Somers-Hall, (4.4), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘4.4 First Example: Atomism as a Physical Idea (184/232–3)’, summary

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos and other distracting mistakes. Somers-Hall is abbreviated SH and Difference and Repetition as DR.]

Summary of

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition:
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

Chapter 4. Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference

 

4.4 First Example: Atomism as a Physical Idea (184/232–3)

 

 

Brief summary:
For Deleuze, differential calculus exhibits certain critical features of “the Idea”: 1) the parts are determined through (and not prior to) their differential reciprocal relations, 2) the parts become determined only together by and as these reciprocal relations, and 3) there must be a variety of possible ways these spatio-temporal relations can manifest. Deleuze gives three examples in philosophy which seem to fulfill these criteria. The first is Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ atomistic model of the world. They say the world is made of atoms which move so fast downward through a void that their motions cannot even be perceived. And the atoms would never interact were it not for their tendency to make spontaneous deviations (clinamen) from their directly downward course, which causes them to collide into one another. Such mutually colliding atoms might continue doing so, forming a compound. Their collisions cause them somehow to appear to vibrate at a speed slower enough to be perceptible, and this is how atoms can generate the sensible qualities of the objects they compose. Thus we see how this model satisfies the three criteria for Ideas: 1) on their own, the atoms are not sensibly determinable; 2) but they can become so when they enter into differential relations with one another; and 3) there are many spatio-temporal ways they may enter into such reciprocal relations. Yet, because their relations are understood too much in terms of sensible determinations, this model does not fully exemplify Deleuze’s notion of the Idea.

 

 

Summary

As we noted before, Deleuze will give three examples of attempts “to develop a wider calculus” (143). The first is the attempt by the atomists, “notably Epicurus in his Letter to Herodotus and Lucretius in his De Rerum Natura” (143). Deleuze provides a much more elaborated version of this account in the appendix to Logic of Sense entitled, “The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy” (143). [I am not sure I completely grasp the ideas of the atom to follow, so I will quote them to be sure. It seems we can picture the atoms in the following way. The first thing we should keep in mind is that the speed of something is only limited by what resists that speed. Therefore, something moving without resistance has no limit to its speed. It is moving infinitely fast in a sense. Atoms seem to be small particles, and since they are moving in a void, there is nothing to resist their movement, and thus they move “quickly as thought,” covering “every comprehensible distance in an inconceivably short time.” The next thing to note is that they all seem to be moving downward, since they are heavy, but I am not sure what is the center of “gravity” to which they are moving. Perhaps it is the world, and they are raining down upon it. The next thing to note is that visible objects are compounds made up of different related atoms of different shapes. The reason why the object is visible, it seems, is because within the compound, instead of the atoms moving downward, they are instead bouncing around, all going in different directions. And perhaps all the countering motions appear to subtract somehow from one another, thereby making the object seem to be made of particles moving at a slower rate and vibrating. (I am guessing that is what this sentence means: “Atoms in these compound structures appear to move at a perceptible rate, but this is simply due to the fact that as their directions differ, the atoms ‘vibrate’, leading to a perceptible average motion”. Another possibility is that since their directions differ, the movement of each ends up being confined in a certain location where they appear to vibrate. In this case I am not sure I understand however how this makes them appear to be moving slower, since their rate of “vibration” I would think would be just as fast as their motion.) But we have a problem at this point. If the atoms were all moving downward at an infinite speed, then they will not be bumping into each other and causing them to move any direction other than downward. However, in visible objects, we see that atoms are indeed interacting with one another. The explanation for this is that the atoms each on their own, that is, without first being influenced by other atoms, swerve spontaneously from their direct downward course, thereby colliding with others. Let me quote:]

Epicurus claims that the universe is composed of two kinds of entities: atoms and void. While the atoms vary in size, they are all below the threshold of perception. Since resistance slows bodies down, and there is no resistance within the void, the atom’s ‘passage through the void, when it takes place without meeting any bodies which might collide, accomplishes every comprehensible distance in an inconceivably short time’. They move ‘quick as thought’ (Epicurus 1926: 37). These atoms have shapes, and the structure of the visible world is explained by their combination into compound structures. Atoms in these compound structures appear to move at a perceptible rate, but this is simply due to the fact that as their directions differ, the atoms ‘vibrate’, leading to a perceptible average motion. Given that it is ‘essential that atoms be related to other atoms at the heart of structures which are actualised in sensible composites’, we need to ask what allows this relation to take place. Lucretius gives | the following account of how atoms enter into relations with one another [The following up to citation is Lucretius quotation]:

In this connection, I am anxious that you should grasp a further point: when the atoms are being drawn downward through the void by their property of weight, at absolutely unpredictable times and places they deflect slightly from their straight course, to a degree that could be described as no more than a shift of movement. If they were not apt to swerve, all would fall downward through the unfathomable void like drops of rain; no collisions between primary elements would occur, and no blows would be effected, with the result that nature would never have created anything. (Lucretius 2001: 40–1)

It is through this swerve (clinamen) that atoms come into contact with one another.
(143-144)

[Next we seem to be seeing how Deleuze finds ways that this model of the atoms has features that follow the three criteria for Ideas. We first note that the atoms are not localizable, and this is because the void provides no resistance. I do not quite grasp the reasoning there. It seems the idea is that you need resistance to be localized. It is possible I do not understand what is meant by ‘localized’ here. I will suppose it means that the atoms are everywhere or global in some other sense. This is analogous to how the differential is undetermined and thus lacking in the determinations that would be needed for them to be sensible on their own. The next analogy is that the atoms, like the differentials, can only be sensible (and determinate) when they form reciprocal differential relations. These relations, we noted, are possible on account of the clinamen that allows the atoms to collide. Thirdly, since the atoms can form a variety of relations, and because they exist in space and time, they can thus actualize diverse spatio-temporal relationships. Now, although the atoms fulfill these three criteria for Ideas, they are too tied to sensible determinations to count as Ideas for Deleuze.]

Deleuze’s analysis of this situation begins with the claim that since the void provides no resistance, it is not the case that the atoms simply have an undefined location. Rather, moving at the speed of thought, they are strictly speaking ‘non-localisable’. In this sense, they operate much like the differential, dx, in that they are undetermined, lacking one of the key characteristics of ‘sensible form’. Second, they can only be given in sensibility though a reciprocal relation formed between them, just as it is only through the differential relation dy/dx that differentials become determinate. In the case of atomism, this reciprocal relation is provided by the clinamen, which allows a collection of atoms to take on sensible significance. Finally, as the atoms are capable of forming diverse relationships amongst themselves, they can be ‘actualised in diverse spatio-temporal relationships’ (DR 183/231). Atomism therefore appears to meet Deleuze’s criteria for the Idea. In fact, however, Deleuze claims it fails to exemplify the Idea fully, because the atom is still too tied to sensible determinations. Epicurus’ account of its nature is based on an analogy with sensible bodies: ‘We must suppose that the atoms do not possess any of the qualities belonging to perceptible things, except shape, weight and size, and all that necessarily goes with shape’ (Epicurus 1926: 31).

[I might be misunderstanding the final point, but it seems that the notion here is that although the atoms are described in a way which suggests they can be understood without relation to sensible bodies, they in the end are understood negatively as lacking the features of sensible bodies. But I am not sure I am getting the point there.]

Citations from:

Somers-Hall, Henry. Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2013.

Or if otherwise noted:

DR:
Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994/London: Continuum, 2004.

Epicurus (1926), ‘Letter to Herodotus’, in Cyril Bailey (ed.), Epicurus: The Extant Remains, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 18–55.

 

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (0.5), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘0.5 Extension and Comprehension (11–16/13–18)’, summary

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own.]

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition.
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

 

 

0 Introduction: Repetition and Difference

0.5 Extension and Comprehension (11–16/13–18)

Summary

Very Brief Summary:

True repetition is not the reiteration of something self-same. Representation, then, is not repetition, since it is a matter of genericized reiterations. So whatever is repeating is not doing so in terms of conceptual representation. Such instances would need to be distinguishable in reality but not conceptually. An example is an atom. All atoms have the same conceptual determinations, but differ non-conceptually in terms of spatio-temporal determinations.

 

Brief summary:

We might normally think of something repeating as being a reiteration of the same thing. In this sense, we are thinking of repetition in terms of generality, since the thing being repeated is understood as something general that is reiterated in a number of particularities. Yet, Deleuze is formulating a concept of repetition which is not based on generality. Representation is also often understood in terms of generality, and thus representation is not for Deleuze a sort of repetition. There are two processes involving representation that Deleuze addresses: representational memory (which represents objects no longer present) and recognition (which compares present objects with internal representations). These representations often take a structure which makes them only representative of certain objects and not others. This structure can be understood as having a comprehension and extension. The comprehension is the conceptual description which delineates the essential attributes of the thing. The extension are the variety (or singularity) of things that the representation includes.  [“the comprehension of the idea triangle includes extension, figure, three lines, three angles, and the equality of these three angles to two rigid Angles, &c.” and “the idea of triangle in general extends to all the different sorts of triangles” (Arnauld 1850: 49).] The more we add to the comprehension, the more restrictive it gets, and thus more comprehension results in less extension, and vice versa. At the extreme where the extension is one thing, that means the comprehension has expanded to the infinite. Deleuze then addresses a problem this raises when we take into consideration Leibniz’ identity of indiscernables: “if two things share the same properties, they are in fact identical” (15). This implies that two objects cannot share the same properties, as they would really be one identical thing. But if repetition is understood as the reiteration of the same, then this sort of repetition would be impossible. However, if we have a reiteration of things which cannot be conceptually distinguished, then we would have a repetition without them collapsing into one self-same thing. But in order to have Deleuze’s sort of repetition, we need on the one hand to have things which are reiterations but on the other hand not be reiterations of things which conceptually collapse into one another. To progress to such examples, we need first to note the concept of blockages. All things within a generalized concept are the same and thus they all collapse into one another. All mammals if not further specified are conceptually indistinguishable. In order to distinguish some of those mammals from others, we need to stop the application of the term in certain cases, or to put it another way, we need to instate ‘blockages’, which are conceptual determinations. This allows us to have ‘horses’ and ‘cows’ be repetitions of the concept of ‘mammal’. We can further divide horses using other artificially instated blockages. But what we want are natural blockages where the differences are inherent to the things while also they cannot collapse conceptually into one self-same thing.  One case would be things which are conceptually indistinguishable (with that concept having an extension of 1) but differ only in spatial temporal determinations (which cannot be part of the conceptual determination). Atoms for example are like this. Another example of this is using the same word in many cases. They have the same conceptual determination but different contextual variations.

 

Summary

The Introduction to DR is about how real repetition is opposed to generality. First we saw how this is so with regard to natural law. Then we saw it with respect to moral law [here and here]. Now in this section we learn how they are opposed in terms of representation. Deleuze is critical of two processes, representational memory and recognition. In both of them, the representation of objects plays a central role. We need the representation of objects when we remember them, because they are in the past and are no longer presented. And when we recognize something, we need to “compare our internal representation of the object with the object itself” (14). We wonder, how do we structure these representations? (14) We often do so by defining the representation so that it corresponds only to those objects (or that object) it means to represent.

We normally see objects as composed of substances and properties, and we describe these objects using the parallel conceptual terms of subjects and predicates. Depending on how many predicates we ascribe to a subject, we can determine which objects fall under that concept. For example, we can restrict the application of a concept by stipulating that it only applies to objects which have a certain property. So the concept of an animal applies to only those entities with the property of animality. By adding further predicates, we can narrow down the group of entities which fall under the concept. Thus the concept of a rational animal covers a subset of both of the groups to which those predicates are attributed. It therefore circumscribes a smaller collection of entities (traditionally taken to be mankind).
(14)

We now turn to the ‘comprehension’ and ‘extension’ of the concept. These terms were defined in Arnauld’s then standard logic text the Port Royal Logic. The comprehension of the concept includes all its essential distinguishing features.

I call the COMPREHENSION of an idea, those attributes which it involves in itself, and which cannot be taken away from it without destroying it; as the comprehension of the idea triangle includes extension, figure, three lines, three angles, and the equality of these three angles to two rigid Angles, &c.
(15, see Arnauld citation below)

The extension are the things [and subcategories] that are included as instances of that concept.

I call the EXTENSION of an idea those subjects to which that idea applies, which are also called the inferiors of a general term, which, in relation to them, is called superior, as the idea of triangle in general extends to all the different sorts of triangles. (Arnauld 1850: 49)
(SH 15, quoting: Arnauld, Antoine (1850), Logic or the Art of Thinking, being the Port Royal Logic, trans. Thomas Spencer Baynes, Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox.)

[Now, think of a very general concept, like ‘thing’. It refers to a great many objects, since it is so vague. Its comprehension is small but its extension is great. Instead think “living whales”. It refers to a far smaller number of items. So its comprehension is large but its extension is small.] “Now, it should be obvious that the extension and the comprehension of a concept are inversely proportional. That is, the more we specify a concept, the fewer objects will be subsumed by it” (15). This means that if the extension is 1, then the comprehension is infinite, since “the extension and the comprehension of a concept are inversely proportional” (15). [This part is not entirely clear to me. What does it mean for the comprehension to be infinite? Does it mean that it has an infinity of essential distinguishing traits? Why would it be infinite? Would it be infinite because any one particular thing must be distinguished from an infinity of other things and thus have an infinity of determining / particularizing traits? Would not many of them be accidental? Also, why is it if we decrease the extension and thereby increase the comprehension does the comprehension become infinite when the extension is 1, and not instead it just become a very large finite number? So why is it that for a concept with an extension of 1 and another concept with an extension of 2 that their difference in comprehension be on the scale of the infinite rather than the finite?] Now note Leibniz’ identity of indiscernables: “if two things share the same properties, they are in fact identical” (15). [Regarding extension and comprehension, if two things have no differences in their comprehensions, then they must have the same extension. The important concept here is that we begin by distinguishing two things, but in the end we conclude there never were two things but instead only one. But for repetition in the classic sense of reiteration of the same, then we cannot have repetition of the same, since there would only be one object continuing as itself rather than an another instantiation of it. The next move in Somers-Hall’s explanation is not clear to me, but it seems he is saying that, on this basis, in order to have repetition, we need to be able to distinguish each object conceptually (comprehensionally), but we might have reason to doubt that this is really possible. I will quote these passages for your interpretation:]

the more we specify a concept, the fewer objects will be subsumed by it. If we are to remember a particular event, or recognise a particular object, then the extension of that concept must be 1, i.e. it must only refer to the particular experience or object under consideration. But this implies, as extension and comprehension are inversely proportional, that the comprehension of the concept must be infinite. Deleuze refers to the idea that every object can be uniquely specified by a concept as a ‘vulgarized Leibnizianism’ (DR 11/13). By this, he means that it implies something like a principle of identity of indiscernibles (that if two things share the same properties, they are in fact identical). If it were impossible for two different objects to have the same properties, then repetition itself would be impossible. So the question is, is it possible to distinguish each object from every other conceptually?
(15)

[Note how we define concepts we arbitrary set cut-offs for what items will be included under it and which will not, and we set those cut-offs by means of setting limitations in the generalities of the concept.] When we limit an extension, we do so by setting up ‘blocks’ in our conceptual determination.

When we define a species, for instance, we attribute a set of properties to a thing. For instance, we might define a horse by the properties of being a mammal, having hoofs, being a herbivore, etc. In this case, we don’t want to develop a concept that defines an individual, since we want a concept that allows us to talk about a group of individuals at the same time (horses). Rather than carrying on until we have specified a particular horse, we introduce what Deleuze calls an ‘artificial blockage’ (DR 12/14) by stopping this process of determination. Depending on where we introduce the artificial blockage, we will get more or less general concepts. Thus, by | adding more determinations to the concept of mammal (and thereby increasing its comprehension), it will apply to a more and more specific class of mammals (its extension will decrease).
(16)

[Somers-Hall seems to be saying in the following that we cannot have repetition among the items of a concept, because everything within it is the same thing. For there to be repetition, you need conceptual difference. In order to make this difference, you need additional conceptualization, another concept, which can specify that thing more. So within mammals you cannot have repetition, since there is only one concept and thus only one extension (one general class, even though we may place many things into that class. We do not distinguish those things from one another conceptually, so we just have one thing, ‘mammal’). In order to get something new, we need to add blockages to obtain for example horse. Then we might say that we have a repetition of mammal in the horse. Please interpret the Somers-Hall text for yourself:]

Here we can relate repetition to difference, since purely in terms of these concepts of ‘horse’ or ‘mammal’, repetition is grounded in a difference which falls outside of the concept in question (DR 13/15). That is, in so far as we are only talking about the concept, ‘horse’, repetition is possible, as all particular horses are horses in exactly the same way. The difference between them is not in the concept, ‘horse’, but in another concept (perhaps they are different colours or sizes, or are used in different roles). Repetition is therefore difference without, or outside of, the concept.
(16)

[The next part is also a little unclear to me. In the above he says that the distinctions are found in external concepts, but now he says that by specifying further we bring the difference within the concept. Perhaps he is saying that when we create a blockage, we create an internal difference within ‘mammal’ for example, thereby creating two or more concepts external to one another, like ‘horse’ and ‘sheep’. Then he says that the internal differentiation is an artificial rather than a natural blockage. This seems to mean that we can explicate the difference between the objects conceptually, because we have conceptually made that distinction in the first place. The horse we say has different properties than the sheep. Now we need to think of ‘natural’ blockages which create a difference that is not conceptualizable.]

In this case, we could have carried on specifying the concept further and by doing so brought the difference within the concept, hence it being an artificial blockage; but the question is, are there natural blockages, that is, cases where it is impossible for us to capture the difference between two objects conceptually?
(16)

Deleuze offers three examples of these natural blockages: atomism, (psychic) repression, and Kant’s incongruent counterparts (16). Since Deleuze deals at greater length with the topic of repression in the second chapter, Somers-Hall will focus now on atomism and incongruent counterparts.

SH warns us that Deleuze’s account of atomism is “rather obscure” (16). [The basic reasoning that SH gives seems to be the following. We divide up the world into parts of parts of parts and so on until we arrive at fundamental parts. Now, what distinguishes one thing from another? Well, it has different parts, different constitution. But what if something has no parts? It will not have any distinguishing traits conceptually speaking. It will only be distinguishable from other atomic parts on the basis of temporal and spatial differences, which are not conceptual in the same way that constitutional differences are conceptual. Thus here we have natural blockages which say this atom is not that atom, but we have no conceptual way to distinguish them.]

He [Deleuze] suggests [the following up to citation is block quotation]:

Let us suppose that a concept, taken at a particular moment when its comprehension is finite, is forcibly assigned a place in space and time – that is, an existence corresponding normally to the extension = 1. We would say, then, that a genus or species passes into existence hic et nunc [here and now] without any augmentation of comprehension. (DR 12/14)

Rather than a species just being a convenient grouping, it would now be something that had a definitive existence, with each of the objects falling under the concept being absolutely identical. Deleuze is thinking of something like an atom here. Atoms are identical to one another (conceptually indistinguishable) in spite of the fact that they are separate individuals. While in the case of a species, we could add further determinations if we wished to distinguish particular members of a species, there simply are no further conceptual distinctions that can be made between | different atoms. In this case, each atom is a repetition of the one before precisely because they differ, but still fall under the same concept.
(SH 16-17)

We also have natural blockages in case of word usage. We use the same word many times each [presumably] denoting the same concept and thus being conceptually indistinguishable, while in fact [on account of non-conceptualizable contextual variations] each instance of the word is unique and distinguishable non-conceptually. (17)

While we might question whether atoms really are identical with one another, Deleuze claims that the case is much more decisive in the case of words, where we can repeat the same word. This is because each particular instance of the word is conceptually indistinguishable from each other. In this situation, we cannot specify each instance conceptually, and so the ‘vulgarized Leibnizianism’ of complete conceptual determination breaks down.
(17)

 

Citations from:

Somers-Hall, Henry. Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2013.

Determinism in Parallel §91 Bergson Time and Free Will

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary; my commentary is in brackets.]

Determinism in Parallel

Henri Bergson

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness

Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience

Ch.III

The Organization of Conscious States; Free Will

De l'organization des états de conscience: la liberté

Part XXX: Physical Determinism

Previously Bergson addressed a determinist theory. Our brain is made of atoms. The move according to necessary and determined laws. If we know all the forces guiding their motion at one moment, we can on that basis predict their locations in the future, just as a computer might predict the outcome of a collisions of billiard balls, knowing the physical properties of the balls and their motions. But even under this view, we consider there to be a physical domain of moving molecules and a mental domain of consciousness. We might be able to say why one molecular movement results from another, but we will not be able to say why one state of consciousness results from some molecular motion.

§91 Physical Determinism, When Assumed to be Universal, Postulates Psychological Determinism

Our own consciousness tells us that we act according to certain motives. Yet we also commonly believe that we have free will in deciding our actions. Determinists however believe that one conscious state is determined by a prior one. [Conscious states associate with one another in this way, so] it is the origin of associationist determinism. People who take-up such a view try to ground it in physical determinism. And in fact, we do find that simple psychic states correlate to certain physiological ones, and also, sensations seem to correspond with molecular movements in the nervous system. So many psychological determinists ground their theory in physical determinism.

[Directory of other entries in the Time and Free Will series.]

Images of the pages summarized above, from the English translation [click to enlarge]:

Images of the pages summarized above, from the original French [click to enlarge]:

Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Transl. F.L. Pogson. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2001. Available online at:http://www.archive.org/details/timeandfreewill00pogsgoog

Bergson, Henri. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. Originally published, Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 1888. Available online at:http://www.archive.org/details/essaisurlesdonn00berguoft

Molecular Determinism. TF §88 Physical Determinism Stated in the Language of the Molecular Theory of Matter. Bergson. Time and Free Will

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[The following is summary; my commentary is in brackets.]

Molecular Determinism

Henri Bergson

Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness

Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience

Ch.III

The Organization of Conscious States; Free Will

De l'organization des états de conscience: la liberté

Part XXX: Physical Determinism

Previously Bergson summed-up the determinist theses. Our current states are necessitated by prior ones. And freedom is incompatible with the physical principle of the conservation of energy [we will soon see why]. Bergson then listed the points he will cover in the next sections.

§88 Physical Determinism Stated in the Language of the Molecular Theory of Matter

Bergson addresses physical determinism as it was conceived most currently in his time. This form of determinism is closely related to mechanical/kinetic theories of matter. Under this view, the universe is understood as a 'heap of matter.' Our imagination sees matter as made up of molecules and atoms. These particles move unceasingly, either by vibrating or moving from place-to-place. We then reduce a whole host of other phenomena to the molecular motion: physical phenomena, chemical action, matter's perceivable qualities, heat, sound, electricity and [magnetic or gravitational] attraction. Our body's organs are made of matter. So our nervous system is made of particles that obey the same laws as do the particles of all other material things (143d). We can then understand our mental states in terms of the brain's molecular state. The brain on the molecular level is "modified by the shocks which the nervous system receives from the surrounding matter" (143-144). We experience our sensations, feelings and ideas succeeding one another. So we may define these internal states as being what results mechanically from "the compounding of shocks received from without with the previous movements of the atoms of the nervous substance" (144a). [Note: Deleuze uses similar terms to describe sensation. 'the body without organs is flesh and nerve; a wave flows through it and traces levels upon it; a sensation is produced when the wave encounters the forces acting on the body, an "affective athleticism," a scream-breath' (Deleuze Logic of Sensation 2003 p.33b). While the idea of the internal/external encounter seem to be similar, for Deleuze the waves and forces change unpredictably.] There is however the opposite process: the molecules might behave in such a way as to produce a nervous reflex. These some people consider to be free and voluntary actions.

Bergson now references in a footnote Lange's History of Materialism. [See this entry for a more detailed explanation.] Lange considers the mechanistic view that regards the mind as being no more than the dynamics of its constitutent atoms. Because atoms of all materials are subject to deterministic laws of motion in this form of mechanism, its proponents believe that if we knew all the forces moving the brain's atoms, we could predict our coming thoughts and actions. It would be like how astronomers predict the motion of heavenly bodies. So, if our thoughts are reducible to our brain's atomic motions, then a free (undetermined) thought would require that some of the brain's molecules move spontaneously. But consider what would be required for one of the atoms to move spontaneously. There are already forces acting upon it and determining its motion. For it to work against these forces, it would require extra energy. So new energy would have to arise in the dynamics of our brain's molecular system. However, according to the law of the conservation of energy, there cannot be any more or less energy in a closed system than was already there to begin with. So those who uphold this atomic neural mechanist theory would say that on account of the law of the conservation of energy, there cannot be any free action. Bergson writes:

As, moreover, the principle of the conservation of energy has been assumed to admit of no exception, there is not an atom, either in the nervous system or in the whole of the universe, whose position is not determined by the sum of the mechanical actions which the other atoms exert upon it. And the mathematician who knew the position of the molecules or atoms of a human organism at a given moment, as well as the position and motion of all the atoms in the universe capable of influencing it, could calculate with unfailing certainty the past, present and future actions of the person to whom this organism belongs, just as one predicts an astronomical phenomenon. [ft1: On this point see Lange, History of Materialism, Vol. ii, Part ii.] (Bergson 144b.c/d, emphasis mine)

Comme d'ailleurs le principe de la conservation de l'énergie a été supposé inflexible, il n'y a point d'atome, ni dans le système nerveux ni dans l'immensité de l'univers, dont la position ne soit déterminée par la somme des actions mécaniques que les autres atomes exercent sur lui. Et le mathématicien qui connaîtrait la position des molécules ou atomes d'un organisme humain à un moment donné, ainsi que la position et le mouvement de tous les atomes de l'univers capables de l'influencer, calculerait avec une précision infaillible les actions passées, présentes et futures de la personne à qui cet organisme appartient, comme on prédit un phénomène astronomique. [ftI: Voir à ce propos Lange, Histoire du matérialisme, trad. française, tome II, 2e partie.] (110c.d/d, emphasis mine)

[Directory of other entries in the Time and Free Will series.]

Images of the pages summarized above, from the English translation [click to enlarge]:

Images of the pages summarized above, from the original French [click to enlarge]:

Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Transl. F.L. Pogson. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2001. Available online at:http://www.archive.org/details/timeandfreewill00pogsgoog

Bergson, Henri. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. Originally published, Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 1888. Available online at:http://www.archive.org/details/essaisurlesdonn00berguoft

Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Transl. Daniel W. Smith. London/New York: Continuum, 2003.

Astronomical Atoms. Neural Atomic Mechanism in Lange's History of Materialism

by Corry Shores
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Astronomical Atoms

Neural Atomic Mechanism

in Lange's History of Materialism

In §88 of Time and Free Will, Bergson refers to Lange's History of Materialism, Vol. 2, Part 2. We will examine a part of that text that corresponds to Bergson's description. Bergson writes:

As, moreover, the principle of the conservation of energy has been assumed to admit of no exception, there is not an atom, either in the nervous system or in the whole of the universe, whose position is not determined by the sum of the mechanical actions which the other atoms exert upon it. And the mathematician who knew the position of the molecules or atoms of a human organism at a given moment, as well as the position and motion of all the atoms in the universe capable of influencing it, could calculate with unfailing certainty the past, present and future actions of the person to whom this organism belongs, just as one predicts an astronomical phenomenon. [ft1: On this point see Lange, History of Materialism, Vol. ii, Part ii.] (Bergson 144b.c/d, emphasis mine)

Comme d'ailleurs le principe de la conservation de l'énergie a été supposé inflexible, il n'y a point d'atome, ni dans le système nerveux ni dans l'immensité de l'univers, dont la position ne soit déterminée par la somme des actions mécaniques que les autres atomes exercent sur lui. Et le mathématicien qui connaîtrait la position des molécules ou atomes d'un organisme humain à un moment donné, ainsi que la position et le mouvement de tous les atomes de l'univers capables de l'influencer, calculerait avec une précision infaillible les actions passées, présentes et futures de la personne à qui cet organisme appartient, comme on prédit un phénomène astronomique. [ftI: Voir à ce propos Lange, Histoire du matérialisme, trad. française, tome II, 2e partie.] (110c.d/d, emphasis mine)

Lange will discuss Du Bois-Reymond's 'On the limits of the Knowledge of Nature,' which he 'delivered at the meeting of the German Scientific and Medical Association at Leipzig in 1872' (Lange, Book 2, Section 2, Chapter 1, 308a).

In this text, it seems Du Bois-Reymond will demonstrate that we cannot apply a mechanistic approach to completely predict the future. He begins by assuming for argument's sake the hypothesis that 'All knowledge of nature has its ultimate aim in the mechanism of atoms' (Lange 308ab). In accordance with this assumption, Du Bois-Reymond proposes the seemingly impossible goal of obtaining complete knowledge of the atomic mechanisms (308b).

Lange quotes Du Bois-Reymond as describing a sort of Laplace's demon situation:

a mind which should know for a given very small period of time the position and movement of all the atoms in the universe, would also necessarily be in a position to derive from these, in accordance with the laws of mechanics, the whole past and future. It could, by an appropriate treatment of its world-formula, tell us who was the Iron Mask, or how the 'President' came to grief. As the astronomer predicts the day on which, after many years, a comet again appears in the vault of heaven from the depths of space, so this 'mind' would read in its equations the day when the Greek cross will glitter from the mosque of Sophia or when England will burn its last lump of coal. (Du Bois-Reymond, qtd in Lange 308b.c, emphasis mine)

This mechanistic world is "dumb and dark," devoid of qualities. It is only when sentient beings sense qualities that they appear: 'Light first was when the first red eye-point of an infusorium for the first time distinguished between light and dark.' Outside sensations, the objective world can only be measured and quantified.

Du Bois-Reymond then notes two problems with this Laplacean outcome. In the first place, our minds are not capable of grasping the motions of the countless particles even in the smallest objects. And secondly, we could never explain consciousness on the basis of molecular motion.

Note also that we cannot conceive of physical behavior without the use of sense qualities. So we always must convert our sense qualities into quantities. In a sense, our knowledge of nature is really a substitute for a complete and unmediated understanding.

Du Bois-Reymond then addresses the viewpoint that regards life forms in mechanistic terms. Lange writes:

Crystal and organism differ from each other as a mere building differs from a factory with its engines and machinery, into which raw material pours, and from which manufactures, waste materials, and refuse pour out again. We have here nothing more than an "extremely difficult mechanical problem." The richest nature-picture of a tropical forest offers to analysing science nothing but matter in motion. (310a)

Moreover, says Du Bois-Reymond, we cannot begin to understand the atomic mechanisms of our body's functioning. They are all insuperably obscure, consciousness included. Du Bois-Reymond will now explain this.

We begin by assuming that we have a "complete ('astronomical') knowledge of the processes in the brain" (310cd, emphasis mine). We would then be able to say that "in a particular intellectual process a particular movement of particular atoms took place in particular ganglionic centres and nervous tubes" (Du Bois-Reymond qtd in Lange 310d, emphasis mine).

Yet the problem is that knowing the motion of atoms will tell us nothing about how consciousness results from those motions. It can only describe and predict the movements. But how the motions translate into consciousness will remain a mystery.

"The astronomical knowledge of the brain, the highest knowledge we can attain, reveals to us nothing but matter in motion." But if we suppose that from this knowledge certain intellectual processes or dispositions, as memory, the association of ideas, and so on, might become intelligible, that too is delusion; we only learn certain conditions of intellectual life, but do not learn how the intellectual life is itself developed from these conditions. "What conceivable connection exists between, certain movements of certain atoms in my brain on the one hand, and on the other the to me original and not further definable but undeniable facts, 'I feel pain, feel pleasure; I take something sweet, smell roses, hear organ-sounds, see something red,' and the just as immediately resulting certainty, 'therefore I am'? . . . It is impossible to see how from the co-operation of the atoms consciousness can result. Even if I were to attribute consciousness to the atoms, that would neither explain consciousness in general, nor would that in any way help us to understand the unitary consciousness of the individual." (Du Bois-Reymond qtd in Lange 311a-d, emphasis mine).

So when speaking of mechanism, Du Bois-Reymond 'amongst the atoms includes also the brain-atoms of man, and that for him man' (315a). [Now, in this mechanistic scheme, a fixed amount of energy is being exchanged in a system. In order for an atom to move voluntarily, it would need extra energy in order to break from the forces already determining its motion. If we were to consider our thoughts to be spontaneous, while also being reducible to atoms, we would need to keep adding energy to our brain system in order for the atoms to move freely (against the determined forces influencing them). So] according to this mechanistic view, thoughts would not be able to influence the material events of the brain (315b). 'Were it possible for a single cerebral atom to be moved by 'thought' only so much as the millionth of a millimetre out of the path assigned to it by the laws of mechanics, the whole 'world-formula' would become inapplicable and unmeaning' (315b). [But the mechanistic view regards humans objectively. It only sees their actions. So from this view,] no human actions result from thoughts but rather from muscular movements, 'whether these serve to make a march, to draw a sword or guide a pen, to give utterance to the word of command, or to fix the eye upon a point of attack' (315c). And, we may reduce these movements back to the determined motions of the atoms.

The muscular movements are set free by nervous activity; this arises from the functions of the brain, and these are entirely determined by the structure of the brain, by the sensory conductors and by the atomic movements of molecular changes and so on, under the influence of the centripetal nervous activity. (315cd)

[Spontaneous, action-inducing thoughts would require extra energy introduced into the motions of the brain's atoms. Hence:]

We must quite realise that the law of the conservation of energy can undergo no exception in the interior of the brain without becoming wholly meaningless, and we must rise to the conclusion therefore that the whole activity of man, individuals as well as peoples, might go on, as it actually does go on, without the occurring in any single individual of anything resembling a thought or a sensation. (315-316, emphasis mine)

In the next section he writes:

But as to this material and its elements sensation and the consciousness of motor impulses we must carry out, in the strictest sense of the word, the law of the conservation of energy. (154c, Book 2, Section 3, Chapter 2, emphasis mine)

Later he speaks of how we cannot consider our thoughts as being free and independent from causal mechanistic series [our brain's atoms cannot add new energy, hence no spontaneity of our mind].

we cannot regard the 'thought' as a separate product in addition to the material phenomena, but that the subjective state of the sentient individual is' at the same time to external observation an objective one, a molecular movement. This objective state must, on the law of the conservation of energy, fit into the unbroken causal series. (160a, emphasis mine)

Images from relevant pages of the text. Click to enlarge.

Book 2, Section 2, Chapter 1:

Book 2, Section 3, Chapter 2:

Lange, Frederick. History of Materialism and Criticism of its Present Importance. Transl. Ernest Thomas. The Humanities Press, 1950. Available online at: http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmateria011510mbp

Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Transl. F.L. Pogson. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2001. Available online at:http://www.archive.org/details/timeandfreewill00pogsgoog

Bergson, Henri. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. Originally published, Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 1888. Available online at:http://www.archive.org/details/essaisurlesdonn00berguoft