Deleuze: natural law skeptic

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I’m reading Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition and he’s worse than Kant. Even so, I am getting a few things out of him. Early in the first chapter he suggests that there are no such things as the laws of nature, that what appear to be the laws of nature are really a consequence of certain physical constants that aren’t really constants. He seems to be one of those philosophers (I don’t know what “ism” it is) that believe the only constant in nature is change.

He explains the constants in nature–the charge of an electron, the force of gravity (Newton’s G), the mass of a proton, etc.–as variables undergoing change at a rate much too slow for us to notice. He talks about how these constants would seem a lot more fluid at a larger scale of time, like watching tectonic plates slip passed one another, transform and change if millions of years could be seen to go by in a matter of seconds.

Under these considerations, can we really say that anything really repeats itself–I mean, as a perfect replication of its past occurrences? Think about bouncing a ball off a wall. Isn’t the reason why the ball bounces the same way every time–exemplifying a law of nature–that the wall, in its solidity, is a constant? What if the wall was constantly transforming itself, or rippling and streaming as if it were fluid? Would we be able to replicate the same bounce twice?

If we were to imagine the unfolding of the universe go by in five seconds, as opposed to the 13.7 billion years scientists tell us it took, would we see any constants? Would we see anything remaining the same? And what would we see of physical laws? Patterns perhaps, planets revolving around stars a few times, but eventually changing their trajectories, their shapes, and their natures. And even these few times we see things repeating themselves, these finite patterns wouldn’t really be consistent. If these constants aren’t really constants, then they are always changing, and it’s a question of how quickly or how slowly. The most we can say for repeating patterns is that hey are held almost constant, that they repeat in almost the same form each time, but not perfectly. Every iteration of the pattern would be slightly different from its predecessor.

This is what Deleuze seems to be saying. Keep in mind I’m having a bitch of a time understanding him (I’m reminded of John Searle’s warning of French philosophers: don’t read them–they’re deliberately obscure). But what I got out of it does seem reasonable to me. What do you think?

2

To me, this doesn’t sound like ‘no laws’. This just sounds like laws at one level meta to the level we thought the laws were at.

If we previously thought that it was a law that the charge of an electron is x, but it turns out that the charge of an electron is slowly changing, then the law is not, ‘the charge of an electron is x,’ but rather, ‘the rate of change of the charge of the electron is y.’

And if it turns out that the rate of change itself is changing, then you can have a rate of change of the rate of change (in calculus, this is known as the second derivative – another name for it is acceleration).

Or maybe the law is in the third derivative, or fourth.
Or maybe the value of the charge changes over time like a sin wave, so that the law is, 'Charge = x + y sin ( kt ) or something.

So, yeah, it sometimes happens that something we previously thought was a law turns out not to be a law. I think it’s naive to see that and say, ‘HA! There must be no laws!’ I think it’s a bit better to say, ‘Oh, well that’s not a proper law like we thought it was – but it’s behaviour changes in a fairly consistent way – maybe there’s a meta-law controlling what we thought was a law.’

In fact, I think most things that we call ‘laws’ in physics are not the real laws. Conceptually, what I call a ‘real law’ can be understood in the context of Conway’s Game of Life – in Conway’s Game of Life, there are certain high-level ‘laws’ – consistently predictable behaviors, like the motion of a glider – but that’s not a ‘real law’ – we know what the real laws are in Conway’s Game of Life, because we have access to the source code. And it turns out, the real laws only govern what the next state of a pixel will be - white or black. Everything else, every other consistency of behavior, is a high-level ‘law’, not a proper law.

So, when we call the charge of an electron a law, that may be (and probably is) akin to calling the behavior the glider a law (possibly even a worse error than that, even) – it may be that in the ‘source code’ of the universe, there is no variable corresponding to the ‘charge of an electron’ at all (in fact, I would bet that there isn’t).

But that doesn’t mean that there are no laws, again – that just means the laws are at a different level than we thought.

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I agree to the scepticism surrounding Deluze. Both Bertrand Russell and Deluze interpret the change of reality due to the birth of modern science. Positivism shifts knowledge toward the mathematical logical foundation, whereas phenomenology is reduced to psychological elements with no basis apart from their apprehensions.

 The shift from certainty therefore takes dissimilar routes.

 This dissimilarity as diffarance is what becomes primary for Deluze.  For positivists paradigms remain the hypothetical.

  This dissimilarity of the primacy of logic becomes the essential as a repetitive ontology of the process becomes differentiated from the recognition of distinct phenomenon.

 Russell fails to differentiate between the sense and the data because rhey are logically irreducible.  Language and logic are only inherent within a uaeage of semblence and not of difference.  

 Similarity is. A synthetic apprehension of a Hwglelian process toward ideal attainment whereas  difference is a reverse process which reduces by differentiating the built up levels of false certainty.

 Kant somehow prefigures this dissimilarity
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We could say that but part of what it is to be a law is to be necessary. Not saying that the rate of change for an electron’s charge being such-and-such isn’t necessary, just that if this change only happens once in the history of the universe, we don’t really have good grounds for saying it happens necessarily. We don’t really have good grounds for saying anything is necessary, of course, but we come to think that certain occurrences in nature are law-governed when we see them repeated over and over again, and when the same preconditions are met every time and we see the same consequences. We get the impression that it has to be that way, that it is necessary.

Obe,

I understood you up until this point:

How is the primacy of logic dissimilar? Dissimilar to what?

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GiB : The logical basis of language is dissimilar to its mode of apprehension.The mind perceives, understands , and interprets by identifying meaning in terms of difference.

That's the best way I can describe what I mean.
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That there are laws, rather than something like habits or temporary patterns has been an assumption of science. There are recent findings about constants and laws that are challenging this within science. Of course temporary may be a very, very long time, and finding these patterns is very useful.

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Yes, that is the way the mind identifies anything–by picking out difference between foreground and background.

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Implying that meaning formation is primarily identification by visual clues? The diffeentatiom between sight and sound being a secondary process? Therefore visual differentiation
In idea formation is best exemplified in a phenomenological reduction as a a shift toward a reduction of contextual toward
Point of view process.

  If so the scepticism is more of a tenacity to hold on to formal elements, and the form is sustained by primarily by visualization of formal elements.  

  As context flows towards a reduction, the anomalies are created between the off recurrent patterns of differance between visual-vocal paradigmns as a reintegration occurs, albeit on an unknown level.  This creates the illusion that paradigms exist and create a similar flow reversely.  

 So continental philosophy releives this illusion that empiricism sees as irreducible by way of shifting the position of the known towards behavior and away from phenonology by way of a utalirarian simplicity : whatever works.

  Its an assumptive point of view which fails to discern understanding as a result of cognitive flow of discernable elements.  

 What is the validity of such an assumption?  (If nor an ontological truth?)  Perhaps the soft spot of utility is just that: there is uncertainty all around.

 Excuse for the digression but the optical reference brought in a my raid of irresistable .and tempting structural issues.

 Response by objective relevance may be accorded similarly.
9

Implying that meaning formation is primarily identification by visual clues? The diffeentatiom between sight and sound being a secondary process? Therefore visual differentiation
In idea formation is best exemplified in a phenomenological reduction as a a shift toward a reduction of contextual toward
Point of view process.

  If so the scepticism is more of a tenacity to hold on to formal elements, and the form is sustained by primarily by visualization of formal elements.  

  As context flows towards a reduction, the anomalies are created between the off recurrent patterns of differance between visual-vocal paradigmns as a reintegration occurs, albeit on an unknown level.  This creates the illusion that paradigms exist and create a similar flow reversely.  

 So continental philosophy releives this illusion that empiricism sees as irreducible by way of shifting the position of the known towards behavior and away from phenonology by way of a utalirarian simplicity : whatever works.

  Its an assumptive point of view which fails to discern understanding as a result of cognitive flow of discernable elements.  

 What is the validity of such an assumption?  (If nor an ontological truth?)  Perhaps the soft spot of utility is just that: there is uncertainty all around.

 Excuse for the digression but the optical reference brought in a my raid of irresistable .and tempting structural issues.

 Response by objective relevance may be accorded similarly.
10

Implying that meaning formation is primarily identification by visual clues? The diffeentatiom between sight and sound being a secondary process? Therefore visual differentiation
In idea formation is best exemplified in a phenomenological reduction as a a shift toward a reduction of contextual toward
Point of view process.

  If so the scepticism is more of a tenacity to hold on to formal elements, and the form is sustained by primarily by visualization of formal elements.  

  As context flows towards a reduction, the anomalies are created between the off recurrent patterns of differance between visual-vocal paradigmns as a reintegration occurs, albeit on an unknown level.  This creates the illusion that paradigms exist and create a similar flow reversely.  

 So continental philosophy releives this illusion that empiricism sees as irreducible by way of shifting the position of the known towards behavior and away from phenonology by way of a utalirarian simplicity : whatever works.

  Its an assumptive point of view which fails to discern understanding as a result of cognitive flow of discernable elements.  

 What is the validity of such an assumption?  (If nor an ontological truth?)  Perhaps the soft spot of utility is just that: there is uncertainty all around.

 Excuse for the digression but the optical reference brought in a my raid of irresistable .and tempting structural issues.

 Response by objective relevance may be accorded similarly.
11

I don’t think of it as ‘necessary’ - at least, not ‘necessary without qualifiers’. ‘Necessary in this universe’ maybe, but not just wholly ‘necessary’ altogether.

When I think about laws of physics, I think about them as something that, within this universe, can’t be broken, but there’s no in-principle reason why any given universe would have to have those laws.

So idk if I’m interpreting the term ‘necessary’ in the way that you mean, but by my interpretation, on a meta level any given law of physics isn’t necessary at all.

12

I agree to the above in terms of defining necessity as different
From contingency. Apart from that it is only a conjecture with or wirhoirt qualifiers.

I do apologize for the triple posting - unintended.

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Here’s my thoughts:

I don’t think there are any overarching laws that loom over the universe and govern everything that goes on therein; I think the laws subsist inside the phenomena of the universe and are, in fact, part and parcel of the nature of those phenomena. The idiosyncrasies of each phenomenon determines the unique laws that they will introduce into the universe. So a marble, because of its solid nature, will introduce “bouncing off walls” laws, whereas a drop of water, because of its liquid nature, will introduce “splattering onto walls” laws.

I see the universe as a perpetual series of events, one giving way to another, which translates to one phenomenon giving way to a different phenomenon. The universe began with the Big Bang, which gave way to hydrogen gas, which gave way to stars, which gave way to solar systems, which gave way to some planets with life, which gave way to some life forms with intelligences, etc.

If the universe can be seen as a series of events, each giving way to the next, then we can model the universe with the (admittedly oversimplified) series:

A → B → C → D → E → F …

Insofar as A exists in the universe, we could say there is the “law of A”. The law of A states that when you have A, you will get B. But notice that the law of A only exists because A exists. It wasn’t written in some abstract metaphysical book that stands outside the universe and dictates to the universe how it must behave. It resides within A and owes its existence to the nature A (i.e. just because of what A is, B comes out of it).

Now not all phenomena that give rise to subsequent phenomena stick around. A caterpillar does not stick around after it transforms into a butterfly. So once A has given way to B, A may not be around anymore. So what does that say of the law of A? It says there is no more law of A. There is now a “law of B” (which state that when you have B, you will get C), which itself wasn’t around when A was around. So I don’t think of the laws of the universe as constants or as static–they come and go with the phenomena that introduce and withdraw them.

Of course, this is not to say they can never be re-introduced. Supposing you had a series A → B → C → A … you could say that the law of A re-occurs in the universe, and this would look like the laws of nature as most of us see them–as constants that are always there but their application comes and goes as the occasions arise. To me, this is nonsense. There is nothing of a natural law but their application, for the law resides within the phenomena that give rise to their occasion, and this is enough if their existence rests solely on the nature of those phenomena. But when these phenomena aren’t around–especially if we’re talking about phenomena that we’ll never see again–then it makes no sense to talk about the continued existence of the laws they instantiated. Or rather, it makes about as much sense as talking about what would happen if pigs flied. What would happen if pigs flied? I don’t know–maybe evolution would have turned out different. All the same, we could make up any law we want: if there was no gravity, the planets would not orbit. Who knows, maybe there will be a stage in the universe when gravity no longer exists. Should we go ahead and predict what kinds of laws would describe such a universe and say those laws now exist? Like flying pigs, we would be talking about hypotheticals. Only if certain phenomena occur with regular frequency would there be any usefulness in describing the behavior of those phenomena with laws. But other than that, the laws of nature come and go with the phenomena that correspond to them.

14

And then there is the
how local
and
how temporary
does this pattern we call a law hold?

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Perhaps laws are but sequential probabilities as internal and external systems merge and diverge.

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FJ has it right, save for the assumption that there need to be constants at any level of derivation. All we have are habits, patterns, emerging and receding on a cosmic scale. Deleuze is a much nicer writer than is Kant. The trouble is, he doesn’t care to begin at the beginning, because we’re always already in the middle—and so the act of introduction, of introducing yourself to him or him to yourself, is always going to be a messy affair. It gets better. For clarity and lucidity, check out his books on Spinoza and Nietzsche: not only are they landmark works of secondary scholarship, not only will they introduce you to a lot of concepts that Deleuze is going to take for granted in his own work, but they’re actually astonishingly clear. Writing in his own name, Deleuze is a lot more comfortable fucking around with language and asking a bit more of his readers. But don’t worry, it’ll open up before you sooner or later. Don’t feel the need to read it so linearly, either. Think of it as a record (as Massumi says in his foreword to A Thousand Plateaus): keep jamming on the cuts that stay with you, and just ignore (for now) the ones that leave you cold.

17

This paradigm doesn’t well resemble what I think most people are talking about when they talk about the laws of physics, or the universe, etc.

The laws are in the following diagram:

A → → B → C → → D → → E → → F …
Unchanging, taking the state of reality at one time as an input and outputting the next moment (although relativity makes difficult the idea of time being so simple as that – it’s probably much different in our reality, but has some similarities with the above diagram).

18

I think what you need, obe, are some examples. Give me some examples of what a “sequential probability” is. What would be an “internal” system as opposed to an “external” one?

Great! I just might read those.

Thanks for the advice, Onto.

I know. I don’t agree with most people.

This is precisely what I’m arguing against. These thing-a-ma-bobs seem to exist beyond the events of the universe, outside them or “between” them–in any case, not in them–but that gets too metaphysical for me. There is nothing of a law of nature other than the way really phenomena behave in the universe. You can’t separate them out of such phenomena.

19

Sequwntial probabilities are differentiable on two fronts. First any numerical set can abstract sequences randomly as for instance from the absolutely inclusive set of 1 - infinity all even or all odd users can be abstracted.

 Probable to most probable sequences decrease the odds of probability from whiich hey will be remdomly selected.



Correspondingly the physical world also exhibit sequences in terms of reoccurring phenomena.  Examples of these are numerous and seem to work on probable scenarios.  

 For instance if clouds gather , the darker they are the probability goes up that it will rain.  It is not a forfpne conclusion that it will rain, a number of things could develop to prevent rain.

   Systems either form more antropu or less , in the case of weather, more compression of the water vapor can cause  more saturation  leading to rain

.

20

Sequantal probabilities are differentiable on two fronts. First any numerical set can abstract sequences randomly as for instance from the absolutely inclusive set of 1 - infinity all even or all odd users can be abstracted.

 Probable to most probable sequences decrease the odds of probability from whiich hey will be remdomly selected.



Correspondingly the physical world also exhibit sequences in terms of reoccurring phenomena.  Examples of these are numerous and seem to work on probable scenarios.  

 For instance if clouds gather , the darker they are the probability goes up that it will rain.  It is not a forgone conclusion that it will rain, a number of things could develop to prevent rain.

   Systems either form more antropu or less , in the case of weather, more compression of the water vapor can cause  more saturation  leading to rain

.