ("Denkzeug") zum Zählen zu machen, muss ich von der Zeit selber absehen und auf die zu zählenden Sachen reflektieren.

Vorab: Warum, wozu sind sie 'zu' zählen? Es braucht zunächst einmal eine Absicht; zum Beispiel die Absicht, Sachen zu verteilen. Ich verteile Sachen, die 'in einer gewissen Hinsicht' gleich sind, auf so und so viele Posten, die ihrerseits in gewisser Hinsicht gleich sind; zum Beispiel Essbares an Hungrige. Ich muss aus der Mannigfaltigkeit der Sachen dasjenige heraus suchen, das sich unter der Bedeutung des Essbaren zusammenfassen lässt. Danach muss ich auf diejenigen achten, die mir als hungrig bekannt sind. Erst dann kann ich aus den Ordnungszahlen erstens, zweitens, drittens… die Zahlen 1, 2, 3… abstrahieren.

Und erst, nachdem all diese Denkleistungen vollbracht wurden, kann von "Erfahrung" geredet werden. Erfahrung ist nicht das bloße Registrieren von Erlebensdaten, sondern ihre sinnvolle Unterscheidung und Anordnung. Die Absicht geht voraus. Ohne vorgängige Absicht keine vorfindliche Bedeutung.

ATP = A Thousand Plateaus
B = Bergsonism
DR = Difference and Repetition
EXP = Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza
SPP = Spinoza: A Practical Philosophy
WP = What is Philosophy

* refers to endnotes for each section

* Already it should be obvious by the title that I will be working with my own reading of Deleuze’s philosophy. I focus mainly on his solo primary texts (Difference and Repetition, Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza: A Practical Philosophy, Bergsonism), his texts with Guattari (A Thousand Plateaus, What is Philosophy?), and a few secondary sources by Williams, Marks, Hardt, and May (See Bibliography). However, before moving on, I want to state that my reading of Deleuze is not a faithful reading, in that it completely resembles and dissects Deleuze’s philosophy—it rather disfigures, transforms, and even departs at times from his philosophy. I think this is necessary since Deleuze’s philosophical project is different from mine. Therefore, this project will involve two movements: attempts to understand certain aspects of Deleuzian philosophy, and my own forays and departures from his philosophy.

Introduction: Life/Text/Body

I want to work on the notion of a text as a life, and on the encounter, perhaps the struggle, between subject* (reader/writer) and text. Where does this encounter take place? Where does it lead? Why is it that in the ensemble of texts one can choose from, a certain number burn positively or negatively? How does the subject and text change or transform in such an encounter? What do we think of when we think of these bodies, or bodies in general? Movement and affection. Each simultaneously summoning the other. Duration and power. There is an intrinsic connection between the two—duration/power (an assemblage). What is this connection between the two? How do they form the condition of encounters, bodies such as subject and text, and processes such as reading/writing? What are its implications for the subject (reader/writer) and text, the encounter between the two, and the process of reading/writing? How are they complicated by this assemblage of duration/power? How might this change the way we read/write a text?

Since the text itself is a kind of body, a map** with longitude and latitude***, defined by Deleuze through kinetic and dynamic propositions, the structure and movement of this essay is just as important as its content (inspired by and reflecting Gilles Deleuze’s discussion of the body). I have therefore broken the “body” of this essay into two parts (kinetic and dynamic) with an intermezzo (interbeing, middle, between things) in-between to connect the two.

The first part, which is divided into two sections, duration and difference in-itself, will involve Deleuze’s kinetic proposition of the body (subject and text). It is here that I will be exploring where the encounter between subject and text takes place, and how duration complicates and forces us to reexamine our notions of a body, subject and text, and the encounter between them. How are bodies, such as a subject and text, defined in duration? Ultimately I will attempt to show that a text and subject are merely temporary assemblages, a plurality of fluxes and rhythms, in which both bodies are constantly differing in kind from one another, and from themselves. It is here that we will see that both a text and subject are constantly attempting to compose themselves in order to become consistent, but since they never reach a stable consistency, they are always in a perpetual process, forever trying to establish themselves.

This first part will be followed by a third section which will act as an intermezzo, where I re-ask the question, what is a body? This section will act as a kind of conclusion of the kinetic proposition, which will focus on the dissolution of the subject and text as unified/coherent or well-defined/distinct forms, in favor of temporary assemblages. It will also function as a kind of bridge between parts, a hinge that articulates the movement from the kinetic to dynamic definition (proposition) of a body.

The second part that follows, which is also broken into two sections (power and becoming active), is based on the dynamic proposition. It is here that I will be presenting the encounter between a subject and text, and how power, like duration, complicates and forces us to re-examine our notions of a body, subject and text, and even the encounter between them. It is no longer what a body is, but what a body is capable of. How are bodies, such as a subject and text, defined in terms of power (production/sensibility). Ultimately I want to show that a text and subject are merely dynamic assemblages, a plurality of encounters and affects. It is here that we will see the body once again as perpetual process that never completes itself, as it is constantly trying to enhance or increase its power of action and existence by becoming active.

Once these two parts have been adequately addressed, I will then conclude with a final section, which will revisit the notion of a text as a life, and the encounter between subject (reader/writer) and text in terms of duration and power, and show how it complicates the process of reading/writing. Thus I will ultimately be synthesizing the kinetic and dynamic propositions into an assemblage of duration/power, which will involve introducing two new terms, trip-hopping through texts (reading) and an infinity machine (writing), in an effort to understand reading/writing in terms of duration/power, and in order to reveal that the subject and text (object) are poor approximations of the reality of reading/writing.

* Since I am ultimately going to be defining the subject in terms of duration/power, it is perhaps best to keep the subject undefined for now. In duration/power we will see that the subject is merely a temporary and dynamic assemblage. While the subject of grammar, the politico-legal subject, and the philosophical subject still exist, they are not primary. The subject of duration/power is not unified or coherent, well-defined or totalizing. It is not eternal or permanent. It is thus neither the origin of actions, feelings, meanings and experience found in the subject of grammar, nor the center of truth, morality and meaning found in the philosophical subject. Furthermore, it is not primarily the politico-legal subject of the State, Nation or law that define the limits and freedoms of a subject, but first and foremost, an intersection of duration/power. While this paper will not be addressing these three traditional views of the subject, a subject of duration/power does carry implications for all three.
** “The map is open and connectable in all of its dimensions; it detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation….it always has multiple entryways.” Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, pg 12.
*** Deleuze describes a body through geographical terms, as if it were a map (a cartography of a body). The longitude of a body is the set of speeds and slowness, of motion and rest, between singularities that compose it. The latitude of a body is the set of affects that occupy a body at each moment through intensive states. Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: A Practical Philosophy, pg 127.

Part I: The Kinetic Proposition

Section 1.1 – Duration*

Where does the encounter between subject (reader/writer) and text take place? Let me paint a scene. I am sitting at my desk. I am in my chair, and on my desk is my laptop with a blank document, or a book by Pessoa. Either situation will do. Already it is obvious that neither the text nor I exist in a vacuum. There is spatial configuration. I am reading/writing at a desk; I am here, the text is there; there is a surrounding world. So we can say that reading/writing, or the encounter between the subject (reader/writer) and text exist in space (in spatial configuration). However, something is wrong with this picture. Something is missing. There is no life. By only understanding reading/writing in terms of spatial configuration, we are not only missing out on the big picture (the entire mise-en-scene of reading/writing), but we are also supporting an illusion that the text and I and even the surrounding world (the desk, paintings, ornaments) are separate and distinct identities. This is the problem with thinking spatially, which only views one side (the wrong side) of the experience. What is the right side? If we should not be thinking spatially, then how should we think? It is through understanding Deleuze-Bergson’s notion of duration, by thinking temporally, that we can begin to see not only the whole experience of a life unfolding the encounter between the subject (reader/writer) and text, but also we begin to see how it complicates our notions of subject and text, and the encounter between them.

Before we can understand what an encounter is, its causes and effects, we must first ask what are the conditions that give rise to the encounter between subject and text, that is where does it take place? In order to understand the conditions of such an encounter, we must understand that according to Deleuze-Bergson, things are always mixed together in reality, for “experience itself offers us nothing but composites” (i.e. mixtures) (B 22). The composite of “experience”, presents us with a representation, which following the method of intuition** as presented in the first chapter of Bergsonism, must be divided into the elements that condition it, that is, “into pure presences or tendencies that differ in kind” (B 24). It is only by dividing the composite into those elements that condition it, that is, into its natural articulations, that “we go beyond experience, toward the conditions of experience” (B 23).

The representation of experience, according to Deleuze-Bergson, is always a mixture of space and duration (B 37):

“Duration is always the location and the environment of differences in kind; it is even their totality and multiplicity. There are no differences in kind except in duration—while space is nothing other than the location, the environment, the totality of differences in degree.” (B 32)

We can think of the encounter between the subject (reader/writer) and a text as a mise-en-scene (a composition), like the kind you will find in film. In the mise-en-scene there are a plurality differences, difference in kind (duration) and difference in degree (space). Let’s take a snap shot of the scene I mentioned earlier about me writing or reading at a desk, whereby we are left only with a photographic image of the scene. Unfortunately when we look at the image all we see is the spatial configurations and differences in degree, where it seems that every object (including the subject and text) exist as separate and well-defined forms, with unified and coherent self-same identity. There is no interior to the objects, only surfaces, territories, and boundaries. No subjectivity, only objectivity. These spatial configurations can be divided up and measure, and even replaced in the scene without the objects or image of the mise-en-scene ever changing in kind:

“[Space or Matter] has neither virtuality nor hidden power, and that is why we can assimilate it to ‘the image’…[it] has no interior, no underneath…hides nothing, contains nothing…possess neither power nor virtuality of any kind…is spread out as mere surface and…is no more than what it presents to us at any give moment.” (B 41)

Duration however, is not divisible. It is interiority, that is, subjective and complex, which means that it is unseen or invisible when looking at the image. Unlike space, which indicates only discrete exteriorities, or juxtaposition, duration indicates a hidden power of qualitative transformation, or a process of continuous variation, or coexistence (Hayden 43): a multiplicity of succession, fusion, organization, heterogeneity, qualitative discrimination, difference in kind, and virtuality (B 38). A mise-en-scene, the encounter between subject and text, and the surrounding world, each have their own unique rhythm of duration “that cannot be completely broken down into quantifiable and interchangeable degrees of difference” (Hayden 43). Whereas difference in degree shows how a thing differs from other things, difference in kind has duration, a way of being in time, which shows how it differs in kind to other things but “first and foremost” (B 32) from itself. In duration, there are no longer surfaces, territories, and boundaries, as each rhythm of duration passes and cuts through one another. The boundaries between the surrounding world, and subject and text dissolve to the point where the lines of separation and distinction become imperceptible.

Duration, as the condition of the encounter between subject and text, is like an ever changing sea. The subject and text are not two ships colliding in the rough turbulent movement of the sea, but rather multiple waves clashing into each other. In other words, they are not foreign objects (readymade and built outside the sea) to the sea, but the various formations and undulations of the sea itself. The subject and text are merely ripples or waves in duration.

It is through duration that bodies, such as the subject and text, cease to be seen as coherent wholes with permanent and continuous self-same identity. We thus begin to speak of the subject (reader/writer) as plurality (field) of subjectivity; the text as a plurality (field) of representation; and the world as a plurality (field) of reality. The lines between them become ambiguous, where one can no longer discern between the three. Duration is then not only the condition of the encounter, but also the condition of the subject and text, and even the world itself. Differing in kind from others, and from themselves, the subject and text are merely temporary assemblages with imaginary lines or boundaries that give the mirage that they are distinct (well-defined) and separate forms. By thinking temporally we see underneath this illusion. Duration presents us with a new mise-en-scene, in which the text and I do not exist as primary forms, engaged in an encounter, but rather as a plurality of different rhythms or pulsations of life which undulate various fluxes that coexist, combine, collide, and crash into one another.

* For two very good analyses of Deleuze’s Bergsonism, I recommend Michael Hardt’s Gilles Deleuze: An Apprenticeship in Philosophy (pgs 1-25) and Todd May’s Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction (pgs 41-57).
** In a very simplified way, intuition is a movement from monism to dualism, from dualism to pluralism. We begin with a representation of a composite (monism), which we then divide by its differences in kind (dualism), only to reveal its true nature as plurality or multiplicity (pluralism).

Section 1.2 – Difference In-Itself

Duration is the context/condition of not only an encounter, but of the subject and text. In short, duration is the condition of reading/writing. How is reading/writing complicated by duration? Underneath these supposed well-defined forms, such as subject and text, exists a plurality of rhythms, pulsations, and fluxes of life. How do subject and text, defined as such, encounter one another? In other words, if their constitution or assemblage is temporary, what internal or immanent processes give rise to a subject and text as bodies in duration? Furthermore, if both the subject and text are bodies, how does duration force us to reexamine the question of what a body is? If determining a body in duration seems too abstract at this point, it is only by developing some of these questions that we can hope to flesh out a body in duration, that is, to save it from mere abstraction. In order to do such, I must redefine what a body is in terms of duration. However, in order to conceive of a new composition and movement of the body in terms of duration, we must first take a quick detour to explain Deleuze’s difference in-itself, which ultimately will give us a better understanding of the singularities*, or pre-personal determinations (becomings) that compose a body. I will contend that it is this movement, or becoming, of singularities (difference in-itself) that gives rise to bodies (subject and text) in duration. The importance of Deleuze’s work on difference becomes invaluable here as he faces the problem of how to define difference as determination, while at the same time resisting any attempt of determining difference-itself, that is, turning difference in-itself into yet another identity.** Instead of turning it into another identity, Deleuze, through his reversal of Platonism, presents difference as singularity and becoming, giving it a pre-personal or pre-psychological desire for existing as difference in-itself, while also resisting identity and representation.

If Deleuze is content to define difference as determination, then what is determination? Is determination the same as distinctness? If distinctness is well-defined in respect to the limits that preserve a thing from other undetermined or determined things, then Deleuze would say that distinctness is not the same as determinacy (Williams 57). Being well defined or possessing a self-contained identity with its own limits and boundaries is an illusion of spatial thinking. Thus the determination of difference is to be understood in terms of duration, or difference in kind. Difference in-itself becomes an active movement of differentiation, differing from others and from itself, rather than being mediated through the passive ordering and selecting of the differences between identities (difference from).

For difference to be understood in terms of duration and determination, difference must “make itself”. It needs to have its own immanent power, or pre-psychological desire, to exist (Causa sui). If it were true that difference “makes itself”, then difference would not be passively mediated through a selecting principle (by the four heads of reason: identity, analogy, resemblance, and opposition) (DR 29) that determines which differences will be made, but rather it would make itself outside the coherency of representation. Instead of a determinacy that depends on other determinate or indeterminate things, difference in-itself*** is something that distinguishes itself, “yet that which it distinguishes itself does not distinguish itself from it” (DR 29). In other words, determinacy works in an “unilateral distinction”. But we must also remember that difference in-itself, linked to duration, is always constantly, and most importantly, differing with itself. Thus difference finds its own immanent causation (Causa sui) in duration as determinacy, or what we could call becoming, instead of being referred to by an external or transcendent mediation.

Difference that “makes itself”, difference in-itself, presents two faces of becoming, one in which a difference distinguishes itself from the chaos (the indeterminate backdrop) in an “unilateral distinction” (DR 28), and another in which it carries something of the chaos forward. It these two aspects of becoming that we need to know in order to understand the singularities that compose a body (subject and text). First, since they are link with determinacy, they possess their own power to exist, that is, an immanent power or pre-psychological desire for existence. Second, since they carry something of the chaos forward, singularities are unstable and undecidable, which allows them to resist identity/representation.

* My own understanding of singularities comes from Deleuze’s project in Difference and Repetition, where he links difference with determination, into a new term he calls difference in-itself (or difference that “makes itself”).
** Difference had never previously been conceived on its own terms, which lead Deleuze to seek out a new way of understanding difference, as difference in-itself.
*** Deleuze mentions Goya, along with Redon, in the opening section of the “Difference in Itself” chapter. I decided to check out Goya’s works, and found that they were especially helpful in understanding Deleuze’s notion of Difference in-itself—especially Caprichos and Desastres de la Guerra. I recommend that you take a look at some these etchings while reading Deleuze’s conception of determinacy against a background of indeterminacy and how difference “makes itself”.

Intermezzo: What is a body?

If a body is composed of such unstable singularities, what does this mean for the constitution of bodies such as a subject or text? What immanent process keeps these singularities temporarily consistent as a body? Ultimately we must re-ask the question: what is a body?* Deleuze-Spinoza presents two propositions of a body: kinetic and dynamic. The kinetic definition presents a body in duration, which Deleuze-Spinoza states is not primarily

“a form, or a development of form, but…a complex relation between differential velocities, between deceleration and acceleration of [singularities]. A composition of speeds and slowness….” (SPP 123)

Bodies are thus, from this first definition, kinetic relations or movements that proceed form. Before we can ever say anything of the subject and text, we must understand them as bodies that exist primarily as a complex relation of speeds and slowness, rather then organized structures. This is how a body is defined in duration: by its kinetic consistency. In their discussion of the concept, Deleuze and Guattari write about two kinds of consistencies (endoconsistency/exoconsistency), of which I shall now relate to the body.

A body’s endoconsistency consists of singularities (differences), which leads Deleuze to call it a combination (a chiffre**) (WP 15). Distinguished solely by movements and rests, slowness and speed, singularities are neither atoms, nor finite elements with any form or function (TP 254). Singularities are differences in themselves. They are becomings. It is thus the relations of motion and rest, of speeds and slowness between singularities (differences) that defines the endoconsistency, or individuality of a body. A body is less like an organism or mechanism, and more like an event of coincidence, condensation, or accumulation of singularities in motion or at rest (WP 24)

Through some kind repetition and consistency of movement, a body is constituted (at least temporarily), rendering the singularities inseparable within itself. There is an undefinable point constantly traversing the singularities, rising and falling within them. Each singularity acts as an intensive feature, an intensive ordinate (oronnée intensive). A body, as a map, is thus ordinal, an intension present in all the features that make it up (WP 20) The body is in a constant state of survey (survol) in relation to its singularities, endlessly traversing them according to an immanent ordering, or “an ordering without distance” (WP 20). A body is immediately co-present to all its singularities or variations, without any distance from them, “passing back and forth through them” (WP 21). A body’s endoconsistency, like that of the concept, is defined by “the inseparability of a finite number of heterogeneous [singularities] traversed by a point of absolute survey at infinite speed” (WP 21).

Every singularity that makes up a body, while distinct, partially overlaps, forming a “zone of neighborhood” (zone de voisinage), or a “threshold of indiscernibility” with other singularities (WP 19). Since singularities always carry a chaotic aspect to them, while they remain unique, something passes from one to the other, something undecidable between them. The chaos that accompanies a singularity does not get stored away some where in the body, but rather, it hovers on the very fringes of the body’s composition. While a body, through its surveying and kinetic consistency attempts to stabilize itself as a self-contained and well-defined form, the chaotic aspects are forever threatening the stability and formation of the body. It is thus never completely ordered or knowable. It is always under threat by the very thing that composes it, in an unresolved state that is both exciting and dangerous.

The endoconsistency of a body, or its internal consistency is unstable and confused. It remains open and internally confused (not in the sense of mental confusion, but rather a kinetic confusion). The body remains in perpetual process, forever, trying to establish itself, to be become consistent, but always failing to do so. These unstable kinetic relations that make a up a body, reach out to other bodies near by. Due to its instability, every body has openings or bridges (exoconsistency), which allows it to connect with other bodies (WP 20). It is here that we speak of singularities spilling out, flooding, oozing, migrating, etc, across bodies. We can see this in physical bodies that are forever broken, punctuated by the physical flows and leaks that cross them: flows of urine, tears, shit, vomit, blood, sweat, semen. These flows challenge the body—they threaten to contaminate the body’s consistency and form. But these flows are not limited to the physical body, they can be metaphorical, abstract, political, social, economical, chemical, etc. What kinds of flows cross between the subject (reader/writer) and text? In their ambiguity and confusion, subject and text are constantly bleeding into one another to the point where one can not discern any distinction between them.

Not only is there a kinetic consistency of the body in duration, but also a kinetic inconsistency of such a body. While a body’s consistency allows it to form and preserve as a temporary assemblage, the inconsistency of the singularities constantly dissolve and change the body in kind, threatening its stability and self-contained identity. Therefore the body never necessarily stabilizes or reaches definition. Perhaps if bodies were self-contained and well-defined, then they wouldn’t have any need for a other bodies. Therefore the encounter between subject and text is not one of two well-formed things, but rather between two unstable and temporary assemblages that are in constant state of decomposing (dissolving and leaking) and becoming consistent.

Now that I have discussed the kinetic proposition, or bodies in duration, it is now time to add another dimension—the dynamic proposition of bodies, or bodies in power—in order to further complicate the encounter between subject and text. It is only by combining the two, into duration/power, that we can get a complete understanding of the process of reading/writing. Therefore, the second part of this essay will develop the other half of the equation of duration/power. While the kinetic proposition defines a body in duration (consistency and singularities) as a temporary assemblage, the dynamic proposition defines a body in power (sensibility and production) as a dynamic assemblage. The body in duration and power is a body without organs. This common idea that persists in both definitions of the body, which will become apparent in the next two sections of Part II, is that form and function cease to be primary, and that the body is neither a substance, nor a well-defined thing, but rather an assemblage or plurality. A subject and text’s identities dissolve in both duration and power into ambiguous pluralities (of fluxes) and assemblages (of affects). In both duration and power, the body becomes a perpetual process, in which it is trying constantly to establish itself. What does this mean for the encounter between two bodies like a subject (reader/writer) and text? How does this complicate reading/writing? Ultimately by redefining the body in terms of duration and power, which will later become an assemblage of duration/power, the subject and text become poor approximations of the reality of reading/writing.

* In my conception of the body I refer/rely not so much on Deleuze’s understanding of the body that he presents in Spinoza: A Practical Philosophy, but rather Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion of the concept in What is Philosophy?. Although in What is Philosophy? Deleuze and Guattari are speaking of concepts, they do follow a similar pattern or logic of multiplicity that Deleuze used in his earlier writings to map out the body. Since the concept is itself a body, I have chosen to use Deleuze’s language of the concept to redefine the body. It is my thought that his conception of the concept is just a more articulated conception of the body..
** Chiffre is translated as “combination” to indicate an identifying numeral or ordinate, in the sense of the combination of a safe or an opus number in music (it is not a number in the sense of a measure) (What is Philosophy?, pg ix).

Part II: The Dynamic Proposition

Section 2.1 – Power

Deleuze-Spinoza’s dynamic proposition defines a body in terms of power. A body is not defined here by its function, but by its production (power of action) and sensibility (capacity to be affected). Once again, like we saw with a body in duration, a body is no longer a unified and well-defined thing. However, unlike bodies in duration, which develops a body’s internal composition, power on the other hand, develops initially from the outside through chance encounters. Therefore, a subject and text (bodies) defined by power are not only productive and affective, but also contingent assemblages—a plurality of affects and capacities that are dependent on external chance encounters.

What is power? In order to understand power, we must first begin with a body. A body’s essence, which expresses its existence (body’s essence = to exist), is equated with power (body’s essence = to exist = power) (EXP 93). Power is the thus the essence of being that presents essence in existence: “the identity of power and essence means: power is always an act, at least, in action” (power to exist = power to act) (EXP 93). However, Deleuze-Spinoza’s conception of power is not only a principle of action, but also, and equally, a principle of affection (power to exist = power to be affected) (EXP 93). Therefore, the essence of a body as power implies equally both production (power to exist and act) and sensibility (power to be affected). Subject and text are defined not by their function, but by their power of action and capacity (power) to be affected. We no longer ask what a body is, but what a body is capable of.

To understand the nature of power in these terms we must first articulate the internal composition of power. However, as Michael Hardt points out, the power to exist, or power to act (production) appears as “pure spontaneity” (Hardt 73). But since Deleuze-Spinoza present a body’s power to exist and act (production) as equal to a body’s power to be affected (sensibility), we can look to the latter for an understanding of the internal composition of power.

A body’s power to be affected, or what a body is capable of, is divided into either passive affections (produced by external bodies), or active affections (produced by a body’s own power to exist, or essence) (EXP 93). The power to be affected is at all times filled by active affections and passive affections. To the extent that a body’s power to be affected is filled by active affections, it relates to its power to exist and act (production), but to the extent that it is filled with passive affections, it relates only to its power to feel or suffer action. How can we favor active affections so that our power to be affected (sensibility) will be filled to a greater extent with active rather than passive affections, so that our power to act and exist (production) is increased? How do we become active? In order to realize this question, we must realize that bodies do not occur in a vacuum, that is, they are constantly encountering other bodies. Since, passive affections are characterized by the chance encounters between our body and other bodies, we must begin outside of the body.

In Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, Deleuze distinguishes two kinds of “encounters”—which produce joyful and sad passions (passive affections). Unfortunately, Deleuze-Spinoza’s notion of the passions do not really work in terms of the encounter between subject and text. For example, sad encounters result in the decomposition of a body, such as when poison encounters blood (human body and arsenic body). Sad encounters are useful in understanding the physics of bodies, but this kind of encounter does not work in the encounter between subject and text. Therefore, instead of this distinction between encounters that produce joyful or sad passions, I will be dividing encounters into those that produce indifference or joy. I am still using Deleuze-Spinoza’s notion of joyful encounters, since ultimately, it is through them that a body can become active.

Indifference is the absence of affection. Sometimes another body produces only indifference in us, or we produce something indifferently. Ultimately, nothing changes. Like a sad encounter, “I meet a body whose relation cannot be combined with my own” (EXP 241). The two bodies don’t work with each other, and do not combine. Indifference thus cuts off, and distinguishes all desire to become active, whereby there is no flow of desire or active state of determination. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze warns us about two kinds of indifference: “the black nothingness”, the “undifferentiated abyss”, “the indeterminate animal in which everything is dissolved”, and the “white nothingness”, “the once more calm surface upon which float unconnected determinations like scattered members” (DR 28). While the former is complete indifference, the latter is no less indifferent in the relations between determinations. In both these cases, there is neither activity nor desire. Things either remain fragmented, distinct, and separate, or dissolve into the abyss.

Joy is the presence of affection. It is here that something changes. “I meet a body whose relation combines with my own” (EXP 239):

“This itself may happen in various ways: sometimes the body encountered has a relation that naturally combines with one of my component relations, and may thus contribute to the maintenance of my overall relation; sometimes the relations of two bodies may agree so well that they form a third relation within which the two bodies are preserved and prosper.” (EXP 293)

It is here that we get such expressions as “it agrees with my nature”, it is “good for me”, that is “useful to me” (EXP 293). We should not confuse this idea with domination and conquest, whereby we utilize or capture other bodies to make our own greater. Instead, it is about forming what Deleuze calls “communities” or “sociabilities”, where a body takes another body into its world, while preserving and respecting the other’s own relations and world, or the bodies compound directly to from a new, more extensive relation (SPP 126). We could say that in the first instance, the text agrees with my nature, and vice versa. We are inspired or moved by the text—i.e. the text “burns positively”. This is how we read a text and gain pleasure, knowledge, utility, etc. The second instance is more important, for it deals with both the text and I, differing in kind, and transforming into a third relation—a new text, a new life. In this new writing, or life, both myself and the text are preserved, while simultaneously transforming, and attaining a greater quality/quantity of existence. We can already begin to see how this joyful encounter plays a major role in becoming active.

However, at this level, we must remember that such an “encounter” remains passive, since the affection is “explained by the external body, and the idea of the affection is a passion, a passive feeling” (EXP 239). Since a joyful passive affection is “explained not by our own essence or power”, but by the power of some external cause, it reveals our own “impotence” (EXP 239):

“All passion cuts us off from our power of action; as long as our capacity to be affected is exercised by [passive affections], we are cut off from that of which we are capable.” (EXP 240)

However, our impotence is only a limitation, for our passive feelings do in fact involve some “degree”, however small, of our “power of action” (EXP 240). It turns out that even passive affections determine our essence: “to desire”, “to imagine”, to do something “that flows from our nature” (EXP 240).

“Insofar as the feeling of joy increases our power of action, it determines us to desire, imagine, do, all we can in order to preserve this joy itself and the object that procures it for us.” (EXP 240-241)

When we are affected by a joyful passion, it agrees with our nature—thus our power of action is increased or aided: “joy is added to the desire that follows from it, so that the external thing’s power encourages and increases our own” (EXP 240). Joyful passions do not cause us to cease to be passive, “to be cut off from our power of action” (EXP 240), but we come closer to such power of action.

“[Our power of action] never increases enough for us to come into its real possession, for us to become active, to become the adequate cause of the affections that exercise our capacity to be affected.” (EXP 241)

Section 2.2 – Becoming Active

Since a subject and text’s power to be affected is filled largely by passive affections, rather than active affections, Deleuze-Spinoza place particular emphasis on becoming active. How can we become active? In order to answer this, we must first learn how to experience a maximum of joyful passions, that is, how can we begin a practice of joy?

Joyful encounters mark the first step in becoming active. Therefore we must try to accumulate and organize our joyful encounters. However, actual encounters are much more complicated than the simple encounters I mentioned in the last section, since there may be different degrees of partial compatibility and partial conflict between the two encountering bodies, or the affect can combine in myriad of ways. Although these two cases of simple encounters are limited in scope, they allow us to distinguish between encounters that produce indifference, and those that produce joy. Since becoming-active involves joyful encounters, how can we select mostly, or only joyful encounters? Insofar as encounters are not self-caused, they appear as random or chance encounters. We therefore need some way of recognizing which encounters will produce joy and which ones will produce indifference.

What determines the kind of encounter that will occur? Through my discussion of bodies in duration, it became clear that subject and text as bodies were not fixed units with stable and coherent internal structures, but temporary assemblages differing in kind. For example, we may have a joyful encounter with a text at one moment, but the next time we encounter it, nothing happens (indifference), or vice versa. Each person’s encounter with a text will be different every time that they encounter it. What an encounter produces is ultimately contingent on duration, or how a body is composed at that point in time. This does not mean that we cannot know what a body is capable of, but rather that we must adapt a different point of view.

Only by recognizing similar compositions or relationships among bodies, can we begin to develop the criteria for a selection of joy. When we encounter a body that agrees with our own, when we experience a joyful passive affection, we are induced to form the idea of what is common to that body and our own (EXP 282). Only in the immediately present can these common notions provide any utility; for they are notions that represent a similar composition between two bodies that directly agree with each other from their own local points of view in the encounter (EXP 275-276).

“The common notion is the assemblage of two composable relationships to create a new, more powerful relationship, a new, more powerful body—this assemblage, however, is not merely a chance composition but an ontological constitution, because the process envelops the cause within the new body itself.’ (Hardt 99)

Since, the accumulation and organization of joyful passions prepares the condition for becoming active, common notions are important, since they allow us favor compatible encounters and avoid incompatible encounters, when we make this selection. It is by building these common notions, by making connections, that the joyful passive affections become our own, thus becoming active affections. Since active affections arise from joyful passions, they are necessarily joyful (becoming active = becoming joyful).

We are suddenly thrust back to the description of difference in-itself, where both the determination and the indeterminate chaos combine into “a single determination which ‘makes’ the difference” (DR 28). This Causa sui, cause of itself, takes on new and more practical dimension as becoming active. Becoming active restores a body’s own power to itself, whereby it realizes what it is capable of, paving the way for its power of action (production). It becomes the active state of determination of difference in-itself. But, difference in-itself is cruelty (DR 28). Thus every action or active state of determination involves cruelty. Joy and cruelty are no longer opposed, but combine to become the active state of determination of difference in-itself (Joy/cruelty). What does it mean for a text to be joyful or cruel?

Conclusion(s) : Reading/Writing in Duration/Power
I said earlier that I wanted to work on the notion of a text as a life, and on the encounter, perhaps the struggle, between subject (reader/writer) and text. How has this been complicated by the introduction of duration and power? I have shown how duration and power force us to redefine our notions of a subject and text, and the encounter between the two. Duration and power transform both a subject and text into temporary and dynamic assemblages, that are each in a perpetual process of transformation and becoming, forever trying to establish themselves as forms or identities, and attempting to gain a greater quantity/quality of reality, but never fully becoming so, or arriving at such a destination. Duration and power are not separate conditions, but interwoven into each other, and are mutually supportive, forming an assemblage of duration/power. Duration/power becomes the condition of reading/writing. What does this mean for processes of reading and writing? In terms of duration/power how might one read/write a text? More importantly how does duration/power present reading/writing as a life that involves and evolves a subject, text, and surrounding world? In order to articulate these last two questions, I will need to develop two new terms, trip-hopping through texts (reading a text), and an infinity machine* (writing a text). Like bodies in duration/power, both of these new terms are in perpetual process, forever trying to establish themselves as identities, yet failing to do so completely. In fact, these two terms arise from my discussion on duration and power, that is, they are formed and articulated by duration/power, as an attempt to address the state of reading/writing in terms of duration/power.

Since a subject and text are not two distinct identities, with perceptible lines of territory, we must first understand reading in a different way. Reading involves an assemblage of subject/text/world in which the three become imperceptible. There is only a plurality of rhythms, fluxes, vibrations, affects, thoughts, etc. encountering one another. It is a kind of chaos. How do we read in this chaos? In other words, how do we read in such a way to make ourselves, the text, and the surrounding world into a single line of determination that “makes” the difference? How does the process of reading become a life, whereby the chaos (subject, text, and world) becomes its own cosmos (life)?

We must divorce ourselves from the idea of reading critically, insofar as it involves subject and object as two separate entities. We still read critically, but the notion of reading critically takes on a new form. The problem is with our current models and methods of reading critically. They do not capture the entire experience of reading in, that is, they give a poor approximation of the reading experience. In short, they do not account for reading in terms of duration/power. We must remember that this encounter between me and the text or the experience of reading is already caught up in duration/power. It is conditioned by it. However, when we think of reading a text, perhaps we still think too spatially: I am here, the text is there; we are both spatial objects with form. How can we get over this illusion?

I propose that music, which more readily lends itself in terms of rhythms and affects, is a better way of understanding reading. Like we do with music, we flow in and out of texts, not so much from beginning or end, but through its multiple horizons and thresholds. There is always a rhythm to reading, where one leaps into it, or dances to it. Perhaps we carefully dissect this section, but then trip and drift over another. We do not select the whole text—we select concepts, styles, intensities, quotes, ideas, rhythms, affects. This goes back to the idea of accumulating and organizing joyful encounters. How can we read so that our encounters are mostly joyful. Reading also involves our moments of daydreaming, our worries, our dancing, our searching, our diversions, our questioning, our skipping, our dissecting, etc. All of these occur when we read, so why do we ignore them? If we really want to appreciate reading in its entirety, we must learn to understand all of the rhythms and affects that compose the process. I call this new musically influenced mode or perspective of reading: trip-hopping through texts**.

There is also another process to reading: writing with the text. We should always write with a text, never about it. It is this way the text ceases to be seen as an object of analysis, but rather as a life which we are engaged with. Subject and text cease to be separate things, and become a life of various rhythms and affects, that find precision and presence in writing. However, there are still obstacles to this. The first thing that must be learned in order to write freely with a text, is to divorce the idea of the author, the authority, the master, or tyrant that holds one’s writing by the strings. There is no author. The author, like the reader/writer is merely a temporary and affective assemblage. It is the text that matters, since it presents a chaos-becoming-cosmos (a life), in which the author, the text, and his or her world interweave into a life of its own (a text). It is therefore not so much about writing on or about the text, or even submitting to the text, but rather writing with the text itself. The text and I, side by side, two fluxes of rhythms and affects flowing and encountering each other. In this sense too neither one’s own ideas or thoughts, nor the text itself, make up the center of writing. There is no center. There are only palpitations without a heart, movements without a prime mover, thoughts without an ego, etc. Without the master, the author, or the subject-I, there is no gravity to writing; drives, passions, thoughts, tangents, disruptions, eruptions, flights, all float freely. We begin moving away from what the text means and what the subject-I desires or wills towards encounters and flows—or how things work together in duration/power. We take things out of there normal environment and transplant them into new contexts (rhythms and encounters) to see what they will do, how they will act, how they will evolve or decompose. Writing alongside a text, one swims into its waves, leaping into them as one pleases. In other words, writing with a text should be a trip-hopping through texts: grooving, skipping, tripping, gliding, surfing, etc. The text is not the point of reference, it is the beach in which the wave of writing and thought crashes into, only wash away, and add new sediment.

Some texts make this process easier then others. Some burn more positively than others. Such texts not only unfold infinite rhythms and joyful affections and create new subjectivities, they fold the reader/writer and their into the text itself, where the distinction between the two becomes imperceptible, and a new life is created. This does not mean that the reader disappears into the text, or the text into the reader, but rather the two combine into single line of becoming, or determination, of reading/writing. In some ways, such texts force the reader to re-enact the text by putting new voices and feelings, contexts and thoughts into it: “this is how I play a role”. Such a process undermines our sense of identity and our capacity to act as pure subject. Such a text is thus necessarily cruel, yet joyous, because it brings us into an active life, in which we become aware of duration/power. It is these kinds of text which we must attempt to write. What kind of text are they? They perhaps can go by several names, but I call them infinity machines.

An infinity machine is a monster (cruel and deformed), like the kind that difference in-itself is. As a monster, it must be a cruel text, that is, a joyous text. A cruel, yet joyous text. It is spontaneous*** and formless like a swarm of ants or bees. It must be full of infinite rhythms, heterogeneous connections, and possible joyful encounters, for if it text produces only indifference, or “nothingness”, then it is a failure.

It’s movement is at once towards the chaos where it becomes broken, shattered and fragmented, but also towards an absolute survey of itself where it become temporarily unified and organized. In regards its becoming-chaos, an infinity machine, and its multiple rhythms and heterogeneous parts, can be connected to anything, and must be. It’s becoming-order presents an infinity machine not as having an internal stability or unity of parts, but rather as having a perpetual desire to complete and establish itself. In both instances, we see that such a text is in perpetual process like a body in duration/power, attempting at once to establish itself , but also striving to increase its power of existence.

An infinity machine dissolves the author (subject), writing (process), text (product) and the surrounding world (reality) into a single line of determination, a singular life. In other words, the assemblage of reader/writer, text, and world co-operates as a dynamic experiential process of becoming. It is thus composes of movement and constructions of life. As an infinity machine, a text is not a representation of life, but a life of movements, intensities, and signs:

“It is a question of producing within the work a movement capable of affecting the mind outside of all representation; it is a question of making movement itself a work, without interpositions; of substituting direct signs for mediate representations; of inventing vibrations, rotations, whirlings, gravitations, dances or leaps which directly touch the mind.” (DR 8 )

Such a text does not move by way of exposition, it dances to the beat of joy. It is a life. It multiplies, and does so constantly, spilling over into other areas, at various speeds, and with different affects and rhythms. At every moment it multiplies, adding or subtracting dimensions, connecting and disconnecting assemblages, decomposing and composing relations. It churns out new monsters and miracles at every turn. It is an infinity machine****—constantly coupling, assembling, breaking, reconnecting, folding, unfolding a plethora of new relations, affections, rhythms, passions, fluxes, palpitations, waves, bodies, subjectivities, images, singularities, becomings, etc.

To say that an infinity machine or trip-hopping through texts, has a subject, a beneficent God, a centered ego, a unified and coherent self, or even an object of analysis is to fabricate and ignore the actual movements of the reading/writing process in terms of duration/power—there is only an ebb and flow of manic and depressive states, acceleration and rupture, slowness and viscosity, lines of escape and lines of encounter, moments of articulation and confusion, moments of presence and distinction, absence and disappearance, connections and decompositions, becomings and singularities, inspirations and guides, affects and rhythms. Reading/writing in terms of duration/power is an event of this kind, and as such is a process, which is continually dismantling itself, becoming different and changing in kind, causing various singularities and intensities to pass or circulate across bodies. Duration/power requires and should perhaps ultimately inspire new modes of reading and writing, where the subject and text (object) are revealed to be poor approximations of the reality of reading/writing.

* Why a machine? Machines have no subjectivity, no organizing centre (no heart), and lastly it is nothing more that the connections and productions it creates.
** The term is taken from my love of a sub-genre of house and hip-hop music called trip-hop. Trip-hop is a fusion of electronica and hip-hop, urban and ethereal, street and ambience. It gives the listening the feeling that they are drifting or dancing without actually moving.
*** However, in trying to understand production (or writing), which is itself a power, I am reminded of Michael Hardt who said that we cannot understand power through its production/activity, because such power is “pure spontaneity” (Hardt, pg 73).
**** “Michaux’s first encounter with mescaline ends with the discovery of an “infinity machine.” The endless production of colors and rhythms, and forms…” (Paz, pg. X)

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