Friday, February 20, 2009
To touch rhythm is to be touched by rhythm. Though he doesn't say "touch," Lefebvre invites us to see touch as a model for how we interpret rhythm. There is more to understanding rhythm, however, than being absorbed by it. Before proceeding I have to step back and look at what Lefebvre is doing with the concept of perpetuity, the uninterrupted reach, the going through, or the seeking through that has come to be synonymous with diuturnity. Once again he distinguishes between the cyclical and the linear and says that "[t]he linear is the daily grind, the routine, therefore the perpetual, made up of chance and encounters" (Rhythmanalysis, p. 30). He has said that the linear and the cyclical combine, but he clearly means here to define the linear as both routine and grind, both the aleatory and the perpetual. The first thing to note, then, is that there may be a cyclical element to Lefebvre's "linear" time. It encompasses the beaten path and the breaking of paths. It does not however foresee the end of paths, or the ends of journeys. It does not anticipate heat death. It apparently has no significant relation to finitude nor to exhaustion. What then is the difference between the linear and the cyclical? Let's look at a couple more instances of Lefebvre's sense of perpetuity. Speaking of "the lessons of the street" and the "teachings of the window," he says that they "perpetuate themselves by renewing themselves" (p. 33). A pleonasm, or rather a tautology? Well, should we think of the linear as renewal, or is there a contradiction at work here, a paradox whereby the beaten path is also the path of renewal? He also says that people "come in crowds, in perpetual flows" (p. 34). We say "perpetual flow" readily enough, but in doing so are we speaking in riddles? What do we really believe about flows? Are our beliefs consistent with a polyrhythmic grasp of being such as Lefebvre recommends?
What is the relation of perpetuity to memory? To meditation? Lefebvre has given us an interesting idea to puzzle over: to grasp the rhythms of the street, he says, requires "a bit of time, a sort of meditation on time" (p. 30). Can we say that to be touched by rhythm is to be in two times at once? Would these be separate times, joined only by rhythm, or might they be modalities of a unitary time? Should we acknowledge our creation of other times or of time itself? Lefebvre says that memory is required to grasp the rhythms of the street, "in order to grasp this present otherwise than in an instantaneous moment, to restore it in its moments, in the movement of diverse rhythms. The recollection of other moments and of all hours is indispensable, not as a simple point of reference, but in order not to isolate this present and in order to live it in all its diversity" (p. 36). Wouldn't touching rhythm then also require protention, anticipation of the coming moment, the next moment and perhaps additionally the constitution of "next" by consciousness? How would we meditate upon the next moment without transforming the next moment into a meditation? Are our routines meditations? What about our routine meditations? Where is the finitude in rhythm? Might there be a rhythm to the way things slip away, slip away from even memory or from anticipation? Is the by in touched by rhythm the place where rhythm slips away from consciousness, from meditation–but the touch of rhythm requires meditation! I find it puzzling. Can we be sure that the touch of rhythm doesn't instigate meditation?
Labels: heat death, Lefebvre, rhythm, temporality
Thursday, July 19, 2007
In Signs of Meaning in the Universe (about which I will have more to say in coming days), Jesper Hoffmeyer devotes a chapter to the idea of repetition. He says:
Life itself exemplifies Nature's tendency to acquire habits. With the emergence of an arrangement of matter and energy as unique as that found in a living cell, so too a new and intricate pattern was established in the world–a pattern that could be repeated ad infinitum. And repetition is of course the epitome of habituation: the key to predictability, law and order.
(p. 28)
I can disavow infinity and repetition in the same breath, but I'll confine my remarks to the problem of repetition. It would seem that the idea that repetition isn't truly possible–an idea that I've entertained without adopting–needs to be defended, lest it be confused with an expression of abject nihilism or rabid anti-intellectualism. Therefore I will now take up the position that repetition is at best a virtuality of questionable virtue– indeed it might be bad to think–and I will face up to the cosmic implications of thinking a universe without repetition. In the end I may not fully come around to the view that repetition is impossible, but I hope to resolve, in my mind at least, whether or not it is wise to leave open the question of its possibility.
If I don't accept the idea that repetition is possible am I necessarily acquiescing to a universe without laws, a permanent state of disorder and chaos? This would be the implication of Hoffmeyer's statement, but I don't know that it's true. Let's take for example a simple natural phenomenon, the orbit of a planetary body around a star. I believe I can question the possibility of repetition while believing that laws of gravitation and Kepler's laws of planetary motion still apply.
The eccentricity of Earth's orbit is not constant, but changes over time (see this graph). In fact the eccentricities of all of the planets in the Solar System vary due to mutual gravitational perturbations. We can imagine a perfect solar system of exactly one planet that does not vary in its eccentricity, just as we can imagine a universe where matter is evenly distributed; however, that's not a suitable description of the solar system we live in, and the probability of finding such a system may be exceedingly low (for all I know, which in the case of astronomy is only what I read online). Suffice it so say that in the case of Earth's orbit around the Sun, no orbital period is exactly the same as the next. In orbiting the Sun, the Earth never exactly repeats itself.
Do I need to say that gravity doesn't repeat itself every time the Earth orbits the Sun? That might seem to be a strawman, but I hope it opens up onto an illuminating point. The event of gravitation happened once and is still ongoing. If we accept the idea of heat death, which is based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then we must conclude that gravitation is far more likely to cease to be (after 10150 years) than it is to repeat itself. We could say the same thing about time, though it may turn out that time and gravitation are not coextensive, raising the question then of whether they are discrete cosmic events rather than being aspects of the same event, namely, the existence of the universe. If we accept that gravitation is an event–I do realize this sounds odd, although as I see it it's not altogether unreasonable–what do we call the occurrences that take place within its reach; how do we describe the relation between cosmic events of long duration and occurrences of shorter duration like astrogenesis or biogenesis? If we call them all events equally, are we using "event" in different senses? If this is the case, the sense of a relationship between gravitation and astrogenesis would be lost; it would require some other kind of explanation. Alternatively, in calling all cosmic occurrences "events" we might in effect be saying that an event can be subdivided, that there are events within events. Is the relationship between the subdivisions of an event, which are also events, and the event as a whole a relationship of parts to the whole?
Philosophy has already sketched out a position called mereological nihilism which isn't a proper nihilism, but rather a denial of the existence of part/whole relations. Short of fully endorsing merelogical nihilism, I'd like to suggest that part/whole relations are in question when we examine the relation between an single orbital period and the whole business of planets orbiting a star. The Earth may be considered a part of the Solar System; if its orbital period is therefore also part of the solar system, is that because it is part of Earth's orbit, because it is part of the Earth, or, rather, is its relationship to the whole of the Solar System simply not that of a part to a whole? If the relationship between orbital periods themselves does appear to have a meristic character, must we then accept repetition as a fact of the cosmos?
Imagine if you will having a very large interplanetary hammer and being able to summon enough force to knock the Earth out of its orbit. Its orbital period would come to an end coterminously with the demise of its orbit. It would seem to be physically impossible to decouple the Earth's orbital period from its orbit around the Sun. If we maintain that the Earth's orbital period is part of its orbit, then we must allow for some kind of relation of identity between a part and its whole. I'm not sure that this sort of mereological relation is kosher.
If we take a common sense view that the Earth's orbit around the Sun is neither one big event nor a series of discrete events (orbital periods) but rather a recurring event, we must then allow for some fuzziness in our concept of recurrence, because the orbital period is not just related to the orbit of a single planet, but to all the planets that perturb its orbit. The Earth's orbital period belongs to a larger whole of the Solar System, and in this System there is never exactly a repetition of orbits. The meristic character of the orbital period is deceptive if we believe it only relates to the orbit of a single planet. There may in fact be no true repetition in the universe.
Labels: astronomy, heat death, Hoffmeyer, mereology, repetition
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
As per Deleuze's advice I'm beginning Difference and Repetition with the conclusion. His exposition of the eternal return (pp. 297 ff.) confounds me because the idea conflicts with some of my basic beliefs, and yet if I examine my beliefs they appear to be contradictory, and perhaps not well suited to the problem of repetition.
In the first place I believe in mortality. Everything that lives also dies, everything that appears also vanishes, everything that goes also stops. I believe this is the way of all things. Everything is finite. I understand that some people don't believe that everything is finite, but as long as a person believes that some things are finite they will be in pretty much the same boat as I am, or at the very least have some way of understanding my predicament. The belief in mortality is hardly exceptional.
I wouldn't necessarily want to believe in eternity; however, my belief in the finality of death entails a notion of eternity. To be dead is to be dead for all time. Preliminarily, there are two ways in which my thinking about eternity diverges from Nietzsche's. Firstly, I don't believe the past is eternal. The Universe and time as we know it has a beginning (about 13.7 billion years ago), and every event that can be verifiably described as an event has taken place within this finite stretch of time since the event of the Universe's inception. Secondly, I am not sure about whether anything like eternity converges in the present moment. The notion of eternity that I must have to have in order to believe in the finality of death is not the kind of thing that can be experienced or that pertains to experience directly. There is no real merger of the present moment into the eternal, but rather a sharp division between two different kinds of temporality: one that is of experience, the other that is purely an abstraction.
Perhaps I jumped to quickly from finality to eternity. When I consider the ultimate fate of the Universe, and ponder that heat death is the most likely hypothesis (be sure to see Dylan Trigg's The Duration of Twilight), it occurs to me that the future too, time as we know it, is finite. What sense does it make then to say that time will cease to exist for all eternity? And yet isn't this exactly what the heat death of the Universe means? It seems as if I want to hold onto a notion of time that exceeds time itself. This can't be completely rational.
Surely there must be a way of thinking mortality that doesn't involve irrational thinking about time. Once I open the door to doubting the eternity of death, however, eternal recurrence, among others, is allowed to slip in. I simply don't know how long death lasts, if it lasts at all. Against these doubts, I could cling to the finitude of existence, relegating infinitude to nonexistence, but I wonder whether this wouldn't represent a failure to think about what I really believe about mortality.
Finally, given my belief in the finitude of all things, I wonder how repetition is possible. Here I am hoping that Deleuze is wrong in suggesting that the conclusions make reading the rest of his book unnecessary (p. xv). I am looking to this book to get some purchase on the possibility of repetition, and also the problem of how to think repetition as such.
Labels: Deleuze, finitude, heat death, mortality, Nietzsche, repetition, Trigg
Sunday, October 29, 2006
In "Can Thought Go On Without a Body?" (The Inhuman, pp. 8-23) Lyotard explores the analogy of thinking with the perceptual field. He writes:
A direct, focused vision is always surrounded by a curved area where visibility is held in reserve yet isn't absent. This disjunction is inclusive....Continuing vision preserves along with it what was seen an instant before from another angle. It anticipates what will be seen shortly. These syntheses result in identifications of objects, identifications that never are completed, syntheses that a subsequent sighting can always unsettle or undo....
In any serious discussion of analogy it's this experience that is meant, this blur, this uncertainty, this faith in the inexhaustibility of the perceivable, and not just a mode of transfer of the data onto an inscription-surface not originally its own....Real 'analogy' requires a thinking or representing machine to be in its data just as the eye is in the visual field or writing is in language (in the broad sense).
(p. 17)
Lyotard's concern is with the possibility of artificial intelligence, which is the only sort of solution he sees to the problem of impending solar death. The argument doesn't quite work for me because I don't believe the future of humanity will necessarily remain earthbound. Interstellar travel is far more likely to be realized than thinking without a body, for the very reasons Lyotard lays out.
Labels: analogy, heat death, Lyotard, perception