Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:46:26 -0500 (EST)
From: Inna Runova Semetsky <irs5-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: The Empty Square


On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Paul Bains wrote:
You are right , it doesn't help! What about distinguising between plane of
consistency and plane of reference?
Inna
> 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
> >
> >
> 
> 
>