Continuous (r)evolutions: Thermodynamic processes, analog hybridization, transversal becomings and the post-human

In a land far, far away, there wander analog hybridizations. In this story, guided by the theory, aesthetics and methodology of transversal poetics, we adventure to some previously explored and unexplored territories in the Xanadu of which this land appears. Marvelous encounters with folk physics, evolutionary theory, neuronal activity and massive energy storms glitter our journey. These encounters lead us across boundless spacetime, through kaleidoscopic variations on the post-human, and beyond established parameters for conceptual and practical differentiations in particles, processes, species and consciousnesses. We experience, become, and come-to-be super creatures, and pause not with conclusion, but rather with incentive for further fugitive explorations and transversality. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2010) 1, 235–246. doi:10.1057/pmed.2010.18 Years ago, an amalgam of theoreticians, known as zooz, explored how researchers and theoreticians could understand ‘humans’ in a variety of ways. Part of this journey involved a consideration of established perspectives as structured through sets of parameterizations within which researchers and r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2040-5960 postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies Vol. 1, 1/2, 235–246 www.palgrave-journals.com/pmed/ theoreticians play. As zooz put it (in a dialogue between ooz and zoo that is abridged here), So, for example, let’s say that a doctor wants to talk about a ‘human’, she will most likely talk about this entity in the language of medicine y a human is a biological organism comprised of a stomach for digestion, lungs for oxygen supply, a brain to guide its behavior, and so forth y . Or, an economist might choose to use the terminology of post-Marxist thought. In this case he might analyze and talk about human entities as y production and consumption machines, whose thoughts and actions are governed by the bourgeoisie or dominant class, and whose ‘fruits of production’ are also consumed by the aforementioned dominant class y . Alternatively, a Lacanian or Freudian literary critic may choose to use the language and tools of psychoanalysis to talk about a human as y the net sum of the actions of the superego, ego, and id – acting both on and over conscious and subconscious information. Such information includes, but is not limited to, memories, dreams, urges, and hallucinations. (zooz, 2003, 287) Today, zooz, which also identifies the present authors operating within certain sectors of their subjective territories, would like to take a different fugitive exploration into the articulatory and nebulous spaces of ‘human’. By ‘fugitive exploration’, we mean an analysis formulated to comprehend and positively enable, rather than negatively frame, fugitive elements (the elusive, marginal or hidden) of the subject matter under investigation and the environments in which they have been contextualized and parameterized. We are here to consider the fugitive concept of the ‘post/human’. To conduct our journey, we thought it would be useful to take a step back from the presenthuman and try to get a broader vista of the subjects and territories (subjective and official) at hand. A ‘subjective territory’ is the combined conceptual, emotional and physical range from which a given subject perceives and experiences. An ‘official territory’ is the range that results from shared perspectives, investments and beliefs within regions of the subjective territories of a group’s members that work to promote unity within the structures of the group. We will move among the pre-human, present-human, post-human and fugitive becomings-human; these processual categories refer to emergences and durations of experiences, performances, and interpretations, as well as coincident crystallizations and eventualizations, within various subjective, shared, official, unclaimed and uncharted territories across spacetime. There is no final destination to this analysis. We want to look at humans fugitively, but also, in doing so, to reconceptualize, and possibly re-parameterize, the process of evolution itself. This seems appropriate, according to ooz, since this is the bicentenary of 1 For more on ‘fugitive explorations’ and other terms common to transversal poetics, such as ‘subjective territory’, ‘pressurized belongings’, ‘investigativeexpansive’, ‘eventualization’ and ‘future-absent space’, see Reynolds (2009). zooz 236 r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2040-5960 postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies Vol. 1, 1/2, 235–246 Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his revolutionary transversal masterwork, On the Origin of Species, which led to vast re-parameterizations across numerous fields. Although zoo is not sure about ooz’s rationale, we will look at evolution through different lenses and sets of parameterizations, from just after the big bang through the present era. Theoreticians have posited many convincing accounts for how evolution happens, and they tend to agree on the general structure of events. There are variations and mutations, progeny emerge, time passes, environments change, fitter elements survive and natural selection occurs. Vessels, such as DNA or televisions, carry and conduct information. It is a theory we all know well, at least at the broad-stroke level. It informs, occupies and overlaps our subjective territories in multiple facets and dimensions. It influences the ways we process our experiences and act in the world. It is a theory that presents an elegant understanding of the way creatures evolve and the mechanisms and forces that contribute to such evolutions. In the spirit of transversal poetics, we would like to explore and reparameterize the theory of evolution. We refer to five dimensions that describe and parameterize what a specific theory includes: (1) ‘areas of exploration’, what the theory is broadly talking about, such as humans or rocks; (2) ‘critical modes’, which establish the hermeneutic frame in which the discourse takes place, such as string theory or deconstruction; (3) ‘elems’, which are the basic elements of the theory, such as electrons or neurons, selected from an infinite range of possibilities; (4) ‘laws’, which are the rules that operate in that subjunctive space, such as the third law of thermodynamics or Hebbian learning; and (5) ‘assemblages’, which are the larger scale structures that sometimes emerge within ‘andor’ (our word for ‘and/or’) outside of subjunctive spaces, such as molecules or societies (zooz, 2003). In regard to elems, zooz reminds us that they constitute the elements over which theoretical discourse takes place. Always working under a range of constraints (ideational, political, financial, historical, and so forth), investigators typically choose the elems of their theory in relation to their privileged questions of interest, in the interest of their specific agendas, and in light of where they hope their analysis will go. Once selected, the choice of elems greatly influences the direction and outcome of an analysis. By looking at the choice of elems, we can understand much about the concerns of a research apparatus and the pressures under which it functions (such as those operating within a theater department that trains artists or a physics department that depends on the military for most of its funding). Where evolutionary theory is concerned, in some cases the elems might be species; in others, they might be populations, families, genes, memes, concepts or solutions to complex computational problems. Once identified or specified, the elems function within parameterizations, are subject to flows and pressures, and give way to selection, articulatory formations and transformation. 2 For more on the five dimensions, see zooz (2003). Continuous (r)evolutions 237 r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2040-5960 postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies Vol. 1, 1/2, 235–246 Following investigative-expansively, we want to change evolutionary theory’s elems. Rather than start with things like genes and DNA, we will start with smaller-scale elems and transverse on a vector of ‘theoreticospacetime’ in hopes of uncovering one of the possible trajectories that is inclusive of quarks, thermodynamics, molecules, genes, cells and the postulated post-human. Bringing the fields of physics and biochemistry into conversation, we choose to see traditional evolutionary elems (such as genes and cells) as byproductassemblages of other processes operating on other elems, such as thermodynamics operating on some more basic particles that physics sometimes talks about. Let’s start precisely where you are currently sitting, but billions of years ago. Atoms collide and eventually coalesce to form elementary molecules. Some molecules are radically unstable and last only an instant before disintegrating back into their elementary atomic states, while other molecules develop into more stable structures. ‘Evolution’ happens here in the formation of naturally selected basic units. These are molecules and – from the typical perspective of humans – ‘complex’ molecular structures with multiple parts in intricate arrangements. Energy bundles careen and bump around. The more resilient ones stick together and persevere. Primary ‘selection forces’ result from thermodynamics and chaos. As spacetime flows, only the ‘best equipped’ survive. Billions of trillions of encounters happen each instant for billions of trillions of instants and the cosmic dance continues. Emerging coherence and complexity is as ever-present as the chaos and turbulence into which it reverts. Over spacetime, the complexity and scale increases. In some sense, the basic elements are still bundles of energy, although now larger, more cohesive structures emerge. These bigger assemblages are just comprised of energy; yet for us humans, as assemblages that can perceive sophisticated structures in complexity, the bigger assemblages also have realities or resonances at larger scales. Various selection forces act here as well, whether on gluons, molecules, single-cell entities or composite substances. Energy is lost and found, and thermodynamics continues to alter the mis en scène, but there are also larger forces at play. These evolving entities, complex hurricane-like assemblages of energy in tenuous equilibrium, leverage opportunities for survival and dodge destructive forces. Only the assemblages that remain stable, adapt or mutate advantageously will persist within the turbulent chaos of reality, a reality always composed of dynamic interplays among energy forces. Whether molecular, carbon-based, sentient, conceptual or otherwise, complex multi-x assemblages can be productively described as ‘energy storms’. We chose the term ‘energy storm’ because storms have intensity, can be organized (think of a tornado, for a simple example) andor disorganized, diffuse and unpredictable; storms influence and are influenced by their compositional variables, the environments through which they move, and other storms. 3 ‘Theoreticspacetime’ is an example of what, in transversal terms, is called an