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February 11, 2005
What is Philosophy, v1.0
It's hard to imagine a more frustrating book than Deleuze and Guattari's What is Philosophy. Hard to imagine that it was on the bestseller list for weeks in France (presumably in the same way Hawking's Brief History of Time was here, but perhaps even less of those who bought it read it, and of those, how many benefitted tangibly from the experience?). It may be just me (maybe suffering the aftereffects of Badiou's lucidity) but this book seems not to make any sense whatsoever, it seems to be a random combinatorial game with no systematic basis. I challenge anyone to explain their model of the concept without recourse to D&G's own elliptical formulations.
Anyway, a further maddening attempt to read this book, along with some stray thoughts about information theory, got me thinking. I wonder if I could discover the Kolmogorov complexity of What Is Philosophy?.
K(wip)
would be the shortest possible universal-turing-machine program that could produce wip, the text of this book, as an output.
We would, of course, converge to this notional minimum length through the use of an actually-existing programming language P, which would give an upper limit on K(wip) where:
|Kwip| < |Pwip| < |wip|
If it were possible to define such a program, even if we were still to subject ourselves to reams of impenetrable french-fried guff, at least it would be stored more efficiently.
So, as a first step towards this, I have invested half an hour of my valuable time writing a program in Perl, less than 50 lines long (including the all-important randomexamplebracket() subroutine), and I present here the highlights of its first run.
It has been said that affects are always percepts, at least when they enter into milieus of absolute externality. This is why these perpetual variations are not always surfaces, at least when they constitute milieus of incorporeal immanence at infinite speeds on the affective plane.
We say that concepts are always volumes at infinite speeds in the affective chaos(a rat, the broomstick of spinoza, an old lady's nose). On the other hand these perpetual variations are not strictly mediations , at least when they participate in consistencies of speed (a bronze spear, the cogito of Descartes, the prickles of a hedgehog).
This is why thresholds are not, however, volumes, at least when they enter into milieus of absolute speed. On the other hand affects are strictly volumes, at least when they engage coordinates of absolute operativity in the perceptual function.
These thresholds are not , however, transcendent , except when they enter into zones of externality (the trunk of an elephant, the love of a good woman, an old piece of pizza). This is why concepts are not always volumes , at least when they enter into thresholds of absolute speed. On the other hand thresholds are not strictly surfaces. This is why these perpetual variations are always transcendent , at least when they enter into milieus of absolute transformation at infinite speeds (an axe, the faculties of Kant, the entire human species). Certain such figures are not strictly immediate in the affective consistency.
It has been said that affects are not always volumes , at least when they enter into milieus of maximum externality at infinite speeds in the affective field. On the other hand variations are not biunivocally transcendent , at least when they constitute consistencies of immanence in the perceptual field(a bronze spear, the cogito of Descartes, an old lady's nose). These are expressions, both subjective and real, which circumscribe the plane in a creative process of creativity. These affects are strictly percepts at infinite speeds. This is why such figures are not always surfaces, at least when they enter into consistencies of immanence in the conceptual plane of immanence.
These variations are not always surfaces in the conceptual vicinity( a bird, the cogito of Descartes, the empty set of Badiou). On the other hand variations are , however, transcendent , insofar as they enter into thresholds of externality at infinite speeds (a rat, the cogito of Descartes, a juicy plum). These are singularities, both possible and determined, which circumscribe the plane .
Certain affects are biunivocally transcendent at infinite speeds (a bird, the Ideas of Plato, the delirium of Schreber). They form events, both subjective and energetic, which affect states of affairs in a perpetual transformation of creation(a cats whisker, the Ideas of Plato, a dry-stone wall).
We can say that concepts are always mediations , at least insofar as they participate in transformation at infinite speeds in the affective vicinity(a forest, Proust's girls, the taste of cheese). On the other hand these perpetual variations are not strictly percepts , at least if they can be said to participate in immanence in the oscillatory field.
Meanwhile, certain planes are not always surfaces....
[ENDS]
I think you'll agree I'm onto something here. Although it seems almost certain that there are a few warwick graduates who have already mastered the process but are keeping their algorithms under wraps, I firmly believe the code should be open-source, to prevent the development of a monopoly.
Try it yourself (a prize every time!): WIPpingboy.pl (feel free to post highlights in the comments)
And now I shall go back to translating Badiou. Ithangkew.
Posted by robin at February 11, 2005 11:09 AM