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Need books on chaos

Started by NWC, November 28, 2009, 05:52:38 PM

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NWC

So I'm writing a paper about chaos, and I need references n shit. Any articles, books, anything really, about the idea of chaos(preferable from a philosophical point of view, as opposed to a mathematical one), in either English or French.

I know you guys have to know of some stuff, so help a brother out and let me know about them :)
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Cain

Gilles Deleuze (anything but Capitalism and Schizophrenia, unless you have weeks to master the unusual style of the book, as well as Freduian psychoanalysis and anti-psychiatry).  I personally recommend What Is Philosophy? and and Difference and Repetition.

Hume's scepticism, on causation especially, could be of use.

Heraclitus, obviously.

I'll think more on this.

Iason Ouabache

I wish I could help but most of my Chaos stuff is very math heavy. I have a lot of neuro-philosophy e-books but I don't feel comfortable suggesting anything off hand because I haven't read most of them.


These might be helpful though:

hxxp://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/others/beautiful_chaos.html
hxxp://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/personality/SevenLifeLessonsChaos.html
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Cain

The problem is "chaos" is too broad a term to have real philosophical application.  You'd need to break it down some more to find much on the topic.

Also, Nietzsche's metaphysics (Kauffman translation of The Will To Power, third book).

LMNO

You might be able to stretch the terms and include the Absurdists, or even the existential nihilists.

NWC

First off thanks guys :)

Quote from: Cain on November 30, 2009, 09:20:31 AM
The problem is "chaos" is too broad a term to have real philosophical application.  You'd need to break it down some more to find much on the topic.

I'm doing sortof an historical overview, starting with Hesiod and Heraclitus, going through Poincaré a century ago with his theories on sensitive dependence from initial conditions, touching briefly on Leary and the rest of the crazies(I say that with the highest respect), and then finishing with a page or so about some recent stuff I read about how the concept of chaos(combined with SDIC stuff) on an atomic level can have implications on free will.

I'll check out the books you guys linked, see if I can find anything relevant there. I have a first version due thursday, but the final version isn't until the 21st.
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Richter

Would basic texts on probability and statistical analysis be of any use? 
Good, straightforward and schoalrly highlighting HOW probability works, the mistakes people make looking at stats / data.  (Mirrored in Taleb books)
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 22, 2015, 03:00:53 AM
Anyone ever think about how Richter inhabits the same reality as you and just scream and scream and scream, but in a good way?   :lulz:

Friendly Neighborhood Mentat

NWC

Quote from: Cain on November 29, 2009, 11:18:59 AM
Gilles Deleuze (anything but Capitalism and Schizophrenia, unless you have weeks to master the unusual style of the book, as well as Freduian psychoanalysis and anti-psychiatry).  I personally recommend What Is Philosophy? and and Difference and Repetition.

Hume's scepticism, on causation especially, could be of use.

Heraclitus, obviously.

I'll think more on this.

I got another recommendation for Deleuze from a very close friend, so I'll be starting L'Anti-Œdipe once I finish with exams.
And I thought of Heraclitus too, but I really couldn't find anything about him related to chaos from any trustworthy source. I found some decent stuff about some other Greeks, but yeah it would've been cool to have mentioned him 

But yeah I've finished with the Greeks, the middle ages, mathematics(chaos theory), and determinism/free will, and now I'm getting into the fun part, I'll do a couple pages about modern American philosophy and it's views of chaos as a creative notion(destructive as well of course). So yeah I'll be touching on Leary, I found a fascinating text from him about chaos, then moving onto RAW, and his use of sci-fi as a new form of philosophical fiction(which has existed since at least the ancient Greeks), then doing a good bit about the Principia. Then I'll tie all of that back into the Greek: their views of chaos(what predates existence) and also their goddess Eris(which actually had very very little to do with chaos, if anything, discord and chaos were seen as completely separate).

I have plenty, but if you guys think of any other American 20th century writer/philosopher who dealt with chaos, I'd love another name to drop in there. Thanks :)


Also, I think some people here might find this paper very interesting, so I'll post it up here once I get a chance to translate it into English(which won't be until february), unless anyone wants to read the French version.
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Cain

Be warned, Anti-Oedipus is part one of the Capitalism and Schizophrenia collection, and the style is very unusual.  An extract:

QuoteAn apparent conflict arises between desiring-machines and the body without organs. Every coupling of machines, every production of a machine, every sound of a machine running, becomes unbearable to the body without organs. Beneath its organs it senses there are larvae and loathsome worms, and a God at work messing it all up or strangling it by organizing it. "The body is the body/it is all by itself/and has no need of organs/the body is never an organism/ organisms are the enemies of the body." Merely so many nails piercing the flesh, so many forms of torture. In order to resist organ-machines, the body without organs presents its smooth, slippery, opaque, taut surface as a barrier. In order to resist linked, connected, and interrupted flows, it sets up a counterflow of amorphous, undifferentiated fluid. In order to resist using words composed of articulated phonetic units, it utters only gasps and cries that are sheer unarticulated blocks of sound. We are of the opinion that what is ordinarily referred to as "primary repression" means precisely that: it is not a "countercathexis," but rather this repulsion  of desiring-machines by the body without organs. This is the real meaning of the paranoiac machine: the desiring-machines attempt to break into the body without organs, and the body  without organs repels them, since it experiences them as an over-all persecution apparatus. Thus we cannot agree with Victor Tausk when he regards the paranoiac machine as a mere projection of "a person's own body" and the genital organs.

The genesis of the machine lies precisely here: in the opposition of the process of production of the desiring-machines and the nonproductive stasis of the body without organs. The anonymous nature of the machine and the nondifferentiated nature of its surface are proof of this. Projection enters the picture only secondarily, as does counter-investment, as the body without organs invests a counterinside or a counteroutside, in the form of a persecuting organ or some exterior agent of persecution. But in and of itself the paranoiac machine is merely an avatar of the desiring-machines: it is a result of the relationship between the desiring-machines and the body without organs, and occurs when the latter can no longer tolerate these machines.

Both of them can write fairly well, for post-structuralists (What Is Philosophy is a delight to read, in fact), its just they choose not to here.  So instead, you have to spend hours deciphering what they mean by a "body without organs", "desiring machines" and so on and so forth.  Which is good, in that you learn, but is also annoying as fuck, if you want to quote mine or get answers with any speed.

NWC

I wonder if the style is equally bizarre in French, or if it's a problem of translation. Either way I'd read it in French cos it's the original language which is almost always better, unless it's so convoluted that it's even more difficult cos it's not my mother tongue.
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The Johnny

QuoteAn apparent conflict arises between desiring-machines and the body without organs. Every coupling of machines, every production of a machine, every sound of a machine running, becomes unbearable to the body without organs. Beneath its organs it senses there are larvae and loathsome worms, and a God at work messing it all up or strangling it by organizing it. "The body is the body/it is all by itself/and has no need of organs/the body is never an organism/ organisms are the enemies of the body." Merely so many nails piercing the flesh, so many forms of torture. In order to resist organ-machines, the body without organs presents its smooth, slippery, opaque, taut surface as a barrier. In order to resist linked, connected, and interrupted flows, it sets up a counterflow of amorphous, undifferentiated fluid. In order to resist using words composed of articulated phonetic units, it utters only gasps and cries that are sheer unarticulated blocks of sound. We are of the opinion that what is ordinarily referred to as "primary repression" means precisely that: it is not a "countercathexis," but rather this repulsion  of desiring-machines by the body without organs. This is the real meaning of the paranoiac machine: the desiring-machines attempt to break into the body without organs, and the body  without organs repels them, since it experiences them as an over-all persecution apparatus. Thus we cannot agree with Victor Tausk when he regards the paranoiac machine as a mere projection of "a person's own body" and the genital organs.

The genesis of the machine lies precisely here: in the opposition of the process of production of the desiring-machines and the nonproductive stasis of the body without organs. The anonymous nature of the machine and the nondifferentiated nature of its surface are proof of this. Projection enters the picture only secondarily, as does counter-investment, as the body without organs invests a counterinside or a counteroutside, in the form of a persecuting organ or some exterior agent of persecution. But in and of itself the paranoiac machine is merely an avatar of the desiring-machines: it is a result of the relationship between the desiring-machines and the body without organs, and occurs when the latter can no longer tolerate these machines.
[/quote]

Fuck, thats like reading a hybrid creation of Derrida/Sepia/Freud
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Cain

Quote from: NWC on December 20, 2009, 09:30:06 PM
I wonder if the style is equally bizarre in French, or if it's a problem of translation. Either way I'd read it in French cos it's the original language which is almost always better, unless it's so convoluted that it's even more difficult cos it's not my mother tongue.

I don't think its a translation issue, since all their other works (A Thousand Plateaus aside) are all perfectly understandable.  I think it was purposefully written this way to reflect the mode of "schizoanalysis" that they prefer.

phi

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dontblameyoko

Quote from: phi on December 27, 2009, 08:02:54 PM
Anthropological hybrid: http://www.amazon.com/Order-Chaos-Social-Anthropology-Science/dp/1845450248

And my boy Lullzy http://lullianarts.net/chaos/index.html

The above is more comically unreadable than anything else.

yikes, no kidding. i read some of it ...i could tell what i read related to the "Four Elements"...but i'd prefer poetry or something.  heh.
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