Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:32:10 -0600 Subject: The Science of Flux I have always been struck by the difference in the way that Lyotard describes the postmodern and the way that pomo is described in pop culture. Perhaps, the best philosopher of pomo in the terms of the popular understanding is Baudrillard. By comparison, Lyotard seems more like a beautiful tropical fish swimming in the dangerous waters of the archipelago. However, when Lyotard discusses legitimation by paralogy, he seems to be moving closer to the popular understanding of the postmodern. Some background may help to explain why this is so. In my previous posts on science in relation to social construction, I have not attempted to approach this subject from a positivistic point of view. I certainly agree that there is an element of social construction to science, but this is very different in principle from, say, the Balinese puppet theatre or Day of the Dead rituals in Sonora. The concept of social construction (and paradigms) is simply too limited in scope to unravel what it is that is so unique about contemporary science. Science, technology and capitalism (STC) have become the unholy triumvirate that today rules not merely the West, but the entire world. This bastard child STC has usurped the throne and declared itself legitimate. It acts in a way that is literally hyper-orgasmic; growing and developing according an ever increasing rate of change. STC proceeds by exponential equations that approach the limit to infinity. It is this very rate of change that for Lyotard limits legitimation by performativity. As he points out; "the idea of performance implies a highly stable system because it is based on the principle of a relation, which is in theory always calculable, between heat and work, hot source and cold source, input and output." (P. 55) Systems theory bases itself on this conception. This may have been true enough back in the fifties, but since history has become Beckett's "wind-gauge spinning like a propeller" such a approach has lost its relevance. The law today is the change is all there is and the rate of change is accelerating. This more than anything else defines the postmodern, both in the public mind and for Lyotard. That is why he evokes the concept of legitimation by paralogy. When change becomes an absolute, the only possible science is the science of flux; the language game of the social bond which becomes "let's pin the tail on the hurricane." That is why Lyotard uses the examples of fractals, catastrophe theory and paradox. Today we would probably add chaos and complexity theory. These approaches assume flux, change and fluidity as opposed to substance, matter, and solids. They serve as markers for the postmodern, They are perhaps the only basis possible for legitimation when change becomes our god. I can't go into the topic right now, but I believe it was this notion of flux and the paralogical that led Lyotard after the PMC to become the philosopher of the sublime. If reality is only flux, then it cannot be represented. The paralogical strains to point out what cannot be shown: the postmodern sublime as the limit to infinity.
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