Transcript
Claire ParnetSo, "N" is neurology and the brain. So, "N" is neurology and the brain.
Yes, it's very difficult, neurology.
Claire ParnetWe'll go fast. It's true that neurology has always fascinated me, but why? It's the question, what happens in someone's head when he/she has an idea? I prefer, "when there's an idea," because when there are no ideas, the mind works like a pinball machine. So, what happens? How does it communicate inside the head? Before people start talking about communication, etc., they ought to see how it communicates inside the head. Or in the head of an idiot. . . I mean, It's the same thing as well, someone who has an idea or an idiot... In any case, they don't proceed along pre-formed paths and by ready-made associations, and so what happens? If only we knew, it seems to me that we'd understand everything. This interests me greatly, for example. . . And the solutions must be extremely varied. . . What I mean is: Two neural extremities in the brain can very well establish contact. That's what we call electrical processes in the synapses. And then there are other cases that are much more complex perhaps, where it's discontinuous and there's a gap that must be jumped. It seems to me that the brain is full of fissures, and that jumping occurs, which happens in a probabilistic regime, that there are relations of probability between two linkages, that all this is much more uncertain, very, very uncertain, that these communications inside a brain are fundamentally uncertain, regulated by laws of probability. What makes me think about something? Someone might tell me that I'm inventing nothing, that it's the old question of associations of ideas.
So, one would almost have to wonder. . . For example, when a concept is given or a work of art is contemplated, looked at, one would almost have to try to sketch a cerebral map: what the [contemplation] would correspond to, what the continuous communications would be, what the discontinuous communications would be, from one point to another. Something has impressed me greatly-and perhaps this might lead to what you were looking for- what has impressed me greatly is a story that physicists use quite a bit, called the "baker's transformation:" taking a segment of dough in order to knead it, stretching it out into a rectangle, folding it back over, stretching it out again, etc. etc. You make a number of transformations, and at the limit of "X" transformations, two completely contiguous points are necessarily located at a great distance from each other. And there are distant points that, as a result of "X" transformations, are found to be quite contiguous. I tell myself, when one looks for something in one's head, aren't there these types of mixing? Aren't there two points that at a particular moment, in a particular stage of my idea- I cannot see how to associate them, make them communicate- and as a result of numerous transformations, I discover them side by side? So, I would almost say, between a concept and a work of art, that is, between a mental product and a cerebral mechanism, there are some extremely exciting similarities. So it seems to me that with the questions, how does one think? Or what does thinking mean? The question is that thinking and the brain are absolutely intertwined. I mean, I believe more in the future of the molecular biology of the brain than in the future of information science or of any theory of communication.
Claire ParnetYou have always given a place to 19th century psychiatry that extensively addressed neurology and the science of the brain in relation to psychoanalysis, and you have given a priority to psychiatry over psychoanalysis precisely for psychiatry's attention to neurobiology. Is it still the case?
Yes, yes, yes. As I said earlier, there is also a relationship with the pharmacy, the possible action of drugs on the brain and the cerebral structures that can be located on a molecular level, in cases of schizophrenia. For me, these aspects appear to have a more certain future than mentalist psychiatry.
Claire ParnetThat leads to a methodological question because it's no secret that, in regard to science, you are rather self-taught, although you read neurobiological and scientific journals. . . Also you're not very good at math, as opposed to some philosophers you've studied- Bergson had a degree in math; Spinoza, strong in math; Leibniz, no need to say, very strong in math- so, how do you manage to read? When you have an idea and need something that interests you, and you don't necessarily understand it all, how do you manage?
Well, there's something that gives me great comfort: I'm persuaded by the possibility of several readings of the same thing, and in philosophy -this I believe in strongly- one need not be a philosopher to read philosophy. Not only is philosophy open to two readings, philosophy needs two readings at the same time. A non-philosophical reading of philosophy is absolutely necessary, without which there would be no beauty in philosophy. That is, with non-specialists reading philosophy, this non-philosophical reading of philosophy lacks nothing, it is entirely adequate. It's simply a reading. Perhaps that might not work for all philosophers. I have trouble seeing the possibility of a non-philosophical reading of Kant, for example. But in Spinoza, I mean, it's not at all impossible that a farmer could read Spinoza, it's not at all impossible that a storekeeper could read Spinoza. . .
Claire ParnetNietzsche. . .
Nietzsche, that goes even more without saying, all the philosophers that I admire are like that. So, there is no need to understand, since understanding resides at a certain level of reading. It's a little like if you said to me, to appreciate, for example, Gauguin or a great painting, you must have expertise in painting. Of course, some knowledge is necessary, but there are also extraordinary emotions-extraordinarily authentic, extraordinarily pure, extraordinarily violent- within a total ignorance of painting. For me, it's entirely obvious that someone can take in a painting like a thunderbolt and not know a thing about the painting itself. Similarly, someone can be overwhelmed with emotion by music or by a particular musical work without knowing anything about it. For example, I am very moved by Lulu or by Wozzeck, without mentioning concerto, To the Memory of an Angel, that moves me perhaps above everything else in the world. So, I know it's better to have a competent perception, but I still maintain that everything that counts in the world, in the realm of the mind, is open to a double reading, provided that the double reading is not something done randomly by a self-taught person. Rather, it's something one undertakes starting from one's problems that come from elsewhere. I mean that based on being a philosopher, that I have a non-musical perception of music, which makes music extraordinarily thrilling to me. Similarly, it's based on being a musician, a painter, this or that, that one can undertake a non- philosophical reading of philosophy. If this second reading, which doesn't necessarily come second, didn't occur; if there weren't these two, simultaneous readings. . . it's like both wings on a bird, this need for two readings. . . Moreover, even a philosopher must learn to read a great philosopher non-philosophically. The typical example for me is yet again Spinoza: having Spinoza in paperback, and reading him like that, for me, creates as much emotion as a great musical work. And in a way, understanding is not even remotely the point since in the courses that I used to teach, it was so clear that sometimes the students understood, sometimes they did not, and we are all like that when it comes to books, sometimes understanding, sometimes not. So, to come back to your question about science, I think it's true, and as a result, to some extent, one is always at the extreme point of one's ignorance, which is exactly where one must settle. One must settle at the extreme point of one's knowledge or one's ignorance, which is the same thing, in order to have something to say. If I wait to know what I am going to write- literally, if I wait to know what I am talking about- then I will always have to wait and what I have to say will have no interest. If I do not run a risk. . . If I settle and also speak with a scholarly air about something I don't know, then this is also without interest. But I am speaking about this very border between knowing and non-knowing: It's there that one must settle in order to have something to say. In science, for me, it's the same, and the confirmation I have found is that I've always had great relations with scientists. They never took me to be a scientist, they don't think I understand a whole lot, but they tell me that it works- well, a few anyway. . . You see, I remain open to echoes, for lack of a better word. If I give an example. . . I'll try to give a simple example: a painter that I like greatly is Delaunay, and what- I'll try to sum this up in a formula- what does Delaunay do? He observed something quite astounding, and as I say this, it takes us back to the start: What is it to have an idea? What is Delaunay's idea? His idea is that light itself forms figures, there are figures of light. . . It's quite innovative, although perhaps someone long ago had this particular idea already. . . What appears in Delaunay's thought is this creation of figures that are figures formed by light, light figures. He paints light figures, and not- which is quite different- aspects that light takes on when it meets an object. This is how Delaunay detaches himself from all objects, with the result of no longer creating paintings with any objects at all. I recall having read some very beautiful things by Delaunay: he says, when he judges cubism severely, Delaunay says that Cézanne succeeded in breaking the object, breaking the fruit bowl, and that the cubists spent their time hoping to glue it back together. So, regarding the elimination of objects, Delaunay substitutes figures of pure light for rigid and geometric figures. That's something, a pictorial event, a Delaunay-event. Now, I don't know the dates, but that doesn't matter. . . There is a way or an aspect of relativity, of the theory of relativity, and I know just enough- one need not know much, it's only being self-taught that's dangerous, but one does not need to know a whole lot. I only know something about an aspect of relativity, which is this: instead of having lines of light- lines followed by light- subjected to geometric lines, with the experiments of Michaelson, there's a total reversal. Now lines of light condition geometric lines. This is a considerable reversal from a scientific perspective, which will change everything since the line of light no longer has the constancy of the geometric line, and everything is changed. I'm not saying that's all of it, but it's this aspect of relativity that best corresponds to Michaelson's experiments. I don't mean to say that Delaunay applies relativity; I would celebrate the encounter between a pictorial undertaking and a scientific undertaking that must somehow be related. I was saying something similar. . . I select another example: I know only that Riemannian spaces-it's really beyond me, I don't know much in detail-I know just enough to know that it's a space that is constructed piece by piece, and in which the connections between pieces are not predetermined. But for completely different reasons, I need a spatial concept for the parts in which there aren't perfect connections and that aren't pre-determined. I need this! I'm not going to spend five years of my life trying to understand Riemann, because at the end of five years, I will not have made any progress with my philosophical concept. And I go to the movies, and I see a strange kind of space- everyone knows how space is used in Bresson's films- in which space is rarely global, where space is constructed piece by piece. One sees little pieces of space- for example, a section of a cell, in the A Man Escaped-the cell, in my vague recollection, is never seen in its entirety, but the cell is a tiny space. I am not even talking about the Gare de Lyon in The Plckpocket, where it's incredible. These are little pieces of space that join up, the links are not predetermined, and why? It's because they are manual, hence the importance of hands for Bresson. It's the hand that moves. Indeed, in The Plckpocket, it's the speed with which the stolen object is passed from one hand to the other that determines the connections of little spaces. I do not mean either that Bresson is applying Riemannian spaces. I say that an encounter can occur between a philosophical concept, a scientific notion, and an aesthetic percept. So that's quite perfect. I believe that, in science, I know just enough to evaluate encounters. If I knew more, I'd be in science, I wouldn't be in philosophy, so, there you are. At the limit, I speak well about something I don't know, but I speak of what I don't know as a function of what I know. All of this is a question of tact, no point in kidding about it, no use in pretending when one doesn't know. But once again, just as I have had encounters with painters, they were the most beautiful days of my life. I had a certain encounter- not physical encounters, but in what I write-I have had encounters with painters. The greatest of them was Hanta'i. Hanta'i told me, "Yes, there is something." It wasn't on the level of compliments. Hanta'i is not someone who is going to make compliments to someone like me, we don't even know each other- there is something that "passes" [between us]. What about my encounter with Carmelo Bene? I never did any theater, I have never understood anything about theater. I have to believe that something important "passed" there as well. There are scientists with whom these things work too. I know some mathematicians who, when they were kind enough to read what I have written, said that, for them, what [I was] doing was absolutely coherent. Now, this is going badly since I seem to be taking on an air of completely despicable self-satisfaction, but it's in order to answer the question. For me, the question is not whether or not I know a lot about science, nor whether I am capable of learning a lot of it. The important thing is not to make stupid statements. . . It's to establish echoes, the phenomena of echoes between a concept, a percept, a function-since, for me, the sciences do not proceed with concepts, but with functions- a function. From this perspective, I needed Riemannian spaces, yes, I know they exist, I do not know exactly what they are, but that's enough.