Félix Guattari: Thought, Friendship, and Visionary Cartography

defined the originality of these syntheses, from the standpoint of a

molecular biology or of a ‘microscopic cybernetics’ without regard

to the traditional opposition between mechanism and vitalism.

Here the fundamental traits of synthesis are the indifferent nature of

the chemical signals, the indifference to the substrate, and the indi-

rect character of the interactions. (Anti-Oedipus, 288)

Deleuze and Guattari propose to look through an electronic micro-

scope at the macro-social processes of interaction, introducing sensors

into the psycho-chemical interstices, into the deep web of the Info-

sphere, of the becoming mind of matter-information.

The assemblages have an a-signifying character because what matters

is not the support material, or the meaning of signs, but the effect that

these produce in the form of assemblages: their cognitive, psychic and

social effect.

The meaning of signs is secondary with respect to their functioning.

The vision of this intimacy between organic and inorganic matter,

between material and psychic flows, calls to mind the words of Carl

Gustav Jung, who wrote:

Microphysics is feeling its way into the unknown side of matter, just

as complex psychology is pushing forward into the unknown side of

the psyche. Both lines of investigation have yielded findings which

can be conceived only by means of antinomies, and both have

developed concepts which display remarkable analogies. If this

trend should become more pronounced in the future, the hypo-

thesis of the unity of their subject matters would gain in probability ...

The common background of microphysics and depth-psychology

is as much physical as psychic and therefore neither, but rather a

third thing, a neutral nature which can at most be grasped in hints

since in essence it is transcendental. (Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis,

538)

This Jungian intuition about continuity between the microphysics

of matter and the micropsychics of the unconscious is a line that

Deleuze and Guattari develop with fewer inhibitions or forms of

mysticism.

In the genetic code as in the social codes, what is termed a signifying

chain is more a jargon than a language (langage), composed of non-

signifying elements that have a meaning or an effect of signification

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