Objects, Expressions and Colocality

What I appreciate about Levi Bryant's blogging efforts is his willingness to continue clarifying his thoughts for his readers. Trust me when I say the value and generosity of that is not lost on me.

In that vein, Bryant has posted some further remarks (here) clarifying his take on the dynamics of objects. Here he is riffing on their intrinsic openness:

From afar, notes Lucretius, the sheep look as if they are not moving at all. But were we to closely approach them, we would discover that they are frolicking about, taking little nips of dewy grass and playfully dancing about with one another. And so it is, argues Lucretius, with all objects. Although the rock over there appears to sit still, it is in a constant state of motion or activity... [F]or OOO there are no final units. It’s turtles all the way down without any primordial turtles.

And Levi elaborates on the processual nature of objects as autopoietic and allopoietic systems here:

A key feature of these autopoietic and allopoietic machines is that they maintain themselves through the production of events. The time of the object is a time in which the components of that object or machine must (re)produce its components from moment to moment. It is this processuality that constitutes the substantiality of objects. It is this process through which an object (re)produces itself that is the being of an object. Far from being something that just sits there as the Greeks had it in their folk ontology, these machines are ongoing activities. If these machines are nonetheless objects, then this is because there is a unity to this process that renders them discrete entities in their own right. These processes, as it were, are the “substantial form” of the machine or object. A key point that follows from this is that objects are not identical to its parts. The parts of an object come and go, sometimes getting destroyed, at other times moving out of the object and landing elsewhere, while that substantial form, that processuality, remains. If that’s not “evental” and “processual” enough for you, I just don’t know what you’re asking for.

Fair enough. And I am inclined to agree with everything Bryant writes here. Objects, or what I prefer to call assemblages, are processual compositions with irreducible onto-specific (individual) patterns. Agreed.

Where I differ, I think (?), is where Bryant claims that the “substantiality” of an object (what I am calling here its pattern) is somehow distinct, or more than, or withdrawn from, or not identical to the actually occurring parts (properties) that are in ongoing relation to each other and the affording environment. For me, the pattern, or diagram (DeLanda) or substantiality of an object is an expression of its constituent properties (parts) as generated in relation to the context in which it exists. This is what I call colocality: all objects or assemblages are simultaneously relational (ontically open) and individuated (operationally closed). Thus, for me, substantiality is not in the object/system, but rather an emergent result of the ever-present interactions between matrices of properties in situ.

However, regardless of what I think, you should go read Bryant’s characteristically lucid and insightful post for yourself: here.

UPDATE: S.C Hickman has an interesting post up over at Dark Chemistry responding to the post mentioned above where he delves deeper into Bryant’s ontology (here). Hickman’s posts are always well worth the read so check it out. Here is a sample:

An object maintains itself through its connection to time and irreversibility, which are built into the system not only at the structural level, but also at the level of its components and elements. Its elements are operations. Disintegration and reintegration, disordering and ordering require each other. It is this processual aspect that I think Levi is supporting of the polar effects of this systemic interplay of entropy and negentropy, disintegration and reintegration which is the self-organization of the object and its components. Time is the key to this whole process. And as Luhmann confirms systems "based on events need a more complex pattern of time". This is where I believe Levi implies his "difference that makes a difference", when Luhuman tells us that events "are happenings which make a difference between a 'before' and a 'thereafter'. They can be identified and observed, anticipated and remembered only as such a difference. Their identity is their difference".

Read More @ Dark Chemistry