100202 - sandstone & granite

Here are my notes on Manuel Delanda's "Sandstone and Granite" chapter from 1000 Years of Nonlinear History:

Meshworks (rhizomes) and hierarchies (trees).

Engineering diagrams (similar to Deleuze and Guattari’s abstract machines) are structure-generating processes.

Is it possible to go beyond metaphor and use an engineering diagram to think about the generation of both geologic and cultural formations?

Rivers act as hydraulic computers to sort pebbles of different sizes.  They carry and deposit pebbles of different sizes according to the strength of the flow.  For a given period, pebbles of a relatively consistent size are deposited on the ocean floor.  Then another process fuses individual pebbles into a relatively permanent structure.

This two-stage process (double articulation) can be found operating in other (i.e. cultural, biological) regimes.

The formation of strata occurs in the evolution of species.  Genetic material accumulates (material deposited) until a subpopulation becomes isolated and it cannot reproduce outside its group.  This leads to crystallization.

Cultural strata form in a similar way.  People are sorted according to what they can do or what they have.  Then these categories are crystallized by religion or law. 

This process of homogenization and consolidation to form hierarchies operates across heterogeneous regimes. 

There is not as straightforward an engineering diagram for meshworks as hierarchies.  The simplest type of meshwork is the autocatalytic loop which is self-stimulating and self-maintaining.

They are dynamic systems with stable states (attractors) and they grow by drift.  A two-node system (two chemical reactions that catalyze each other) can grow through the insertion of a third reaction using the byproducts of those already in place.  This is not a planned growth.  This growth may be constrained by external factors (supplies of raw materials) but it is not designed to meet any requirements of the external environment.

Deleuze and Guattari propose a diagram of meshworks with three parts:

• interconnection of diverse overlapping elements
• intercalary (something inserted between) agents, a special class of operators that effects these elements
• there must emerge some stable pattern of behavior

As opposed to sandstone which forms according to the hierarchy-producing diagram, granite forms according to the meshwork-producing diagram.  Granite is produced when magma cools:

• heterogeneous crystals interlock during cooling
• densifications, intensifications, reinforcements, within the material bring about local articulations
• chemical reactions within the magma bring about stable states

Granite is a self-consistent aggregate.

Gene pool of a species = stratified structure (homogenous).
Ecosystem = self-consistent aggregate (heterogeneous).

Small-town markets = self-consistent aggregate.  Markets are meetings and exchanges of heterogeneous needs.

• markets come about through an interlocking of producers and consumers
• money is an intercalary agent
• markets seem to produce a stable state in the cyclical variation of prices

These diagrams producing hierarchies and meshworks are relatively simple and would need to evolve and become more complex to more fully describe the functioning of biological or cultural systems.  Furthermore, in reality one must deal with combinations of hierarchies and meshworks.

Alternatives to causal thinking (simple arrows going from cause to effect):

• negative feedback (stabilizing or deviation counteracting) – i.e. thermostat, sensor triggers heat production which effects sensor, forms a closed loop in which temperature is held constant.
• positive feedback (destabilizing or deviation amplyfing) – i.e. a self-accelerating explosion, explosion generates heat which accelerates the explosion, temperature goes out of control.

 It is important not to conclude that meshworks are intrinsically better than hierarchies.