Hjelmslev’s Net

November 29, 2010 Martin K. Jones 10 Comments

“God is a lobster, or a double pincer, a double bind.”

— From A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari

Linguist Louis Hjelmslev developed a semiotic model which elaborated Saussure’s two part signifier and signified into the double dual of the substance of content, the form of content, the substance of expression, and the form of expression. Contents are “formed matters”, and expressions are “functional structures”. Both are further separated into a substance and a form. The original signifier can be considered the form of expression, while the original signified can be considered the form of content. The two types of forms are like a net of warp and woof (why else a net?), dividing an undifferentiated unformed matter (Earth, purport) into two types of substances.

Deleuze and Guattari cast this net from Hjelmslev’s use in language into universal application by way of examples in geology and biology: sedimentation/folding and molecular genetics. The two planes of content and expression are the First Articulation and Second Articulation, respectively, the first of which “chooses or deducts”, and the second of which establishes “functional, compact, stable structures”. In their geology example, the First Articulation is the process of sedimentation, and the Second, folding. Generally, the two substances deal with territorialization, deterrritorialization, and reterritorialization, and the two forms are concerned with coding and decoding (and recoding?).

Additionally, there is talk of the molar versus the molecular (as continuous/discrete or unity/multiplicity?) but the molar is not form, nor is the molecular substance, nor vice versa. The First Articulation moves from molecular substances to molar forms; the Second Articulation moves from molecular forms to molar substances. How confusing! What does it all mean? One could spend a lifetime lost in these fun-house reflections!

I propose that the four basic logical operators of Linear Logic are in correspondence to the double articulation of Hjelmslev’s Net. Content is Conjunction, Expression is Disjunction, Substance is Additive, and Form is Multiplicative. Content and Expression is Substance or Form; Conjunction and Disjunction is Additive or Multiplicative.

References:

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari / A Thousand Plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia

Manuel De Landa / The Geology of Morals: a neo-materialist interpretation http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/geology.htm

Luke Feast / The Science of Multiplicities: post-structuralism and ecological complexities in design http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/142

[*3.170, *4.46, *4.88, *4.112, *4.146, *5.70, *5.174, *6.10]

evolution, fourfolds, Science, technology

Kevin Kelly’s Philosophy of Technology

November 19, 2010 Martin K. Jones 1 Comment

Kevin Kelly’s new book “What Technology Wants” is an exploration of what technology is and what it does. Technology has many of the same attributes as biological evolution, and as such, its effects cannot be fully predicted. At best, we can try to evaluate a particular technology’s advantages and dangers before it is let loose into the world; at worst, we will have no control over it at all.

Kelly describes evolution as shaped by structural, historical, and functional factors; and goes on the describe technology as dependent on structural, historical, and intentional factors. However, he also maintains that technology is an evolutionary process, and evolution in turn is a technological process. Kelly seems to say both processes have all four of the factors shown in the double dual above.

Kelly says that human language is the first big human technology (or was it fire? or stone tools?). But I also agree with him that the mechanisms of biological evolution can be considered technology. What is technique except a method that can shared and perpetuated by others? Molecular genetics grants us the ability to pass (most of) our attributes on to our progeny, including the ability to pass (most of) their attributes on to theirs. Once techniques can be shown or told to others, biology becomes the basis for the showing or telling, but not the mechanism of it.

Kelly calls the entire system of evolution/technology the technium. Because we have been continually shaped by our human technologies, they are not foreign to us. On the whole, we are better with them, than without them. One could argue that without them we wouldn’t even be human!

References:

Kevin Kelly / What Technology Wants

[*5.92, *6.60]

fourfolds, linear logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Monism = Pluralism

November 5, 2010 Martin K. Jones Leave a comment

PLURALISM = MONISM

– From A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari

Jeffrey Bell’s blog entry about William James’ radical empiricism reveals relations between Hjelmslev’s Net and Linear Logic. To begin with, Hume was concerned with disjunctive relations (of expression) to the exclusion of conjunctive relations (of content). In addition, James sought the solution to the problem that consciousness (here content) has between the “one and the many”, one consciousness in relation to many consciousnesses. Unable to resolve this problem, James did not realize that conjunction can come in two modes, an additive one and a multiplicative one, a substance and a form.

The substance of content (here consciousness, agency, …) is constituted incrementally from choices between actions, either thoughts (thoughts-as-action) or actual actions (actions-as-action). This is additive AND. The form of content (essence, existence) is assembled by the ordering of those choices, a multiple choice of choices. This is multiplicative AND. These are the powers of AND.

However, Hume’s disjunction (expression) also comes in two flavors: additive and multiplicative (substance and form). It also has a problem with the “one and the many”. The substance of expression is either identity or generation (accident, substance). This is additive OR. The form of expression doesn’t seem like much in Linear Logic, but it is the very form of the logic, invertible with the connective tissue of the calculus (the comma). This is multiplicative OR. These are the powers of OR.

Content and expression are dual to each other, as conjunction is logically dual to disjunction. Is content the “subjective” and expression the “objective”? Is substance the “one” and form the “many”? Each is dual to the other, not distinguishable except by perspective. Perhaps these double duals are like a Mobius Strip, which only has one side, weaving in and out and forming a unity out of multiplicity.

Note that the elements of the double dual shown here are taken from the Protreptikos page “Monism and Pluralism”. The fourfold is made up of different “compositions in being”, each in two parts. There are many echoes to other double duals in these compositions, such as potency/actuality (existence) and substance/form.

References:

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari / A Thousand Plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia

http://schizosoph.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/monism-pluralism/