2004-07-20 18:24:50尚未設定
Deleuze and the Open-ended Becoming of the World (2)
Deleuze and the Open-ended Becoming of the World (2)
There are several things to notice in this quote. First of all, it is clear that for Deleuze noumena are not (as they were for Kant) beyond human knowledge. On the other hand, that which is beyond what is given to us in experience is not a being but a becoming, a difference-driven process by which the given is given. Let me illustrate this idea with a familiar example from thermodynamics. If one creates a container separated into two compartments, and one fills one compartment with cold air and the other with hot air, one thereby creates a system embodying a difference in intensity, the intensity in this case being temperature. If one then opens a small hole in the wall dividing the compartments, the intensity difference causes the onset of a spontaneous flow of air from one side to the other leading to a state of thermodynamical equilibrium. It is in this sense that intensity differences are morphogenetic, giving rise to the phenomena of experience, even if in this case the phenomenon that emerges is too simple. The main idea, however, is much more general: many phenomena, in geology, meteorology, biology and even economics and sociology, emerge spontaneously from the interplay of intensity differences. Indeed, one can build an entire theory of the genesis of form (of geological, biological or cultural forms) on the basis of processes of becoming driven by intensity differences. Unlike essentialism, where matter is viewed as an inert receptacle for forms that come from the outside (transcendental essences), here matter is seen as possessing its own immanent, intensive resources for the generation of form from within. (Deleuze refers to the essentialist model of morphogenesis as the "hylomorphic schema"). However, in the page following the quote above, Deleuze argues that, despite this important insight, nineteenth century thermodynamics cannot provide the foundation he needs for a philosophy of form. Why? Because that branch of physics became obsessed with the final equilibrium forms, at the expense of the difference-driven morphogenetic process which gives rise to those forms. In other words, intensive differences are subordinated to the extensive structures (structures extended in space-time) they give rise to. But as Deleuze argues, most of the important philosophical insights can only be grasped during the process of morphogenesis, that is, before the final form is actualized, before the difference disappears. This shortcoming of nineteenth century thermodynamics, to overlook the role of the intensive and stress only the extensive, to concentrate on the equilibrium form that emerges only once the original difference has been canceled, has today been repaired in the latest version of this branch of physics and chemistry, appropriately labeled "far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics" and most prominently represented by Nobel-awardist Ilya Prigogine. Although Deleuze does not explicitly refer to this new branch of science, it is clear that far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics meets all the objections which he raises against its nineteenth century counterpart. In particular, the systems studied in this new discipline are continuously traversed by a strong flow of energy and matter, a flow that maintains these differences and keeps them from canceling themselves, that is, a flow which does not allow the intensive process to become hidden underneath the extensive results. It is only in these far-from-equilibrium conditions, only in this singular zone of intensity, that difference-driven morphogenesis comes into its own, and that matter becomes an active material agent, one which does not need form to come and impose itself from the outside. (3)Even at this early stage of my analysis, the contrast with constructivist philosophies should be clear. Although many constructivists declare themselves "anti-essentialist", they share with essentialism a view of matter as an inert material, except that they do not view the form of material entities as coming from a Platonic heaven, or from the mind of God, but from the minds of humans (or from cultural conventions expressed linguistically). The world is amorphous, and we cut it out into forms using language. Nothing could be further from Deleuzian thought than this linguistic relativism which does not break with the hylomorphic schema. For him, the extensive boundaries of individual entities do not exist only in human experience, drawn by the interplay of concepts, but are real, the product of definite, objective processes of individuation. Thus, the extensive boundaries that define living creatures (their skin, but also the folds that define their internal tissues and organs) are the result of complex processes of individuation (or actualization) during embryogenesis. As Deleuze writes:
How does actualization occurr in things themselves?…Beneath the actual qualities and extensities [of things themselves] there are spatio-temporal dynamisms. They must be surveyed in every domain, even though they are ordinarily hidden by the constituted qualities and extensities. Embryology shows that the division of the egg is secondary in relation to more significant morphogenetic movements: the augmentation of free surfaces, stretching of cellular layers, invagination by folding, regional displacement of groups. A whole kinematics of the egg appears which implies a dynamic.(4)
So far I have made a case for a non-essentialist realism, but this by itself does not address the question of an open future. There are at least two lines of argument used by Deleuze to defend the idea that the future is not given in the past. The first one is directly related to his theory of individuation or actualization just mentioned, that is, a theory of intensive processes of becoming involving spontaneous spatio-temporal dynamisms, or as I refer to them, processes of self-organization. The simplest self-organizing processes seem to be those involving "endogenously-generated stable states", such as states of minimal energy acting as "attractors" for a process. The spherical form of a soap bubble, for instance, emerges out of the interactions among its constituent molecules as these are constrained energetically to "seek" the point at which surface tension is minimized. In this case, there is no question of an essence of "soap-bubbleness" somehow imposing itself from the outside (hylomorphic schema), an ideal geometric form (a sphere) shaping an inert collection of molecules. Rather, an endogenous topological form (a point in the space of energetic possibilities for this molecular assemblage) governs the collective behavior of the individual soap molecules, and results in the emergence of a spherical shape. Moreover, the one and the same topological form, the same minimal point, can guide the processes that generates many other geometrical forms. For example, if instead of molecules of soap we have the atomic components of an ordinary salt crystal, the form that emerges from minimizing energy (bonding energy in this case) is a cube. In other words, one and the same topological form can guide the morphogenesis of a variety of geometrical forms. A similar point applies to other topological forms which inhabit these spaces of energetic possibilities. For example, these spaces may contain closed loops (technically called "limit cycles" or "periodic attractors"). In this case the several possible physical instantiations of this space will all display isomorphic behavior: an endogenously generated tendency to oscillate in a stable way. Whether one is dealing with a socio-technological structure (such as a radio transmitter or a radar machine), a biological one (a cyclic metabolism), or a physical one (a convection cell in the atmosphere), it is one and the same immanent resource that is involved in their different oscillating behavior.Deleuze calls this ability of topological forms to give rise to many different physical instantiations, a process of "divergent actualization", taking the idea from French philosopher Henri Bergson who, at the turn of the century, wrote a series of texts where he criticized the inability of the science of his time to think the new, the truly novel. The first obstacle was, according to Bergson, a mechanical and linear view of causality and the rigid determinism that it implied. Clearly, if all the future is already given in the past, if the future is merely that modality of time where previously determined possibilities become realized, then true innovation is impossible. To avoid this mistake, he thought, we must struggle to model the future as truly open ended, and the past and the present as pregnant not only with possibilities which become real, but with virtualities which become actual. This realm of virtual entities capable of divergent actualization are only one of the several immanent resources which insure the openness of the future. I will discuss in a moment other forms of material creativity behind the open-ended evolution of the world, but before doing that I would like to address one aspect of virtual forms of the attractor type that may seem paradoxical in the context of this discussion. One would think that open-endedness is a concept intrinsically opposed to determinism, and hence that the creative potential of matter derives from a connection with chance. And yet the processes involved in spatio-temporal dynamisms governed by attractors are completely deterministic. Therefore, we may have to go beyond the simple dichotomy between complete determinism and complete indeterminism, and introduce Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of "reverse causalities or advanced determinisms" between these two extremes, as they phrase it in their co-authored A Thousand Plateaus. (5)These intermediate forms of determinism, laying between the two extremes of a complete fatalism, based on simple and linear causal relations, and a complete indeterminism, in which causality plays no role, arise in physical interactions involving nonlinear causal relations. The most familiar examples of nonlinear causality are those causal loops known as "feedback loops", which may involve mutually stabilizing causes, as in the negative feedback process exemplified by the thermostat, or mutually intensifying causes, as in the positive feedback process illustrated by explosions or spiraling arms races. These forms of circular causality, in which the effects react back on their causes, in turn, are one condition for the existence of forms of determinism (attractors) which are local and multiple, instead of global and unique. (The other condition is a flow of matter-energy moving in and out of the physical process in question). These "advanced" determinisms may be static (yet multiple and hence local, since a system can switch between alternative destinies) but also dynamic, allowing for simple stable cycles or for complex forms of quasi-periodic behavior, as in deterministic chaos. (6) Thus, the fact that attractors come in several types, that they occurr in groups, and that each group is capable of divergent actualization, explains away the apparent paradox between some degree of determinism and an essentially open future. On the other hand, it is important to emphasize that these deterministic processes are only one resource matter and energy have at their disposal.There is another, less deterministic, process which is even more intimately connected with the emergence of novelty keeping the world from closing: the spontaneous formation of "machinic assemblages" of diverse elements. Deleuze and Guattari introduce the notion of "consistency" (or "self-consistency") to designate this morphogenetic process which generates new structures without homogenizing the components and without submitting them to hierarchical control, or in other words, without imposing on them a hylomorphic model. As they write:
There are several things to notice in this quote. First of all, it is clear that for Deleuze noumena are not (as they were for Kant) beyond human knowledge. On the other hand, that which is beyond what is given to us in experience is not a being but a becoming, a difference-driven process by which the given is given. Let me illustrate this idea with a familiar example from thermodynamics. If one creates a container separated into two compartments, and one fills one compartment with cold air and the other with hot air, one thereby creates a system embodying a difference in intensity, the intensity in this case being temperature. If one then opens a small hole in the wall dividing the compartments, the intensity difference causes the onset of a spontaneous flow of air from one side to the other leading to a state of thermodynamical equilibrium. It is in this sense that intensity differences are morphogenetic, giving rise to the phenomena of experience, even if in this case the phenomenon that emerges is too simple. The main idea, however, is much more general: many phenomena, in geology, meteorology, biology and even economics and sociology, emerge spontaneously from the interplay of intensity differences. Indeed, one can build an entire theory of the genesis of form (of geological, biological or cultural forms) on the basis of processes of becoming driven by intensity differences. Unlike essentialism, where matter is viewed as an inert receptacle for forms that come from the outside (transcendental essences), here matter is seen as possessing its own immanent, intensive resources for the generation of form from within. (Deleuze refers to the essentialist model of morphogenesis as the "hylomorphic schema"). However, in the page following the quote above, Deleuze argues that, despite this important insight, nineteenth century thermodynamics cannot provide the foundation he needs for a philosophy of form. Why? Because that branch of physics became obsessed with the final equilibrium forms, at the expense of the difference-driven morphogenetic process which gives rise to those forms. In other words, intensive differences are subordinated to the extensive structures (structures extended in space-time) they give rise to. But as Deleuze argues, most of the important philosophical insights can only be grasped during the process of morphogenesis, that is, before the final form is actualized, before the difference disappears. This shortcoming of nineteenth century thermodynamics, to overlook the role of the intensive and stress only the extensive, to concentrate on the equilibrium form that emerges only once the original difference has been canceled, has today been repaired in the latest version of this branch of physics and chemistry, appropriately labeled "far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics" and most prominently represented by Nobel-awardist Ilya Prigogine. Although Deleuze does not explicitly refer to this new branch of science, it is clear that far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics meets all the objections which he raises against its nineteenth century counterpart. In particular, the systems studied in this new discipline are continuously traversed by a strong flow of energy and matter, a flow that maintains these differences and keeps them from canceling themselves, that is, a flow which does not allow the intensive process to become hidden underneath the extensive results. It is only in these far-from-equilibrium conditions, only in this singular zone of intensity, that difference-driven morphogenesis comes into its own, and that matter becomes an active material agent, one which does not need form to come and impose itself from the outside. (3)Even at this early stage of my analysis, the contrast with constructivist philosophies should be clear. Although many constructivists declare themselves "anti-essentialist", they share with essentialism a view of matter as an inert material, except that they do not view the form of material entities as coming from a Platonic heaven, or from the mind of God, but from the minds of humans (or from cultural conventions expressed linguistically). The world is amorphous, and we cut it out into forms using language. Nothing could be further from Deleuzian thought than this linguistic relativism which does not break with the hylomorphic schema. For him, the extensive boundaries of individual entities do not exist only in human experience, drawn by the interplay of concepts, but are real, the product of definite, objective processes of individuation. Thus, the extensive boundaries that define living creatures (their skin, but also the folds that define their internal tissues and organs) are the result of complex processes of individuation (or actualization) during embryogenesis. As Deleuze writes:
How does actualization occurr in things themselves?…Beneath the actual qualities and extensities [of things themselves] there are spatio-temporal dynamisms. They must be surveyed in every domain, even though they are ordinarily hidden by the constituted qualities and extensities. Embryology shows that the division of the egg is secondary in relation to more significant morphogenetic movements: the augmentation of free surfaces, stretching of cellular layers, invagination by folding, regional displacement of groups. A whole kinematics of the egg appears which implies a dynamic.(4)
So far I have made a case for a non-essentialist realism, but this by itself does not address the question of an open future. There are at least two lines of argument used by Deleuze to defend the idea that the future is not given in the past. The first one is directly related to his theory of individuation or actualization just mentioned, that is, a theory of intensive processes of becoming involving spontaneous spatio-temporal dynamisms, or as I refer to them, processes of self-organization. The simplest self-organizing processes seem to be those involving "endogenously-generated stable states", such as states of minimal energy acting as "attractors" for a process. The spherical form of a soap bubble, for instance, emerges out of the interactions among its constituent molecules as these are constrained energetically to "seek" the point at which surface tension is minimized. In this case, there is no question of an essence of "soap-bubbleness" somehow imposing itself from the outside (hylomorphic schema), an ideal geometric form (a sphere) shaping an inert collection of molecules. Rather, an endogenous topological form (a point in the space of energetic possibilities for this molecular assemblage) governs the collective behavior of the individual soap molecules, and results in the emergence of a spherical shape. Moreover, the one and the same topological form, the same minimal point, can guide the processes that generates many other geometrical forms. For example, if instead of molecules of soap we have the atomic components of an ordinary salt crystal, the form that emerges from minimizing energy (bonding energy in this case) is a cube. In other words, one and the same topological form can guide the morphogenesis of a variety of geometrical forms. A similar point applies to other topological forms which inhabit these spaces of energetic possibilities. For example, these spaces may contain closed loops (technically called "limit cycles" or "periodic attractors"). In this case the several possible physical instantiations of this space will all display isomorphic behavior: an endogenously generated tendency to oscillate in a stable way. Whether one is dealing with a socio-technological structure (such as a radio transmitter or a radar machine), a biological one (a cyclic metabolism), or a physical one (a convection cell in the atmosphere), it is one and the same immanent resource that is involved in their different oscillating behavior.Deleuze calls this ability of topological forms to give rise to many different physical instantiations, a process of "divergent actualization", taking the idea from French philosopher Henri Bergson who, at the turn of the century, wrote a series of texts where he criticized the inability of the science of his time to think the new, the truly novel. The first obstacle was, according to Bergson, a mechanical and linear view of causality and the rigid determinism that it implied. Clearly, if all the future is already given in the past, if the future is merely that modality of time where previously determined possibilities become realized, then true innovation is impossible. To avoid this mistake, he thought, we must struggle to model the future as truly open ended, and the past and the present as pregnant not only with possibilities which become real, but with virtualities which become actual. This realm of virtual entities capable of divergent actualization are only one of the several immanent resources which insure the openness of the future. I will discuss in a moment other forms of material creativity behind the open-ended evolution of the world, but before doing that I would like to address one aspect of virtual forms of the attractor type that may seem paradoxical in the context of this discussion. One would think that open-endedness is a concept intrinsically opposed to determinism, and hence that the creative potential of matter derives from a connection with chance. And yet the processes involved in spatio-temporal dynamisms governed by attractors are completely deterministic. Therefore, we may have to go beyond the simple dichotomy between complete determinism and complete indeterminism, and introduce Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of "reverse causalities or advanced determinisms" between these two extremes, as they phrase it in their co-authored A Thousand Plateaus. (5)These intermediate forms of determinism, laying between the two extremes of a complete fatalism, based on simple and linear causal relations, and a complete indeterminism, in which causality plays no role, arise in physical interactions involving nonlinear causal relations. The most familiar examples of nonlinear causality are those causal loops known as "feedback loops", which may involve mutually stabilizing causes, as in the negative feedback process exemplified by the thermostat, or mutually intensifying causes, as in the positive feedback process illustrated by explosions or spiraling arms races. These forms of circular causality, in which the effects react back on their causes, in turn, are one condition for the existence of forms of determinism (attractors) which are local and multiple, instead of global and unique. (The other condition is a flow of matter-energy moving in and out of the physical process in question). These "advanced" determinisms may be static (yet multiple and hence local, since a system can switch between alternative destinies) but also dynamic, allowing for simple stable cycles or for complex forms of quasi-periodic behavior, as in deterministic chaos. (6) Thus, the fact that attractors come in several types, that they occurr in groups, and that each group is capable of divergent actualization, explains away the apparent paradox between some degree of determinism and an essentially open future. On the other hand, it is important to emphasize that these deterministic processes are only one resource matter and energy have at their disposal.There is another, less deterministic, process which is even more intimately connected with the emergence of novelty keeping the world from closing: the spontaneous formation of "machinic assemblages" of diverse elements. Deleuze and Guattari introduce the notion of "consistency" (or "self-consistency") to designate this morphogenetic process which generates new structures without homogenizing the components and without submitting them to hierarchical control, or in other words, without imposing on them a hylomorphic model. As they write: