Somers-Hall, (4.9), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘4.9 Learning and the Discord of the Faculties (188–97/237–47)’, summary

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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

 

4.9 Learning and the Discord of the Faculties (188–97/237–47)

 

 

Brief summary: 
For Deleuze, learning is not a matter of drawing inferences from propositions. Instead, it occurs when 1) we deal with the problematic situation in current states of affairs, then 2) gather together Idea fragments from a variety of sources to devise a ‘map’, so to speak, of the important relations in the situation, which is the Idea, and then 3) develop solutions which would change those states of affairs in ways which solve the problems. In an evolutionary sense, each bodily organ is itself like such a solution to certain problems, since for example the eye is the solution to the problem of light. Likewise, each faculty is a solution or Idea on its own. The reproductive imagination (or memory) for example could be the solution to the problem of intuitions (or perceptions) continually being lost due to the passage of time. Now, in those confusing moments while we are learning something very new, our faculties are working together discordantly, meaning that they each have their own object that is different from the other faculties’ objects. But this discordant relation of the faculties, since it is what allows us to learn, is a solution to the problem of Difference itself, which is what presents to us the many problematic situations that call for us to reconfigure our minds and workings in order to continually adapt to a complicated and changing world.

 

Summary

Previously we have been examining Deleuze’s notion of the Idea. We return now to two topics from chapter 3, namely, learning from section 3.10 and the relationship of the faculties from section 3.6. We will see that we need Ideas in Deleuze’s sense for learning, and we turn to Plato’s notion of the hypothesis. Recall again Plato’s divided line. [We also made use of the excellent diagram from the Thesis Eleven website. Many thanks!]

Of intelligible knowledge, there are two kinds: 1) mathematics and 2) knowledge of the forms. Mathematical fields like geometry use images, and they proceed deductively to a conclusion. But

The strength and the limitation of a deductive argument, however, is that its conclusion does not contain anything that is not implicitly assumed in its premises. The most it can do is simply make explicit what we have assumed at the outset. For this reason, it is essential to know that the premises of one’s argument are true, since it is from these that the argument gains its content, and validity.
(155)

[Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems that geometry begins with hypotheses, which are uncertain, but philosophy tries to begin with certain premises by invoking Ideas or using clear and distinct concepts. And thus philosophy would be using a higher form of reasoning than geometry.] “Philosophy traditionally, according to Deleuze, has therefore attempted to show that we can convert hypotheses into categorical statements by arguing from premises that are absolutely certain, either by invoking the Ideas, or by, in Descartes’ case, positing certain concepts that are clear and distinct, and hence indubitable” (155). SH then says [I quote because I am not sure I follow the inference] “Now, as we have seen, Plato understands the Ideas by analogy with objects of empirical recollection, and Descartes’ clear and distinct ideas are fully transparent to consciousness. In both cases, therefore, we remain within the domain of consciousness and the proposition” (155).

In this procedure above, we move between two propositions directly [I suppose between premise to premise or from premises to conclusion]. Deleuze proposes a different procedure, called ‘vice-diction’, which “moves from a proposition to an Idea and then to a solution” (155). In the first stage, there is “the determination of the conditions of the problem” and in the second there is “the correlative genesis of cases of solution” (SH 156, qtg. DR 190/239). Deleuze offers two examples of learning, namely, learning to swim and learning a foreign language, which are favorite examples of Bergson. SH then quotes Bergson for the swimming example:

If we had never seen a man swim, we might say that swimming is an impossible thing, inasmuch as, to learn to swim, we must begin by holding ourselves up in the water and, consequently, already know how to swim. Reasoning, in fact, always nails us down to the solid ground. But if, quite simply, I throw myself into the water without fear, I may keep myself up well enough at first by merely struggling, and gradually adapt myself to the new environment: I shall thus have learnt to swim. So, in theory, there is a kind of absurdity in trying to know otherwise than by intelligence; but if the risk be frankly accepted, action will perhaps cut the knot that reasoning has tied and will not unloose. (Bergson 1998: 192)
(SH 156)

SH notes that we can contrast two kinds of learning here. There is the “propositional account” [learning by reasoning or intelligence, perhaps in Bergson’s terms]. But on this account, learning to swim would seem impossible or absurd, since learning to swim, that is, gaining knowledge of how to swim, already seems to presuppose that we had that knowledge in the first place. [SH then moves to Deleuze’s other sort of learning, which seems to be more dynamic, spontaneous, and interactive with the problematics involved with what is being learned. I do not follow this description very well. Let me quote it first.]

Deleuze’s rather abstract analysis of the process of learning to swim or learning a language is that we do so by ‘composing the singular points of one’s own body or one’s own language with those of another shape or element, which tears us apart but also propels us into a hitherto unknown and unheard-of world of problems’ (DR 192/241). In order to escape the deductive sterility of the proposition, therefore, he claims that thinking needs to raise itself to the level of the Idea. The first stage of vice-diction is therefore that of finding other relevant cases that together specify the problem we are faced with, ‘fragments of ideal future or past events’ (DR 190/239). By ‘discovering the adjuncts’, Deleuze means this procedure of finding equivalent cases that emerge from the problem. As the Idea is an interpenetrative multiplicity, these elements must be combined to generate the Idea corresponding to the problem, just as the shades of light were passed through the convergent lens in Bergson’s example. Once we have the Idea of the problem, we can attempt to find those singular points of the Idea where it engenders solutions that are different from the present state of affairs. Deleuze gives the example of Lenin’s thought, which would involve the extraction from the present state of affairs of the Idea of the economic (abstract modes of production), and then the generation of a solution that involves a different | conjunction of singularities (just as selecting a different plane of a conic section will give us a different curve). Thus, we move from the present society to the problematic genetic principles that give rise to it, and then back to an alternative solution, or form of society. In a similar way, we do not look at the relations between parts of animals directly, as they may have different functional roles, but instead relate each to the others through the transcendental rules for their production. Thinking thus does not go from proposition to proposition. Rather, thinking becomes creative by tracing back propositions to the non-propositional field of problems that engender them.
(SH 157)

[Let us start with the examples. Deleuze discusses the swimming example in a Spinozistic context in his course lecture of 1981/03/17 and in his course lecture of 1981/03/31. The idea is that all bodies, our own and the body of water we swim in, are made up of smaller and smaller parts, ultimately of pure differential relations between vanishing terms (simplest bodies). But when we first encounter the wave, our field of differential relations and its differential relations are not at first compatible, in fact the wave’s internal relations decompose our own, and so we struggle in the water. But by learning how to modify our own workings to suit the workings of the wave, we learn to swim, and we also thereby constitute a larger composite body together. Perhaps this applies also to learning language. We must in a sense rearrange our own systems of associations and meanings in order to navigate in the other language. SH mentions the first stage of vice-diction as “finding other relevant cases that together specify the problem we are faced with, ‘fragments of ideal future or past events’ (DR 190/239)”. I am not sure what this is or how it would work in the examples. Perhaps the idea is that we need to try to direct our imagination into the future and try to figure what sorts of techniques might work were we to try them, and perhaps we might also look to similar past experiences. But I apologize that I do not know really what this sentence means. Either this or something new is what is called  ‘discovering the adjuncts’, which is when we find equivalent cases. The next sentence is then “As the Idea is an interpenetrative multiplicity, these elements must be combined to generate the Idea corresponding to the problem, just as the shades of light were passed through the convergent lens in Bergson’s example.” I am not sure what this means, but it seems one thing is that we generate an Idea that corresponds to the problem in the situation we encounter, and perhaps what is happening is we put together undetermined parts that we encounter in that situation and that we generate through finding equivalent cases. I am not sure how this works in our examples. Maybe when we first try to swim, we have these non-explicit intuitions or vague notions from memory and imagination which would somehow be applicable since they deal with a similar problematic. Perhaps we recall how oars worked when we learned how to row a boat, and we add other vague sorts of notions like observations of water-wheels, experiences while bathing, experimental thoughts about what might work- I have no idea really how this works. Then, maybe all these little undetermined Idea fragments converge as we begin successfully swimming. Or maybe the fragments converge before we successfully swim. Perhaps we have the Idea, like a light bulb going off, so to speak, then we begin successfully swimming. For, SH next says, “Once we have the Idea of the problem, we can attempt to find those singular points of the Idea where it engenders solutions that are different from the present state of affairs”. So maybe the fragments of the Idea converge as we try to adapt to the water, then we see special conceptual elements of the Idea which can generate solutions different from our current struggling not to drown. So maybe some of the singular points would be some notion about propulsion and another about staying afloat rather than sinking, and another about a mechanical rhythm of motion, and another about control of breathing. On the basis of these significant elements of the Idea, we might then figure one or another way to swim, like the different “strokes” one may use. I again am just guessing. The next sentence is: “Deleuze gives the example of Lenin’s thought, which would involve the extraction from the present state of affairs of the Idea of the economic (abstract modes of production), and then the generation of a solution that involves a different | conjunction of singularities (just as selecting a different plane of a conic section will give us a different curve).” So maybe what happened is that Lenin encountered a new sort of situation at the beginnings of the Soviet Union. There was the breakdown of the old system, as new political ideas were influencing the situation and calling for a fundamental rearrangement of social and economic relations. So maybe Lenin gathers Idea fragments somehow from the actual states of affairs and develops a sense of modes of production that could take place, and he figures out ones to actualize since they would work in that situation. Others were possible too, and they would have created a different structure to the society with its own special significant elements (like different shapes from the cone). The next sentence is: “Thus, we move from the present society to the problematic genetic principles that give rise to it, and then back to an alternative solution, or form of society”. So this seems to sum up the steps. First Lenin sees the instable current situation that resulted from demands for changes in economic relations and the breakdown of old relations, which leads him to think theoretically about the changes in modes of production and labor conditions leading up to this situation, which then lends to him devising a socialist society to successfully work with these new conditions. Then SH says, “In a similar way, we do not look at the relations between parts of animals directly, as they may have different functional roles, but instead relate each to the others through the transcendental rules for their production.” I am not sure I get this analogy. Perhaps the idea is that Lenin for example is not so concerned specifically and only with elements of the actual states of affairs, but he is concerned also with more basic relations that could be expressed in a variety of situations. Lastly SH writes, “Thinking thus does not go from proposition to proposition. Rather, thinking becomes creative by tracing back propositions to the non-propositional field of problems that engender them.” So Lenin for example did not reduce his current states of affairs to propositions from which he drew inferences, but rather on the basis of them he thought more deeply about the non-propositional problematic they are bound up in, and in this way he was able to create new social structures that solve the problems of that situation.]

So here we are “moving from one empirical state to another via an Idea” (157). We can also learn just by investigating Ideas themselves. First we note that Deleuze’s notions of problems and solutions do not apply just to matters of knowledge. We return to this point later. We for now might think of how evolution is solving problems through the ‘differenciation’ of organs. For example, the eyes are the solution to the problem of light. Each faculty also can be seen as a solution to problems, [as for example the faculty of speech is a solution to the problem of phonetic combinations:]

We can see that each of the faculties themselves is a solution to a problem [the following up to citation is Deleuze quotation]:

Take, for example, the linguistic multiplicity, regarded as a virtual system of reciprocal connections between ‘phonemes’ which is incarnated in the actual terms and relations of diverse languages: such a multiplicity renders possible speech as a faculty as well as the transcendent object of that speech, that ‘metalanguage’ which cannot be spoken in the empirical usage of a given language, but must be spoken and can be spoken only in the poetic usage of speech coextensive with virtuality. (DR 193/242–3)

In this case, the faculty of speech is rendered possible by the virtual multiplicity, which gives the rules for actual speech production. If we relate the structure of speech to the Idea, we can see that it contains each of its moments. The phonemes are undetermined, but able to enter into determinable relations. These relations describe the expressiveness of the language. In turn, an individual speech act corresponds to the integration | of this field of expressions. There is a reciprocity here, however, since the multiplicity is constituted in terms of the differential relations between phonemes because it is related to the field of a given language (‘each dialectical problem is duplicated by a symbolic field in which it is expressed’ [DR 179/227]). So the constitution of the faculty of speech (the solution) in turn determines the virtual multiplicity (problem) relative to it. ‘The transcendental form of a faculty is indistinguishable from its disjointed, superior, or transcendent exercise’ (DR 143/180). In this sense, each of the faculties is an Idea as well as a relation to an Idea.
(157-158)

[I do not follow the next paragraph very well. Let me quote it first.]

We have already seen that each faculty communicates violence to the others, to the extent that they communicate in terms of objects that differ in kind. Thus, the object of sensation differed in kind from the object of memory, but yet was able to enter into a relationship with it. What is it that allows these faculties to communicate? Well, once we recognise that each of the faculties has its own transcendent object, because their objects are ‘express[ed] technically in the domain of solutions to which they give rise’ (DR 179/227), it becomes simple to explain how they can communicate with one another, yet still be distinct. On an empirical level, each faculty is distinct, as each has its own set of objects (both transcendent and empirical). While each of the faculties contains a difference between empirical and transcendental exercises, this is only the first degree of difference. The ‘second degree’ of difference is where each of these faculties is in turn the solution to the problem of pure difference [the following up to citation is Deleuze quotation]:

This harmonious Discord seemed to us to correspond to that Difference which by itself articulates or draws together. There is thus a point at which thinking, speaking, imagining, feeling, etc., are one and the same thing, but that thing affirms only the divergence of the faculties in their transcendent exercise. (DR 193–4/243)

Each faculty is therefore the expression of an Idea, Difference itself being the Idea of an Idea. In this way, each of the faculties is both the same as, and different from, the others (what Deleuze calls para-sense as opposed to common sense, because it escapes the structure of representation). While all of the faculties relate to Ideas, it is still the case that thought is in some sense superior to the other faculties. If we take speech, then we can see that it is constituted in terms of phonemes. The elements that constitute thought, however, are Ideas themselves. Thought is thus the Idea of Ideas, and relates the other faculties. Thus, ‘while the | opposition between thought and all forms of common sense remains stronger than ever, Ideas must be called “differentials” of thought, or the “Unconscious” of pure thought’ (DR 194/244).

[The first idea is that the faculties work discordantly, because their objects are different in kind, but they still must try to communicate despite these differences. We next seem to be building from the point we just made, which is that the faculties are solutions to problems. To this it seems we expand it to say that the faculties’ objects are also Ideas (or maybe this means something else: “each of the faculties has its own transcendent object, because their objects are ‘express[ed] technically in the domain of solutions to which they give rise’”). The next sentence I do not understand: “On an empirical level, each faculty is distinct, as each has its own set of objects (both transcendent and empirical)”. I am not sure what the “on the empirical level” means. So on the empirical level, the understanding and the imagination have their own sets of objects. Then to this we add that each faculty, on the empirical level, also has both transcendent and empirical objects. I am not sure what we would say about the faculties on the transcendental level. Perhaps first we can say this. On the empirical level they have different objects, since for example the concept of a triangle is different in kind from intuitions of triangles or of whatever else. But on the transcendental level they all have the same object, namely a problematic they are all dealing with in their own way and working together to try to solve. Then, regardless of the level, they have both a transcendental and an empirical object. The empirical object would perhaps be the specific object they have of its own kind, and the transcendental object would be the Idea each has of its own kind, which is like its own way to solve the problem. I am just making huge guesses. The next sentence is: “While each of the faculties contains a difference between empirical and transcendental exercises, this is only the first degree of difference”. So we need to distinguish empirical from transcendental exercises, but I do not know how to clearly make that distinction. Perhaps it has to do with whether their objects are empirical or transcendental. I will guess here. Maybe the idea is that insofar as the faculty is dealing with their own sort of solution, they are dealing with the empirical object, and insofar as they are dealing with the problem, they are dealing with the transcendental object. So maybe in a certain situation, our understanding is dealing with trying to find the right concept, and in that sense it’s transcendental object is the problem itself regarded in conceptual terms, and maybe it supplies the notion of triangle, which is a proposed solution and is also its empirical object. Insofar as it is dealing with that problem, its exercise is transcendental and insofar as it is dealing with the solution its exercise is empirical. Again I am just making very huge and most certainly incorrect guesses. We then note that there is a difference between these two exercises, which is the “first degree of difference”. The next sentence is: “The ‘second degree’ of difference is where each of these faculties is in turn the solution to the problem of pure difference [the following up to citation is Deleuze quotation]: This harmonious Discord seemed to us to correspond to that Difference which by itself articulates or draws together. There is thus a point at which thinking, speaking, imagining, feeling, etc., are one and the same thing, but that thing affirms only the divergence of the faculties in their transcendental exercise. (DR 193–4/243)”. I again cannot give an interpretation that I am confident in. But it seems perhaps we can say the following. If we look at a situation where our faculties are working together discordantly, we see they are dealing with a specific problem, which involves the twin exercises (empirical and transcendental) of each faculty that we mentioned above. But why would they need to work together discordantly in the first place? Perhaps this discordant exercise is itself the solution to the problem of dealing with fundamental difference in our world, which lie at the basis of all problematics that our faculties contend with. So the discordant exercise “evolved” you might say as a means for us to be able to learn how to deal with all the very complicated and challenging situations we encounter in the world, just like how the eye specifically evolved to deal with the problem of light. If the faculties only worked concordantly and only communicated the same objects, they would not be equipped with the flexibility needed to deal with our complicated and changing world. The first degree of difference is that between the transcendent and empirical exercises of the faculties, while the second degree of difference is perhaps the more basic difference that the discordantly related faculties are contending with. (Or perhaps it is another difference, like the difference between each faculty or their object, I am not sure). The next sentence is: “Each faculty is therefore the expression of an Idea, Difference itself being the Idea of an Idea”. Maybe the point here is that each faculty is a solution or an Idea, and difference, which is the problem or Idea to which each faculty is dealing, is the Idea of each facultative Idea. Then, “In this way, each of the faculties is both the same as, and different from, the others (what Deleuze calls para-sense as opposed to common sense, because it escapes the structure of representation)”. So each faculty is fundamentally a solution of its own kind, so they are different and they operate discordantly, but since they all are solutions to the same problem/Idea of Difference, they are all the same in this other sense. The final sentences seem fairly straightforward. Since the faculty of thinking deals with Ideas, it has a special place among the faculties, which also deal with Ideas but perhaps in a less explicit way. Those final sentences might be making another point, but I am not sure.]

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.

Bergson, Henri (1998), Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.

Image credits:

Thesis Eleven.
<https://thesiseleven.wordpress.com/philosophy/platos-republic/simile-of-the-divided-line/ >

<https://osopher.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/plato-divided-line.gif?w=504&h=360>.

 

 

 

Andy Clark. 2.4 of Being There, “Soft Assembly and Decentralized Solutions,” summary

summary by Corry Shores
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Andy Clark

Being There:

Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again

 

Ch.2

The Situated Infant

Part 2.4

Soft Assembly and Decentralized Solutions

Brief Summary:

Machines, including the ‘machinery’ of infant learning, can better adapt to complex and dynamic situations when information processing is decentralized.

Summary

Clark will discuss soft assembly in human development. (42)

Traditional robotic programming is hard assembled, because it does not make real-time adjustments, unlike the soft assembly of human motion.

A traditional robot arm, governed by a classical program, provides an example of "hard assembly." It commands a repertoire of moves, and its success depends on the precise placement, orientation, size, and other characteristics of the components it must manipulate. Human walking, in contrast, is soft-assembled in that it naturally compensates for quite major changes in the problem space. As Thelen and Smith point out, icy side- | walks, blisters, and high-heeled shoes all "recruit" different patterns of gait, muscle control, etc., while maintaining the gross goal of locomotion. Centralized control via detailed inner models or specifications seems, in general, to be inimical to such fluid, contextual adaptation. (42-43) […]

Multi-factor, decentralized approaches, in contrast, often yield such robust, contextual adaptation as a cost-free side effect. This is because such systems, as we saw, create actions from an "equal partners" approach in which the local environment plays a large role in selecting behaviors. In situations where a more classical, inner-model-driven solution would break down as a result of the model's incapacity to reflect some novel environment change, "equal partners" solutions often are able to cope because the environment itself helps to orchestrate the behavior. (43, boldface mine)

[Previously Clark describes childhood development and how many factors in both the child and his environment are equal partners in guiding its development.]

Pattie Maes invented a way for machines to determine among themselves how to distribute jobs, rather than having a centralized system handle all the data and make that decision. Each machine when creating a job asks the other machines to estimate how long they would take to perform it, and the machine most able given its current abilities and activities gets the job. Job scheduling then becomes an “emergent property” of the simple machine self-assessment and communication behaviors. (43d)

Thus

Soft assembly out of multiple, largely independent components yields a characteristic mix of robustness and variability. The solutions that emerge are tailored to the idiosyncrasies of context, yet they satisfy some general goal. This mix, pervasive throughout development, persists in mature problem solving and action. Individual variability should thus not be dismissed as "bad data" or "noise" that somehow obscures essential developmental patterns. Instead, it is, as Thelen and Smith insist, a powerful clue to the nature of underlying processes of soft assembly. (44a)

Thelen and Smith give the example of the development of child reaching behavior, where the factors and events leading up to the learned behavior vary widely between children even though the resulting behavior is similar for all. (44b)

One child began with fast flapping then dampened it. (44bc)

Another had to increase lift. (44c)

Other children exhibited other variations. The central nervous system is merely working with the physics and mechanics of the seemingly somewhat autonomous parts of the body that come to be adjusted. (44-45)

Clark writes:

the job is to learn to modulate parameters (such as stiffness) which will then interact with intrinsic bodily and environmental constraints so as to yield desired outcomes. In sum, the task is to learn how to soft-assemble adaptive behaviors in ways that respond to local context and exploit intrinsic dynamics. Mind, body, and world thus emerge as equal partners in the construction of robust, flexible behaviors. (45a.b boldface mine)

Andy Clark. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: MIT, 1997.

[Labels continuation for: The Wheel is Come Full Pixel: Analog vs. Digital; Bostrom and Sandberg's Brain Emulation, Examined and Critiqued. Section 4]

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The Wheel is Come Full Pixel: Analog vs. Digital; Bostrom and Sandberg's Brain Emulation, Examined and Critiqued. Section 4

Neuronal Assemblages and Reassemblages, in Flohr, "Qualia and Brain Process"

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Neuronal Assemblages and Reassemblages

in

Hans Flohr

"Qualia and Brain Process"

Emergence or Reduction?

Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism.

Activity in our brains neural networks "is coupled with reorganization of these nets." *(225c)

Flohr's hypothesis is that "the occurrence of phenomenal states depends on the rate at which activity-dependent synaptic changes occur and neural assemblies are formed." (22cd)

Assemblies

In The Organization of Behavior, D.O. Hebb proposes that

repeated stimulation of specific receptors will lead slowly to the formation of an 'assembly' of association area cells which can act briefly as a closed system after stimulation has ceased; this prolongs the time during which structural changes of learning occur. (Hebb, qtd in Flohr 225d)

Later in 1959 he adds:

The key conception is that of the cell assembly, a brain process which corresponds to a particular sensory event, or a common aspect of a number of sensory events. This assembly is a closed system in which activity can 'reverberate' and thus continue after the sensory event which has started it has ceased. Also, one assembly will form connections with others, and it may therefore be made active by one of them in the total absence of the adequate stimulus. In short, the assembly activity is the simplest case of an image or an idea: a representative process." (Hebb, qtd in Flohr 226a)

Neural nets can self-organize on account of plastic synapses, called Hebb synapses. According to Hebb,

synapses on a neuron that are active while the neuron discharges will be strengthened, whereas inactive synapses will be weakened. Synapses from different inputs that are active at the same time on the same neuron will be reinforced and selected over others. (226)

Self-organized assemblies emerge from random beginnings.

When applied to nets of spatially distributed groups of neurons with non-specific, random interconnections, these so-called Hebb rules lead to a relative stabilization and association of neurons firing in a correlated fashion. An assembly of preferentially connected, coherently active cells is formed. If coincident activity is induced in some neurons of such a net by a patterned input, an assembly will be formed because the synchronous activity selectively modulates the pathways connecting these neurons.

The assembly detects and encodes the coherent properties of the stimulus pattern so that a representation of that pattern is generated. Once the assemblies have been formed, they would function as detectors of the same or similar input patterns expressing the detections of coherent features by coordinating their activities. It is easy to envisage that the output of such assemblies could in turn be used as input to other modifiable nets which then would reorganize their structure as a function of this input. Iteration of such processes would generate more and more abstract metarepresentations. (226c)

Flohr, Hans. "Qualia and Brain Process." in Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism. Eds. Ansgar Beckermann, Hans Flohr, Jaegwon Kim. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992.

http://books.google.be/books?id=vpB_d4J_c14C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Emergence+or+Reduction%3F+Essays+on+the+Prospects+of+Nonreductive+Physicalism&ei=p1gpSqOOMZWOyATfgN39Cg&hl=en#PPA227,M1

Andy Clark's Cyborgs and Deleuze's Restructive Element

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Andy Clark's Cyborgs

and

Deleuze's Restructive Element

To elaborate the notion of Deleuzean selfhood, I will explore Andy Clark's vision of human plasticity. He offers very compelling evidence for his claim that we naturally extend our nervous systems through our technological apparatuses. This fits our image of a body without organs, a machine without mechanisms, a computer without programs, a cyborg without systems. But to make it illustrate our more Deleuzean vision, I will emphasize something implicit in Clark's thinking. His claim that our selfhoods are continually plastic implies that chaotic change is essential to who we are.

First I summarize his paper. Afterwards I comment.

Andy Clark

Re-Inventing Ourselves:

The Plasticity of Embodiment, Sensing, and Mind

Abstract

New technologies and scientific advances will radically change the way we interact with machines and computers. We can expect soon new interfaces between our brains and machines. Yet the notion of such machine interfaces has not been adequately explored. We have already considered using machines as tools. But we still need to discuss a more radical machine use where the human agent himself is literally extended or augmented. Clark will argue for this radical version of interface. And, we can expect it. For, we are biologically disposed to "literal (and repeated) episodes of sensory re-calibration, of bodily re-configuration and of mental extension." There is a "profoundly embodied agency" that we need to consider, instead of merely looking at a weaker sense of human embodiment. Clark ends by addressing questions and concerns regarding converging technologies.

I

Introduction:

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Fear of robotic enhancements is rooted in our misconception of humanity. We are not "locked-in agents" whose minds and physical capacities are fixed quantities that can only be compensated-for with technology. Rather, Clark argues, our minds and bodies are

essentially open to episodes of deep and transformative restructuring, in which new equipment (both physical and “mental”) can become quite literally incorporated into the thinking and acting systems that we identify as minds and persons.

Our embodied agencies contact the outer world (where the rubber meets the road) in our sensations and motions. We are born with our natural sensory tools. However, simple tools extend these faculties. Even a stick can serve this end.

It is a commonplace observation, however, that the use of simple tools can lead to alterations in that local sense of embodiment. Picking up and using a stick, we feel as if we are touching the world at the end of the stick, not (usually) as if we are touching the stick with our hand. The stick, it has sometimes been suggested, is in some way incorporated and the overall effect seems more like bringing a temporary whole new agent-world circuit into being, rather than simply exploiting the stick as a helpful prop or tool. (emphasis mine)

When using the stick, there seems to be two interfaces:

1) where the hand meets the stick, and

2) where the stick meets the road ("the place where the extended system 'biological-agent-stick' meets the rest of the world.")

Our given bodies place us into an "agent-world circuit." The stick places us in a new one. When we discover new technologies that extend our interaction with the world, we sense the tension between the two types of interface, between us and tool and between tool and world. However, if the technology is successful, we stop feeling our separation from the tool.

the new agent-tool interface itself fades from view, and the proper picture is one of an extended or enhanced agent confronting the (wider) world.

II. What's in an Interface?

Clark agrees with Haugeland that "we discern an interface where we discern a kind of regimented, often deliberately designed, point of contact between two or more independently tunable or replaceable parts." However Clark does not agree that flow across the interface is simple. But indeed, there is "intimate intermingling of mind, body and world" (qtd).

Gibson distinguishes two ways we might conceive our natural sense systems.

1) The standard (non-Gibsonian) view. [Digital]:

The sensory interface is the location where for example visual input is transformed into representations which may guide our actions. Such an interface is "a kind of fixed veil between an agent and a represented world."

[This version is digital, because sensory information about the world is communicated by means of a representation that 'codes' for discrete entities.]

2) The task-specific agent-world circuit. [Analog]:

In this view, there is not a representative medium that stands between us and the world around us. Rather, there is "an open conduit allowing environmental magnitudes to exert a constant influence on behavior." Consider this example. We are outfield, playing baseball. Crack. The ball flies our way. We cannot just know where the ball is at any given moment. More importantly, we need to know where it is going, so we may be there to catch it. Does our visual system first represent images of the ball's location; and then does our mind subsequently deduce where the ball will go? Most likely not. We do not "throw away the world" so to internally solve the problem of where to run. Rather, our visual sensors are more like an open channel. The magnitudes of the visual information, the ball's location and speed for example, have a direct modifying influence on the direction and speed of our running.

Sensing is here depicted as the opening of a channel, with successful whole-system behavior emerging when activity in this channel is kept within a certain range. What is created is thus a kind of new, task-specific agent-world circuit. As Randall Beer recently puts it,

The focus shifts from accurately representing an environment to continuously engaging that environment with a body so as to stabilize patterns of coordinated behavior that are adaptive for the agent (in press, ms. p. 13). (qtd)

[This version is analog, because there is a direct and continuous modulation from incoming information.]

So there seems to be no mediation between agent and world in this second sort of interface. For this reason Haugeland considers it to not involve an agent-world interface.

Clark disagrees. Consider when we connect many computers together to perform a common task. We know that there must be interface between them. However, while solving a problem, they all work together and "function as a single unified resource. Nonetheless, we still think of it as a web of distinct-but-interfaced devices."

III. New Systemic Wholes

"Biological systems, from lampreys to primates, display remarkable powers of bodily and sensory adaptability."

There is a performance artist with a robotic third arm. Electrode sensors allow his brain to control its motion. He has become so accustomed to the robotic arm that willing it is second nature.

It has become what some philosophers call “transparent equipment,” something through which Stelarc (the agent) can act on the world without first willing an action on anything else. In this respect, it now functions much as his biological hands and arms, serving his goals without (generally) being itself an object of conscious thought or effortful control.

There is a monkey who can control a robotic arm with his brain. The experiments concluded that the robotic arm system was assimilated into the physiology of the monkey's nervous system.

Creatures capable of this kind of deep incorporation of new bodily (and, as we'll see, sensory and cognitive) structure are examples of what I shall call (see section 4) “profoundly embodied agents.” Such agents are able constantly to negotiate and re-negotiate the agent-world boundary itself.

The infant must also learn to integrate her limbs into her neural physiology until they finally become "transparent equipment."

Another example is a system for helping blind people "see" with their skin. A grid of blunt nails is fixed to their backs. A visual sensory system detects the presence and distribution of objects around her, and conveys that information by applying pressure to the corresponding coordinate nail. Soon the blind users ceased feeling the nails, and could function as though "seeing" with their skin sensations. This is another example of "recalibration and renegotiation" of neural plasticity.

These technologies are new, but advancing rapidly. The back-mounted grid has been replaced with a tongue-mounted coin sized array. Soon we might have direct electrical connections to the nervous system.

Consider also an experimental helicopter flight-suit. When the helicopter tips one way, the pilot's body is hit with a "puff-induced vibrating sensation on that side of the body." The pilot moves his body to balance the vibrations, which accordingly tips the helicopter level. The suit links the pilot into a closed loop interaction that extends his agency outside his physical body.

We know such a device is successful when the pilot no longer feels the vibrations, but rather just the helicopter's position.

IV. Incorporation versus Use

A critical response could be: are we not just speaking in the usual sense of "the same old user in command of a new tool."

Clark addresses neural research in response. There are neurons that receive both visual and tactile information. These neurons were monitored while monkeys learned to use a rake. They found that the neurons became sensitive to things at the rake's distance away, "as if the rake was part of the arm and forearm” (qtd)

Berti and Frassinetti conclude that “[t]he brain makes a distinction between 'far space' (the space beyond reaching distance) and 'near space' (the space within reaching distance)” and that “ … simply holding a stick causes a remapping of far space to near space. In effect the brain, at least for some purposes, treats the stick as though it were a part of the body” (qtd)

Clark distinguishes the body image from the body schema.

the body image is a conscious construct, able to inform thought and reasoning about the body. The body schema is a suite of neural settings that implicitly (and non-consciously) define a body in terms of its capabilities for action, for example, by defining the extent of “near space” for action programs. I would speculate, however, that the striking conscious experiential datum of equipment (not just rakes but even cars and violins) falling transparent in use is plausibly one result, in conscious agents, of just these kinds of deeper changes: changes (that may be temporary, context-dependent, or long-term) in the body-schema itself.

Clark notes that when we use tools, there is more than just awareness of its capacities. We use it automatically as extending the reach of our "near space."

In this way, our own embodied activity brings forth new systemic wholes.

V. Extended Cognition

We see that we extend our sense of our physical body. Can we extend and augment our minds too?

We often already must coordinate new and old brain processes when learning something new. Hence we already are extending our cognitive capacities naturally. Clark suggests that we could as well use non-biological extensions.

When we obtain deep implicit access to new mental operations or bodies of information, we have extended our brains.

Experiments show that our minds store information by visual indices, and retrieve that information by looking to them again. Other research finds that we are really only aware of very small portions of what happens around us. But because we can retrieve detail, we think we are aware of it.

The point, for present purposes, is that the brain need not actively represent the availability of such and such information from any given internal or external location. Instead, it simply deploys a problem-solving routine (that may involve programmed saccades to a visual location, or calls to biological memory) whose fine temporal structure assumes the easy availability of such and such information from such and such a location. It is in this way (I am suggesting) that non-biological informational resources can become—either temporarily or long-term—genuinely incorporated into the problem-solving whole. Just as the experienced brain need not (though it sometimes can) explicitly represent the shape of a tool and then infer the available reach, so too it need not (though it sometimes can) first represent the availability of specific information at some location, and then infer that it can find what it needs by accessing a given resource.

Instead, a problem-solving routine is delicately “grown” so as to maximally exploit the local informational field. Such a field can include biological resources, environmental structure, and cognitive artifacts such as notebooks and laptops. As we move towards an era of wearable computing and ubiquitous information access, the robust, reliable information fields to which our brains delicately adapt their routines will become increasingly dense and powerful, further blurring the distinction between the cognitive agent and her best tools, props and artifacts.

VI. Profound Embodiment

There are three grades of embodiment: mere, modest, and profound.

1.

A “merely embodied” creature or robot would be one equipped with a body and sensors, able to engage in closed-loop interactions with its world, but for whom the body was nothing but a means to implement solutions arrived at by pure reason. Imagine also that this being can control the body only by issuing a complex series of micro-managing commands to every tiny muscle, tendon, spring and actuator.

2.

A “modestly embodied” creature or robot would then be one for whom the body was not just another problem-space, requiring constant micro-managed control, but was rather a resource whose own features and dynamics (of sensor placement, of linked tendons and muscle groups, etc.) could be actively exploited allowing for increasingly fluent forms of action selection and control.

The reason these embodiments are modest is because the robots are "locked in" to respond rigidly to external sense data.

Such systems are congenitally unable to learn new kinds of body-exploiting solution “on the fly,” in response to damage, growth, or change.

3.

A “profoundly embodied” creature or robot is thus (according to this definition) one that is highly engineered so as to be able to learn to make maximal problem-simplifying use of an open-ended variety of internal, bodily or external sources of order.

Such an embodiment creates new agent world circuits by seeking-out opportunities to make the most of their systems and interfaces with the world. Primates and especially humans are profoundly embodied.

We are not disembodied. We are "promiscuously body-and-world exploiting," "forever testing and exploring the possibilities for incorporating new resources and structures deep into their problem-solving regimes." We are Natural-Born Cyborgs. There is no disembodied rational faculty within us.

Instead, much of our skilled engagement with the world flows, we saw, from the way subtle neural changes enable the embodied agent to rather directly engage the world, without representing every detail of bodily form and action-taking capacity

And our bodily assemblages can reconfigure.

all this is now highly negotiable, with the body-schema and other supporting resources apparently able to re-form and re-configure as components, interfaces, and resources change and shift.

We are

are the surprisingly plastic minds of profoundly embodied agents: agents whose boundaries and components are forever negotiable, and for whom body, thinking, and sensing are woven flexibly (and repeatedly) from the whole cloth of situated, intentional action.

VII. Enhancement or subjugation?

If Clark is right, the we

the human self emerges as a “soft self” (Clark, 2003), a constantly negotiable collection of resources easily able to straddle and criss-cross the boundaries between biology and artifact.

Many fear that this dehumanizes us or that such technologies threaten our well-being. Clark remains optimistic for three reasons.

1) Human enhancement is as old as humanity. From the first time we used a stick for some purpose, we extended our embodiments.

2) Our brain will just naturally incorporate useful extensions. We already unconsciously use brain processes to grasp an object. As we saw with robotic arms, we can quickly come to unconsciously use extensions of our brain's processes. It comes quite naturally for us to solve mathematical problems with calculators. They do not threaten humanity, even though they extend our brain's computational capacities to an external technology. And presumably, we will still be responsible self-controlled agents.

3) We can better decide and determine what is best for humanity. When we realize that our technologies become us, we can demand that they be beneficent and aid human flourishing. By choosing our bio-technologies, we choose who and what we are.

VIII. Conclusions

Clark has argued that we are profoundly embodied agents. We extends our bodies and minds using technology. And this process happens continually. With each new technology we again reconfigure our agent/world boundary. Yet, we are not disembodied cogitos. We are in direct contact with the world and with our technological sensory and cognitive extensions. The walking stick does not just become a part of our body. It becomes a part of our brain as well, and a part of us.

These technologies are developing rapidly, and may take a variety of forms, for example chemical, computational, genetic, bio-mechanical, and nano-technological.

Given our natural plasticity, we should not fear a "post-human" future. We should instead be optimistic that these technologies will enhance human happiness and flourishing.

Clark, Andy. "Re-Inventing Ourselves: The Plasticity of Embodiment, Sensing, and Mind. in Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Volume 32, Issue 3 May 2007 , pages 263 - 282.

More information and text available at:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a780168855~db=all~jumptype=rss

Deleuzean Cyborgs without Systems

Clark explicitly states that our brain's plastic alterations are on-going. He also at times refers to the breakdown of organic bodily and mind operations that happen when the new tool is first being incorporated into our nervous systems. For example, when the macaque monkey started controlling the robot arm, he seemed to have experienced disjunctions within his own system's operations. Clark writes:

When the robot arm was inserted into the control loop, the monkey displayed a striking degradation of behavior. It took two full days of practice for fluent thought-control over the onscreen cursor to be re-established. (emphasis mine)

When learning to use a new tool, we might as well feel the way it disorients us, and places our systems into chaos, until we adjust to it. So it seems that when we extend and alter our nervous system's operations, we do so under the conditions of confusion, disorder, and disorientation.

Hence it might seem that the aim of new tool use is to master the world around us. But at first, we let the world master us. We submit ourselves to chaos. When we first take a wet paintbrush to canvass, we apply too much or too little pressure. We have not learned to extend our sensitivities out to the end of the brush. And we can clearly feel the brush in our hand. We are aware of the contact-point between hand and brush, but not between brush and canvass. Slowly, the brush becomes like a sixth finger. We lose our sensitivity to the brush itself. We no longer feel it in our hands. But we do feel the canvass at the end of the brush. We can sense through the brush whether the canvass is smooth or rough, wet or dry. The brush-bristles are new nerve endings. Information comes through the brush that our nervous systems have learned to cooperate-with as though the bush extended our nerves beyond our bodies. So while we do not have nerve endings that touch the canvass, the ones in our fingers along with the neurons in our brains have modified their operations so that they convert the information coming through the brush as giving indications to what lies on the other end. At first we feel a tug in the brush. That means nothing at first. Slowly we learn to translate the amount of tug with the roughness of the surface. As we become adept, we need not think twice. We instantly feel the canvass' surface with each stroke.

So consider a professional painter. Take away her brushes and paints, and tell her she must live without them. Some argue that these instruments are not truly parts of us. But what about the painter without her brush? Will she feel that something essential to her is lacking, maybe even what is most essential to her? Our tools become extensions of our selfhoods, and not just in a metaphorical way. They literally are co-operational extensions of our brains and nerves.

Yet Clark does not stress the element of chaos. However, he does imply it. And by addressing it, we can take his line of thinking in a new direction. Because we can see that what makes us living, growing selves are our confrontations with disorder. As soon as we master the new tool, we are desensitized. What this tells us is that to be alive and to be ourselves, we need to explore. We should jump into new worlds, and let them change us.

'"A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drowns—nicht wahr? . . . No! I tell you! The way is to the destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up. So if you ask me—how to be?"

...

"And yet it is true—it is true. In the destructive element immerse." . . . He spoke in a subdued tone, without looking at me, one hand on each side of his face. "That was the way. To follow the dream, and again to follow the dream—and so—ewig—usque ad finem. . . ." (Conrad, Lord Jim)