#ontogenesis

Let me speak of three types of processes: • First, of phylogenetic processes, processes of grouping, that group existing individuals into species, classes, races, nations, tribes and other “identity groups”; • Second, of ontogenetic processes, processes of individuation, that bring individuals into existence; • Third, of heterogenetic processes, processes of dispersion, that produce potentials for individuality.

Phylogenetic processes produce groupings of individuals by processing individuals that have been produced by ontogenetic processes; ontogenetic processes produce individuals by processing potentials for individuality that have been produced by heterogenetic processes; heterogenetic processes produce themselves auto-cannibalistically and an-archically: with neither a ruling subject nor a first principle, with neither an archon (ἄρχων) nor an arche (ἀρχή), a heterogenetic process is simultaneously the consumption and the production of drift, of entropy, of noise—which is not plain and simple disorder but, rather, fortuitous (dis)order, uncertainty as to whether and what (dis)order there is, has been, or will be.

Ontogenetic processes can either be in-sync or out-of-sync with the phylogenetic processes that they fuel: producing gregarious specimens when in-sync and aberrant specimens when out-of-sync.

Similarly, heterogenetic processes can either be in-sync or out-of-sync with the ontogenetic processes that they fuel: producing probable individuals when in-sync and improbable individuals when out-of-sync.

A gregarious specimen is always a probable individual and never an improbable individual, but an aberrant specimen can be either a probable individual or an improbable individual. Or, in other words, an improbable individual that is taken up by a phylogenetic process always becomes an aberrant specimen, but a probable individual that is taken up by a phylogenetic process may become either an aberrant specimen or a gregarious specimen. This is because an ontogenetic process that is out-of-sync with the heterogenetic process that fuels it will be driven out-of-sync with any phylogenetic process that follows it; by contrast, an ontogenetic process that is in-sync with the heterogenetic process that fuels it may or may not be out-of-sync with any phylogenetic process that follows it.

Previously, I used the term “phantasms” in order to acknowledge my debt to Pierre Klossowski’s work, but, using the terms above, what I am interested in are the “improbable individuals” produced by ontogenetic processes that are out-of-sync with the heterogenetic processes that fuel them. To “become conscious of one’s phantasms” is to recognize the improbable individuals amongst the aberrant specimens of an identity that, either by choice or by circumstance, one has assumed. Becoming conscious of phantasms, recognizing improbable individuals, is one thing; consciously (re)creating phantasms, propagating improbable individuals, is another, altogether more challenging thing; and performing my philosophy—that is, performing my cynicism, my libertinism, my anarchism—means both becoming conscious of phantasms and consciously (re)creating phantasms, both recognizing improbable individuals and propagating improbable individuals.

As a cynic, libertine, and anarchist, as a champion of “useless genius”, I favor "improbable aberrations": I favor the few improbable individuals to be found amongst aberrant specimens of an assumed identity, the products of ontogenetic processes that are (i) out-of-sync with the heterogenetic processes that fuel them and (ii) out-of-sync with the phylogenetic processes that regard them as fuel.

By turns my ally and my enemy, the liberal critic, the champion of the indeterminate “masses”, is one who favors "probable aberrations": the liberal critic favors the many probable individuals to be found amongst aberrant specimens of an assumed identity, the products of ontogenetic processes that are (i) in-sync with the heterogenetic processes that fuel them and (ii) out-of-sync with the phylogenetic processes that regard them as fuel.

Forever inimical to me, the illiberal reactionary, the champion of a determinate collective identity (e.g., a species, a class, a race, a nation, a tribe), is one who favors “probable gregarities”: the illiberal reactionary favors the gregarious specimens of an assumed identity, the products of ontogenetic processes that are (i) in-sync with the heterogenetic processes that fuel them and (ii) in-sync with the phylogenetic processes that regard them as fuel.

These doublets are sometimes confused in my field, so I dug into their relationship. Fascinatingly, the Greek root ὤν is cognate with the words for “to be” in many languages through the Proto-Indo-European root: Old English eom (English am), Latin sum, Sanskrit अस्मि ‎(asmi), Old Armenian եմ, Luxembourgish sinn, and Dutch zijn.

Influences of Aging and Cloning Methods on the Capacity for Somatic Embryogenesis of a Mature Hevea brasiliensis Genotype

Ludovic Lardet, Florence Desailly, Marc-Philippe Carron, Pascal Montoro, and Olivier Monteuuis Tree Physiology 29: 291-298 Download PDF Summary We compared embryogenic capacities of integument explants excised from three sources of the Hevea brasiliensis (Muell. Arg.) mature genotype PB 260. The three sources were 17-year-old (BT 86) and 7-year- old (BT 96) budded trees and 7-year-old…

Writing in Instrumental Vision, Rose Woodcock makes an intriguing point about the difference between perception of a picture and perception in stereo-immersive virtual reality:

Pictorial possibilities [...] include stylistic, semantic, aesthetic, poetic, formal, physical and other aspects that vivify the pictorial art of various cultures. Importantly, these possibilities designate the capacity to see a picture as referring to something else […] In contrast, stereo-immersive VR gives the observer its world as a substitute, real-like world. [1]

A picture is a surface on which is a scene: a world within the world. And it is this presence as an object within the world that makes possible its representation of something else within the world. VR does something quite different: it discloses an entire world independently of its being embedded within the ‘real’ world. The distinction, illuminated by but not limited to VR, marks a fundamental difference in the epistemic modes of pictorial and ordinary perception. The former discloses an object within a world which may relate to others, the latter assumes a world which constitutes the condition of further disclosures.

Woodcock’s point is elucidated with reference to James J. Gibson’s earlier theories of vision. The perception of object as object—not as representation of object—depends crucially, according to Gibson, on a perceiver’s capacity to move around an object, so that they may extract from the multiplying disparate images the ‘invariant layout’ which is the true spatial structure of the environment. This extraction is an evolved feature of perceptual systems, occurring automatically, unconsciously, systems whose adaptation to 3D environments is already evidenced by the perception of depth created by the combining of two retinal images (one from each eye) with their minor differences in parallax.

The motif of novelty arising from disparity recalls Gilbert Simondon’s theory of ontogenesis. Elizabeth Grosz, considering Simondon’s description of how individuals arise from pre-individual processes, writes:

The pre-individual is both individual and collective, both wave and corpuscle, both matter and energy, both form and matter, both space and time, both conceptual and material. It can be expressed equally though either term, though each then entails the other as its necessary milieu. Like the doubling of the image that constitutes stereoscopic vision, each image is the image of the other; but each is slightly different, askew, and it is their non-coincidence that produces the possibility of three-dimensional vision, of depth. [2]

There it is again: stereoscopic vision. The Simondonian point is that disparity is a precondition of novelty. In fact it drives the production of new individualities, the processes of creative synthesis which resolve the disparities that created them. The perceptual system solves the problem of disparity in retinal images by unifying them under a new percept: depth. Or in Gibson’s case, the multiplication of perspectives as a perceiver moves through an environment produce a sense of the invariant structure aka realness.

The metaphor of stereoscopic vision invites extension to other forms of seeing. In 1962 Wilfrid Sellars described two conflicting images of human in the world occupying contemporary thought: the ‘scientific image’, in which humans are seen as material aggregates of organs, cells, atoms, and subatomic particles bound by blind causal laws; and the ‘manifest’ image, in which humans are seen as beings furnished with intentions and purposes, desires and beliefs. The conflict in these images, Sellars held, provided much of the driving force behind philosophy, whose task was to form a stereoscopic synthesis of both without subsuming one under the other [3].

More recently, Nishat Awan has investigated how various kinds of digital seeing play roles in the construction of narratives about distant and inaccessible places:

I am particularly interested in those places that have become more difficult to spend time in through conflict and war or that have been constructed as out-of-bounds by governments, state actors, and so on. Distance in this sense is not just about being located far away or being inaccessible, but it speaks of those places that through their material conditions repel us in some way, or from which we are repelled. Distance is here considered in a topological idiom, as resulting from a lack of relational connections that stretch topographical notions of nearness. Whereas in the past, such places would remain out-of-sight and out of our consciousness, increasingly they reveal themselves to us. Often this occurs through the use of digital technologies, from the impulse to map and create a digital globe of the whole world to the various social media platforms that transmit images and videos. [4]

Taking the Pakistani port town of Gwadar as a case study, Awat notes a disparity in its digital ‘image’ arising from its frequent citing as a place of strategic economic import combined with the highly restricted access granted by Pakistan’s army:

Many of the issues just discussed coalesce in the Pakistani city of Gwadar, where bodies and materialities come together in unexpected and cruel ways in the wake of geopolitical manoeuvrings by states and other regional actors. On the one hand, Gwadar as place is almost entirely invisible to those outside the country; on the other, it could be described as being hypervisible. [4]

We might ask: what processes of synthesis might the disparities between the digital images of Gwadar—its hypervisibility and its invisibility—drive? Awat offers a clue:

Whereas in the past, such places would remain out-of-sight and out of our consciousness, increasingly they reveal themselves to us. Often this occurs through the use of digital technologies, from the impulse to map and create a digital globe of the whole world to the various social media platforms that transmit images and videos. This situation is very different from the past when such places could only be seen in a few, select images that were often heavily mediated in reports by journalists and through the narrative of nongovernmental organizations and state actors. More than ever before, we are compelled to act, to somehow feel responsible for and bear witness to what occurs at a distance from us. [4]

What is this drive to action if not an attempt to respond to the eeriness of the presence of places—geopolitical places, yes, but also emotional places, speculative and liminal places—with no entrance point, of nodes inaccessible via paths in one’s own network? If the first stage of digital seeing is to become aware of these places then this first stage manifests as the weird awareness of absence, the perception of unreachable nodes. Surely the next stage will see the multiplication of images and hence the multiplication of disparities in images. Simondonian imperatives can’t help but follow. To be compelled to act is to be compelled to establish connections with these nodes, to send out exploratory tentacles to seek and grasp them, for better or ill.

Notes:

Rose Woodcock, Instrumental Vision

Elizabeth Grosz, Identity and Individuation: Some Feminist Reflections

Wilfrid Sellars, Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man