Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 16:09:04 -0500 (CDT)
From: CND7750-AT-UTARLG.UTA.EDU
Subject: re: brains and refrains


on thought about the outside and pure exteriority i would like
to quote from massumi's fine _user's guide_, note 44, p. 170:

"If the virtual is a space of pure exteriority, then every point
in it is adjacent to every point in the actual world, refardless
of whether those points are adjacent to each other(otherwise some
actual points would separate the virtual from other actual points,
and the virtual would be outside their outside--in ohter words,
relative to and mediated by it)."

Obviously this is massumi and not Deleuze, but i don't have
_Foucault_ with me and there are few references to the 'outside'
in Deleuze's other works. my question is: how does the virtual
attain this state of pure exteriority? by virtue of being indeterminate
in relation to the actualized present? i don't claim to have come with
alternative conceptual terms to describe space where inside and
outside no longer apply. rather i am suggesting that perhpas a 
different terminological system wuld be more appropriate for the
kind of topology Deleuze is trying to describe. in fact, that
terms like 'exterior' and 'outside' actually hinder the conceptualiztion
of mobean like space. 

I think, at bottom, what Deleuze is attempting to describe is finite
foece, as he says int he appendix to _Foucault_ i believe (something
about  an 'unlimited' finity, referring to Nietzsche's eternal return.).
I think the limited essence of force as described by Deleuze in
_Nietzsche and Philosophy_, when delineating the will to power, does
a much better job od describing terminal physis. The problem, as
described by Nietzsche and Deleuze, is that space must be thought
as other than empty space. Space must be thought in relation to
force, as a dimension of force, and only as a dimension of force.
Force is not inserted into an empty space, but is the _shaping
movement_ that becomes space. The essence of force is time, which
of course relates to the virtual. This is described by LDeleuze
in terms of the synthesis of eternal return and will to power.
This conceptual framework avoids the inside/outside paradoxes
and confusions.

anyone? more later.

chris

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