The Garden of Forking Paths

V

version

Well-known member
This is how I picture Corpse.

pitt.jpg
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
that's corsepy except in a beautifully furnished apartment in London's fashionable Nunhead district
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Let’s consider… Since we are talking about Leibniz, what could all this mean? There’s an author who is well known today, an Argentinean, named Borges, an extremely learned author who read widely. He is always talking about two things: the book that does not exist [end of the tape: that should be treated as a book that exists, that is going to be written and told as an existing book, and the labyrinth. He has no trouble showing that they are the same thing, that the non-existent book that exist and the labyrinth are the same. And, I am saying something obvious here: throughout his entire works, Borges is fundamentally and deeply Leibnizian. It’s true in all his writing, but yet again, I take an example that I refer to you because this gives Borges a [modern] aspect, a kind of police tale. He loved police stories, Borges, but so did Leibniz. In Ficciones, there is a short story, "The Garden of Forking Paths." As I summarize the story, keep in mind the famous dream of the Theodicy.


"The Garden of Forking Paths," what is it? It's the infinite book, the world of compossibilities. The idea of the Chinese philosopher being involved with the labyrinth is an idea of Leibniz's contemporaries, appearing in mid-17th century. There is a famous text by Malebranche that is a discussion with the Chinese philosopher, with some very odd things in it. Leibniz is fascinated by the Orient, and he often cites Confucius. Borges made a kind of copy that conformed to Leibniz's thought with an essential difference: for Leibniz, all the different worlds that might encompass an Adam sinning in a particular way, an Adam sinning in some other way, or an Adam not sinning at all, he excludes all this infinity of worlds from each other, they are incompossible with each other, such that he conserves a very classical principle of disjunction: it's either this world or some other one. Whereas Borges places all these incompossible series in the same world, allowing a multiplication of effects. Leibniz would never have allowed incompossibles to belong to a single world. Why? I only state our two difficulties: the first one is, what is an infinite analysis, and the second, what is this relationship of incompossibility? The labyrinth of infinite analysis and the labyrinth of compossibility.

deleuze.cla.purdue.edu

Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought, Lecture 02, 2 December 1980 - Gilles Deleuze | The Deleuze Seminars

Deleuze insists that to discuss Spinoza, one should understand where Spinoza starts, with the attributes, constituent elements of substance.
deleuze.cla.purdue.edu
 
shiels

shiels

_
luka said:
yes this is probably true. we've lost the ability to value one thing over another. i've got a cousin like this. he can see no reason not to suffer. it's a very serious malaise and impossible to think your way out of.
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I suffer from a version of this. It’s the relativistic thought churn that gets you in this place and I agree you can’t think your way out.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
shiels said:
I suffer from a version of this. It’s the relativistic thought churn that gets you in this place and I agree you can’t think your way out.
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do you find taking loads of drugs helps? get back in touch with your self
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Okay, so when he says Leibnizian, does that mean an -ism in which every thing is reflective of every other thing? Monads? That is, the meaning of something is just the set of that things relations to other things, and that our conception of a thing is an imperfect impression of this set? In other words, your conception of a thing (concrete and abstract may differ here, not sure) consists of the ways in which that thing relates to other things.

Also, "incompossible" is a good word.

"what is this relationship of incompossibility?" is a good prompt for this thread, no?

And how ostensibly incompossible realities can be superimposed over one another into a strange unity? Schizo-cosmos.

I read Garden of Forking Paths two years ago, and was confused even then. Anyone here more familiar with it?
 
shiels

shiels

_
luka said:
do you find taking loads of drugs helps? get back in touch with your self
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well if its a problem with desire, alignment, what to focus your energy on getting. Yeah drugs get you into a more direct and uninhibited space but that’s temporary and you pay later
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
@suspendedreason have you looked into Gilbert Simondon at all? Seems up your alley. Perhaps in some overlap between Heideggar and Deleuze, topic-wise. Bu Deleuze has been described as a "closet disciple" of SImondon. I think whenever Deleuze/Guattari get into talk about crystallization, about outward radially forming layers - I think that is from Simondon, whose central concept is individuation.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
constant escape said:
@suspendedreason have you looked into Gilbert Simondon at all? Seems up your alley. Perhaps in some overlap between Heideggar and Deleuze, topic-wise. Bu Deleuze has been described as a "closet disciple" of SImondon. I think whenever Deleuze/Guattari get into talk about crystallization, about outward radially forming layers - I think that is from Simondon, whose central concept is individuation.
Click to expand...

What does he say about individuation? Is it at all like Bourdeausean distinction?
 
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