Since i've brought up the actual and the virtual i'll try to explain
them. The virtual is kind of tricky and throws many for a loop that doesn't
come back. (it has taken me several months to figure it out, and i'm still
not sure that i have.) The concepts are very important to understanding
D&G's Bergsonian derived concept of TIME. The actual and the virtual
are not openly discussed much in AO or ATP, but are nonetheless very
important to what D&G mean by 'becoming.' Virtuality has come back, however,
to take a central role in all of the works since ATP.
The virtual is the beyond, the outside, the Aion, eternal return, Time.
The virtual unfolds into the actual and then infolds back into the virtual.
The virtual is Time and the actual is space or matter. The virtual does
NOT resemble the actual. Virtual and actual are in 'reciprocal determination.'
The fold mediates between the virtual and the actual. The virtual is
the locus of the incorporeal transfromations of THE LOGIC OF SENSE;
these incorporeal transformations are 'events.' Incorporeal transformations
always have corporeal or material effects. this is theunfolding of the
virtual into the actual; the unfolding fo tiem into space. In D&R, differences
in the virtual, differences in tiem, are called differences of kind
(differenTiation); differences of degree, differences of degree, differences
in matter or space, are differences in the actual (differenCiation).
the virtual is the locus of 'intensity'; the actual is the locus of
'extensity.' According to Deleuze the virtual is no the possible or the
transcendent because the virtual is fully real, it is simply not actual.
The actual is the present; the virtual is the past and future. Future, apst,
and present 'coexist.' Time need not be thought of as future past, and
present. These 'dimension' are not continuous or chronological. Again
they coexist. Memory is not subjective or psychological. The past is
manifest in the form of habit or repetition. But the past does not
resemble the present. The fold differenTiates repetition. The 'effects'
of this process of differnTiated time are manifest in differenCiated
matter. The event of the virtual becomes both cause and effect of its
own actualization. The problem with cause and effect is not that ehey are
not real, but rather that effects and causes are thought to be distinct.
Causes are quasi-causes. Effects are therefore their own causes. This
is the creative power of Becoming, the passage from the virtual (intnsity)
to the actual (extensity). Time is not space, and it is not possible
but is REAL. See D&R, pp. 207-216.
chris
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