Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
From Badiou to Deleuze
(This is drawn from Badiou's Being and Event (1988) (page numbers are from the 2007 paperback ed. of the English translation.))
Badiou opposes two concepts, the "count-as-one", and the "non-being of the one". "Oneness" is a misspecification: "There is no one, just count-as-one." (24) The count-as-one I will abbreviate as n. It is the multiple. The non-being of the one I will abbreviate as -1.
A structure, Badiou's ontological space, is "the multiple qua multiple, subtracted from the one in its being." (28) What would be the shorthand for this structure? n-1. n-1, of course, already exists within Deleuze's writing. It is the rhizome, the system of assemblages or machines that make up his ontological space, virtuality, etc.
Badiou opposes two concepts, the "count-as-one", and the "non-being of the one". "Oneness" is a misspecification: "There is no one, just count-as-one." (24) The count-as-one I will abbreviate as n. It is the multiple. The non-being of the one I will abbreviate as -1.
A structure, Badiou's ontological space, is "the multiple qua multiple, subtracted from the one in its being." (28) What would be the shorthand for this structure? n-1. n-1, of course, already exists within Deleuze's writing. It is the rhizome, the system of assemblages or machines that make up his ontological space, virtuality, etc.
Where Do We Go From Here?
How to describe the ontological space Deleuze has outlined in LOS?
"Ontology itself in the form of pure mathematics." (Alain Badiou's Being and Event, p.4)
"Ontology itself in the form of pure mathematics." (Alain Badiou's Being and Event, p.4)
Monday, November 7, 2011
"I’ll know it when I see it.”
From: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true
From: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true
Friday, November 4, 2011
Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Immanence
There are declarations, books, articles, and movies on the pursuit of happiness.
I would argue that the feeling of happiness, or even jouissance, can be achieved via the pursuit of immanence.
What is immanence?
Immanence is the moment when there is no outside to the moment, when you are so totally into a book that you forget you are performing the act of reading; instead, you are experiencing the book, mentally performing the action of the characters therein. The same would be true for movies: it's the moment when you forget you are watching a movie and instead you are totally entranced (at one) with the progression of the action.
Immanence can happen in any and every situation. In meditation, one might lose track of one's own corporeality, thereby becoming immanent to the sonic waves passing through the galaxy, etc.
Immanence is often opposed to transcendence. In Judeo-Christian theology, transcendence is the pursuit most noble...The transcendence of this world for the world of Heaven, etc. In our lives, we often focus on transcendence as goal: E.g. "I want to transcend my miserable service industry job and shoebox apartment. I want to move on up. I want something better (for my life)."
I feel that if we pursued moments of immanence as hard as we pursue moments of transcendence, we would be happier and more likely to achieve transcendence. This is because transcendence is actually a result of immanence, not a means to it. We only realize that we have transcended our situation retroactively. We experience an immanent moment, gain a little taste of the sublime, and only afterwards realize what we have tasted. Likewise, within Lacan's diagram of desire, meaning is retroactively pinned -- desire flows up one channel, then encounters a swerve, a line of flight, then flies back the way it came, transformed. That bend in the curve is akin to a difference, a differential, where the slope of the line is changing, and eventually changes sign (from negative to positive in the Lacan diagram). The bend in the curve is the moment that we are in touch with the Aion -- asymptotic unlimited time wherein past and future stretch undifferentiated from one another. The bend in the curve, the line of flight, ontologically, is difference-in-itself. Immanence is the wormhole, the rabbit hole stretching infinitely, Borges' infinite straight-line labyrinth, the gateway that leads to foreign lands, transcending from the here and now, etc.
I would love to write up the Pursuit of Immanence into a self-help book that was as popular as the 4-Hour Workweek. Anybody want to help?
I would argue that the feeling of happiness, or even jouissance, can be achieved via the pursuit of immanence.
What is immanence?
Immanence is the moment when there is no outside to the moment, when you are so totally into a book that you forget you are performing the act of reading; instead, you are experiencing the book, mentally performing the action of the characters therein. The same would be true for movies: it's the moment when you forget you are watching a movie and instead you are totally entranced (at one) with the progression of the action.
Immanence can happen in any and every situation. In meditation, one might lose track of one's own corporeality, thereby becoming immanent to the sonic waves passing through the galaxy, etc.
Immanence is often opposed to transcendence. In Judeo-Christian theology, transcendence is the pursuit most noble...The transcendence of this world for the world of Heaven, etc. In our lives, we often focus on transcendence as goal: E.g. "I want to transcend my miserable service industry job and shoebox apartment. I want to move on up. I want something better (for my life)."
I feel that if we pursued moments of immanence as hard as we pursue moments of transcendence, we would be happier and more likely to achieve transcendence. This is because transcendence is actually a result of immanence, not a means to it. We only realize that we have transcended our situation retroactively. We experience an immanent moment, gain a little taste of the sublime, and only afterwards realize what we have tasted. Likewise, within Lacan's diagram of desire, meaning is retroactively pinned -- desire flows up one channel, then encounters a swerve, a line of flight, then flies back the way it came, transformed. That bend in the curve is akin to a difference, a differential, where the slope of the line is changing, and eventually changes sign (from negative to positive in the Lacan diagram). The bend in the curve is the moment that we are in touch with the Aion -- asymptotic unlimited time wherein past and future stretch undifferentiated from one another. The bend in the curve, the line of flight, ontologically, is difference-in-itself. Immanence is the wormhole, the rabbit hole stretching infinitely, Borges' infinite straight-line labyrinth, the gateway that leads to foreign lands, transcending from the here and now, etc.
I would love to write up the Pursuit of Immanence into a self-help book that was as popular as the 4-Hour Workweek. Anybody want to help?
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