Machinic Point

I have sent out numerous emails to those who I think would have interesting and thought provoking comments on the topic of Deleuze and embodiment.  My goal is to collect a variety of contributions examining the role of the body and the consequences of embodiment in juxtaposition with Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism.  In this sense, the body and brain may be viewed as a zone, or medium, of intensity.  Below is an example of such an examination:

Within “What is Philosophy?”, Deleuze and Guatarri state that “Philosophy, art and science are not the mental objects of an objectified brain but the three aspects under which the brain becomes subject, Thought brain.  They are the three planes, the rafts on which the brain plunges into chaos” (pg.210).  Our experience of reality is both mediated through and productive of, the body; the subject emerges from this ‘zone of intensity’ or mediation as an affect.  These affects include the production of the above three planes, or modes of thought, by a “non-objectifiable brain”.

In a chapter entitled “Sharing Technologies”, Maaike Bleeker contrasts Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of a “non-objectifiable brain” with the work of Lakoff and Johnson, two major proponents of cognitive linguistics:

“According to them [Deleuze and Guattari], it is the brain that thinks and not man - the latter being only a ‘cerebral crystalization’.  Lakoff and Johnson search for this moment where subjectivity appears as a cerebral crystallization.  They look for it within the deepest synaptic fissures, and they come up with a model in which subjectivity is the effect of complex processes of inferences taking place between reasoning, conceptual thinking, perception and motor control” (pg.69).  Following this, Bleeker traces certain tenets of Lakoff and Johnson’s perspective on embodied cognition, starting with categorization, moving to the resultant structuring of concepts, and finally to the inferential capacity of concepts and the production of metaphor.

The above excerpt is just one example of a variety of different examinations which may be made detailing the consequences of embodiment in juxtaposition with Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism.  May we conceive of ‘progressive differentiation’ under the principles of embodiment in order to extend the capacity to experience?  Are there methods which utilize, or apply an understanding of the function and structure of the embodied machine, that will lead to new styles of perception and becoming?

May we employ the body as a tool to transgress the limits of the self?  What importance does this have when considering Deleuze’s concept of ‘becoming’?

If you desire to contribute by way of difference and repetition, please contact me at joe.haskins[at]gmail.com.  All articles shall be credited to the author and accompanied by a link if desired.

*Eventually I’d like to start a discussion group on such topics.  These writings could possibly serve as starting points for future discussions.

~ by admin on June 6, 2009.