Temporary but Unrepentant Umbilical to Furthur Thought-Insanity, Part X

“Creating concepts, however larval, is a desire. Forming lines of flights from figures of traditional philosophy as in the associative names of the philosophical canon is a desire. ‘Plato’ is a rhizome, a multiplicity of territories, a concept in spe.”-- Schantz, EU posting, April 2009

This is from the same post as PLATO-Or. The original post contains the name “Descartes”, but I would be innocent to substitute nearly any name for the name “Descartes” because the point of the quote is that anything, no matter how tree-like (racked or crucified by binary oppositions it may be), it is, in essence and truth, a rhizome. To treat any thinker in human history, as anything but a rhizome, is an error. Even the thinkers of the Enlightenment, the most intentionally, explicit and rigorous of the system thinkers, are to be treated as rhizomes—thinkers of rhizomes.

Rhizomes are the essence, Orla urges us to perceive.

Thus, Orla considers Plato as BOTH a rhizome (a multiplicity) AND a tree, (the master of dualisms, the first computer programmer of binary thinking. 0-1.)

I originally thought I would be able to discuss our problems in terms of Kant, then Kant got lost and Plato came in—not at all a thinker of the historical Enlightenment—then I took liberties with Orla’s quote, substituting the name of Plato for the name Descartes, whom we consider an Enlightenment thinker. In fact, Orla’s post is a fragment—it concludes with the note, “to be continued,” but it never is. Kant might have been covered if it was. Maybe even as the summation, the totality of rhizomes. My point, however, is that what we have is an infernal doubling and multiplying: the Enlightenment is doubled by Kant, Kant is doubled by Plato, by Descartes—by everything we’ve ever discussed. This is the problem.

Rephrasing Orla’s quote in terms of the problem of PLATO-Or, PLATO-o(∞), and PLATO-O(1):

“Creating concepts, of the PLATO-O(1) variety or even of the PLATO-o(∞) variety, is a desire. Creating concepts is a desire. Whatever concept creating is being compared, the desire is equivalent. The desire of the concept creation of PLATO-O(1) is a desire; the desire of the concept creation of PLATO-o(∞) is a desire. Desire is desire. Trees are rhizomes, rhizomes are trees, as both are desire. To say of two things BOTH are the same is to establish an equivalent. PLATO-O(1) is equivalent to PLATO-o(∞). The goof of history was to have differentiated the terms systematic or logical from "rhizome" when they are equivalent and exchangeable. PLATO-o(∞)and PLATO-O(1) must not be distinguished."