Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 11:19:27 +1000 From: P.Bains-AT-uws.EDU.AU (Paul Bains) Subject: RE: The Ruyer Effect. Howie writes, >Why does the notion of autopoietic desiring machines (ADM) have to bring >us back to the 'egg' or to (embryo)Genesis? All we can say is that ADM >demonstrate that the "unity of mind and nature" is produced (inflected), >and produced differently in different ADMs. Isn't the unity a rhizhomic >integration of heterogeneous elements (a function of contingence, capture >and contagion) as much as it is a function of linear transcendance? There is no linear transcendance involved (whatever that is). What is involved is a novel conceptualisation of _=EDntegration_ or unicity. Absolute overview is a kind of self-referential immanence. Obviously the word overview appears as a problem but it is exactly this that Ruyer hones in on. _Absolute_ overview is pure immanence without any transcendental whatever. THERE IS NO BRAIN BEHIND OR ABOVE (OR IN ANY DIMENSION0 BEYOND THE BRAIN). The brain, like concepts, is a 'true form' (rather than a non-integrated 'material' aggregate, partes extra partes) because it is in auto-overview (this does not require that it 'sees' itself in the mode of perceptual grasping - whether of 'representation' or 'presentation'). Ruyer uses the example of visual awareness to demonstrate how we are not spectators in a supplementary dimension to our visual awareness - altho we seem to be - and of course Bergson (at the antipodes of Ruyer) thinks we see images 'out there'.....and not 'in' our skulls. The brain _is_ a true form because it has subjectivity or interiority or an 'inner-lining' 'I' _is_ seeing - not 'looking at' seeing. (This is pretty much Harding's 'On having no head'). This primary or proto subjectivity (proto doesn't mean 'vague') is eliminated a priori by contemporary neurology which has to generate subjectivity from 'purely physical' neuronal interactions. Others have to generate it from a play of signs.......For d/g there is subjectivity (just like turtles) 'all the way down'. As for the biology/embryogenesis bit, Ruyer is being ironic and having a go at phenomenology, altho he certainly feels that a study of morphogenesis/embryogenesis is extremely valuable for illustrating auto-survol and 'primary organic consciousness', which is _not_ 'someone's' 'consciousness of'.... "But obviously this consciousness or cerebral morphogenesis is no more than a particular case derived from organic consciousness and morphogenesis (which is what the physicist sees as simply a relation of energy exchange but which is rather an elementary field of consciousness". Ruyer, La Genese des formes vivantes, 1958. But of course I can't do justice here to the details of Ruyer's work which are extraordinarily compelling and (as Deleuze says - good chap) as profound as Bergson or Leibniz. >>'Let us be careful not to get bogged down in this swamp and return to >the >>solid ground of biology and embryogenesis.' (Ruyer, There is no >Subconscious). > >According to the notion of a fundamental unity of mind and nature, why >should we privilege the "solid ground of biology and embryogenesis"? What >makes it so "solid" and the imagination so flighty? And is solid better >than flighty, anyway? >PS You mention Rupert Sheldrake. What's he up to lately? I participated >in an international experiment that he organized about 10 years ago. It >had very equivocal results as far as I could tell. I don't know what Sheldrake is up to. I spoke to him in Sydney 4 yrs ago and he continues to write. (Darwin btw never held a teaching position and spent most of his life at his country home in Kent). Paul. ------------------
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