Sunday, February 27, 2011
Page Numbers
I just realized that the page numbers in the 2004 edition are not the same as the 1990 edition that I am using. Sorry.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sixth Series on Serialization
Page 36: For sense to crop up, there must be at least two series (e.g. the two sides of the piece of paper or Mobius strip).
Page 37: Deleuze clears up some confusion by explicitly saying that there are two possible dualities: between actual things and propositions (corporeal, incorporeal), and within propositions themselves (incorporeal to incorporeal). The difference between the two is that the first duality has a cause and effect, whereas the second only has "quasi-causes", such as the paranoiac believing that his/her thoughts are influencing world events. Voodoo would be another example of a quasi-cause -- propositions influencing propositions.
Page 37-38: Deleuze explicitly cites signifier/signified as an example here. The important takeaway is that this duality is axiomatic -- though series may "interchange", one series is always the signifier and one series is always the signified in the production of sense. He repeats this on page 40.
Page 39-40: Deleuze uses the term "perpetual relative displacement" in reference to two series. Again, this is analogous to the shifting of the Fifteen puzzle. See comments on the Fifth Series. This displacement is "the primary variation without which neither series would open up onto the other." (40)
Page 40: When one series interacts with another to produce sense, there is always an excess, a remainder. This excess is always vacuous, it has a hole in the middle, it is signifying without substance. In Poe's story, The Purloined Letter, it is the letter which is never read. In Pulp Fiction, it is the briefcase (which gets even more interesting, as Marcellus Wallace's soul may reside inside). It is a MacGuffin. In Kafka's The Castle, it is the castle that K circles and circles but can never enter, and may in fact hold nothing at all. "It is the mirror." (40) It is paradoxical because this excess is also a deficit -- i.e. the excess with nothing inside. It can be a place without content, or content without a place (i.e. constantly moving, impossible to pin down). Again, this is analogous to the electron. I can replay this kind of behavior by looking at a light with my eyes closed, then trying to focus on a colored dot. As soon as my vision begins to dial in, the dot or line moves and eludes me.
Page 37: Deleuze clears up some confusion by explicitly saying that there are two possible dualities: between actual things and propositions (corporeal, incorporeal), and within propositions themselves (incorporeal to incorporeal). The difference between the two is that the first duality has a cause and effect, whereas the second only has "quasi-causes", such as the paranoiac believing that his/her thoughts are influencing world events. Voodoo would be another example of a quasi-cause -- propositions influencing propositions.
Page 37-38: Deleuze explicitly cites signifier/signified as an example here. The important takeaway is that this duality is axiomatic -- though series may "interchange", one series is always the signifier and one series is always the signified in the production of sense. He repeats this on page 40.
Page 39-40: Deleuze uses the term "perpetual relative displacement" in reference to two series. Again, this is analogous to the shifting of the Fifteen puzzle. See comments on the Fifth Series. This displacement is "the primary variation without which neither series would open up onto the other." (40)
Page 40: When one series interacts with another to produce sense, there is always an excess, a remainder. This excess is always vacuous, it has a hole in the middle, it is signifying without substance. In Poe's story, The Purloined Letter, it is the letter which is never read. In Pulp Fiction, it is the briefcase (which gets even more interesting, as Marcellus Wallace's soul may reside inside). It is a MacGuffin. In Kafka's The Castle, it is the castle that K circles and circles but can never enter, and may in fact hold nothing at all. "It is the mirror." (40) It is paradoxical because this excess is also a deficit -- i.e. the excess with nothing inside. It can be a place without content, or content without a place (i.e. constantly moving, impossible to pin down). Again, this is analogous to the electron. I can replay this kind of behavior by looking at a light with my eyes closed, then trying to focus on a colored dot. As soon as my vision begins to dial in, the dot or line moves and eludes me.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Fifth Series of Sense
Page 28: Deleuze not only refers to sense as a frontier, but the "cutting edge, or the articulation of difference." Once again, we see Deleuze positing sense as this differentiating function between two series. Equally important is this attribute of sense as a "cutting edge". In later books, he (and Guattari) use this aspect of sense to define the Body without Organs (BwO). Sense, or becoming, has real productive force that can result in division, or at its most chaotic, destruction.
Page: 28: The Paradox of Regress, or of Indefinite Proliferation. Previously, Deleuze wrote on both the indeterminacy and the infinitude of sense and becoming. Here, he takes the logic of What the Tortoise Said to Achilles and applies it directly to sense. Propositions are linked together as in a chain. In order to gain the sense of any of them, they must refer to another proposition. In this way, one can never speak about something and its meaning at the same time. (29) This is analogous to never being able to determine both an electron's position and velocity at the same time. Propositions propagate in this way. If one was to visualize a diagram of this, one could picture an upside-down triangle. As you move from the top to the bottom, the triangle gets skinnier -- the propositions (imagine horizontal cross-sectional slices) get more and more contracted. But the sense running throughout the diagrams is a 3-D gyre or spiral running continuously from top to bottom, like a tornado. The gyre carves out a space from out of which sense can emerge. Another illustrative diagram would be the Fifteen puzzle: in this puzzle, one missing tile sets the board in motion. Out of this gap, the player is able to rearrange the pieces. When the pieces are put in order, sense is made only because of the missing piece. More generally speaking, propositions spawn themselves out of this aleatory gap in the hope of rearranging themselves into an order that causes sense (e.g. an epiphany) to leap up off the page and into this emotive dimension.
Again, to show the alternating parts of the puzzle, Deleuze is contrasting dualities, "the name that denotes something and the name which denotes the sense of the name." (30) Here, as elsewhere, there is a real elemental, essential sense to the signifier and signified. In The Fold, Deleuze speaks of an allegory of two levels of a Baroque house, where the ground floor is "animal", and the upper level is the "soul". (4)
The production of sense is an affirmative act, yet the logical attribute (or valence) of sense is neither affirmative nor negative. (It is neutral and its only axis of magnitude is intensity.) Instead, it is a sublime feeling that separates us from the affirmative or negative logical content of the proposition. In this way, sense is but an "evanescent double", a shadow, a "smile without the cat or a flame without a candle". (32) This doubling of sense allows the event to crop up twice, once in language and once in actual things. (The direct corollary here is to The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx where states that history repeats itself, "first as tragedy, then as farce".) Deleuze states that these doubles are "two simultaneous faces of one and same surface." (34) One can visualize a textured surface -- hills on one side of the surface are valleys on the other. One side is the sense defining the other -- it decodes the gaps. Going back to the Fourth Series, sense is this "line of articulation of difference" -- measuring and providing a code by means of gaps (differences) to map a surface. Sense is "indifferent to all opposites" because it itself is the production born of opposition. (35)
Page: 28: The Paradox of Regress, or of Indefinite Proliferation. Previously, Deleuze wrote on both the indeterminacy and the infinitude of sense and becoming. Here, he takes the logic of What the Tortoise Said to Achilles and applies it directly to sense. Propositions are linked together as in a chain. In order to gain the sense of any of them, they must refer to another proposition. In this way, one can never speak about something and its meaning at the same time. (29) This is analogous to never being able to determine both an electron's position and velocity at the same time. Propositions propagate in this way. If one was to visualize a diagram of this, one could picture an upside-down triangle. As you move from the top to the bottom, the triangle gets skinnier -- the propositions (imagine horizontal cross-sectional slices) get more and more contracted. But the sense running throughout the diagrams is a 3-D gyre or spiral running continuously from top to bottom, like a tornado. The gyre carves out a space from out of which sense can emerge. Another illustrative diagram would be the Fifteen puzzle: in this puzzle, one missing tile sets the board in motion. Out of this gap, the player is able to rearrange the pieces. When the pieces are put in order, sense is made only because of the missing piece. More generally speaking, propositions spawn themselves out of this aleatory gap in the hope of rearranging themselves into an order that causes sense (e.g. an epiphany) to leap up off the page and into this emotive dimension.
Again, to show the alternating parts of the puzzle, Deleuze is contrasting dualities, "the name that denotes something and the name which denotes the sense of the name." (30) Here, as elsewhere, there is a real elemental, essential sense to the signifier and signified. In The Fold, Deleuze speaks of an allegory of two levels of a Baroque house, where the ground floor is "animal", and the upper level is the "soul". (4)
The production of sense is an affirmative act, yet the logical attribute (or valence) of sense is neither affirmative nor negative. (It is neutral and its only axis of magnitude is intensity.) Instead, it is a sublime feeling that separates us from the affirmative or negative logical content of the proposition. In this way, sense is but an "evanescent double", a shadow, a "smile without the cat or a flame without a candle". (32) This doubling of sense allows the event to crop up twice, once in language and once in actual things. (The direct corollary here is to The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx where states that history repeats itself, "first as tragedy, then as farce".) Deleuze states that these doubles are "two simultaneous faces of one and same surface." (34) One can visualize a textured surface -- hills on one side of the surface are valleys on the other. One side is the sense defining the other -- it decodes the gaps. Going back to the Fourth Series, sense is this "line of articulation of difference" -- measuring and providing a code by means of gaps (differences) to map a surface. Sense is "indifferent to all opposites" because it itself is the production born of opposition. (35)
Fourth Series of Dualities
Deleuze spends this chapter expanding on the duality between the corporeal (things, states of affairs), and the incorporeal (e.g. propositions, ideations). Signifier/signified can also be opposed here if that is helpful. Sense runs the frontier between these two halves. It is a "line of articulation of their difference." (24) [my emphasis] And when Deleuze says difference, I take that literally. I mean that if we take things and propositions, signifiers and signifieds, as two functions serially distributing points in n-dimensional space, sense is something like the first derivative, the dy/dx of the combined function. Deleuze references Humpty Dumpty as this conduit or point of interchange between the two sides; he sits on a wall; Deleuze speaks of him as "the impenetrable master of the articulation of their difference." (25) Humpty Dumpty is an egg, the symbol of pure undifferentiated (no arms, no legs inside, etc.) becoming, a liquid of pure intensity encased in a fragile shell, the DNA code of something as yet unknown; he is a gap or aleatory point capable of differentiating between the two sides; speaking on the "impenetrability" and "temper" and duality of words: "I can manage the whole lot of them." (25) DNA is not an arm or a leg -- it is merely the code by which to differentiate. This is the being and function of sense.
Page 26: "The two dimensions...are organized in two series which converge asymptotically...they meet one another at the frontier which they continuously stretch." [my emphasis] That frontier is where Humpty Dumpty sits, it is becoming, it is unmeasurable Aion, it is sense.
Page 26: "The two dimensions...are organized in two series which converge asymptotically...they meet one another at the frontier which they continuously stretch." [my emphasis] That frontier is where Humpty Dumpty sits, it is becoming, it is unmeasurable Aion, it is sense.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Third Series of the Proposition
So we began with the paradox of becoming (i.e. how could something real be in a constant state of flux?). Then we moved to the paradox of surface effects (i.e. the surface is actually a symptom, an epiphenomenon of other things -- what appears to be "real" on the surface actually betrays its own depths, the hot mixtures in the deep dark kettle, etc.).
Next, we read about the structuration of sense. Deleuze delineates the difference between different kinds of propositions: denotation, manifestation, and signification. The important takeaway is that propositions are not a prioris -- they exist in relation and conjugation with one another. The example he gives is What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. That is, statements are only "true" insofar as they are verified by a proposition external to the logic of the statement. E.g. "If A and B are true, then Z is true" is a proposition in and of itself, whose veracity can only be checked by adding on another proposition ad infinitum.
Deleuze says that we are carried along in this logic as in a circle, "the circle of the proposition" (p.17). Propositions are recursive, and it is the shifting from one proposition to the next that unlocks the being of becoming, the emotive "truth" of the statement, its sense. Imagine a circle -- it is the circulation of a point on that circle that propels sense up into another dimension. Epiphanies come out of a blind spot, unexpected. Sense, the feeling of "things making sense," is exactly like that. Sense cannot always be empirically verified, but we can always feel it. The same is true for nonsense. There is something undefined in the circulation of the signifying chain. It is within this gap or aleatory point that becoming (i.e. the unlimited) lurks, ready to creep up out of the blind spot and create the instantiation of sense.
The recursive chain of propositions bind us to our personal identifications. The breaking of this chain can result in a loss of identity, an apocalypse of meaning. (18)
On page 20, Deleuze compares the proposition to a Mobius strip. If you break open the strip, untwist it (and this strip in particular may have infinite folds), and lay it flat you get what he cites from Borges elsewhere as a "labyrinth which is composed of a single straight line, and which is indivisible, incessant." (Kant's Critical Philosophy) What is a straight-line labyrinth of infinite length? -- the Aion, becoming, the unlimited, the unmeasurable, the DNA of this whole book.
The unlimitedness of sense relates to the fact that sense is found neither in the expression not the expressed, neither the signifier nor the signified. Sense is the undefinable edge or limit that binds one to the other and is synonymous with neither because its place is actually a gap or non-space. On the Mobius strip, it is the undefinable edge of the piece of paper. "It is exactly the boundary between propositions and things." (22)
The takeaway for New Pioneerism -- to pioneer, we need to concentrate not on the surface, nor the depths of everyday objects. We need to find that point of transition where an object turns from banal to special, from object to das Ding. By circulating between the object and its use, its causes, and its multiple readings in society, we can propel its sense into a new dimension. For example, you set a skater in a park -- watch him try to map the territory, the curbs, the benches, the rails until the geography rises above mere "park" and into a sensory, emotive experience capable of making the heart race and blood pound. Through skating the park, "sense" rises to the surface.
Important takeaway for this chapter: "The event is sense itself." (22) This the productive, affirmative moment of all life. This is the feeling of an epiphany.
Next, we read about the structuration of sense. Deleuze delineates the difference between different kinds of propositions: denotation, manifestation, and signification. The important takeaway is that propositions are not a prioris -- they exist in relation and conjugation with one another. The example he gives is What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. That is, statements are only "true" insofar as they are verified by a proposition external to the logic of the statement. E.g. "If A and B are true, then Z is true" is a proposition in and of itself, whose veracity can only be checked by adding on another proposition ad infinitum.
Deleuze says that we are carried along in this logic as in a circle, "the circle of the proposition" (p.17). Propositions are recursive, and it is the shifting from one proposition to the next that unlocks the being of becoming, the emotive "truth" of the statement, its sense. Imagine a circle -- it is the circulation of a point on that circle that propels sense up into another dimension. Epiphanies come out of a blind spot, unexpected. Sense, the feeling of "things making sense," is exactly like that. Sense cannot always be empirically verified, but we can always feel it. The same is true for nonsense. There is something undefined in the circulation of the signifying chain. It is within this gap or aleatory point that becoming (i.e. the unlimited) lurks, ready to creep up out of the blind spot and create the instantiation of sense.
The recursive chain of propositions bind us to our personal identifications. The breaking of this chain can result in a loss of identity, an apocalypse of meaning. (18)
On page 20, Deleuze compares the proposition to a Mobius strip. If you break open the strip, untwist it (and this strip in particular may have infinite folds), and lay it flat you get what he cites from Borges elsewhere as a "labyrinth which is composed of a single straight line, and which is indivisible, incessant." (Kant's Critical Philosophy) What is a straight-line labyrinth of infinite length? -- the Aion, becoming, the unlimited, the unmeasurable, the DNA of this whole book.
The unlimitedness of sense relates to the fact that sense is found neither in the expression not the expressed, neither the signifier nor the signified. Sense is the undefinable edge or limit that binds one to the other and is synonymous with neither because its place is actually a gap or non-space. On the Mobius strip, it is the undefinable edge of the piece of paper. "It is exactly the boundary between propositions and things." (22)
The takeaway for New Pioneerism -- to pioneer, we need to concentrate not on the surface, nor the depths of everyday objects. We need to find that point of transition where an object turns from banal to special, from object to das Ding. By circulating between the object and its use, its causes, and its multiple readings in society, we can propel its sense into a new dimension. For example, you set a skater in a park -- watch him try to map the territory, the curbs, the benches, the rails until the geography rises above mere "park" and into a sensory, emotive experience capable of making the heart race and blood pound. Through skating the park, "sense" rises to the surface.
Important takeaway for this chapter: "The event is sense itself." (22) This the productive, affirmative moment of all life. This is the feeling of an epiphany.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Why do this?
I started this project because I told ASW that the LOS would be a good gateway to New Pioneerism, our sideline project:
i feel like it [LOS] outlines a general logic in a series of connected chapters that could underlie the mission of new pioneerism. i think it would provide a justification and a guide to practice on the principle of geo-cultural rediscovery.
I don't think it is evident based on the first chapters how the two relate. Becoming is the DNA of the project. It is impossible to examine a person simply based on his /her DNA. I feel confident we will get there.
i feel like it [LOS] outlines a general logic in a series of connected chapters that could underlie the mission of new pioneerism. i think it would provide a justification and a guide to practice on the principle of geo-cultural rediscovery.
I don't think it is evident based on the first chapters how the two relate. Becoming is the DNA of the project. It is impossible to examine a person simply based on his /her DNA. I feel confident we will get there.
Second Series of Paradoxes of Surface Effects
In this chapter, Deleuze investigates the first manifested paradox that results from the paradox of pure becoming.
To get there (heavily citing Stoic philosophy), he contrasts "bodies" (actual things) and "incorporeal effects" (the ideational).
The most important axiom he delineates here is that the ideational or incorporeal is always an effect, never a cause (p.7). This is extremely, extremely important. When you are having paranoia, and you think that your thoughts are incarnating terrible things in the world, this is a fallacy as the ideational is but an effect of the corporeal (e.g. your brain's biology).
The paradox here is that becoming, which we talked about in the last post, is both indivisible and infinite, yet at the same time always on the surface, always an effect of the mixture of actual things ("bodies"). How could something unlimited also be a surface effect? A good example would be a pot of boiling water. As heat is delivered to the pot, the water molecules undergo chemical changes, the result of which can be seen at the surface of the water. It would be mistaken to say that the events at the surface of the water are their own cause -- they are an effect of the chemical changes of the water molecules. As the water boils, it is impossible to measure the exact changes of the surface as the ripples are coextensive with the entire surface; conversely one could try to measure the development of water into ice, but crystallization happens at an edge that is impossible to define. It is at the limit, at the edge, that we find transcendence from the corporeal to the incorporeal or ideational.
To get there (heavily citing Stoic philosophy), he contrasts "bodies" (actual things) and "incorporeal effects" (the ideational).
The most important axiom he delineates here is that the ideational or incorporeal is always an effect, never a cause (p.7). This is extremely, extremely important. When you are having paranoia, and you think that your thoughts are incarnating terrible things in the world, this is a fallacy as the ideational is but an effect of the corporeal (e.g. your brain's biology).
The paradox here is that becoming, which we talked about in the last post, is both indivisible and infinite, yet at the same time always on the surface, always an effect of the mixture of actual things ("bodies"). How could something unlimited also be a surface effect? A good example would be a pot of boiling water. As heat is delivered to the pot, the water molecules undergo chemical changes, the result of which can be seen at the surface of the water. It would be mistaken to say that the events at the surface of the water are their own cause -- they are an effect of the chemical changes of the water molecules. As the water boils, it is impossible to measure the exact changes of the surface as the ripples are coextensive with the entire surface; conversely one could try to measure the development of water into ice, but crystallization happens at an edge that is impossible to define. It is at the limit, at the edge, that we find transcendence from the corporeal to the incorporeal or ideational.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
First Series of Paradoxes of Pure Becoming
The first series of becoming is the DNA, the ontological substance that the rest of the book attempts to unravel. Becoming is paradoxical as something that is becoming is never "being", that is static, essential, definable. An electron, for example, is a particle that exhibits this characteristic. Explained by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, one can never discover an electron's position and velocity at the same time. It is by definition, undefinable. Becoming is being without limit, becoming is the force which causes revolutions, and dissolutions of identity, and apocalypses of common sense. The entire rest of the book is devoted to discovering what Deleuze would call, the "being of becoming", that is, the ontological status of an undefinable paradox.
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