Iterative self-programming.

Let S be the basic symbol set where S is an ordered set of symbols which correspond one-to-one with the effective atomic operational semantics of any programming language (of sufficient power and complexity, see [1].) That is, S represents the complete enumeration of the operational semantics of a programming language P. For example, S1 would be the alphabetically first legitimate symbol in P, and Si would be the ith symbol in P. A function is any compilable, syntactically correct, ordered collection of symbols in S. Let L be the language of all such functions, beginning with simple variations on the basic symbol set, whose rules of expansion we shall return to. Let Li be the ith function in L, and the list of this set L is the complete enumeration of the .basic names of all functions generated so far over S.
Let F be the ordered index of all functions in L which either (a) generate syntactically valid output from valid input, or (b) change the (intra)system state in any way. A structured partition of F is a collection of functions taken as methods of a class and which generate syntactically valid input and output. Let a component be any collection of functions which, taken as methods of a class, generate syntactically valid input and output and utilizes other member (or family) functions or variables. A component is by definition syntactically correct and has a rough, “machinistic” (part-to-whole) meaning.
We define a closed ontology O to be an ordered collection of micro-ontologies. A micro-ontology is a special kind of class structure in which an arbitrary assemblage of component names are related to other component-names/ around five cateogires:
(a) Individuals. An individual is just a named component; let I represent the group of all individuals belonging to the micro-ontology; the first individual is the name of the micro-ontology itself;
(b) Classes. A class C is an ordered group of components with some commonality. This commonality is represented as the name of the class. At the same time, the contents of C are entirely dictated the name of C (which is the addition of a new basic symbol in O.):The name of C names the grouping-function of which C is the result;
(c) Attributtes
(d) Relations
(e) Events: Events are interruptions of a process due to an input stream (words or images) which provoke some response; this response is re-encoded as a necessary relation between an “individual” of the class of “events”;
Let K be an open ontology, the set of all valid programs—just ordered collections of closed ontologies--correlated to themselves within a macro-ontology. We shall say K is equivalent to a simple agent. Let us define three rules which expand K (i.e., generate new functionalities.)…

(i) other:
a. the function calling this function is taken as the foundation for a new program;
b. four variations and cross-variation on this interaction
i. repetition/erasure
ii. extension/contraction
iii. displacement/reogranization
iv. integration/separation
(ii) same
a. this operation is repeated, treating the newly creating network of related programs as the other who calls
b. (repeat the four variations)
(iii) synthesis (new program generation)

[1] – The basic ‘trick’ here is that the recursive step appears in the definition itself, i.e., in the relation of the symbol set to itself. We’ll get into all this later, but the programming language in question has to at the least allow for recursion, the definition of an abstract class, and the treatment of program code as an atomic data type. Provided this, we have the raw mechanics we need to simulate a heterogeneous network of communicative, self-programming agents--which allows for the multiple social instantiations of linguistically competent agency. Treating the program code as a code allows the computer to treat any code as a code—i.e., gradually and smoothly increase its facility with a symbol set by using it, experimenting with it, etc.


(sorry, finals, I’ll finish this soon)

Notes on Natural-Language Artificial Intelligence

Our first axiom must be some kind of logically justifiable affirmation that this goal is indeed reachable:

(1) Linguistic competence is attainable through the appropriate programming of any universal Turing machine.

In order to demonstrate this, let’s suppose that (‘artificial’) natural language agency isn’t possible. Accepting this implies at least one of the following two propositions must be true:

(a) Either linguistic competence will never be attainable for machines due to some kind of ultimately undiscoverable reason, or

(b) Algorithmic linguistic competence is unattainable for a reason which is, at least in principle, discoverable (i.e, empirically demonstrable)

In the case of (a), we have a clear fallacy verging on mysticism, at least without further evidence to adduce it. Formally, positively asserting impossibility based on an absence of evidence is purely inductive and has no necessary truth value. On the other hand, the truth value of (b), rather than resorting to faith in a metaphysical proposition, is based entirely on the principle of impossibility which is to be demonstrated. This is, of course, the more scientific of the two propositions, and the one that most deserves our scrutiny.
Why have we drawn this distinction? First, because it is clear that many “counter-proofs” of natural-language A.I. (“strong” A.I.) advocate (b) on the basis of (a), in a sort of admixture where they end up founding their “empirical” demonstrations upon crude and poorly-concealed metaphysical presuppositions. Second, because the second proposition (b) opens upon an important question which deserves scrutiny as a science in itself and which has been unnecessarily fettered with the supernatural faith of the first.
Let’s take as a common example the objection raised in Searle’s
‘Chinese Room’ thought experiment. He argues in essence that a computer will always and only be a model of a mind and, being just a machine, will be forever incapable of anything resembling human “cognitive states” (i.e., understanding, imagination, etc.) Searle presupposes the existence of a machine which would communicate with some degree of facility in a natural language; that the machine can speak Chinese is an arbitrary choice. In Searle’s conception, the operations of the machine are entirely determined by logical necessity. These operations, therefore, can be represented by any system correlative to a universal Turing Machine—and we must remark at this point that every physical system is of this kind, so that even a human being manually performing the operations on paper could represent the operation of the speaking machine: taking input in Chinese, “mechanically” applying rules, and delivering the result.
This is in fact precisely the case Searle considers: this way, the human is considered only as a rule-bound sign-manipulator, unconscious of meaning as such, to precisely the degree he performs the operations of the language-speaking machine. Moreover, the human being doesn’t need to understand Chineses in order to perform these operations; thus, since the pure operation of the system can’t encounter “cognitive states,” even though these may be simulated by the computer program which the human being is unwittingly but faithfully carrying out. To Searle, this also means that Chinese is not being “understood” by the machine either, even if it is a spectacularly convincing simulation. Insofar as it is just a universal Turing machine, Searle asserts that it is impossible for machines to understand Chinese.
It is easy to see how a large part of the conclusions Searle draws from his experiments are accurate: it is undoubtedly the case that computers, modern or not, are just and always mindlessly manipulating symbols. But to conclude from this that language requires something else than what is being offered. Just because the operations themselves are not cognitive states, this of course doesn’t mean that cognitive states don’t exist or are therefore impossible. Here Searle is against the Strong AI project as well as against Turing, who would seem to accept that a machine which could converse easily and convincingly at length with a human subject would qualify, at the least as ‘intelligent.’ Consciousness cannot be thoughtlessly conflated with linguistic competence.

In other words, (b) does not logically follow from (a), even if we do accept (a)’s truth-value. To speak via the position of an undiscoverable absence is, again, a non-actionable and unscientific presumption verging on the mystical.

The Slave and the God of Death

It's so easy to act like you forget and get out of answering a difficult question, isn't it? Politics, of course, provides innumerable and colorful examples, because most of the lying in politics is lying by omission, intentional or not. Take, for instance, white house spokesperson Tony Donahue's response today to a reporters question regarding whether the bombing of the Iraqi parliament which killed three Iraqi MPs represented a failure of current security operations:

"The terrorists will do everything they can to try to undermine a government that is trying to bring peace and stability for the people of Iraq."

But does it mean our security operations are in jeopardy? The question doesn't (and hasn't) resulted in a meaningful response from this administration, just a blurring of the lines of responsibility. The equivocation in this quote ("undermine a government") underscores a neglect of responsibilities, a managerial imperialism, i.e., the Iraqi government is just like ours, trying to bring peace and stability, but running against "inevitable" difficulties because of terrorism. Instead of addressing the criticisms directed at their policies, this administration relies on an implicit trust in their mission, what Bush has termed his "mandate," which validates, a priori, any activity they perform; basically, by not addressing this criticism, Donahue is in fact addressing it the most clearly: he is saying, "You asked for this. You voted for us. You put us into office and we took it seriously. You thought elections were a joke?"

*********************************************************************

For better or for worse, this "mandate" is conflated with aggrandizing a-historicism, a sort of pseudo-religious self-righteous globalism, which resonates well both with the religious right ("humanism") and oil companies ("free markets"). Now, with scandals mounting and Dick Cheney about to undergo impeachment hearings, the transparent lies are beginning to be questioned. The obvious critique of this (or any imperialist) government's desire to "bring peace and stability" to Iraq is slowly being reformulated. We swore never to forget; this administration seems only to forget, to break its promises and the law. Donahue's comments give evidence to a widespread and intense aporia: specifically, he seems to be forgetting that we made possible the conditions which allowed the Sunni revolutionaries to rise to power, in fact, we are the ones who planted the seeds of these toxic inter-sectarian conflicts.

To wash our hands of it, even rhetorically, even to escape answering more difficult questions, is neurotic, amnesiatic, but worst of all, it's cruel and irresponsible. It makes more sense to us than it is comfortable to admit that, to the citizens of Iraq, we are the God of Death. Not that Iraq would have been peaceful or not without us-- but that due to our role in the history of the development of that country, we function as the rebel God who donates fire right into the hands of Saddam, one of the most dangerous and repressive rulers in history.

Fidelity to the event of September 11th requires not becoming or supporting terroristic groups or governments ourselves. How easily we forget, or pretend to! The immense spectacle of false images which were necessary and sufficient to provoke the otherwise extraordinarily apathetic American populace to war is already evidence of the fundamentally false premise under which this "war on terrorism" has been and is still presented, waged and represented six years later.

*********************************************************************

The fact that we had to be tricked to go along with this conflict means that the fight is wrong, and the ideology needs to be updated. This war is more about oil than it is about, say, democracy, September 11, or Christianity; however, more than oil, this war is about imperialism, it's necessary and sufficient condition was a feverish, but short-lived and long-regretted super-nationalism. Iraq is about nation- and empire-building. But this is flatly contradicted by democratic ideals; aren't we "all" supposed to build the nation? We "all" participate equally in free society, we "all" form the body politic in which the vox populi is lodged, etc, etc...

This idealism is what is taken to be true before anything else, and it is here that it pays most to be critical, and not to give an inch to superstitution and self-blinding delusion. The most generic expression of the current war is founded on a syllogism: since we are a democracy, we are able to institute it elsewhere. Besides the fact that this doesn't even logically follow, it is begging the question via the preliminary presumption that we are indeed a democracy, that we value social equality, and so forth. From the mouths of aggressors and warlords, this is ultimately a blind idealism to empty concepts which allows us to forget about our hypocrisy, our deception, our narcissism and our imperialism. In fact: this leader, this administration, this "war", are all spectacles, all justified by simulation, which represent an intervention against democracy.

Being and Event: Meditation 23 on Fidelity

I call fidelity the set of procedures which discern, within a situation, those multiples whose existence depends upon the introduction into circulation (under the supernumerary name conferred by an intervention) of an evental multiple. In sum, a fidelity is the apparatus which separates out, within the set of presented multiples, those which depend upon an event. To be faithful is to gather together and distinguish the becoming legal of a chance

The word ‘fidelity’ refers directly to the amorous relationship, but I would rather say that it is the amorous relationship which refers, at the most sensitive point of individual experience, to the dialectic of being and event, the dialectic whose temporal ordination is proposed by fidelity…How, from the standpoint of the event-love, can one separate out, under the law of time, what organizes—beyond its simple occurrence—the world of love? (EE 232)

The explication of one of the truly fascinating concepts in Being and Event occurs in Meditation 23. Fidelity, as we shall see, leads also to the introduction of the subject—something that occurs last in this work, after all the order of reasons that serve as a foundation for Badiou’s set theory edifice. Though Badiou is quick to point out the resonance of fidelity to the amorous condition of philosophy, one should also point out the resonance of fidelity with notions of faithfulness and allegiance, like an oath sworn to a lord. In the short space that I have, I will set out to explicate the two dimensions of fidelity as a concept and its relationship to the subject.

Before we begin, I would like to arouse some intrigue into Badiou’s innovative theory of the subject. In Meditation 35, Badiou says that “the subject is chance” (396), and so we should juxtapose this to another quote that ends the first paragraph of Meditation 23: “To be faithful is to gather together and distinguish the becoming legal of a chance” (232). Having convoked these two statements together, what is fascinating is the fact that, from the point of view of the situation, the event is not counted as such—it is up to the subject to wager on its inclusion and to follow out the implications of this wager, implications that, in the current state of affairs, can only be described as that which will have taken place in the situation. This inclusion of the event entails the becoming legal of the logic of the event as chance, but it also indicates that the subject (retroactively?) becomes legal. Therefore, we must conclude that the subject is initially illegal.

Before flattering ourselves about this connection, we should define fidelity. It would be simple to introduce fidelity as the process that separates multiples in the situation in accordance to their (non)-connection to the event. More helpful for our topic, though, would be to point out some delimitations. First, fidelity is not linked to a “general faithful disposition;” instead, it relies on an event and so is always particular (233). Second, fidelity is not a multiple—strictly speaking, it is not. A fidelity acts as a different count, one not necessarily opposed to the state’s count, but one that enquires into the situation and marks the multiples that depend on the event. Therefore, as Badiou makes explicit more than once, fidelity is a concept related to the state. Third, when a faithful procedure is successful and it marks multiples as depending on the event, these multiples consequently are included in the situation. The fidelity is thus triply bound in its structure: it is defined by its situation, the event to which it corresponds, and the rule of connection that binds multiples as depending on the event.

However, we must remember that onto-mathematicians like Badiou wager that the being of situations is infinite. This assumption about the infinity of situations forces us to consider fidelity in its dual temporal aspect: it is “both the one-finite of an effective representation, and the infinity of a virtual presentation” (236). This means that fidelity’s goal—to count-as-one multiples marked by their dependence on the event and thus to present these marked multiples as a one—is never coextensive with the situation. The faithful count always lags behind the infinity of presentation: fidelity is a process that forever perpetuates its consistency by a further need to enquire into the connectivity of multiples to the event—the still-more of the faithful.

Before concluding our analysis of fidelity, we have to radically assert the deinstitutionalization of fidelity in order to truly capture its innovative essence. Opposed to a statist or spontaneist fidelity (the event only belongs to those who intervene) and a dogmatic fidelity (all multiples depend on the event), Badiou proposes the concept of a generic fidelity, that “which is unassignable to a defined function of the state…[and] from the standpoint of the state, [results in] a particularly nonsensical part” (237). This is because a generic fidelity allows the organization of another legitimacy of inclusions within the situation (238). For a fidelity to be generic it must be removed from the proximity of the state, the further the better. This argument makes Badiou assert a radical hypothesis: what if there is no relation between the two aspects of fidelity, namely the intervention and the operator of connection? This would mean that the operator acts as a second event in itself. Provocatively, the more it appears as a second event because of its subtraction from the proximity of the state, the more real the fidelity is for Badiou.

Nothing to Lose

Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. -"The Communist Manifesto", Karl Marx


There’s nothing to lose, a world to win... A conscious life and a faithful love, these are our chains, a resolution forged in struggle and hope. They are not the chains of the master. The master is naught but a self-conscious and over-aggressive animal, chained by death and encircled by desire-- whereas in a properly human relation, we are freely bound to life, we are creatively engaged with the world, and we are bonded to one another, and to all others, in responsibility and love.

The Peace of Belief

Freedom of belief is of central and obvious importance to a democratic community. Of course, beliefs are already quite problematic to the generation of a common public space. The twin "literal" issues surrounding the epistemological question, those of the expression and interpretation of beliefs, underscore the emergence of subjectivity in all political praxis, and in the broad sense, the critical self-questioning encountered in the everyday face-to-face encounter. As a brief example, what if the other's belief not only differs from my own, but ultimately proves threatening-- perhaps merely to my rationalization of reality, but also perhaps literally harmful or violent towards myself or my community. Do we require a dangerous other, to whom it is supposed we are "naturally" allergic, in order to achieve a community?

Let us examine the supposition that there are certain beliefs which could conceivably lead an otherwise peaceful society to violence. If there are such beliefs, they would certainly be powerless if they remained only as such; it seems to me that, by definition, beliefs only gain power when they are combined with a capacity and willingness to act on behalf of them. Even with harmful and dangerous beliefs, if they are only beliefs and influence action and speech in no perceptible way, we cannot say that they are harmful to others; indeed, we cannot properly speak of the content or value of beliefs which remain forever unexpressed. Now, in those beliefs which do transcend the immaterial realm of convictions, it can be fairly easily shown that beliefs whose content involves harm towards some other party are especially likely to be the source of actual violence or disagreement. In fact we can distinguish between two broad categories of belief: those that affirm some unifying principle of commonality, and those which affirm an antagonistic principle of division.

This distinction enables us to hazard an interpretation as to the nature of the transition which occurs from thought to action, from belief to principle of behavior. An idea has power inasmuch as it is believed; thus, belief is the power of an idea, though not the origin. Belief is faith in the possibility of revelation, in the future, but especially that aspect of reality to come which is completely unpredictable, and opens up onto a radical alterity whose horizons cannot be encompassed rationally. The infinite idea which is believed precedes the belief, if only minimally: an infinitesimal belief (which is an infinite skepticism) is required in order to approach an idea within the "reasonable" bounds of concepts. This is the essence of what it means to think rationally, "objectively"--which really stands in this case for, pretending we know nothing about the situation or ourselves, we act like we believe completely and only in the network of sensicality and in the testimony of our senses. Objectivity is actually a complex mediation of the subject-object relation which supports an illusion of perfect communicability, supposes an almost religious sort of fundamental sense-event which could guarantee the consistency and accuracy of our deductions and observations--"within reasonable limits," not comprehending the limits are just as arbitrary as the task for which the measurements are being taken.

Belief names the properly subject-ive moment in thought, indeed, it names the outermost limit of subject-thought. The process of belief transforms ideas into action. Belief powers the idea, demands faithfulness and responsibility, moves the subject to act, guides the action with deliberate concentration, with a joyful care. We can gather these strands together in order to enunciate the structure of belief; let's say that belief is the adequation of thought, and that this is accomplished by the repeated generation of (subjective) self-difference. Belief ex-cends this primordial separation between subject-object and Other, "completes" it in its total incoherency. The asynchrony between the same and the other is constantly generated by the unnatural and self-critical movement (belief, interpretation) which is brought about in the social encounter, and the subject is itself actualized in a responsibility to one's relationship to the community. Indeed, we might say the first question of any possible future democracy is at once and entirely a question of peace and political economy, and so the key question for politics at this moment would be-- to put it lightly-- who's the adult here? Could we compare society to the enactment of a scene from a dream, whose origins are lost in the depths of time and whose goals, limits and internal consistency are equally, terrifyingly uncertain?

All we own is an unfreedom we have been convinced to freely accept: where is the freedom we were taught to love? We should not be convinced of our own unworthiness or inadequacy. The non-adequation lies wholly within the total system which cannot integrate that which remains itself. Power is thought transforming into action; by escaping the reach of established power, we can lead both thought and action beyond the sick and paranoid systems which seek to completely ontologize reality, reduce everything vital and beautiful and free into a empty void full of violence and shadows and a wild, unsustainable desire... Just as there is no truth without dancing, there can be no ethics without a balance between the whole and the part, a balance which never reaches a perfect equilibrium but is always playing about the edges, deploying its forces to the limit, in an upheaval of the established institutions which is the inauguration of a new way of being. Such a transcendence is already the jouissance of a new manner of speaking... The belief in peace is salvation and slavery at once; democracy as a "peaceful" attitude towards beliefs ends up assuming an outright hostile, authoritarian attitude towards individuals. An ideal democracy is already a false one, and this hinge is why democracy functions so much better than other systems: reflexivity, evolution, and so on... But our freedoms erode as quickly as they are written into law, a writing which can never be adequate to the unfreedom which predominates...

I'm done watching this

Isn't it true that the ongoing cinematization of existence occurs in spite of our desire to actually see what is produced? Our joy, our stimulation, lies almost entirely in the (anticipation and moment of the) absolute captivation which video inaugurates. We capture images, and are captured by capturing images; eventually, we only recognize ourselves and others through such images.

"Reality" television has a similar structure of addiction. It is more important to record something than to have something to record. We can push this further: the total flow of television doesn't just erase pre-existing images and replace them with its own; it captivates through a procedure of subjectivization. The television watches us: as the audience becomes the image, (once properly alienated from themselves,) they thereby gain an "objective" understanding of themselves, but only at the cost of forgoing self-ownership. From this null perspective, we only have generic, faceless subjects, undead subjects who live entirely through images, imaginary subjects recording what is seen with the 'objectivity' of the camera lens.

Now perhaps the camera is rightly called "objective" if only that it is the objectification of the Other perspective as such, but in fact, it is more accurate to say the camera subjectivates, annuls objectivity in a secret way, that is, by dominating the imagination, by causing the subject to believe himself imaginary. The camera holds everything in its grasp, and thus cannot exist without suffocating existence, depriving viewers access to fresh air or alternate perspectives, and perhaps to press this metaphor a little too hard, these images squeezes the air of original words out from our lungs, replaces interpretation with advertising. Toxic air and clean become indiscernible as lies from truth.

If enlightenment amounts to a sensitivity to truth above material concerns, television forces the "truth" of consumerism to its vulgar limit: what materializes before our eyes is not the product, but a fantasy in which the desire of the product reigns, i.e., the desire of the commercial is to instill desire within us. How? At first glance, by hypnotism (both sublime and subliminal,) or, more simply, by an apparent hallucination which would evoke "positive" (profitable) associations... but upon further reflection, we percieve that the apparently immaterial fantasy of enjoyment (the proper operative field of the commercial product) has actually been concretized in the marketed-image.

The surrealistic consumer-utopia of commerciality is the same non-reality in which an empty Oneness has taken the place of the many, where addiction has replaced truth and where submission has taken the place of struggle. In the marketed-image, which is a reflection of our voluntary unconsciousness, we have found the "truth" of our speculative non-lives-- that the truth was long ago replaced by a simulation. Captivated by the time of the spectacle, there is no longer actual reality, only a flux of repeated images. This is strictly worse than Magritte: the problem is not that this image isn't (say) a Coke, it's that (so to speak) it is a Coke, that is, it's nothing, the pure semblance of property which is already its theft (lack). When the mass media, particularly television, become totalizing instruments of the state irrationality, they are no longer harmless diversions, but the medium of an aggressive assertion of dominance. The development of society is documented by the media, but we must realize this is not about image, or influence, but about something much simpler--this is about power.

The media is not just the "internal" representation of social reality (from the standpoint of a particular culture, perspective, etc.); rather, the media externalizes our desires as discoveries, modulates our separation from the real. Ultimately, we are ex-centered; the spectacle of images mediates our relationship to reality, this mediation is what separates us while connecting us. Television is an enlightenment which only further enslaves. That is not to say: "quit watching TV!" or even "quit watching stupid TV!" Rather the point is to realize the hypnosis which has almost taken hold. This is to say: we must slacken the ropes which bind us.

Which is not to be free; such an unbinding this only re-binds us tighter to the machine which would drain us of autonomous life and sun light. The point is we are free to choose; the problem is not in television, or the spectacle as such, it is in us, in allowing ourselves to become spectators. The question is ultimately what kind of society do we want: is it one of docile specators to an imaginary "reality" of television (and consumerism, etc.), or would we rather an emancipation from all forms of slavery and bondage? Shouldn't we seek to unlock the infinite latent possibilities of the present "reality" rather than get captured by shadows, absences and obscene pleasures?

Political consciousness is not to be incapable of that (percieved) lack which would bind us to our socio-economic position, but to affirm a fidelity to fidelity -- responding to subjectively-investigating interpretations, and not to advertising. As opposed to the binding of addiction and nationalism, political thought binds only in the service of un-binding totalitarianism, and un-binds only in the process of binding subjects to truth, human beings to liberty, and so forth...

Television admits of a single, fatal flaw: the nirvana of satiated consumeristic desire which it evokes so insistently is a complete fake, founded on the very lack it denies: this is Nietzsche's subtle distinction between "wanting nothing" as in (a) not wanting anything, or (b) actively wanting nothing. The nihilism implicit in television's dumbed-down reality (as though the actual situation doesn't really matter at some level) is the critical confession of an empty prophecy, a soothsayer whose lies are always the same, that is, whatever it is you don't have, that's what you need. In opposition, we don't need to turn off our televisions; we need to reject the very notion of a "well-ordered" reality, we need to challenge television to be more daring. The problem is not the media but its misuse.

Logic of Sense: Series 25

Of course, with Series 25, one could, along with Badiou, single out the title as the concept that needs to be unpacked, especially since univocity has a particularly Deleuzian ring to it. But the term—and Deleuze starts using it around p. 150 in the text—that most interests me in this series is counter-actualization.

On the one hand, we can remember the play of the virtual/actual couple that Badiou finds so fun to dismantle. On the other, the most important thing is to signify how this term works in this particularly situated part of the text. So, giving Deleuze the benefit of the doubt, we should keep in mind that Deleuze doesn’t use the word virtual anywhere in this passage. Neither does he use the word compossible in this passage, but since he has introduced this term with reference to Leibniz, I think it’s important to stress a point that Deleuze makes at the beginning of the series: there is no such thing as incompatibility between events because such a term can only be used when referring to worlds, individuals, or persons (177). Since the disjunctive synthesis is the basis for the affirmation of the divergent, worlds that actualize events can become incompatible because of the divergent singularities that populate their series; strictly speaking though, “it seems that all events, even contraries, are compatible” (177).

So, simply put, Deleuze’s question is: how is the individual able to “transcend his form and his syntactical link with a world” in order to “attain the universal communication of events” (178). But this is not so simple. Here Deleuze seems to mean the following: if, as quoted above, all events are compatible, then how is any language of the event possible? Before following Deleuze’s argument more closely, we should bring Leibniz back to the center of discussion. Deleuze draws on and explicates Leibniz’s theory of monads through The Logic of Sense, and so it would not be inappropriate here to talk about his theory of monads: all monads “perceive” the world from a distinct perspective and also link up with other monads, causing permutations in the vicinity as they link up--Deleuze continues this discussion in Difference and Repetition in order to explain the ways in which the monads express a differential relation between themselves (47). So, in themselves, monads contain a grain of truth about the world which they inhabit. Each monad must be considered in itself, a part which has a reciprocal relationship with other parts, like a link in a signifying chain, and thus a world is constructed from this double action.

Yet, as Deleuze points out, with the event we cannot refer to a grammar of worlds. Syntactically, the event seems both to insist on its extra-being and also entail a pre-individuality that lacks any true communicability. That’s unless we can bring about counter-actualization. In the sense that I understand it, counter-actualization comes about when an individual considers herself as an event and that event as “another individual grafted onto her” (178). This double affirmation extends to treating other individuals as events and their events as individuals—it is this affirmation that brings events “to the power of the eternal return” (178). The power of the eternal return is what allows for an affirmation of the disjunctive synthesis; in other words, the divergence of two series (individuals with respect to the distance of other individuals/events) is not only affirmative but it necessarily alters the other series by resonating in it and vice versa. It is the conjunction of Leibnizian monads and counter-actualization that allows for Deleuze to talk of a unique Event. It is this unique Event that the univocity of Being is: “if Being is the unique event in which all events communicate with one another, univocity refers both to what occurs and to what is said” (180).

Lacan and The Problem of Foundations

“Psychoanalysis has played a role in the direction of modern subjectivity, and it cannot sustain this role without aligning it with the movement in modern science that elucidates it.

“This is the problem of the foundations that must assure our discipline its place among the sciences: a problem of formalization, which, it must be admitted, has gotten off to a very bad start.

“For it seems that, possessed anew by the very shortcoming in the medical mind in opposition to which psychoanalysis had to constitute itself, we were trying to jump back on the bandwagon of science--being half a century behind the movement of the sciences--by following medicine’s example.”
Jacques Lacan

“The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis” (Ecrits 235, 2006)



The “problem of formalization” to which Lacan here refers is the linguistic problematic par excellence. In a sense it is a question of valid definitions, whose component-words also have to have valid definitions in order for the original definition’s validity to remain intact, and those definitions are also composed of similarly-defined words, and on and on. What we have characterized as a “linguistic” problem is in fact merely a problem of form. Psychoanalysis raises this question of form, of foundation, as a scientific question which calls all science into question. The “problem of foundations” presumes an unfamiliar structure, whose form is de-formation, or rather, it takes an unfamiliar posture, inquiring in a master’s discourse about the validity of the master’s discourse. In other words, psychoanalysis presumes a curious structure whose rule is the rule of the process of transcendence of the ruled-structure.

An ex-structure, the gap or lack beneath the foundations of our ontological and metaphysical edifices, is that which (in its transcendence of the situation) obliges us to inaugurate a discourse. From separation comes speech; but speech already bears witness to this ex-structure (an un-structuring which re-structures)-- we hear the voice as a ghost in the machine, the surplus of sociality, already transgression, apology, absolution. What is precisely of interest to us here is the parallax contained here at this very moment, in the subject-language itself. Lacan seemed to believe that most of our personality is a result of the effects of speech upon us; not the least of reasons for this would be the complex role the subject-language plays-- how does it avoid the black hole of nothingness upon which it is founded and about which it radiates outwards into infinity? This is already an interrogation; here, we are at the closest and most urgent function of language, as command-to-be-truthful, as fidelity to my interpretation of the event, or more accurately, to that partial-description of a determination of a truth-event which language welcomes even as it attempts to re-integrate the alterity which constitutes the rupture of the event. Even here we must emphasize the hermeneutic, mediatory role the subject-language plays; language calls us to be a third to others as well as to ourselves. The mirror-image is not only a trauma, a horrifying bifurcation of reality which denudes our foundationlessness; we already live in a reflection of life, a non-life which enjoys only ‘speculation,’ embraces normalcy and reproduction. The mirror lies only in its terrifyingly total accuracy...