Rhizomes:

Rhizome 4/14/16 in which I randomly thread my way through the ongoing discourse (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave (between me, Christopher, and Chris on the issue of free will:

“Can you elaborate on “participation” as simply as possible, please! Also I understand that the deductive regress argument relies on causality but what is looped causality? Is it a reflexive model, a-temporal in effect?” –Chris

To approach it from a different angle, Chris, and to better explain why I consider it a kind of synthesis between your MORE (not pure (materialist take and Christopher’s MORE (once again: not pure (dualistic approach to the issue, you have to look at Participation as a component (as compared to “Captain of the ship” in the system that, via its interaction with the various determined systems it interacts with, and through the kind transcendent resonances (emergent properties (that results from their interactions, creates a composite effect that is a conditional form of free will.

And you have to look at it in the context of evolution in order to understand the role the feedback loops have played in it. Having evolved from simple organisms that evolved simple nervous systems that coalesced into central nervous systems that budded (step by step (into the brains that allow us to do what we are doing here. And what has driven this process is the body’s effort to negotiate its environment in ways that will optimize the success of its given gene pool -much as Dawkins describes it. Hence: the non-linear feedback loops described by chaotics: that between the body, its brain, and the environment it is attempting to negotiate.

And to answer your question about a-temporal effects: yes. What evolved along the way was an ability to imagine the future and to anticipate which made the already non-linear feedback loop (that is between body, brain, and environment (even more non-linear –especially given the fact that the body and brain have always been and will always be prone to misguided anticipations of what their environment will bring.

And I would add here that the mathematics of chaotic have presented the possibility of attractors and strange attractors which, by definition, imply a role for the future in the feedback loops I am describing.

“Edward, just to correct one point you make, in which you say that I am defending dualism. By criticising Ryle, I am merely revealing the flaws in his supposed analysis of dualism, which is not the same thing as defending dualism. “–Christopher

In my defense, Christopher, I would refer to a point I made in rhizome 4/13/16:

“Not to brag or pat myself on the back here, Chris, or claim that I have some kind of final take on this, but I’m starting to feel like the synthesis here in that while I wouldn’t go as far as Christopher does in arguing for dualism (that is to the extent he does while LIMITING HIMSELF….”

That said, I kind of get what you are saying. At the same time, I would caution you that it will be taken as dualism and argued against as such. I get it in that you are working from a univocal concept of being in the same sense that Berkeley came to a univocal concept of being later reinforced by quantum physics and Deleuze. But you are looking for proof of a soul, bro, that will continue to exist after we die. And that is a hard product to sell in these jaded times. But, at least, you are in the good company of David Chalmers.

Godspeed! I really do hope you succeed.

Prelude to today’s rhizome (Christopher Vaughn:

Edward, I think the controlling power of all the world’s religions, whether it be Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and so on, is a critical issue for the world.

I suppose I feel that it is critical because the question of whether we live on after death is one of the most powerful thoughts we can have and when it is taken control of it can take control of the whole being of a person.

I really include atheism in this issue for although it is not a belief controlled by religions it is still controlled by other organizations formed by other groups like scientists and philosophers and these groups still seek to control people’s ideas of what happens after death and this then impacts on how they live their life on earth.

The truth is that we do not know what will happen after we die and because death is unusual in this world, in denying us access to knowledge about it, then all we have left to examine it is reason.

For example, an atheist can convincingly argue that since there is no definitive evidence of existence after death then there is no existence after death. This seems to me a strong argument, however, it is not quite strong enough for the reason that absence of evidence of something existing does not mean something does not exist. We know from experience that things may exist which we will never discover up until the point of discovery and therefore we can reason that death is just such a thing, that is, no one can experience life after death until they die and since we know we can only experience this life while living it is an impossibility to know the next life while we are not in the state required to experience it, that is, dead.

I cannot remember who it was but I remember hearing someone saying they believe all the world’s religions because one of them might be true and they don’t want to miss out by picking the wrong one. It sounds like a Woody Allen joke, no? But there is truth in this joke. In a sense we should entertain as many possibilities as possible, including atheism, and yet no possibilities at the same time for we simply do not know and surely it is the best course of action when we do not know what will happen to be open minded and wait and see what happens.

This does not mean we cannot prepare ourselves and in fact we should prepare ourselves for while if we cease existing then obviously we cannot be anything to do anything, if we do continue existing we will have something to deal with it and experience teaches us that having prepared for the future can help us deal with the future.

So this is what I think that much maligned word, “faith”, actually means, it is knowledge. Faith is often described as a word meaning we believe in what is not seen, and this is a correct definition, but then people often say “I believe this… will happen because I have faith” or someone will criticize another by saying “your faith is not knowledge” but I would argue that true faith is knowledge because faith is really having the correct attitude regarding the unknown. In this instance, faith is knowing that the question of what, if anything, happens after death is relevant to the way we live now and because we do not know the answer to whether there is life after death this is a kind of knowledge that we have to approach the question of life after death with an open and not a closed mind.

In other words, having faith is knowing that we are ignorant of what is to come but knowing we are ignorant of what is to come is after all knowledge of something.

Rhizome 4/18/16: a response to my increasingly respected peer Christopher’s rather well written post (rhizome (on the issue of religion [text attached:

First of all, Christopher, I have to say I’m really starting to admire your writing style. Like me, you like to keep it clear and clean which goes a long ways towards facilitating discourse. This, of course, goes to a point you made elsewhere:

“I am surprised just how many people use fancy sounding words when they talk about supposedly deep subjects but do not actually engage in debate about these subjects in any great depth.
What I feel I may be discovering is that people mostly get their ideas from other people, often authority figures, and perhaps do not even understand these ideas well and they have killed these ideas anyway by using them simply to justify a choice they have made about how they are going to live their life.
Surely we should think for ourselves and when we discuss an issue we should think there and then about that issue and not try to regurgitate what someone else has said which destroys all discussion and ends up becoming like a fortress the person defends without using any reason.”

:a point I agree with in a conditional kind of way. As I have said before:

“I’m drawn to French/continental concepts while being equally drawn to the Anglo-American style of exposition.”

Your style suggests the same generosity of a Rorty or even a Jaspers in the cultural context he was working in. At the same time, there is still the question of whether the obscure and oblique approach to meaning utilized by such thinkers as Deleuze or Derrida was necessary to get at the point they were trying to get at. I mainly bring this up as an enticement to a future discourse.

Now to the point:

“I suppose I feel that it is critical because the question of whether we live on after death is one of the most powerful thoughts we can have and when it is taken control of it can take control of the whole being of a person.

I really include atheism in this issue for although it is not a belief controlled by religions it is still controlled by other organizations formed by other groups like scientists and philosophers and these groups still seek to control people’s ideas of what happens after death and this then impacts on how they live their life on earth.“

In other words: we have to admit that atheism (for all its claims to be otherwise (is still basically a faith. And we, furthermore, must admit that what props it up (in ways described by Foucault (are the power structures behind science and, to some extent, philosophy. In that sense, there is a kind of operationalism at work as described by Marcuse.

What makes your point a step forward for me is when you point out:

“For example, an atheist can convincingly argue that since there is no definitive evidence of existence after death then there is no existence after death. This seems to me a strong argument, however, it is not quite strong enough for the reason that absence of evidence of something existing does not mean something does not exist. “

I have, for some time, made the argument that you cannot turn a negative argument into a positive one. For instance, one could reasonably argue that there is no way of knowing that proof for evolution is not the result of some man with horns and cloven hooves planting all this evidence in order to throw us off his scent. The best we can say is that it is not likely. The problem, however, starts when one tries to convert that possibility into an argument for evolution as a misguided belief system: to argue that since there is no way of knowing that there isn’t a devil seeking to mislead us, evolution must be false.

What I hadn’t thought about before is how this applies the atheistic position as well. And I would also point out the role that the inductive limit might play in this: the fact that no matter how much data you collect, it will always be haunted by the data you don’t –the always finite in the face of the infinite.

Rhizome 4/23/16 in which I (hopefully (d.construct my dear friend Keith Adkins​’ self description as a “constitutionalist” and, in the process, defuse some of the hostility:

“Wow you don’t even know me. I am a Constitutionalist. Hate both parties. P.s. still need to get laid.”

As far as getting laid or needing to, Keith, I would only respond with the question: who doesn’t? But that is just one kind of need among others. The ambition of pushing beyond what most people get to think is another. And sometimes that requires that one defer baser needs like getting laid.

That said, I would first point out that our political divide began to emerge in our early 20’s. And this means that I have been dealing with your guys’ shit for about 30 years. And don’t you think, me being the intellectually and creatively curious person you’ve always known me to be, that I would have taken time out to listen and analyze what you are saying and try to figure why it was it took what was to me a surprising position? In fact, a large part of my process has been defined by trying to figure out how people I love and respect can take on ideologies that I am almost certain are dangerous, self destructive, and just a really bad use of our higher cognitive functions.

And because of that, Keith, when you say you’re a “constitutionalist” there is no doubt in my mind about your sincerity: your belief that that is how you define your position. But it reminds me of a bumper sticker I read the other day:

I read the constitution,
therefore, I am a conservative.

And I’m guessing that if you polled most conservatives, most of them would also claim to be so-called “constitutionalists”. Furthermore, I could rightfully respond to that bumper sticker with:

Not only can I read the constitution,
I can also claim to understand the spirit of it
and am perfectly aware of the flexibility the original designers wrote into it;
therefore, I am a progressive

In fact, if you think about it, Keith, anyone who has ever appealed to the authority of the constitution can pretty much make the same claim as you of being a “constitutionalist”. The only difference to you, of course, is that you are claiming some supposed privilege as concerns what the Constitution actually means. It’s pretty much the same thing most conservatives do when, in fact, all they have really done is read their own interests into it.

I would note, for instance, your constant griping about Hollywood celebrities using their popularity to push liberal agendas, that is while neglecting to say anything about Kid Rock prancing around a Republican fund raiser with a flag draped over his shoulders or Ted Nugent reducing his concerts to anti-democrat rallies which, when I saw it, looked like something you would see in Germany in the 30’s. It’s like Tom Moreno from Rage Against the Machine said:

“It’s as if the minute you get famous, you lose your right to free speech. “

So how, Keith, does this figure in to a strict and authoritative interpretation of the constitution? You being the “constitutionalist” and all?

Rhizome 4/24/16 in which I do some initial fumbling around with the New Realism introduced to me by issue 113 of Philosophy and exploit the opportunity to activate my Friends who like Philosophy Now string on FaceBook (facebook.com/groups/187142524965822/:

(First of all, a journalistic note (or what an old nemesis referred to in response to one of my posts (and which was witty enough to evoke a chuckle out of me (as a “dear diary” moment: as I come to the end of the audiobook for David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (55 hours of listening pleasure, I have to say that the book, despite its length, stands up throughout. It is a long journey and your mind will naturally wander. But it always brings you back with some really compelling scenarios and excellent writing. But by that same token, it has been excruciatingly humbling in comparing the writing (especially as concerns his eye for detail and the vast reserve of terminology he uses to do so (to my own.)

Anyway:

While I find the model presented by The New Realism compelling (and acceptable in many instances, I find myself coming into it with my own baggage –especially as concerns my up-til-now resistance of realism. One of the main models behind Realism is that of the object somehow injecting itself into the perceiving thing looking at it. I have always had a problem with the notion that reality is just “out there” and that we are somehow passively perceiving it without the mediating effect of how it registers. I argue this point from the perspective of one who has done some really good psychedelics in the 70’s and think it goes to Ferraris’ point (in a limited way (concerning Unamendabilty .

If this linear process from the object to the subject was accurate, this form of realism was true, then the psychedelic experience would be one of seeing reality as it actually is while the brain superimposes images on top of it. But that’s not how it works. The psychedelic experience is one of reality itself being transformed into something cartoonish or like the TV programs we watched as children. In other words, reality becomes conditioned by the psychological baggage the individual carries with them.

This, of course, is an exceptional situation. And The New Realism (as described by both Gabriel and Ferraris: who have been added to my reading bucket list (do make concessions I will have to fumble through. Still, I think it applies.

Rhizome 4/25/16 which I, yet again, fumble around with the New Realism described in PN issue 113 (philosophynow.org/:

“if the realist is the one who claims that there are parts of the world that are not dependent on the subjects, the new realist asserts something more challenging. Not only are there large parts of the world independent of the cogito [the thinking subject], but those parts are inherently structured, and thus orientate the behaviour and thought of humans as well as animals” (p.37). from Ferraris’ Introduction to the New Realism

“Ferraris’s move here is twofold. He first agrees with Foukant and Deskant that knowledge is a human construction, but rejects their identification of knowledge of the world with the world itself. He claims knowledge may still point to an independent reality which is inherently structured. There is not only the structure of the knowledge we have of the world (i.e. the conceptual schemes we have developed, which he calls “epistemological reality”) but also the actual structures of the world, whether perceived or not (“ontological reality”) (p.41). Thus his account presents the reader with two strands of reality, or, as he puts it “two layers of reality that fade into each other” (p.41).” –from Fintan Neylan’s Introduction to Introduction to New Realism: philosophynow.org/issues/113/An … ew_Realism

This, of course, only complicates my situation. Having been an anti-realist throughout much of my philosophical process, I’m starting to see a lot of overlap between my own models and that of the New Realism. And it is making it increasingly difficult to plan out my letter to the editor.

I would first note this particular article’s point concerning the critical stance towards constructivism. Poststructuralism and Postmodernism clearly went to an unnecessary extreme when it claimed that reality was merely language based. There is clearly an “out there” that is out there enough for us to be able to talk about it coherently. At the same time we cannot dismiss Foucault’s point (as well as Layotard’s (that, too often, discourses tend to fall into power discourses based on (as Layotard points out (controlling the rules of the language game for the sake of propping up the content of a given move in the language game.

And I still stand by the postmodern feedback loop between the subjectively objective (since no matter what is actually “out there” it still happens for us “in here” –as I attempted to establish with my point about psychedelics (and the objectively subjective since nothing could be more real to us than what consciousness experiences.

All I can say at this point is that this letter to the editor is going to be a tough one to write. It’s giving me a headache and cutting down my word count for this rhizome considerably.

I guess my main concern here is that it doesn’t land us right back at the problem with realism that resulted in the anti-realism (via anti-representation (of postmodernism and Rorty’s pragmatism: the classicist notion that we can truly know reality if we have the right tools. If meaning is inherent in the object, this can only lead to a hierarchal approach to knowledge based on some criterion established by the power that can claim to have to the tools to access that meaning.

I’m just not sure the New Realism (for all its concessions (gets around that.

Rhizome 5/8/16 in which I go over some points made in my graphic guide to Marx’s Das Kapital (and thumb down your nose all you want; it is providing a lot of insight into some of the micro-aspects of his description of the mechanics of Capitalism that I will have to go over repeatedly to fully comprehend (and hopefully connect it to my work in progress on Efficiency:

I would first note here Marx was a kind of exploration of Efficiency (especially as concerns Coexistence (as I conceive it. While most FreeMarketFundamentalists would portray him with the well known beard, but with horns and cloven hooves, the truth is that he was a man who found what he loved to do and wanted to create a society in which everyone could do the same. In other words, he wanted to create an environment in which people could find their higher selves (an instance of Expectation (without the distractions of the overwhelming instances of Expectation involved in the Petty and Mundane.

Anyway:

“Speed-up is central to capitalist production and culture because only the quantitative dimension of time counts. The qualitative dimension of time, the point of experiencing something in time, is routinely seen as a “waste of time.” –from Das Kapital

“The pendulum of the clock has become as accurate a measure of the relative activity of two workers as it is of the speed of two locomotives.… Time is everything, man is nothing; he is at the most, time’s carcass. Quality no longer matters. Quantity alone decides everything; hour for hour, day for day. —Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy” -Wayne, Michael (2012-05-29). Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’ For Beginners (p. 52). For Beginners. Kindle Edition.

One of the main issues I take with Marx (via postmodern thinkers like Baudrillard (is that his focus was primarily on the production side of things. Hence: the use of the term “efficiency” in its more diabolical sense (think: efficiency experts (as compared to the more benign one I am using it in. But then Marx didn’t have the advantage of seeing what Capitalism would do with modern technology. Still, I see that as an obstacle to an authentic understanding of what I’m talking about: a straw man for the FreeMarketFundamentalists and FOX News.

At the same time, I can’t help but feel that this anticipates a point made by James Burke in TLC series (that is when TLC was actually The Learning Channel (concerning the progress of technology in the 90’s:

That it was doing so in a fashion similar to Galileo’s Law of Falling Bodies: at a constant rate of acceleration. And it was that acceleration of innovation along with optimism and credit that drove the Clinton boom in America and elsewhere. The only problem was, as Burke rightly pointed out, was that that kind of acceleration tended to leave people with a taste for novelty.

And if you think about it, that legacy and residual sensibility may well underlie the success of Trump in American politics (among other things as I hope to describe later (in that he is a kind of novelty. As I like to say: he reminds me of an episode in the excellent British version of Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, in which a smart-ass cartoon character engages in a successful political campaign.

[Pause as I just remembered today is Mother’s Day: a definite disruption in the coexistence of efficiencies had I of not remembered.]

But it is this taste for novelty that serves as a misdirect from the very real source of everyone’s problems: producer/consumer Capitalism much as Marx described it.

Rhizome 5/19/16 in which, bouncing off of Peter Cave’s beginner guide to ethics, I approach my looser more pragmatic approach to ethics:

“John Austin, a one-time close utilitarian friend of Mill, quipped that a man should not consult the common weal, the common welfare, before kissing his mistress: to do so would undermine the relationship the loving relationship and hence happiness. How would we feel were people to perform utilitarian calculations, or any calculations at all, before kissing us –or before keeping promises?”

And that’s just it, isn’t it? Do we really need such calculations, as ethics offers, to know that such things as rape, murder, or theft are wrong? We just know. And it seems to me that it is all we need to know. But then I tend to assume this which is likely why, up until this book was given to me by Philosophy Now, Ethics has been a point of negligence. Still, given my critical stance towards the dominance of producer/consumer Capitalism, I can hardly get around it. It is always there in that back and forth spectrum based on my revision of Will Durant’s concerns of philosophy:

Metaphysics/Ontology<>Epistemology/Logic<>Ethics/Aesthetics<>and the Social (the human condition/political

And make no mistake about it, given my critical stance towards producer/consumer Capitalism, I would love nothing more than to be able to prop up Kant’s DeOntic assertion that people should always be seen as an ends rather than a means. And I’m quite sure Marx would have shared the sentiment. Still, such DeOntic assertions can too often end up becoming authoritarian in nature. Flashing the badge of authority propped up on “reason”, they end up as power relationships as described by Foucault.

I would therefore stand by my pragmatic core and assert that we accept certain moral codes because they just work. Few of us want to be raped, murdered, or stolen from; therefore we agree not to do so to each other. It just seems to me that this is all we have: a perfectly human construct based on a perfectly human agreement –as well as perfectly subjective empathy.

At the same time (as I am finding out in this particular immersion: there is some value (in evolutionary terms even (in the pursuit of the holy grail of Ethics as it has been pursued. And we can take our cue from Wittgenstein in that, in the pursuit of that Holy Grail, we evolve through the language games we engage in.

Rhizome 5/21/16 in which I start a three day experiment quoting three paragraghs from Ronald Bogues’s Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts and bounce off of them as they get at the heart of my relationship with Deleuze:

"Organisms and environments, then, are “mutually unfolded and enfolded structures” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch) engaged in a process of bringing forth a world. And that world is not ruled by the logic of the “survival of the fittest.” Natural selection (if one must use the term) does not prescribe what life forms will exist, but simply proscribes those life forms that are not viable. Within the broad constraints of survival and reproduction, mutually enfolded organisms engage in a process of “natural drift”, exploring a vast range of possible lines of development. Those possibilities do not have to be the best (survival of the fittest) but simply good enough. The evolutionary process is “satisficing (taking a suboptimal solution that is satisfactory) rather than optimizing,” and it proceeds via “bricolage, the putting together of parts and items in complicated arrays, not because of some ideal design but simply because they are possible.”

First of all, let this be like a sharp edge driven into the heart of every basement overman (the Neo-Neitzscheian gospel of the fearlessly fanciful) I have or ever will encounter on these boards (in fact, every established thinker that based their nonsense on Social Darwinism: think Rand or Nozick. Let this be the knife that stabs the sacred cow of Nietzsche.

And now that that’s out of my system, what I mainly want to focus on here is the import of bricolage to Deleuze’s method or what could be said to be his agenda for philosophy. And I do so in full confession that I may be reading my own bricolage-like method into him. I may well be making my obsession his. Still, in my defense, this seems to be the agenda (the manifesto (he, with Guatarri, seems to be approaching in What is Philosophy when he claims that philosophy is about the creation of concepts. And while it was not explicitly said, I would infer from it (and everything else that I know about Deleuze (given that the creative act never seemed that far from his mind (that the primary point of philosophy is conceptual play for the sake of creating concepts.

And we can, as Bogue points out, reasonably found it in the nature of things. Consider, for instance, the nature of dreams and the recognition (as many creative people do: bricolage (that there is something about the mind that likes to juxtapose one thing on the other. As science is starting to discover, dreaming is mainly the result of brain activity when we sleep. So there is every possibility that what is happening is that the brain is doing a kind of inventory of its contents and randomly morphing various elements together until it finds certain patterns that resonate with and seduce it. It then turns those patterns into elements that it tends to repeat while morphing it (through a kind of experimentation (with other elements: repetition and difference. And I would note here a point brought to my attention in J. Allan Hobson’s very short introduction to Dreaming: that dreams may be, from the perspective of neuroscience, playing an important role in brain plasticity and, in fact, playing an important role in our evolution as a species via brain plasticity.

When You say, you may be making his method yours, in basic psychological language the Bricolage is formed in a way where introjectively you are assessing and adopting the larger frameworks proposed.

In this scheme there seems an inherent randomness within this design, and yet the other way, the goal oriented project(ive) way, is also a possibility, whence the project derives it’s power:

It is the original anoumalous which gives rise to these projections, vis. Dreams and other simulacra.

Once internalized, the dreams go away, the sub-conscious if at all present in dreams, may not be remembered.

First of all: thanks. (I never expect any response on this board.) That said, I will look at this tomorrow.

Once again: thanks for your considerate response.

Rhizome 5/22/16 in which I continue my bounce off of a section of Ronald Bogue’s Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts while confessing that, contrary to what I said in Rhizome 5/21/16, this will only take two days as I’m starting realize the three paragraphs I was looking at writing out are pretty much covering the same territory:

“Maturana and Varela conclude The Tree of Knowledge (1987) by positing love as the controlling principle of evolution, thereby stressing the cooperative values of mutual enhancement and interdependence as opposed to the competitive values of struggle and domination that reigns in neo-Darwinism. But what Varela, Thompson, , and Rosch suggest, in their notion of natural drift as satisficing bricolage -an assembling of parts “simply because they are possible”- is that creation is the primary force active in evolution. Living systems emerge from chaotic states as loci of self organization, and as they develop, they bring forth multiple worlds, over time interchanging components in heterogeneous structural couplings, fashioning new enactive couplings for no other reason than that they can be formed. The broad constraints of survival and reproduction allow myriad structural couplings, but dictate none; ever new couplings emerge simply because living systems are inherently creative, inventive, formative processes.”

Bogue goes on to say further down:

“If we return to the question of whether animals have art, we might say in a general sense that all living beings have art, in that all are inherently creative.”

What I would first point out is that these quotes have been extracted from the first section of Bogue’s book on Deleuze’s take on music. And what the quotes I have offered tend to highlight is a point I managed to pick up in an earlier immersion in this book: that Deleuze’s aesthetic concern, as concerns music, is primarily focused on the earthbound as compared to the “music of the spheres”. And this seems to me important in understanding Deleuze’s agenda as concerns philosophy: the anti-classicist position suggested by his indifference towards the “music of the spheres” and the classicist hierarchy it suggests. This, for instance, would give some insight into Deleuze’s choice to write about the painter Francis Bacon whose artwork is a study in the grotesque. It would also explain his love of amorphous imagery such as when he (in his work with Guatarri (describes, in reference to Dali, folds of skin with spikes of hair sticking out of it.

And what we can also see in it is the postmodern rejection (including that of Rorty’s –but for slightly different reasons (of Cartesian dualism. After all, it is the old Platonic hierarchy of the mind (the music of the spheres (over the body that prop up hierarchies based on so-called “reason”.

(We should also note here the very clear influence of Bergson’s elan vitale.)

And I hate to add a dear diary moment to this: but it does lend some justification to the daily (maybe even vicious (cycle I go through daily. I start with the dread of a space to fill. Then feel the glory of filling it. Then I sleep and wake up with the anxiety of second guessing myself: the vertigo of the possible in reverse. I sometimes wonder if I should just stop. And yet I go on.

Deleuze, for better or worse, encourages me: tells me that those failures, no matter how bad they feel, are part of the evolutionary process I am engaged in –participating even. Much as the classicists tried to do (think Plato; think Aristotle), he has taught me how to live.

Rhizome 5/23/16 in which I bounce off of a response by jerkey, one of the few respondents I have gotten from ILP (my old stomping ground, BTW (on my rhizomes based on Bogue’s Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts:

“When You say, you may be making his method yours, in basic psychological language the Bricolage is formed in a way where introjectively you are assessing and adopting the larger frameworks proposed.

In this scheme there seems an inherent randomness within this design, and yet the other way, the goal oriented project(ive) way, is also a possibility, whence the project derives it’s power:

It is the original anoumalous which gives rise to these projections, vis. Dreams and other simulacra.

Once internalized, the dreams go away, the sub-conscious if at all present in dreams, may not be remembered.”

First of all, jerkey, I apologize for the preamble. I mainly do that for the sake of cross-pollination given the number of boards that I, in my tendency towards the rhizomatic, tend to work across.

That said:

“When You say, you may be making his method yours, in basic psychological language the Bricolage is formed in a way where introjectively you are assessing and adopting the larger frameworks proposed.”

This is one of the issues you are always up against with an obscure philosopher like Deleuze (one that tends to take an oblique approach to meaning:

Are you actually understanding them? Or are you just reading your own agenda into it?

However, I would argue in support of the former that when I spent three years pumping out art (that is before I really got into Deleuze (I was using the bricolage approach in that I just kept juxtaposing certain motifs I had come to like drawing on other motifs that I had come to like drawing. And I may well have written this into my point about dreaming. Still, in my defense, it is all coming out of the same brain much like the brain of anyone reading this. And such high concepts do tend to trickle down through the culture in general, which means that I may have understood the concept of bricolage before I even knew of the term.

I guess the only answer I can give to your question is that (at this point at least (it’s really hard to tell. I tend to look at it as a process (a kind of dialogue (in which we are all participating.

“In this scheme there seems an inherent randomness within this design, and yet the other way, the goal oriented project(ive) way, is also a possibility, whence the project derives its power: “

In Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, he brings up the triad of series (the individual elements that, within their given locality, constitute any experience we might have, events (those changes that occur between those individual elements that equally (if not more so (constitute our experience of reality, and chancing: the role of the die.

It is the chancing aspect of this triad that we need to understand if we are to understand the true beauty of Deleuze: his genius: his art. It is as if all he wants us to do is understand him in our own way (the chance ways we arrive at it, to love our own process in the same way he loved his –that is compared to the more authoritarian method of imposing meaning on others.

At the same time, it may be me reading my own process and methods into it. I’m just not sure. But then I’m not sure Deleuze wanted me to be.

Rhizome 5/26/16 in which I answer Alexis’ question “Why do we dream?” and hopefully connect it with Ronald Bogue’s Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts:

I would first point out, that I am not responding here to school anyone on anything. I mainly point this out because I get the feeling from a lot of the responses to this question that it is coming from younger people who are going through that same phase I went through where one wants everything to feel magical. And I am perfectly aware of how it feels to have that magic sucked out of a thing. But for me, that process of demystification has played a crucial role in my process. Furthermore, there is ultimately no way of knowing I’m more correct now than I was then. I am merely offering an alternative possibility.

I just think that many of the responses are attributing more cognizance to the subconscious than it really deserves, a tendency I attribute to Freud or the misinterpretations of him. Beneath the languages we use to describe it with, the subconscious, as Neuroscience is pointing out to us, basically consists of pre-linguistic drives and impulses that, as they work their way to the surface, get translated into language: the very language we see taking form in our dream states as well as the discourses that tend to form around them. It just seems to me that the subconscious is not capable of the kind elaborate symbolic systems attributed to it by the dream dictionaries that emerged back in the 70’s.

I would argue that the very reason we dream is an extension of the very evolutionary process that went from single cell organisms to us. It is, as science has suggested, what facilitates brain plasticity: a kind of bricolage in which the brain and mind does a random inventory of its individual atoms of knowledge, randomly fuses them together into patterns, then, when it finds hybrids and patterns that resonate with and seduces it, stores them as individual patterns that it can randomly fuse with other mental atoms.

In other words, we dream for the same reason we create (creation involving a kind of bricolage similar to that of dreaming: to evolve as a species. And this is rooted in physical evolution. As Bogue points out:

"Organisms and environments, then, are “mutually unfolded and enfolded structures” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch) engaged in a process of bringing forth a world. And that world is not ruled by the logic of the “survival of the fittest.” Natural selection (if one must use the term) does not prescribe what life forms will exist, but simply proscribes those life forms that are not viable. Within the broad constraints of survival and reproduction, mutually enfolded organisms engage in a process of “natural drift”, exploring a vast range of possible lines of development. Those possibilities do not have to be the best (survival of the fittest) but simply good enough. The evolutionary process is “satisficing (taking a suboptimal solution that is satisfactory) rather than optimizing,” and it proceeds via “bricolage, the putting together of parts and items in complicated arrays, not because of some ideal design but simply because they are possible.”

I would also note the import of those patterns that the brain/mind tends to repeat which, along with emotional content (a stormy sea for instance, is where we mainly need to be looking for meaning in. They’re basically refrains as described by Deleuze via Bogue:

“Roughly put, Deleuze’s contention is that the refrain is any rhythmic motif that may structure an organism’s milieu, territory, or social field, and that composers encounter and transform refrains when they create music.”

One only need look at their own creative process to understand this: that of repeating what we know (the refrain (until we somehow get beyond it.

Rhizome 5/28/16 in which I push deeper into Deleuze’s concept of the refrain via Bogue’s book (BTW, thanks William​ (on his relation to the arts:

“The refrain territorializes chaos in forming a milieu; it deterritorializes milieu components and reterritorializes them in a territory proper; and deterritorializing forces constantly play through the territory, thereby opening it to the cosmos as a whole. Yet the basic function of the refrain is “essentially territorial, territorializing or reterritorializing, whereas music makes of it a deterritorialized content for a deterritorializing form of expression." The refrain, then, is “a way of impeding”, of conjuring music or doing away with it.” Music takes the refrain as its content and transforms it by entering into a process of “becoming” that deterritorializes the refrain.”

I would also paraphrase Frost in an interview:

“We rise out of disorder into order. I would sooner write free verse as play tennis with the net down.”

I would also note his dual refrain in the poem “Mending Wall”:

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.”

“Good fences make good neighbors, my neighbor says.”

Once again: the creative act never seems that far from Deleuze’s mind. But then it is not uncommon for any creative person to refer to the nature of the act they are engaged in. Most creative acts (if not all (end up being self referencing in that they are a manifesto for the individual’s particular mode of operation.

And we can see the roots of Deleuze’s respect for the refrain in Difference and Repetition based on the analytic/metaphysical assertion that even a pure repetition, at best, can only be different instances of the same thing; therefore, the only thing that can truly be repeated is difference.

And we see it all over the creative act. This is why, for instance, the refrain in Ginsberg’s “Howl” is so powerful to us: because it was powerful enough to him to set off a whole chain of associations. And anyone that has written poetry knows this. But it is not just within the work itself; the refrain is important as well in the life of creative –that is if they are to be creative. Think, for instance, of a dialogue out of Cronenberg’s The Fly in which Jeff Goldblum describes Einstein’s wardrobe. According to it, if you had looked into Einstein’s closet, what you would have seen was a repetition of the same uniform: a refrain. The reason he did this was because he didn’t want to waste a lot of mental energy on deciding what he wanted to wear that day.

(And I would note here how this goes to my concept of efficiency: the lowering of resources exerted towards one thing so that they can be exerted towards something more important.)

That said, what I hope to get into tomorrow is how, as Deleuze sees it, such repetitions: refrains (via becoming (become a path to social justice: a source of empathy which is all we really need to make things right.

We repeat ourselves to get beyond ourselves.

Rhizome 5/29/16:

“That said, what I hope to get into tomorrow is how, as Deleuze sees it, such repetitions: refrains (via becoming (become a path to social justice: a source of empathy which is all we really need to make things right.

We repeat ourselves to get beyond ourselves.” –from rhizome 5/28/16

"Music, then, is a form of becoming, and it is “inseparable” from three specific forms of becoming, , "a becoming-woman, a becoming-child, a becoming-animal (with a becoming molecular implicit in all three)… Why a becoming-woman, -child, -animal? Social coding operates by way of asymmetrical binary oppositions, in Western societies through an implicit privileging of male over female, adult over child, rational over animal, white over colored, etc. A becoming deterritorializes such codes and in its operations necessarily engages the underprivileged term of each of these binary oppositions. Hence, “There is no becoming-man, for man is the molar entity par excellence, whereas becomings are molecular”. –From Ronald Bogue’s Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts

“We’re going to build a wall; and the Mexicans are going to pay for it.” –Donald Trump

If we really think about it, we can easily see how Trump’s phallocentric and molar nonsense might appeal to republicans and the right. He comes off as the tightfisted patriarchal figure that will brush everyone aside and, seeing the simple answer in the midst of confusion, heroically set everything straight. And this, of course, appeals to fancy which, as described by Coleridge , is characteristic of intellectual and creative laziness that, in its laziness, fails to make the transition to imagination: the molecular understanding of the actual complexities involved in the issue of migration –not the to mention the simple detail that Mexico is not likely to comply. The frightening irony at work here is that the Republicans, in their molar simplicity, are basically supporting Trump (as they do many republican candidates (that is despite their many references to Stalin in reaction to progressive policies (for the very same reason that Russia supported Stalin at the end of the Russian revolution: he was a tightfisted can do kind of guy. And the same can be said for Hitler.

And as a progressive in the Midwest, I can see this phallocentric and molar dynamic all over the right. I mean there is a reason they also tend to talk about hunting and listen to country music, why the underlying message is always: keep things simple. It’s always about empowerment. I mean take a poll at any Nascar race and you’re likely to find that most of them are Republicans. Any sporting event for that matter –most of which will be sponsored by Bud: the hard beer. Of course, one has to wonder what happens when the system tells them: sorry guy’s, there is no longer enough fossil fuel left to support wasting it on trivial races. Will their fanciful selves come up with government conspiracies aimed at bringing down white males?

It is this present human and social condition that makes Deleuze’s emphasis on becoming (via creative play with concepts (bricolage if you will (so important.

We become to evolve. It takes creativity to do so: the transition from fancy to imagination (the molar to the molecular. And if we don’t evolve (become more feminine or childlike or animal (I really do love my dog because my dog really loves me, we may well end up destroying ourselves.

I mean there is a reason that most creative people tend to be progressive and, in America, support the Democratic Party.

May I ask you why you are so interested in “rhizomes”?

Rhizome 6/24/16, a kind of Ritz Cracker approach in which, not knowing what it is I want to say, I randomly bounce off of strings emerging in Open Mic and hopefully draw some energy from it. It’s kind Vampire-like if you think about it:

“Yikes, where to start.1. You are making grave errors in thinking here: 1.” –Janet

“How do you know you aren’t, Janet?” –Me

“ D Edward Tarkington I am not making errors in my thinking.” –Janet

Once again, Janet: how do you know you aren’t? I’m confident that if I scrutinized what you were saying enough, I would likely find them. Everyone has them. I mean a complete vision of the world would be a pointless one. In fact, I have found one already:

It is one thing to say you respectfully disagree with a person and proceed to show why. It is quite another to accuse someone of having errors in their thinking then claim that you have none –that is when we know goddamn good and well that you do. That comes off as authoritarian and dogmatic which is the very kind of thing that philosophy seeks to undermine. And believe me, it can shut down a discourse just like that.

Anyway:

“But Basic Income SAVES CAPITALISM for sure and I don’t want it saved. I want it to implode before the planet is completely gone for all the species I love. OK with me if humans go.” –Janet

I agree with the first part to the extent that it does save Capitalism. In fact, Zizek brought this up in one of his U-tube lectures in which he points out that, with a BUI, it would be harder for us show any dissent towards Capitalism –that is since it would be Capitalism supporting BUI. And this goes to the same problem I see with utilitarianism in terms of Efficiency: it seeks to maximize happiness; but you have to ask “at whose or what’s expense?” Utilitarianism is basically anthrocentric and neglectful of the other systems that sustain our species. There is the risk that BUI would sustain our current propensity towards consumption that our eco-systems cannot sustain –especially given the expansionary model that producer/consumer Capitalism works by.

As far as “OK with me if humans go,” I can sympathize while not agreeing. We are an evolving species that is at an important evolutionary step: we either work our way beyond our evolutionary heritage of the competitive mode, that which has gotten us to this point thus far, into the cooperative which emerged as we evolved into to more complex systems, or we end up losing it all. And I would note (as despairing as it may seem at times (how, between slavery, women, labor, gay and minority rights, drug laws even, the progressives (the ones working to facilitate the evolutionary step into the cooperative mode (have always been shown to be right. Always! And what we’re seeing with Trump is little more than an evolutionary backlash from a relatively young and adolescent country that’s having a hard time with doing what every other developed country has had to: step down from above other countries and take its place among them.

So I am not allowed to ask you why you are so interested in “rhizomes”, D63?

My Take on the Rhizomatic Method via the Analogy of a Fireworks Show:

Alright!!! Imagine watching a fireworks show. You see several projectiles rip upward into the nighttime sky and, suddenly, break out (in all directions (into other projectiles that, in turn, break out in all directions into other projectiles that explode into globes of light and fire that also consists of singularities that act in ways similar to the model I started this model with. We can see a similar dynamic at work (in a more slow motion manner (in the way a rosebush or the brain (via brain plasticity (break from themselves. But let’s stick with fireworks in order to get at the intensity that Deleuze and Guatarri were getting at.

(And it is important to note here that by the time D & G got to A Thousand Plateaus, they had decided (due to the real world results of The Anti-Oedipus (drug addicts and such: the consequences of constant acceleration (to tone it down.)

Of course, I have mislead you here in that the model I have presented comes off as arborescent in that it all starts with those initial projectiles, much as trees, rosebushes, and brains (via brain plasticity (do. But sometimes the only way out is through. So let us now imagine that same fireworks show just suddenly appearing in the nighttime sky without the initial projections: all these explosions just suddenly expanding from all points with no real center.

Now we’re getting closer. But not close enough. Now we have to consider the fractal nature of all the internal events at work in the explosions going on before us. But, for poops and giggles, let’s now imagine those explosions (those blossomings (going on all around us –much as reality does. And, once again, the only way out is through: sometimes you have to imagine the graspable in order to grasp (or imagine (what is beyond the grasp of our mental resources.

So I would now ask you to imagine all those fractal interactions (even the fireworks if it helps (contained in an aquarium: all this motion pushing against motion always enfolding motion while always being enfolded.

Now imagine the glass walls of that aquarium expanding into infinity.