Trying to explain teleoplexy and retrocausality

The first place we need to start is explaining the concept of the 'virtual' that Deleuze borrows from Bergson. The virtual is the dual of the actual (as in, what is currently real/true), but it isn't just the total set of the possible. It's specifically the set of tendencies and pressures—and thus the space of ways things/will/ develop—always already implied in, and thus already existing within, the structure and state of the actual. The past is also a virtual space in this way, as the entirety of the past is implied in the present state, with all its overlaying traces.

You can think of this as like the Rubin's vase optical illusion: the present is the white vase in the center; through its contours, it implies the faces of the past and the present in the negative space, even though (in this way of seeing the illusion) they're just negative space, they're not "really there" — but, as the optical illusion shows, they are "really there" in some sense, because of being implied and shaped out by the vase/present; they are contained within the present's contours.

Bergson and Deleuze are vitalists. They believe in some kind of irreducible vital force of life that is necessary beyond the laws of physics and math to explain life—the*élan vital*—which converts the virtual into the actual. So for them, this is a basis for free will, or at least some kind of metaphysical humanism and purpose. The tendencies and pressures that define the virtual, for them, aren't constricting; they're productive, and are chosen by the*élan vital* to be brought into being.

Meanwhile, Nick Land is well known for representing "mad dark Deleuzianism," and part of that is stripping Deleuzian concepts of their Bergsonian vitalism. For him, the space of possibilities of the virtual are already not just implied, but necessitated, by the actual, and everything else is locked out. Random chance may choose between parts of that space, but that's roughly it.

Most materialists tend to view causality as sort of entropic and dissipative. Each subsequent step in the chain of materialist causality makes things more entropic—random, chaotic, spread out, less predictable, more full of various alternative possible states. Thus, causality is not "going anywhere." That's why the virtual/actual logic of Bergson isn't really descriptive of traditional materialism, because it's not like any particular "virtual" is implied in the structure of the actual—just entropic causal dissipation.

What Land does, to try to merge the Bergsonian/Deleuzean actual/virtual idea with materialism, could be considered as integrating a form of: complexity theory — the concepts of emergent systems sustaining themselves over time; cybernetics — feedback loops tending toward homeostasis or intensification; non-equilibrium thermodynamics — the idea that some systems tend toward complexity in order to better dissipate energy; and some kind of critical theory — looking at the inherent incentives, tendencies, and emergent goals of a system even if no one intends it. By any of these mechanisms, which aren't purely entropic causal dissipation, the actual can produce some kind of specific, narrowing, determined virtual, and these tendencies can maintain themselves over time through multiple cause-effect chains, without bringing metaphysics or vitalism into the mix.

His more interesting contribution is a sort of cybernetic theory applied to this, not just to show that we can have a virtual, but how the virtual might/behave/.

For Land, the virtual implied in the actual can, itself, have further virtual pressures and tendencies implied within itself that it in turn will actualize when it itself is actualized. And those pressures/tendencies can be self-reinforcing toward some direction, as the actualization of each step in the process further limits the options available in the virtual—it narrows the virtual space—and intensifies the pressures and tendencies present.

This is what's called a positive feedback loop in cybernetics: an intensifying process heading toward some "singularity" — some end state where it reaches maximum, or infinite, or unsustainable intensity, not as a result of something external moving it, but as a result of the process itself causing it, because each stage or level of the process causes the next stage as a response.

It's like an inductive proof: once you've established the base case, the rest is already contained within that, implied by that, such that it has to iterate out and become more and more overdetermined each time. The present actual has a virtual which, once actualized, has a narrower space of options and a more intense set of pressures and tendencies in its virtual space, and so on. It is a cybernetic positive feedback loop that intensifies over time.

Moreover, while "dumb" material objects—when conceptualized in the billiard-ball Newtonian (or Hobbesian) sense—can't be thought of as having an end-goal or purpose (just behaviors or reactions), the same is not true for a system with a feedback loop.

Any system where stimuli are processed in such a way that they can provoke a specific confirmatory or negative shift in the behavior or functioning of a system—that either tends toward the maintenance of some state (cybernetic negative feedback / homeostasis) or the runaway approach to some end (positive feedback / escalation)—can be thought of as having a/goal/.

If we put these pieces together, if you have a set of pressures and tendencies that lead to a cybernetic feedback loop toward achieving and/or maintaining some state, that will also "react" through feedback to continue toward that, then you've got a teleology (a goal it tends towards) inherent in a state of the world, even though there's no mind, and no vitalism. You can also look at what those tendencies and pressures are, and how they prompt a feedback loop to respond, to determine the end-goal of the system or the causal chain.

Teleoplexy: Teleology achieved through cybernetic feedback instead of a god, form, or mind.

The concrete example Land gives is capitalism. Once things like the number zero, double-entry bookkeeping, the limited liability corporation, global shipping and trade, and land ownership were created, we were inevitably set on the path toward creating capitalism. This was because of the pressures, tendencies, and incentives those systems created. As the process born out of that continued, it would only intensify, pushing toward something very like capitalism with stronger incentives, more narrow and overdetermined virtual possibilities, and greater speed.

The whole system would create actuals where any response would trigger an even stronger reaction in the next cycle of the iterated cybernetic chain. So to him, those things sort of "assembled themselves" (by creating a certain set of conditions) toward capitalism.

Not to mention that capitalism itself is no longer just a tool created by humans to make profit, but something nobody really controls anymore. Even those who benefit most from it exist embedded within, and respond to, the incentives of it creates, which in turn are created by, and constantly fluctuate in response to, the the information processing mechanism of price and the market. Its overall goal seems just to be spreading itself, making humans obsolete, and "terraforming" the planet into usable material.

It's also worth noting that for Land, if you have a positive feedback system of causality that more or less inevitably intensifies and narrows its virtual space toward a single end as soon as the pieces come into being, it's worth thinking of the end they inherently always already point to as "already existing" — building on Bergson's understanding of the virtual as being real, even though it isn't actual.

The end state, in some sense, "causes" the beginning state to act that way, because you have a single virtual end point existing already implicitly within the actual, which determines the forces and pressures in the actual that leads you to the actualization of that virtual end point.

Hence, retrocausality. It's wild stuff.