Michel Serres report: The Natural Contract & Atlas

Today we have made our weekly meeting, in this case in order to discuss about two of the most interesting books in the Michel Serres life: The Natural Contract and Atlas. Here the report about the two ones:

THE NATURAL CONTRACT:

Serres: the Mediation' philosopher.

Now that we (humanity) can destroy the world, we have reached a level of the same size as the Earth, then we can look at it face to face (the Anthropocene), and so, we can create a violence with (and no more within) him, so we must create a contract with him.

The Object-world: we have created objects with the size of the world (or even larger), for example, objects like plastic can outlast the lifetime of the world. This would be the maximum violence to the world, and so we should make the peace with him.

Informational Contract should create an informational world, creating peace with the information. This could be a next step after the Natural Contract.

There is a epistemodicea: a work about the relationship between science and law; reason and judgment.

The war pacts struggles in order not to all of us die, one per one till the end. The war is therefore a solution, but what kills us indiscriminate are violence (that is, violence without contract, mere violence). Then, the natural contract, is peace with the world.

Three standard contracts: War, Fortuna and Jupiter.

Hermes (The God of relations) is announcing to us the world as a whole, and he will be replaced by his son, Pan (The God of globalization), the world as a whole. Humanity as a whole, it is the tectonic form that can destroy the world, and it is handled in the information.

We have lost the long term, we have lost the myth, and then we live in the ritual: bureaucracy, administration and pure short term.

The science and law are born at the same time, and born of the limit. This born is placed in Egypt whith the Nile floods that erased the barriers crops. Then, the harpedonaptas used to come ( because they were the experts in law and mathematics) and they restored the crops.

The origin of the word contract is the string. A contract is a way to create strings that bind you with somewhat or something.

ATLAS:

The inclusive / excluded third. This concept was taken later by STS and Agamben (Ban). The "Ors-là" is a shadow that chases the protagonist, where the only way to kill him is to killing oneself. The parasite as a para-site, is next to you. The parasite is the event, that what you do not expect. Who am I? I'm The third. The third included. What is the meaning of this word? I am associated intimately to another and many more. Yes, I am legion: an innumerable set of others. (page 78)

Our construction of the History is a permanent attempt to kill the parasites (in the classical and linear history).

"The "Ors-là" is the third element, the para-site that is always in the relation. And it's not dialectic, but the third exclusided-inclusive".

The Joker, is very important to Serres, it can take on any value (the joker's blanket).

Kineteca: tank movement. Networks are kinetecas for Serres.

Extitution is also a concept appeared in Serres.

Serres, when he is asked about what we can do with an Atlas: "Simulation (or scenarios) links together reason and existence. Simulation says how algorithms and methods are connected through paths or roads". Here are a connection between rationality and existence.

The force is in the fragile: in the details, as well as in the mall or in the weak.

The fold is the element of form, the atom form, his clinamen. The clinamen is the minimum turn, the minimal turn which is necessary to create an inflection in that stream of atoms that is the reality. The difference is what produces a point of reality.

To the small, or within the big: the fold is the connector (clinamen) that would move us form the place and from the space.

Until the fluid has a limit: instead, the wind, has no limits. Have you noticed that our language says that the fragile suppose, because broke, a solid material? How do fluid can not break and lasts longer and better than the rigid? (page 187)

Homothetic, is that which is homogeneous in its parts. The relationship between the global and the local are not homothetic. Because the relationship has to do with the heterogeneous, you do not know how it will be the path between the global and the local: it is uncertain, it can be or not to be ... so it is precarious.

Serres say that mathematics are born in a virtual circuit, on a string. You can not put an exact date. Serres says that Maths born in Mesopotamia, then they go to Egypt, passing through Greece, and return to Egypt, but you can not locate exactly in a historical coordinates.

Formerly, in its origin, the particular adjective, somewhat alchemical, was equivalent to the viscous substance: it was the opossite to the fluid, The origin of the word expresses the result of growth (cresare) of several elements placed together (cum) and then, to lead into another body. It would seem the product of a chemical reaction! In addition, its true meaning brings him about to the dynamics of the mixtures. This growth resembles a sort of extension (page 103)

Photo Credit: David Stanley