Rhizomes:

“And it is this very intellectual arrogance propped up by the Capitalist values of the vertical hierarchy of classicism that Rorty and the pragmatic approach seek to undermine…. And no doubt he [John] can buttress his position with the fact that the money goes where he is going –something that the inquiries of science and mathematics seem blind to.

“But let us also look at the hypocrisy of passing off all processes that don’t bow to science and the capital that backs it (simply because they can’t produce an I-phone (as somehow beholden to the supernatural or a religion when, in fact, Science and Capitalism has become the new religion: a faith, according to the analytic approach (once again: backed by capital, that must condemn (by any means necessary (the non-believers: pragmatists, post-moderns, me….” –Rhizome 3/24/16

“Science thinks it knows more than it does.” –Donald Hughes

“I thought the whole idea behind science is that it is not infallible. That would make it fantastic. Like a deity?” –Tony Rothwell

I would first admit that Rhizome 3/24/16 was not one of my best moments in that it was primarily inspired by having nothing better to write about: to fill the 4 to 500 word space I have committed to everyday –that is except for Tuesday (the second day of my weekend (which I have delegated to being something like a normal person: no facebook and a barbecue –weather permitting. But I digress.

While it may have been a bit of an exaggeration to call science the new religion (and though I spent a lot of time at work last night second guessing myself (I would still argue that it is more of a faith than its advocates would like to admit. And I risk the informal fallacy of an appeal to authority in pointing out that Rorty and many postmodern thinkers point to the enlightenment folly of displacing religion only to put science in as a replacement that only continued many of the same hierarchal social dynamics. And I would also note science’s close relationship with Capitalism (via corporate financing (which can be seen to be a kind of religion in its faith in the god-like entity of the “Invisible Hand” of the market. As I like to say (exploiting the paradigmatic nature of language:

It use to be “pray hard and follow these principles, and you too may enter the kingdom of heaven”.

Now it’s “work hard and follow these principles, and you too may enter the kingdom of success”.

And I would argue this to be a dynamic at the back the minds of those who advocate fanatical scientism, those who would arrogantly assume that science and mathematics has some kind of privileged language game.

But let’s put aside the effect of Capitalism on science and focus on science in itself. As Donald and Tony rightly suggest, there is an element of faith involved in extreme scientism. And if you think about it, this faith is generally argued for based on what it believes science will eventually be able to do. It presumes a determined universe based on the few simple systems it has managed to predict via linear causality. For instance, it is based on this linear causality that it can present the homunculus problem as proof perfect of the non-existence of free will and the illusion of consciousness. But the homunculus problem seems to have no application to the causal (and likely non-linear (feedback loop that occurs between the body, the brain, and the environment they are working to negotiate.

What I’m struggling (fumbling even (to get across here is that what scientism is engaging in (including that which obtusely dismisses philosophy and the pragmatic approach (is, in fact, a form of faith in that it is working from its successes with finite systems and making totally unjustified leaps to the nature of reality: the infinite. Its claim to privilege is based on an assertion that everything is determined based on the few determined systems it has found (those it can predict ( and, therefore, can only prop up its privilege on what it assumes it will EVENTUALLY be able to do: the promise land of science (the kingdom of success.

Rhizome 3/26/16:

“No philosopher was ever more worthy, but neither was any philosophy more maligned and hated. To grasp the reason for this it is not enough to recall the great theoretical thesis of Spinozism: a single substance having an infinity of attributes, Deus sive Natura, all “creatures” being only modes of these attributes or modifications of this substance. It is not enough to show how pantheism and atheism are combined in this thesis, which denies the existence of a moral, transcendent, creator God. We must start rather from the practical theses that made Spinozism an object of scandal. These theses imply a triple denunciation: of “consciousness”, of “values”, and of “sad passions”.” -from Deleuze’s Spinoza: Practical Philosophy.

I would first note, having just entered this immersion for about the second or third time (I’m sure it is the third, how much of a difference it makes having actually had a couple of immersions in Spinoza himself. It’s as if having done so has altered my filters in such a way that I can read Deleuze’s book with the same ease I might a Steven King novel. And this says something about about the deferred systems of meaning involved in philosophy.

Secondly, I would note that I was wrong in my immersion in Spinoza to mainly associate Deleuze’s interest in him with Spinoza’s metaphysical system: substance. It was clearly rooted in Spinoza’s defiance against the common doxa of his time: hence the subtitle “Practical Philosophy” -although I wouldn’t totally dismiss the role the metaphysical/ontological played in it.

Where I can claim some bragging rights is in recognizing is the value of taking on a materialistic perspective (even if it is provisional as is my case (in that by doing so, we get a better understanding of the human condition by recognizing the underlying systems that are the foundations to what we experience as consciousness. In this sense, it works in the same way evolutionary psychology does while not condemning us to its mandates. And Spinoza did this by arguing that what can make us free (confronted with a god incapable of free will (is our capacity for reason: that which extends from the body and its passions. And in that sense, it seems to me that he was still clinging to the classicist model of mind over emotion and body. But then culture has always worked in baby steps.

At the same time, what I see in this is the genealogical root of Deleuze and Guatarri’s desiring production: that which works through sad affects (that which takes power from the individual (and joyful effects: that which empowers the individual.

My mission (should I choose to accept it (is to somehow meld it into my golden egg: the concept of Efficiency: that which is maximized by minimizing the differential between the energy put into an action and the energy gotten out of it.

It just seems to me that our culture has primarily been based on the Capitalist value of more. And, thus far, it has proved unsatisfying.

The rhizome of the etymology is the radical reflection of the definition. one of the roots of the existential philosophy of the Protestant Kierkegaard, gave Heidegger’s ontology the attractiveness of the nonspeculative. Just as the concept of existence is a false conceptualization of existing things, the complementary precedence which these things are given over the concept allows the ontological concept of existence to profit in turn. If the individual is a socially transmitted phenomenon, so is his form of theoretical epistemological reflection. The category of the root, the origin, is a category of dominion. It confirms that a man ranks first because he was there first; it confirms the autochthon against the newcomer, the settler against the migrant. The origin—seductive because it will not be appeased by the derivative, by ideology—is itself an ideological principle. But the project is a false one; all meaning, derives and is derived, and all language is dendritic as well as radical: there are no roots which are not also the stems of trees.

Rhizome 3/27/16:

“At the same time, what I see in this is the genealogical root of Deleuze and Guatarri’s desiring production: that which works through sad affects (that which takes power from the individual (and joyful effects: that which empowers the individual.
My mission (should I choose to accept it (is to somehow meld it into my golden egg: the concept of Efficiency: that which is maximized by minimizing the differential between the energy put into an action and the energy gotten out of it.
It just seems to me that our culture has primarily been based on the Capitalist value of more. And, thus far, it has proved unsatisfying.”

“I also wanted to mention that ‘more’ is not inherently to be despised. Capitalism is a perversion of ‘more’ love, more life, more solidarity and community, more joy.

Instead it has symbolically transferred all these ‘mores’ into more profit. It has convinced people psychologically that profit is the only more that matters- that all the other mores are dependent on the foundational one of profit. Almost everyone has internalized this now and it becomes increasingly hard to question.

But more itself is not to blame!” –my respected peer, Greg Enge

First of all, Greg, thanks for today’s rhizome.

That said, ‘more’, in itself, is not altogether to blame and can even be useful within the model of Efficiency. Unfortunately, a lot of our difference on the issue comes out the fact that I have, for the most part, only mentioned the term and given an entry definition (that which is maximized by minimizing the differential between that put into an act and that gotten out (without actually describing the interactive matrix it works in. This, once again, is why I really need to write that article.

And I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you, my friend, have stepped on the landmine of giving me an opportunity to go into it in a little more detail -which could take several rhizomes/days. And as a great thinker of the 90’s, the Brain from Pinky and the Brain would say:

“Now I’ll be able to carry out my diabolical plan to take over the world.”

First of all, I’m guessing that your point comes out of Efficiency being thus far thought of as a single entity. Which is my bad for not describing it in any detail. But what I’m actually talking about is an ecological system (very similar to that of Deleuze and Guatarri’s desiring production (in which various instances of efficiency/expectation interact. You, for instance, are an instance of efficiency consisting of various sub efficiencies (your various needs, demands, and desires (to which you are the supra-efficiency (that are, in turn, supra-efficiencies to the various sub efficiencies that constitute their makeup. At the same time, you are a sub-efficiency to the various social systems you find yourself affiliated with: your family, your workplace, your city, your state, your country, and your world as a whole. And threading throughout these various degrees of locality is the always supra-efficiency of the coexistence of efficiencies or what (now that I have described it (we can reduce to (for sake of brevity ( coexistence.

Now I hate to break this down, so soon, into the atomistic building blocks of the model, but it goes to the issue of the role “more” plays in it. It comes down to a formula I have devised:

Epot=R/e

Or to blue-collarize it: Efficiency potential =Resources/expectations. So let’s play with it. Let’s say you and I are working on a project (an instance of coexistence (and have a resource pool of 30. We divide that pool into 15 apiece. Now we have 2 instances of expectation/efficiency that look like Epot=15/e. Then we say we both have an expectation factor of 2: Epot=15/2 which means that both our Efficiency potentials comes up to 7.5. Now say I decide to become a self indulgent prick and decide I have higher expectations: say 3. Now what I have to do to maintain the same Epot is take more from the resource pool which would add up to about 24 which would leave you 6 and an Epot of 5.This threatens our instance of co-existence in that you have one of 2 choices in order to get back to the Epot you were at. You either have to take, by force, those resource factors I took from you or break away thereby stealing resource factors from the initial instance of co-existence (put mind here that your cooperation with me in the first place was a resource to me (in order to seek resources elsewhere.

To bring this back to a more nominal level, Greg, and to get to the question, I not sure that the Democratic and union solution (while helpful (of more (more wages, more benefits (is as useful an answer to our problems as a more thoughtful distribution of resources and the expectations being imposed on people. People, for instance, should not be forced to focus resources on owning a car in order to function in the job market –resources, BTW, that they could be focusing on what justifies their point A to point B. To me, it is not so much a matter of more wages as lowering the money they have to put into just getting by. The problem isn’t that we’re not making enough; it’s that everything costs too much.

Anyway, it’s a lot to explain. Hope I haven’t totally mucked it up.

Rhizome 3/28/16:

[Based on shared pic by Dan Rayburn (who called it terrible (with the statement:

Wouldn’t be great if all the socialists in America (shows American social democrats (went to live in socialist countries: shows some kind of line (a reference to breadlines apparently (in some third world latin country[

This is, yet again, an expression of the desperation of FreeMarketFundamentalism in the face of Capitalism’s daily failures to do as it promised, the usual misdirect propped up by complete ignorance of what Marx actually said.

Marx basically acknowledged that we would have to go through a Capitalist phase (he was, after all, heavily influenced by Adam Smith (in order to build the means of production and technology. Now let us note the language on the sign: Spanish. So we’re basically talking about a third world country that, not having gone through the same Capitalist phase as all western industrialized nations: that process of developing the means of production and technology, made the attempt to jump from a mainly agrarian society to a socialist one. I mean it was the same dynamic at work with both Russia and China. And it was a dynamic that was and is quite different than the dynamic those young Social Democrats in America and every other developed nation are dealing with. And America, by the very prescience that Marx showed, is a prime candidate for the experiment they are asking for, an experiment that will likely succeed much as it has in Scandinavian countries.

What the FreeMarketFundamentalists need to think about is the fascistic nature of what they are doing. And in order to understand this, we need only look at the almost Orwellian staged event of the failure of the Weimar Republic (social democrats (that got the Nazis in. No one, at the time, was looking at the fact that the Weimar Republic failed mainly because of sanctions being put on Germany at the time as a result of WWI. They just, out of theoretical laziness, engaged in the false causation of assuming that it was all the fault of those in power.

And we can see that same kind of goonish misdirect at work in the heavy-handed (and ineffective to anyone smart enough to know better (humor at work in the pic.
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And I would also note here one of the main concerns among Cubans as America opens up their relationship with them. Many of them are concerned that American healthcare corporations will sneak in and destroy their access to healthcare as they know it.
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“Now I hate to break this down, so soon, into the atomistic building blocks of the model, but it goes to the issue of the role “more” plays in it. It comes down to a formula I have devised:

Epot=R/e

Or to blue-collarize it: Efficiency potential =Resources/expectations. So let’s play with it. Let’s say you and I are working on a project (an instance of coexistence (and have a resource pool of 30. We divide that pool into 15 apiece. Now we have 2 instances of expectation/efficiency that look like Epot=15/e. Then we say we both have an expectation factor of 2: Epot=15/2 which means that both our Efficiency potentials comes up to 7.5. Now say I decide to become a self indulgent prick and decide I have higher expectations: say 3. Now what I have to do to maintain the same Epot is take more from the resource pool which would add up to about 24 which would leave you 6 and an Epot of 5.This threatens our instance of co-existence in that you have one of 2 choices in order to get back to the Epot you were at. You either have to take, by force, those resource factors I took from you or break away thereby stealing resource factors from the initial instance of co-existence (put mind here that your cooperation with me in the first place was a resource to me (in order to seek resources elsewhere.”

The point , Greg, is that “more” plays a role in it to the extent that it helps when it comes to resources. Our efficiency potential increases with the increase of our local resources. But it can also increase when we lower our expectations.

And the main reason I’m excited about it (why I consider it my golden egg (is because it stands in opposition to the expansionary model we can no longer sustain. It applies, as well, to environmental issues in that as we increase our population (our expectation factor (the earth we live on remains a static resource factor.

Rhizome 3/31/16:

“People in power want to stay in power. One way to establish power, is to provide a reason for that power. Illiterate people are not the problem, It’s simply the distinction that is the problem.” –Chris Horner

“It is theory of the affections as a whole that defines the status of the sad passions. Whatever their justification, they represent the lowest degree of our power, the moment when we are most separated from our power of acting, when we are most alienated, delivered over to the phantoms of superstition, to the mystifications of the tyrant." -from Gille Deleuze’s Spinoza: Practical Philosophy

What Deleuze follows this with (perhaps (perhaps not (via Spinoza (is the import of the joyful passions: that in which one has the power to affect (as compared to the sad passions: that in which one lacks the power to avoid being affected.

And we can see this at work in the success of Trump who is clearly exploiting the impotence of his followers through a false sense of empowerment.
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Anyway, one of the issues I’m starting to take up with Spinoza (which may end up a non-issue (is his emphasis on sad and joyful affects which center around power. But don’t get me wrong: it is a powerful conceptual construct. Basically, the sad affect is that situation in which the given individual (the body (is affected by a body with more power while the joyful affect consists of having the power to affect another body. And it makes perfect sense when you consider the nature of your shitty moments in life (when everything seems to be happening to you (and the good ones in which you seem to have the Midas touch and everything seems to turn to gold. There is no disputing the application of Spinoza’s model.

(And it would be interesting to apply this to things like gambling, drug, or alcohol addictions, the dynamic of self abuse perpetuated through the too brief moments of joyful affects. I’ll try to go into this tomorrow.)

The problem for me is that this seems like yet another model built around the notion of “more”. And full confession: my issue here is mainly built around my vested interest in what I consider to be my own golden egg: Efficiency: that which is maximized by minimizing the differential between the resources put into an act and the resources gotten out –that which I tried to explain in rhizomes 3/27/16 and 3/28/16.

At the same time, I can’t help but feel that Spinoza was approaching it in the very contradiction of pushing a model that seems to be about more power while also pimping the ascetic. It’s similar to the sense I get of Marx. On one hand he seems be talking in the language of more (more wages, more benefits, more personal time, and whatever I forgot to mention (while seeming to be seeking Efficiency: of being able to minimize the resources we put into the petty and mundane so that we can focus them on finding our higher selves: self creation as Rorty would put it.

This was why Spinoza put his emphasis on self-empowerment through reason (adequate ideas (while railing against the petty and mundane through the ascetic.

That said, and my window closing in, I want to commit tomorrow’s rhizome to the concept of Jouissance as described by Lacan and Zizek.

Rhizome 4/1/16:

“Anyway, one of the issues I’m starting to take up with Spinoza (which may end up a non-issue (is his emphasis on sad and joyful affects which center around power. But don’t get me wrong: it is a powerful conceptual construct. Basically, the sad affect is that situation in which the given individual (the body (is affected by a body with more power while the joyful affect consists of having the power to affect another body. And it makes perfect sense when you consider the nature of your shitty moments in life (when everything seems to be happening to you (and the good ones in which you seem to have the Midas touch and everything seems to turn to gold. There is no disputing the application of Spinoza’s model….

“The problem for me is that this seems like yet another model built around the notion of “more”….

“That said, and my window closing in, I want to commit tomorrow’s rhizome to the concept of Jouissance as described by Lacan and Zizek.” –from rhizome 3/31/16

Now, of course, a lot of what follows must be attributed to Spinoza’s point in our cultural evolution. And by that criteria he warrants all the accolades he gets while still keeping in mind that the evolution of a culture , by definition, is a process of getting beyond those who have gone before us. It is primarily an issue of a shortcoming in his prescience (even though it was right there for him to recognize –in fact, within the very ecstasy inherent in the concept of the joyful affect (but it is a prescience we could not possibly expect of him given the intellectual technology as it stood in his day.

The main problem I am seeing is that while Spinoza made some revolutionary breaks from the classicist tradition, he still seems beholden to it in his desire to break everything down to first principles. And in doing so, he offers us a model that just seems a little too pat: a simple spectrum between sad and joyful affects that offers a simple way to find ‘the good life’.

What he seems to have failed to get is the complex, subtle, and dynamic interaction of sad and joyful affects that constitute our experience of pleasure as described by Lacan in terms of Jouissance:

(And I apologize to the readers on the Zizek board for explaining what they’re likely all too familiar with.)

We start with the experience of sex. Now if you really think about it, it is, as Lacan describes, an experience of pleasure at a conscious level (empowerment even to put it in Spinoza’s terms (while being an experience of displeasure at a subconscious level. As Lacan defends his point: if you were to cut it off right at the point of climax, the individuals involved would experience displeasure –or blue-balls as we commoners like to call it. But it runs deeper and more subtle than that. Once again: if you really think about it, sex is a process of working one’s way to a threshold that will take them out of place they are really enjoying at the time. It’s like being pulled in two directions at the same time.

Lacan then goes on to reverse this by recognizing that a lot of our hysterical and neurotic tendencies are the result of experiencing displeasure at a conscious level while experiencing pleasure at a subconscious one. And this makes perfect sense since there could be no other reason we would repeat behaviors that give us displeasure. For example, a guy in a relationship finds himself imagining the woman he loves having sex with other men, men he sees as being, in evolutionary terms, superior to him. What he eventually has to admit is that the reason he repeats this behavior is that he is taking pleasure from imagining the pleasure of his lover getting pleasure he feels he cannot give her: yet another repeated pattern based on his feeling of inferiority that he continually indulges in like a neurosis.

And Spinoza may have failed to see this because he didn’t get a lot of sex. But he should have seen it in the pleasure we get from philosophy: the mixed dynamic of pleasure and displeasure that keeps us all coming back for more.

Still, we can fold into this dynamic (the dynamic of Jouissance (the empowerment of joyful affects and the disempowerment of sad affects. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder why Deleuze didn’t take this into consideration. Or did he?

That’s an interesting fallacy, Nicolae. At the same time, it’s a little like the naturalistic fallacy (that which assumes that because something seems more rooted in nature, we are somehow committed to it –a fallacy that Neo-Liberals like to appeal to a lot in acting like Capitalism is some kind of natural force (in that it can basically be considered a sub-category of the appeal to authority. Much as the naturalistic fallacy appeals to the authority of nature, the appeal to purity is equally an appeal to the authority of a the given social group one is attached to. In fact, were we to take a Saussurian paradigmatic approach to it, we could easily exchange the statement:

“No True Scotsman….”

with:

“No Natural Scotsman….”

Both seem to be in complete denial as concerns the purpose of evolution: that of improving on flaws within any given system such as that of nature or being a Scotsman. That said, the image’s explanation of how the tactic works seems legit to me. I can only add to it by pointing out that it basically a variation of a point made by Layotard (via Wittgenstein (in The Postmodern Condition: that too often, in our striving for power, we tend to resort to the tactic of putting more import on controlling the rules of language game at the neglect of content. Marcuse refers to this as operationalism. And nothing, to me, could be more important in understanding the nonsense being thrown at us on a daily basis in the context of our given power structure.

To give an example: when I first started to come on these boards, I found myself, in the wild west of the old Yahoo boards impulsively spouting my semi-Marxist rejection of Bush Jr., confronted with a trained libertarian/neo-liberal economist (Fletch (who, for every point I could make, could beat me down with 10 pieces of data and information. He also came with his personal little cheer-squad: a group of parasitic goons that, in packs, tended to take over boards and turn it into their own little circle jerk. I knew at the time, even though I lacked the time, that for every piece of data he offered there were several others out there that disputed his main agenda. But that didn’t matter to him or his little cheer squad. All that mattered was that I was losing according to the criterion (the rules of the language game (they were imposing on me. And I would point out something I found out after the fact from Thom Hartman about what it was I had confronted: that conservative think tanks and corporations were financing intellectual hit-men to go on message boards and destroy any argument against their power based agenda.

Of course, Fletch’s argument, when I confronted him on it, was that he was just presenting the facts –that is when all he was really presenting was data which is as interesting for the facts it excludes as the ones it includes.

The point is, Nicolae, whether it is an appeal to purity, or nature, or to a data war, it is ultimately an appeal to authority which is always, at bottom, an appeal to authority and the power discourse (think Foucault here (behind it.

PS: thanks for today’s rhizome.

Rhizome 4/3/16:

“A body can be anything: it can be an animal, a body of sounds, a mind or an idea; it can be a linguistic corpus, a social, a collectivity.” –from Gille Deleuze’s Spinoza: Practical Philosophy

Here we get at the core of several of Deleuze’s concepts that, for me, centers around the notion of the univocity of Being as it was brought to my attention by Claire Colebrook in her Routledge guide to Deleuze. I would also argue that it underlies Rorty’s pragmatic dismissal of the notion of ontological status. (And I apologize for my obsession with connecting the two; it’s more of a personal agenda in that I have to somehow consolidate two major influences on my process.) And it makes perfect sense (the univocity of being (in that we have to admit that a thing either exists for us or it doesn’t. How, for instance, can we say that the thought that runs through our heads has any less being than the rock that stubs our toe.

(And just for a “look Mom!” moment, we can consider the paradox involved in the notion of nothingness (which the very possibility of our nonexistence (mediated through the phenomenological experience of Presence and Absence (makes possible (in that if nothingness did exist, that which we could also refer to as non-being, then we would have to admit that non-being actually has being. But that was just for shits and giggles.)

But what we’re also approaching here is Deleuze’s concept of Transcendental Empiricism based on the plane of immanence. On one hand, we have the term Empiricism which could lead us to believe that Deleuze was some kind of hardcore realist who merely wanted to deal with what was objectively observable. But his embrace of the univocity of Being clearly rejects that. By the very criteria of the univocity of being, our subjective experiences have no less ontological status than our supposedly objective ones: that based on intersubjectivity. This is why, for instance, Zizek can rightfully point out that the best we can talk about is the subjectively objective and the objectively subjective.

But when we focus on the term Transcendental, the concept of Transcendental Empiricism becomes just the type of oxymoron and paradox that Deleuze, in his profound sense of humor, would embrace. The Transcendental, as it was handed to him by the tradition of Kant, is about the phenomenological experience of experiencing the world. And we need to distinguish this from the transcendent which is more about a metaphysical proposition that will determine the truth value of any statement about the world and reality we might make. In fact, the two terms are diametrically opposed.

And the reason Deleuze (via Spinoza (pulls it off is because he gives privilege to the affects things have on other things as compared to their static qualities such as form. In other words (and by the criteria described above (the ideas running through our heads, that have affects on other ideas (in other words: the subjective (is as worthy of consideration as anything we might be able to look at together.

Rhizome 4/4/16 [based on Pierre’s attached post:

“I admire your willingness to translate Deleuze into another, clearer, language: it’s more useful than deleuzians staying inside Deleuze’s language.”

I could say the same about you, Pierre. In fact, I may have to admit to being outmatched in that you may have taught me few things here. You remind me of Claire Colebrook in that sense. I actually got excited in that this post could be a mother lode that could produce several rhizomes. And I assume, given your name and the fact that you had to translate it, that you are either French or from a French affiliate, which gives you clear advantage in that your filters are more likely to catch the cultural references that Deleuze uses –a source, I have found in my studies of Deleuze (that goddamn Frenchman, of the frustration I tend to experience with Deleuze.

(And I mean it: damn French and their weird, obscure philosophies anyway!!!)

Yet, I keep coming back for more.

(Anyway, as a humorous aside that goes to your point: I have seen discourses on these boards about Deleuze that work within his language. And I could hardly participate in that I couldn’t understand anything they were saying. Eventually, though, I got kind of a chuckle out of it in that I began to wonder if they actually understood each other. It began to feel like they were basically talking past each other in their own little dialogues. And this is not to knock it. It was actually kind of endearing. And you can kind of understand the pleasure they might get from being that comfortable with it much as guitarist would, being familiar enough with the scales to be able to improvise.)

That said, I mainly work that way because I consider myself more of a writer who writes about their experience with philosophy as compared to being an actual philosopher –that which requires a reading list I haven’t the time for. I’m just interested in taking in a lot of influence from a lot of different sources and see what kind of output I can produce because of it. To me it’s more about producing something beautiful (mind-blowing even (than telling anyone what their reality is. And as much as I try to direct myself to other sources (such as literature or social criticism (I always find myself coming back to philosophy which, to me, is like poetry +.

But more importantly (and I see this very quality in your post (I can’t help but be enamored with the Promethean heroics of bringing fire to the people, of actually approaching what some the most beautiful minds in our culture have and, out of the humility one must maintain in the face of such beauty and recognition of the contingencies that got them there, want to bring it to people less fortunate: to give them a taste of the esoteric while always offering the disclaimer that all you could possibly offer is a taste (a steppingstone towards (what is actually there.

BTW: I got this from one quote. There is still a lot left in that post to explore. And as H L Mencken said:

“How would I know what I thought unless I wrote?”

“I am interested: was Deleuze arguing for treating thoughts as being as real as matter? And also I want to ask are you saying, as I think that Leonardo da Vinci said, that nothingness is the impossible?” -Christopher

As promised, Chris, to answer your first question: yes. I mean think about it. What could be more objective to us than our subjective experiences which include our thoughts and our emotions? Why would a thought that passes through our head be any less real to us than the rock that stubs our toe? Especially when you consider the fact that the only reason that rock registers to us is because our brain (via the mind (tells us it’s there via the pain we experience because of it?

And because I am contractually obliged to connect this (keep on topic (with the Pragmatic board (and because it does connect (this was the very issue that Rorty was addressing when, in Philosophy as Mirror of Nature, he chipped away at the common notion of ontological status. The point (as it was with Deleuze (was to undermine this notion that there could be some reality outside of our perception of it, that we could somehow just be here and it could be there without it having to register in our brains. It was a reaction to the realist position.

And anyone that has experienced psychedelics knows better. If the realist position were true, the psychedelic experience would be one of everything looking like it normally does and the hallucinations in the brain being superimposed upon it. But that is not the experience I have ever had with Acid or Shrooms. Reality, for me, was completely transformed into something that felt kind of cartoonish –which I assume to be a throwback to when I was kid and more impressed by bright colors.

As for your second question:

“And also I want to ask are you saying, as I think that Leonardo da Vinci said, that nothingness is the impossible?”

I have to admit that, at first, I was unimpressed. I had all kinds of answers to the question that I would respectfully offer as an alternative. But when I read it before I set out to write this, I realized you’re pretty much spot on. Sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake. But you’re right: nothingness is that kind of thing that philosophers have always struggled with in that it seems like it is something that should exist (Leibniz: why all this rather than nothing? (but that we have no way of proving that it actually exists. Sartre spent a whole chapter of Le Etre et Neant criticizing three notions of Nothingness by three great philosophers (Hegel, Heidegger, and Bergson (only to offer us the equally unsatisfying explanation (even though it was an impressive attempt (that nothingness was curled into the heart of Being like a worm. And we could address the debate over whether nothingness actually exists by switching to the more phenomenological issue of Presence and Absence. But that hardly answers the question: does Nothingness actually exist? All it offers us is a kind of representation of nothingness.

Unfortunately, I have failed to actually address your question in ways I actually set out to do. Your point about Nothingness and the impossible has implications I have somehow managed to distract myself from. And I really hope to address them before our jam on this theme is over.

Rhizome 4/8/16 from a discourse w/ Chris Doveton and Christopher Vaughn on the issue of Free Will:

First of all, guys (and I apologize for the “dear diary” preamble (I always find it hard to get myself to do an immersion in anything but philosophy (such as art or literature –both fiction and poetry (because philosophy tends to offer me something to write my 4 to 500 words about every day. And my present immersion in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (the audiobook version and 55+ hours of listening pleasure (of which I’m about 14 hours into (has pretty much confirmed that suspicion. Still I am constantly nagging at myself to do so because, having found myself flailing my legs and arms in a sea of abstraction, I can’t help but conclude, at some point or other, I really need to get back to something a little more concrete.

That said, this experience has brought me to realize that not having anything to say about what I’m reading may be an advantage in that it gives me time to actually engage in discourses with others –something else I’m always nagging at myself to do. The icing on the cake (and the cherry on top (is that it gives me all that more license to bring more literature into my process which is important in that I’ve always been more interested in being a good writer than telling anyone what the truth is. You have to remember that I started out as a musician.

Anyway:

“I go with the argument that thoughts are internal language symbolizing and processing feeling information. I take the determinist position that we have no control over any thought, it simply issues from us or we somehow register it or receive it - we might be no more than radios with thoughts passing through as waves which we interpret and modulate into imagery - just jammin’ on a rhizome.” –Chris

And your “just jammin’ on a rhizome” is what makes your approach to materialism refreshing and a lot more impressive than many of the hardcore materialists I have encountered on these boards –most of which I ended up in a state of bloodlust with because of their condescending attitude as they flashed around terms like “objectivity” and “the scientific method” while making general statements about the world that fell outside of the perimeters and criteria of both. And I’m guessing (hoping even (that the reason for this is that you have (much as I have (gotten comfortable with the materialist model via Rorty and Deleuze: mainly because it works with the model and manifesto Rorty and Deleuze present us with.

For myself, I embrace it conditionally in the sense of hypothetically accepting it for the sake of Rorty’s model of creative discourse or Deleuze’s (w/Guatarri (model of desiring production.

That said, I would offer some points on the issue I hope you will consider. First of all, I would argue that those that hold out for the possibility of Free Will (a residual of Cartesian dualism (need to stop talking about Free Will and start working in terms of what can start as a participating self, then reduce it to the notion of Participation which says nothing about the extent to which the self participates in it. Once we have done that, we can actually argue (via the science of chaotics (for something not part of the determined universe you describe that emerges in the non-linear (and evolutionary (feedback loop between the body, the brain (as well as the mind that haunts it, and the environment it is attempting to negotiate. For myself, I see the possibility for Participation in that effable and evanescent point at which the determined transforms into the random and the random transforms into the determined.

Just putting it out there.

“Things become a little awkward if our thinking is entirely determined or without any choice of freedom for if freedom is an illusory concept what would the need be of this illusory concept ever appearing in our thoughts? Furthermore, it appears self defeating to say that we can realize that our thoughts are determined, for apparently this has not been actually realized but is merely an imposed thought. Then why should this imposed thought be true? If freedom is illusory why isn’t determinism an illusion?” –Christopher

This is an impressive argument, Christopher. I would only (and respectfully (caution you that it approaches a strategy similar to that of skeptic’s paradox as an argument against the skeptic. The argument runs that one can hardly say that there are no absolutes since to do so is to present yet another absolute. And the response to this from the skeptic would be that there is a big difference between saying one lives in a world in which there are no absolutes and actually living in one. The problem for me is that the paradox is primarily a semantic phenomenon that doesn’t always translate into existential statements about how the world actually works. And we have to consider the possibility that Chris saying he lives in a determined world is different than actually living in one.

But hopefully we’ll get the chance to iron this all out together. Once again: 14 hours in to 55+ hours of listening pleasure.

Rhizome 4/9/16: continued coverage on the ongoing (a term, BTW, discouraged by Strunk and White’s Elements of Style (and may the wrath of Professor Strunk rest in its grave (discourse between me, Chris Doveton​, and Christopher Vaughan​ on the issue of Free Will (what I prefer to call Participation (in the context of Rorty’s pragmatic model of discourse which, to me, has overlaps with Deleuze and Guatarri’s model of desiring production:

“Just want to pick up on a point made by Christopher Vaughan- “…if freedom is an illusory concept what would be the need of this illusory concept ever appearing in our thoughts?” I would suggest as a pragmatist that we need these illusions- they are part of our mythological imagination.” –Chris

“Do you mean that we are not happy with accepting we are totally controlled by something else and so we imagine we are free? But who on earth would be happy to do that? Then happiness would be impossible!

Surely it would be much more productive to actually be free.

You agree there is such a thing as thought and you agree we participate in them, that is, we can think them, although you say we do not produce them, but then why don’t I just produce thoughts myself and be actually free instead of accepting the rather unsatisfactory and pointless illusion of being free and thinking what something else is thinking?”

First of all, guys, in the narrative running through my mind (my fancy (while reading this interchange, I find myself approaching this rhizome as some kind of referee. This is disconcerting to me in that by approaching it in that capacity, I could come off as some kind of final authority which I can assure you is not my intent. In other words, anything that follows is just me adding my two cents. Anyway (and I apologize for repeating the already stated –it is strictly a matter of the continuity of my process justified by the present influence of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest:

“Just want to pick up on a point made by Christopher Vaughan- “…if freedom is an illusory concept what would be the need of this illusory concept ever appearing in our thoughts?” I would suggest as a pragmatist that we need these illusions- they are part of our mythological imagination.” –Chris

I would add to this, Chris, the popular theory from an evolutionary perspective: that our experience of consciousness may have been an evolutionary adaption in that it was what gave us an advantage in having some sense of what it was we were trying to keep going –that which (if we are to accept Dawkin’s theory about the selfish gene (is the conscious expression of some subconscious imperative to sustain our genetic makeup. So I would hesitate before totally dismissing your take on it. At the same time, I would hesitate to dismiss Christopher’s argument for Free Will (what I would prefer to refer to think of as Participation (because I can’t help but feel, due to the model of an emergent property I described in rhizome 4/8/16:

“That said, I would offer some points on the issue I hope you will consider. First of all, I would argue that those that hold out for the possibility of Free Will (a residual of Cartesian dualism (need to stop talking about Free Will and start working in terms of what can start as a participating self, then reduce it to the notion of Participation which says nothing about the extent to which the self participates in it. Once we have done that, we can actually argue (via the science of chaotics (for something not part of the determined universe you describe that emerges in the non-linear (and evolutionary (feedback loop between the body, the brain (as well as the mind that haunts it, and the environment it is attempting to negotiate. For myself, I see the possibility for Participation in that effable and evanescent point at which the determined transforms into the random and the random transforms into the determined.”

:it seems to me (for reasons I hope to articulate on throughout this discourse, Chris, that the semi-eliminative materialism and strict determinism you are backing results from a linear model of causality as compared to the feedback loops of causality I am seeing. This is why, for instance, the homunculus argument against Free Will is so effective in that comes off (because of the linear model of causality (as an infinite regress. But more on that later as I am contractually obligated to get to Christopher’s point:

“Do you mean that we are not happy with accepting we are totally controlled by something else and so we imagine we are free? But who on earth would be happy to do that? Then happiness would be impossible!

Surely it would be much more productive to actually be free.

You agree there is such a thing as thought and you agree we participate in them, that is, we can think them, although you say we do not produce them, but then why don’t I just produce thoughts myself and be actually free instead of accepting the rather unsatisfactory and pointless illusion of being free and thinking what something else is thinking?”

What I would ask you to consider here (via Spinoza), Christopher, is that happiness is a cumulative effect (a kind of narrative even (of pleasant experiences: what Spinoza would refer to as joyful affects. But you are right (in the sense of me agreeing with you (when you say:

“Surely it would be much more productive to actually be free. “

I mean in terms of the evolutionary model and imperative I am offering, it would be far more productive to actually have a consciousness w/ free will (or, once again, Participation (than an illusion of one. But we have to remember that we’re mainly making a deductive argument here. At same time, I find myself clearly in your corner when you say:

“You agree there is such a thing as thought and you agree we participate in them, that is, we can think them, although you say we do not produce them, but then why don’t I just produce thoughts myself and be actually free instead of accepting the rather unsatisfactory and pointless illusion of being free and thinking what something else is thinking?”

I ask once again: if consciousness and Free Will (Participation (is an illusion, what exactly is it an illusion to?

Rhizome 4/10/16 on the ongoing (and may the wrath of Professor Strunk rest in its grave (between me, Christopher Vaughanr, and Chris Doveton in which I find myself having to referee for the sake of de-escalating what could escalate into bloodsport –that is while exploiting the opportunity to bring in a quote from D.F. Wallace’s Infinite Jest:

“There is nothing to wrap up as you are refusing to address any questions I ask and have instead resorted to rather provocative remarks implying your superiority” –Christopher

“I’ve read back and I see you are absolutely right! Condescending etc…Sorry about that! Ok then, hope that’s cleared up , Cya.” –Chris

“ D Edward Tarkington over to you Ed, to wrap things up here…” -Chris

First of all, guys, we need to take it a little easier here and ask ourselves how much life would be really changed if either side of the debate was finally declared, beyond question, to be the correct one. It’s like the joke I like to offer to hardcore determinists: if they were to give me the next winning lotto numbers I would be more than willing to admit they were right; that way they could have the satisfaction of being confirmed while I could have the satisfaction of being rich. A win-win by any criteria as far as I’m concerned.

But no one has to win here. Right?

Christopher, on these boards I have found myself in a kind of bloodlust with 2 types: hardcore Libertarians and Hardcore Materialists. They tend to come off as condescending and dismissive. But let’s give Chris a little credit for not doing so. He, for instance (as many materialists do, has not thrown out words like “objectivity” and “the scientific method” then made assertions that fit the criteria of neither. Thus far, to me, he has just been making his point. And I would note that he doesn’t baffle us with big words as you noted on another post that I have saved and plan to respond to.

Chris, having dealt with hardcore materialists as I have on these boards, I know perfectly well how easy it is for someone who holds out for some possibility of Free Will (or Participation (to develop a bit of a hairline trigger when it comes to how condescending those who argue from the Capitalist backed position of scientism can be. I would only ask that you be sensitive to that and keep in mind that the issue, as of yet, has not been conclusively determined.

Alright:

“Son, you’re ten, and this is hard news for somebody ten, even if you’re almost five-eleven, a possible pituitary freak. Son, you’re a body, son. That quick little scientific-prodigy’s mind she’s so proud of and won’t quit twittering about: son, it’s just neural spasms, those thoughts in your mind are just the sound of your head revving, and head is still just body, Jim. Commit this to memory. Head is body. Jim, brace yourself against my shoulders here for this hard news, at ten: you’re a machine a body an object, Jim, no less than this rutilant Montclair, this coil of hose here or that rake there for the front yard’s gravel or sweet Jesus this nasty fat spider flexing in its web over there up next to the rake-handle, see it? See it?” -Wallace, David Foster (2009-04-03). Infinite Jest (p. 159). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Here, as we have seen with Spinoza, Deleuze, and Rorty, the value of accepting the materialist position for sake of a usable model that can help us explain the world and how to act in it. Still, choices seem to be being made. This is where I depart with you, Chris. You say:

“I first came to a skeptical position on free will after working through the homunculus or infinite regress argument. Even without the neuroscience, this seems to fairly damn free will in any traditional essentialist sense. There is certainly something irrefutable about “will” of course, but I imagine it in the way Schopenhauer or those sort of people wrote about it…Rorty writes very cogently about how Freud de-centered the self into a series of cyclic processes with no governing agency - like a machine as he put it…”

Now before I go on, I want to first make my own attempt to explain the Homunculus problem for Christopher and its relation to infinite regress:

From its perspective, Christopher, we start with a supposed little man that is in our brain that is, as Chris describes, acting as the captain of the ship: our body. The problem is that we then have to imagine yet another little man inside the head of the captain that must contain yet another little man and so on and so on until we end up with a kind of infinite regress.

And this is where I depart from Chris in questioning the linear nature of causality folded in to the argument when, as I see it, causality is more about non-linear feedback loops between the body, the brain (as well as the mind (consciousness as we experience it, and our environment. And I would respectfully ask Chris to consider the possibility that his embrace of homunculus argument is based on a questionable assumption: the linear model of causality. Also, I think we have to question why it is that an infinite regress automatically constitutes some kind of failure. To me, it seems to be the way things are: the strings of causality all receding and converging into the distance, into nothingness.

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.