[D-G] Concepts seen as functions (malgosia askanas)

[Rutger H. Cornets de Groot]

Hi, Malgosia,

It's been a long time!
I cannot possibly answer these questions but I have some thoughts on 
your first example of the virtual and actual. My idea is that there is 
no need for energy functions or for a creative effort in order to go 
from one to the other. The way I like to think about the virtual and 
actual is that they are two states of one and the same. The example that 
comes to mind is words, or even letters. We all know an A when we see 
one, but when we do, it is always actual, which means that it is 
attached to a medium. This may be a piece of paper, a stone tablet, the 
bark of a tree or sand on the beach but it's always material. The 
closest we get to its virtual form is when it appears on a computer 
screen (or phone display, etc). We see it compiled from digital code 
(one's and zero's), and its appearance will depend on certain settings. 
Whichever way you look at it, however, I don't think there is energy or 
creative effort involved in these appearances or actualizations. I would 
simply say that the virtual state of the letter A is indeed a concept, 
and not a function.
What do you think?

Kindly,
Rutger

Rutger H. Cornets de Groot
Joan Maetsuyckerstraat 80A
2593 ZM Den Haag
070-3356483
06-21980350
RHCdG <http://www.cornetsdegroot.com/rhcdg>

On 2-5-2011 22:03, deleuze-guattari-request at lists.driftline.org wrote:
> To me, the foremost question about WiP is whether its distinctions are
> adequate - not to the actual activities of professionally employed
> philosophers, scientists and artists, but to the nature of science,
> philosophy and art as modes of thought and creation.  Some examples: WiP
> claims that concepts are not functions.  But  if the virtual is the
> multiplicity, the substance, from which all of the actual is created, 
> then
> it must be energetic in nature; and if it is, then how can there be 
> concepts
> adequate to the consistency of the virtual without a close connection
> between concepts and energy functions?  WiP claims that science must by
> nature rely on exoreference, and cannot give account of endoreferential
> relations.  But why should this be?  Just because most science is
> characterized by exoreferential approaches doesn't mean that this is an
> intrinsic characteristic of science as a mode of thought.  After all, 
> even
> though the usual definition of a circle in mathematics is 
> exoreferential (it
> refers to a distance between the points and an extraneous a center), 
> there
> also exist endoreferential definitions that only use the internal
> relationships of the points ot each other.  And, as even D&G point out,
> Cantor's definition of an infinite set is endoreferential.  WiP claims 
> that
> science is propositional (and therefore gravitates towards the 
> axiomatic);
> but again, why should this be its inherent characteristic?  Can't it be
> non-propositionally diagrammatic?  In other words, if there really are
> intrinsic differences between philosophy and science (and art), it 
> remains -
> as far as I am concerned - a very open question whether D&G's proposal in
> WiP reaches those differences.
>
> -m