Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 19:00:59 +0800
From: Paul Bains <P.Bains-AT-murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: Re: The Empty Square


Steve,
"The plane of immanence includes both the virtual and its actualisation,
without any assignable limit btwn the two. The actual is the complement or
the product, the object of the actualization, but this only has as its
subject the virtual. The actualization belongs to the virtual. The
actualization of the virtual is the singularity, whilst the actual itself is
the constituted individuality. The actual falls outside of the plane [hors
du plan] like a fruit, whilst the actualization relates/refers [rapporte] it
to the plane as to that which reconverts the object into subject." (Deleuze,
'L'actuel et le virtuel', New annexe to the recent French reprint of
Dialogues, 1996).

This probably doesn't help.

Deleuze briefly gives the example of virtual particles, which are created
and destroyed almost instantaneously. Every actual[ity] is surrounded by
circles of continually renewing virtualities. (D. quotes Michel Casse, 'Du
Vide a la creation', and Pierre Levy, 'What is the virtual?' 
D. using Bergson, claims that a perception is like a particle: an actual
perception is surrounded by a 'nebulosity' of virtual images....memories of
different orders. Their speed keeps them unconscious. He further develops
this with more reference to Bergson.....

You'v probably read it anyway. 
Not totalising. To be determined in each case. An indiscernability btwn two
terms which s'exchange  v-a,a-v. perpetual exchange or oscillation. Osmosis.
Relation...(what about your thing on relations?
 


At 04:42 PM 1/27/99, you wrote:
>Sorry to burden the list with a question of detail, but am in need of some
>assistance, for the sake of my own sanity more than anything.
>
>Can anyone shed some light on the 'paradoxical instance', the 'Unique
>Event', the 'aleatory point', the 'empty square', the 'differentiator', the
>'question'- how many more names are there?
>
>Deleuze, it appears, characterizes it as the element by means of which the
>virtual and actual communicate - it is the very basis, the necessary
>criterion, for their interaction. Why do we need it? How does it work? Why
>introduce this totalizing entity into a system without unity, viz.
>"the paradoxical instance is the Event in which all events communicate and
>are distributed. It is the Unique event, and all other events are its bits
>and pieces" (LS 56).
>Are we in the arena here of the 'Single Abstract Animal' of Plateau 3?
>
>If it wasn't for this differentiator either the two heterogeneous series of
>the structure would collapse into each other and become indistinct, or
>their heterogeneity would remain absolute and there could be no relations
>between them.
>
>"the empty square, which makes evrything function"
>
>Anyone?
>
>
>Steve
>
>