[D-G] Deleuze and Guattari, Sociokgy and mathematics

[hwenk]

Hello,

this is a list which is concened in my eyes and in its title with the the
work of Deleuze and Guattari.
Now, to star quit with Deleuze: The wonder in society is not how different
people are, but hoe similar they are.
This is even true for alternativ or minority scences. If you have a closer
look, the opinoins hold there
and the behaviour and the god and evils or bads are very similiar.
So in general you are a  member of maybe different groups.
This is the real of micro sociology or big sociology. Now I think everyone
knows about social
stratification. The work of Deleuze on Proust shows how the very sensible
Proust is aable to rrad and look
at the social groups of the higher society in France in the 19. centuatry.
For example the opinion concerning the Dreyfus (this is where Zola cried his
"J'accuse")
 affair was in the "research of the time lost" a
question of  which of the very  different groups in the high society you are
a member.
Now in France you have a big tradition in scoiology coming from Durkheim, as
far as I know emphasimg the stratification of
the society by the division of work. The  of the division of work cleary is
common to all economists and
sociologist, what opinion ever.
Now the stratification of the society becomes finer and is not only
determinated by the work,
so you have micro sociology on the level of scenes and groups.
There a two other big themes in sociology, as far as I treat and know it,
that is the functionalism
of Parsons, which  a mathematical or system theory, formal description of
the society taken up in Germany by Luhmann
and Max Webers emphasizing the rationalisation
of the society, most prominent in bureaucratization.

Now the ontologocal, spinozistic view is, there has to be some truth or
virtue in the
group, if the group is wise and direct she expresses this source of strenght
as
good and opinion  and the band glueing them together.
This is the view shared by Nietzsche and in a certain way by Hegel, who als
confirmed morals to be the
conditions of strenght or victory of a group taken in code or in  morals.
Realisitic as Marx and the anglosaxion philosphy of habitud is, that it
often happens
in time that the reason for the opinionns is lost and you are formed by your
environment
including the opinion of the environment - without selfconciousness.
 Thus Marx speaks of "Being determinates
conciousness" and Rorty speaks of idiosynkrasis, against the enemies and
the psychologistspealk of adaptation. For example to be a member of the high
society with
a radical left wing opinion taken up in the times as a student is very
difficult to hold. Either you will stay outside or at the boundary of that
society or you will
join onother poorer group or you change your opinion, thus it is compatble
with
the rest of the groups, which have a border, that is, the is something to be
in it or not.
So what about the revolutionary power of Proust?


Now the intersting thing infunctiionalism, where Deleuze and Guattari are in
some sense
going further or aere a refinement, is to emphasize the necessetiy of  every
strta to build reproduce
itself and build somekind of independent being with a inner milieu or some
kind of
substance or subject. Spinoza put it: Every being tries to stay in being,
there is some kind of
power and urge to stay and perhaps to enlarge its own existence. This is
also true of professions, instititutions, and other strata.
But this may, but must not, give friction between the strata and may make
them very hard.
To become a little  bit more everdaylike understanding, people are acting
with the circumstances they have.
As their action compared with the circumstances they use are very small and
do indeed need these circumstances,
there is a tendency, like in mathematics, only to vary one variable, that
 for the action under consideration and keep the other
circumstances or variables fix.

It does not call much imagination, that the case where one whishes to keep
variables fix where  aother is moving or acting upon it.
So there is a strong tendency to work or act without any cooperation, blind,
which in turn means often against
one another without knowledge by the argument stated.
To bring a little bit humour, you wish to  keep the image of your enemy fix
in order to fight against him and maybe
you are much more angry that he moves and the image doesn't fit anymore,
than the original reason for the fight against him.


Now the theory of Deleuze and Guattri, as I understand them, is that
stratification is
some kind of spontanous process, finer and finer, a little bit like
the folds of Leibniz. I like more the picture of
geology or somethhing.
The stratification doesn't stop at the group and not even at the I level,
But quantzation and fpormalisation isa necessary, most sponaneous, but often
a very much forced process.
This process  of formation by a strate, which much force or power, is the
process to include one in  the strata.
As I already pointed out, the time of education, as long at it is,
is the paradigma of this formatio n and including in strata.
There politivcalo opinion plays for one part only a very superficial role.
The more important thing is in a gross view to include the stutudent in
the strata of his profession. His profession in turn is included in
the streata of economics and the society as a whole.

Now one can ask how the process of division of work with stratification of
professions and social strata
reprduces itself.
And there, I think,  we got some problems.

-----Original Message-----
From: deleuze-guattari-bounces at lists.driftline.org
[mailto:deleuze-guattari-bounces at lists.driftline.org]On Behalf Of NZ
Sent: Samstag, 3. Dezember 2005 00:38
To: deleuze-guattari at lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [D-G] maths.


I would like to recommend this book to anyone who wishes to learn the
fundemental concepts of higher mathematics. when I was in college AK
Dewdney put out this amazing encylopeda of mathematica knowlege: "The
Turing Omnibus." If you are interest in getting a hold of Godel's
identity theory's on infinity, how binary systems operate, or if you
just want to understand the mathematics behind rNA memory encoding (if
you wanted to you could take 2 years of biology or you could read
Dewdney's cleverly designed book, its a turing maching folks!), this
is the book you should read, it is a masterpiece of "gedenken"
techniques. Gedenken was how Einstein termed his "thought
experiments", which is why he could use a blackboard to study
atom-physics instead of using a city like Hiroshima. (Oppenheim often
misleads us into viewing Hiroshima as a boundary test of science, it
was not, all of that testing had been done on a blackboard 30 yrs
prior) thanks to gedenken, so can you...Now it has been updated as

New Turing Omnibus
by A.K. Dewdney

There is a comparable book to Dewdney's in the field of neuro-biology
that I will plug again, hopefuly kriskringle is listening... everyone
should read Stafford and Webbs' "Mind Hacks"

Mind Hacks
by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb

Mind Hacks, it has a dumb title, but it is also a masterpiece of
gedenken techniques, collecting massive quantities of data and
organizing it all in a clear digestable manner.
the website is also very nice www.mindhacks.com
If you want to understand why your brain is not thinking for you
anymore, read this book, it lists hundres of techniques on how to make
your brain operate the way that you want it to. most of the thought
experiments can be done in your armchair.

does dewdney have a website?
getanken dir...
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