From: "hwenk" <hwenk-AT-web.de>
To: <deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.driftline.org>
Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 15:44:17 +0200
Subject: Re: [D-G] The Anti-Ordipe is so to say "Neurobiology" pur


Hello Dr. Crownbony and Filip,

 am very pleased that we are trying to go very deep into
the basic definitions and thsoeoretic assumptions and architercture of
Deleuze and Guattaris philosophy.
As there have been written a lot of Ph.D. thesis about their philosophy,
for example Massumis commented translation of "Mille Plateaux" into englisch
is one,
things are really not so easy to grasp.
Therefore I have the tendency, almost programatic, to find as
much connections
to the mainstream notions of scientific knowledge including everyday life
examples.
As I already wrote in an email, the use of simple everday life exampels in
combination with very
complicated and elaborated theoretic concepts is very hard to understand.

I mean, if you are doing particle physics or quantum theory,
 everyone expects that you have to work through hard and complicated
mathematics and physics
 - starting with Newtonian mechanics.
Now, the technology of particle accelerators, needing the electricity of a
middle town
and having supra conductor magnetic fields is really impressing, so there is
a kind
of  balance between theoretical effort and practical realization.

Now, the phenomena of schizophrenia and psychosis are in some respect also
very impressing,
compared with everday life. Of course there has been always tendencies to
say:
OH, is only a little bit more crazy than eveyone of us is.
Now, there are some cases where this is not longer true.

This is the one thing.

Now let us turn, as treated in your email, to the fundamental connection of
inner world and  the social world within and neurology.

What I have tried to express as the real revolutinary insight is:
The negative feelings, sometimes very painful negative feelings,
are in a paranoic way rooted back by the individuum siuffering friom this
brain driven pain, directes it against itself - or is directed by inhibitory
brain mechansims like inhibitory synapsis,
sees its own defiency as cause, So this  is functioning as a strong force to
surrrender to social values as: Not to have done ones duty, to be not so
perfect or going as th individual
expects of itself. Freud wants to keep the function of the superego intact,
funcctiong, peole should obey to some extend, otherwiese society
will nit survive. Even Jaspers still find the menace with the hell pains not
dispensible for the education for the
lower educated masses.

  Now, and this is very imoportant,
if there were some more or  less  bits of pain brains, things might be
tolerabel.
But there is something like a
"chinese wall", as expresses Deleuze and Guattari in the Anti-Oedipe,
as the brain, especially the neocortex,  functins normally on a 10 per cent
level, the rest is in some way
protected by sa lot of inhibitory synapsis or other (neurotransmitter)
mechansims.
There is for example thought that the T4 recepors of Dopamin, which give
pain instead of the usual other
receptors of dopamin, which give
more kinds of good feelings, plays a role for a turnin to the depressive
side ogf manic-depressive schizophrenia or to
 a depressive side in general.
Also serotin is suspected to play some role in depression.
Dopamin and serotin are two of the most used neurotranmiter sof the brain.
Therfore, in recepting dopamin by T4 receptors, the brain acts, its the
dopmainm produced by the body or
by the brain itself and the receptors are also of the brain.
This is acting and not suffering or being passive in the sens of Spinoza.

I am deaaling with the couple joy/sadness - activtiy/passitvity.

So thebrain is acting, but is depressive.
Now, the probailtiuy is great, tha this bad feelings are connected, by an
active identifcation or
building an idea or an object, as to turn the image of a
sympahtic friend into tje picture of an enemy,
or building some phantom of outer reason for the feeling of "bad air",
"bad vibrations" (a term often used in the 70ies.)
So  her we have acting, but an acting whic gives sadness.
Now we can understood Spinozas Definition:
"Sadness is the becoming worse (Ontological in a more poor state)  conected
with the idea of an exterior object".

I f we understand this that the becoming worse is an effect of the inner
brain chemistry and the connection
to an exterior object, which is  often is an activ memeber of the society,
maybe with some legal power, is done by us,
we have also grasped Spinozas idea of  mental liberation:
We have to cut the artificial, product of our suffering minds, connection of
the inner pains to the society or  the idea of our own defiency,
the direction against ourselves, and take it as brain chemistry like
headache.
This is also what yoga teaches: De-identify, cut the identifications:
Neti,Neti - that you are not.
You as a salesmen has not been successful - remind Millers "Death of a
salesmen".

I insist on this point, because it is very important and gives insight.
The power of society makes "Surplus value on code" as it is called in the
Anti-Oedipe,
it profits from pain giving chemistry in our brains without producing or
real influencing it - until it comes with drugs, which are a real chemical
intervention into
brain chemistry.
As I said, ther are some kinds of schizophrenic mental illnesses, which give
indeed hard to think, what to do about it.
But that is a minority of the cases running under the diagnisis on mental
illness.

In order to focus the discussion a little on this point, it is hard to treat
10 points
in every email, I stop here.

greetings Harald Wenk





-----Original Message-----
From: deleuze-guattari-bounces-AT-lists.driftline.org
[mailto:deleuze-guattari-bounces-AT-lists.driftline.org]On Behalf Of
.+oot8am wakeup
Sent: Dienstag, 8. Mai 2007 03:26
To: deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [D-G] The Anti-Ordipe is so to say "Neurobiology" pur


++++++++++
Hi,
the parallels I find between your captioned history of iraq and the
issue concerning "agency" of joy/sadness is surprizing. First there is
the ethical context to consider "arms and arms" which is literal, then
to continue inward inside the mind there is "states and states". There
are more, but I cannot get into to it, so now I'll jump in here to the
main point: BWO.

While I know the BWO to be neuro-material, I must point out that it is
not the material which makes up "a brain", but actually a "body", that
is the body of combined brains... they are the assembleges of
neuro-materials. So instead of looking at an inward psychology, I
continue to see the rhyzomatic social character of this assembled BWO
to be the main agency of joy/sadness. So when the social skeleton does
not move by command of the mind there is a certain sadness felt as if
for the loss of limbs.

when I ponder: "why would I want to know 'How to fabricate a BWO"? I
also look to this same foucault as you suggest, but I hear him
shouting loudly that I am reading a 'guide to anti-fascism'. I don't
see the BWO serving to better "internal perception" at all - acting
like "breaks" for lower neuro-momentum. Instead, it is specifically
fabricated to allow for social agency as opposed to conformity.  this
is how the BWO directly addresses the problem of hegemony and the
ability to feel joy w/o participating in the singular grim heirarchy
of society's skeleton after it has been cannibalized by order of the
megamachine.

When you say "it is not so difficult", I  begin to watch myself so I
don't conflating the terms of depression with sadness and then go
equating sadness with non-agency. While it is certain to say this for
clinical depression, sadness deserves another category altogether.
Then at what point can the finer catagories begin to acknowledge
ubergrief? despite what may have been read about areas of the brain
that trigger addiction, the brain is not a logicboard where one can
find specific areas that correspond to specific functionality.  yes,
there are certain areas where bottlenecking occurs (typically in the
hypocampus) but the brain is a semi-liquid substance, like jello, and
its functionality is highly integrated to withstand damage and loss.
how easy it is for persuasive theories of T4 receptors to forget. The
neuro-mechanisms for broadly defined experiences like "joy" are
supercritical and cannot be pushed in like a button b/c it is an
assemblege of chemicals that determines its significance, not just
one. I refer to the example of dopamine. with many narcotics, once the
joy has passed, one is left feeling sadness - no doubt from an
internal  neuro-chemical over-compensation, & here is a feedback clue.
But something additional has happened: the agency of action has been
spent internally burning calories on that chemical anemnesis with
external causes: addiction. can I speak of cultural addiction yet? The
cause of this sadness is much like an alienation of the self which
leads to a spiraling chain reaction of symptoms stunting everything
from neurogenisis to sense perception to sexual drive etc... this is
not joyous.

there are many theories on learning that support the general idea of a
two-fold process especially in learning birdsongs (and prime numbers
too). There is always a first stage of noisy chaotic failure for the
young bird that serves as feedback information. This stage establishes
a scope/horizon of play that does not result in social agency but only
in internal calibration with the projected sounds. The second part of
the learning process designates when the birdy can perform his song
with controlled variation according to success like an adult. Now, if
I am supposed to believe that joy=agency, it would have to be on these
kinds of terms, that 2nd stage with the joyous potential for mating
perhaps. But its the 1st stage that is so interesting because of the
feedback.

What is happening? If the feedback sounds ring false, compounding
negatively and thereby impressing sadness, then the birdy does not
identify and looses agency within that particular scope of noise,
hopefully not leading to the repetition of the false song.  But if the
feedback sounds ring true, compounding positively and thereby
impressing joy, then the birdy identifies and gains agency for
repeating the song and entering the 2nd stage.

The difference between spinoza and the birdy is the agency of feedback
as relegated to the 1st stage of learning.  Spinoza's ethical model
differs greatly, yet it fits very well, providing accurate
connectivity between the joy/sadness/agency matrix. So I am willing to
accept it for this adolescent stage where agency is a correlation of
feedback response and relegated to the internal body - even though I
cannot find actual feedback in spinoza's model, it must be a veiled
assumption or some strange kind of ideal form of a persistent
adolescent psychology.

But what about the second stage ,where agency is a correlation of body
extension? (ie if joy is experienced, agency is allowed and so the
body extends)Here, both the birdy and spinoza experience their
joy/sadness when they are subjected to external causes, as when Miss
Birdette responds favorably. but unlike the 1st stage, Miss birdette
does not exist in mr.birdy's brain, and so his agency is contingent
upon those external hierarchies, membership to that BWO, of which
mr.birdy is a skeletal child happily moved from above.

It doesn't seem to fit so nicely, does it? mainly because it is an
adult social situation that extends beyond the solipsisms that the
feedback environment provided. The ethics model operates adversely in
this circumstance b/c it offers a seat in the skeletal chain that is
under the main parental mover.  The scope of this agency is limited by
a "joy" that can only affirm external "heirarchical movement" but the
promises it cannot keep is that agency within a participatory
environment. that's why I called it a sabine ethics; it breeds
exclusive members.

It is also particular to spinoza's lifetime and the historical
foundations for capitalist governmental rule that seeks a supporting
psycho-social backbone; specifically one where money equals agency.
As with the greco concept of "morals", which the "ethics" merely
overwrites, the hegemonic bedrock must be laid from the get go. Before
it was the triremes that required a skillled democratic body for
coordinated movement,  but these emerging capitalist experiments in
vertical money power needed a horizontal class of man who wasn't only
divided from other men, but one who's divided from mature BWO.

-cb
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