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?