Mechanism
The
mechanist
revolution
is of structural essence. It is congenital with modern science such
as it was constituted starting from the end of the sixteenth century
with Galileo (1564-1643), Mersenne (1588-1649), Gassendi (1592-1655),
Descartes (1596-1650)… It starts with a bet on the deep rationality
of reality. This rationality is identified with the transparency of
the elements and the possibility to articulate ratios, in the
certainty that real articulation and mathematical articulation are
identical. There is thus a pragmatic agreement between rationalismand empiricism. From now on the
permanent miracle becomes possible to some extent . Through the clever way that industrial revolutions
will start to promote, every thing can be articulated,
dis-articulated and re-articulated towards an infinitely new world.
The prototype of mechanist intelligibility is the machine.
The elder intelligibility aimed at knowing the mystery of the
ontological bond of the beings and the events. It speculated on
'principles', on 'virtues', on 'forces', on 'influences', etc.
supposed to tie the world in symbiotic totality. The new mechanist
intelligibility does not any more apprehend the world in its
ontological bonds but a universe logically structured according to
mathematical ratios in a geometrical space time. It is not centred
any more on the being but on the structure. From now on the being, to
some extent demystified, is delivered in its nudity to infinite
handling.
The epistemological and pragmatic system of the mechanism implies:
a)
A
total immanence, the system being explained entirely by itself
without any external influence.
b)
A
perfect closing, the system being completely sufficient in itself.
c)
A
reductionistic
and atomistic aiming where the part wants to explain the whole and
simple, the complex.
d)
A
structural intelligibility which does not overflow the strict
articulation, dis-articulation and re-articulation according to
calculable ratios.
e)
A purely quantitative approach which, far from rejecting the
qualitative one, integrates it by reducing it.
In one word,
'that' functions without
external intervention.
The
world loses its 'soul'. The mechanist intelligibility is from the
start on essentially imperialist. Nothing resists in front of it. In
less than three centuries even the 'mystery' of life seems delivered,
body and soul, to its articulation. 'Vitalism' is to some extent
emptied of its substance. It loses its 'soul', the 'anima' which
gives life to an 'animal', the 'anemon', this quasi immaterial force
of the breath, the 'vital force', the ontological principle
victorious of death... 'Life' is stripped of its mysterious
specificities. Organics makes place to mechanics. Cosmic totality,
once animated as a 'vital milieu', is now articulated in a
geometrical space. Causality is not any more participation but simple
structural articulation of measurable dimensions. Quality is eaten by
quantity. Complexity can be put in equation. The 'mystery' becomes
calculable.
The
evanescence of the soul
leaves the matter delivered to itself. And it is the materialism
who seizes it. 'Matter' emerges only
painfully from its qualitative dimensions. It needs a long time to
take its distances from human feeling. It has to loose its 'affects'
like 'heavy', 'dense', 'palpable', 'tangible', 'resistant',
'persistent', etc.
The
concept of 'structure'
becomes a cardinal concept in modern episteme who delivers any thing
to articulation.
In the certainty that every thing pertains to a vast combinatorial
system and can be constructed and deconstructed, theoretically and
pragmatically, intelligibly and effectively, in strict transparent
exteriority of space and time. If you analyse matter rignt through only the concept of structure will be left, thus becoming
a concept-key of modern intelligibility. Released from
anthropomorphic projections, forsaking the metaphysical plan, it
operates the passage from ontology to logic, from being to
understandable relation, a logical, calculable, translatable ratio
according to mathematical type.
For instance.
Here you have water. You can describe this
'matter' (water is a colorless, odorless liquid…), it can be simply
useful to you (to wash, to drink…) you can evoke it poetically in
its symbolic richness (fertilizing water…) you can try to explain
it while going back to increasingly small parts (made up of droplets
of water, water particles…). By doing this you do not leave the
tautological assertion that water is water… just affected by
qualities which explain its richness for you.
Here
you have H-O-H.
It
is same water. But so to speak in its nudity. Simple formula. Water
becomes understandable. Not yet an 'essence' but a pure structure.
A simple logical ratio which translates the molecular structure of
water and which delivers at the same time its law of construction. H
and O are not first 'hydrogen' and 'oxygen', as if they would evoke
essential or substantial 'components'. They are initially symbols
like other symbols of mathematical type. No doubt these symbols are
not pure abstractions and refer indeed to 'something' existing in
nature where hydrogen and oxygen can be met concretely like two
bodies. But this 'something' transcends the 'thing' to seek itself,
beyond itself, in new formulas, in new structures.
The formula of water, H-O-H, gives the law of construction of the water
molecule from elements known as 'simple' bodies, hydrogen (H) and
oxygen (O). All what exists materially in the vast universe, the
billion and the billion compounds, they are real or simply possible,
are never but 'buildings' from the 103 kinds of elements counted by
modern chemistry. Such a combinative possibility is something
marvellous. Thanks to it the elements, far from being closed on
themselves, can enter in connection, in ratio, in synthesis of new
structures. Their indefinite combination
produces the indefinite multiplicity of the concrete things existing
in nature or created artificially by man.
All the bodies, all
the physical beings of the universe, even the whole nature are thus
like words, sentences, a gigantic text, written starting from an
alphabet of 103 signs. The examination of the table of the periodic
classification of the elements, successor of the table of Mendéleiev
(1869) with its 92 elements then known, can bring joys close to
contemplation. You understand the writing of Creation! Thus a small
number of elements is sufficient to combine an infinite multiple and
complex world. A few tens of elementary sounds produced by the human
vocal apparatus are enough to articulate all the languages of the
world. Ten numerical signs are enough to compose the infinity of
numbers. The 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, plus some accents and
some punctuation marks, are enough to compose all the texts (and
their translations) passed, present and futures of all the humanity.
About sixty keys of the keyboard of a computer… this is still a
luxurious concession to the human convenience since this same
keyboard transcribes for the use of the machine, which functions in
'binary', the result of these some keys with only two
different signs which you can translate numerically by '0' and '1',
logically by 'yes' and 'not', electronically by '0 V' and '+ 5 V'.
Two different signs at least are necessary. But two are sufficient
for all to say and all to compose.
An articulation without significance? The 'form' (idea, plan, grammar,
etc.) was thought as a power of another kind which imposed its order
on 'matter'. Today a terrible question emerges: Why couldn't life be
just reduced to a highly complexed 'structure'? 'Matter' being
supposed to generate its 'form' by itself… As if all you have to
say were: give me chance and necessity... Structure
makes the remainder.
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