“Now since we have distinguished the several senses of priority, it is obvious that actuality is prior to potentiality. By potentiality I mean not that which we have defined as ‘a principle of change which is in something other than the thing changed, or in that same thing qua other,’ but in general any principle of motion or of rest; for nature also is in the same genus as potentiality, because it is a principle of motion, although not in some other thing, but in the thing itself qua itself.” –Aristotle, Metaphysics
“The virtual is opposed not to the real, but to the actual. The virtual is fully real insofar as it’s virtual” –Gilles Deleuze, Difference & Repetition.
“Philosophy is the theory of multiplicities. Every multiplicity implies actual elements & virtual elements. There is no purely actual object. Every actuality surrounds itself with a cloud of virtual images.” –Gilles Deleuze, “The Actual and the Virtual”
For Aristotle, metaphysically, we know about being in several ways. One metaphysical perspective with which being is evident, is by way of potentiality. Potency is the English translation of the Greek δύναμις (dunamis)–indicating that which is dynamic. A possibility in order to be actual for Aristotle, must be materialized as the energy of what something is in reality. The movement (or kinesis, κίνησις) of a substance then, is determined by the potential of what something is in actuality. That which is actual must be, by nature of its being, whatever it has the potential to be (in actuality). Something must be actual prior to something having potential with Aristotle.
This takes us to newer problems of virtual reality concerning Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze, with Matt Bluemink’s essay, “On Virtuality: Deleuze, Bergson, Simondon.” Bluemink works to sort out a notion of the virtual as distinguished from the actual. This for Bergson was in contrast to our common view that the actual is always more important ontologically (in terms of being). That’s to imply, whatever is possible simply by definition cannot be actual, therefore it’s less real, or not real at all. Bergson advances a shift in our recognition of what is merely possible to what is virtual. This is a transition away from what is possible to what is real. This issue rests on the sense that if the possible is not real, then that which is virtual is real and not actual. For Bergson, as Bluemink explains, the virtual resides in a kinship with “pure memory.” Each thing basically ‘contains’ an actual way in which it is real & an actual ‘memory’ of what that something is virtually. The virtual is combined with the actual in a virtual memory waiting to be summoned by a creative act to be what is real for Bergson.
With Deleuze, this virtual reality is best accessed through a semblance of that which is actual. The virtual is made real by differentiation in any creative act. This creative act is a bringing about that which has not been, as Bluemink hints, by way of the virtual–the virtual memory of what could be held in actuality. With these conclusions we have the implication that, given the virtual is established as no-less real than the actual, then we want to reverse the level of hierarchy from perceiving that the actual has more of a seductive resonance than the virtual, into the idea that the virtual should now take priority.
This frisson is written about by Dale Clisby in his 2015 essay “Deleuze’s Secret Dualism? Competing Accounts of the Relationship Between the Virtual and the Actual.” For Clisby, Deleuze insists on the univocal. Univocity is identified by difference, that is, with Deleuze, the being of everything is unified by nothing other than difference. This also a positioning of the actual & the virtual as two halves of what is real. As with the formulation, ‘that which is actual is real, and that which is virtual is real, yet, that which is virtual is not actual.’
Clisby offers the example of a knotted rope, where the knotted rope is indisputably & realistically actual. Likewise, the knot is a solution to a problem (holding a place, keeping parts together, demonstrating a technique, &c.). The ‘solution’ of the knot is what is virtual. Here’s where we get a distinction Clisby draws on, with the temptation to identify the virtual as having a renewed priority, rather than the typical priority of the actual as ontologically prior to the merely possible. Instead, Clisby is only modestly positioning the two halves of reality for Deleuze as consisting of the actual in reciprocity with the virtual instead of taking a priority over the actual as suggested by Bluemink.
In this way, the reality of that which is virtual still stands enticingly at the forefront of our curiosity. Deleuze, as Clisby reminds us, was radical with his inversion of Platonic idealism, where real things are only imperfect versions of their unreal perfect Ideas. With Deleuze, actualized things are problems solved and the problems are virtual. For this we have to also adjust to the virtual as problematic and also qualitative. The qualities of things are known in their intensity. Things have intensive qualities, not only extensive quantities. These intensive qualities are identifiers. For Deleuze, the virtual is not simply these properties, yet like these properties we are still accounting for what is real with the idea of the virtual known intensively (or by intensity). By the intensity of whatever is actual, we know what is virtual and we additionally know of what is different. This difference is an identifier. We then recognize actual things in terms of a virtual presentation of whatever is real as a means of identifying the reality of what’s actual.
All of this doesn’t do too much damage to Aristotle’s actual/possible dichotomy other than to extend the possible into what is virtual and to position the virtual as a mode of identifying difference. The virtual is a greatly enhanced possibility that is then made real by identification of problems made evident in the realistic engagement with the actual. The virtual becomes a matrix of identity from the actual as unidentifiable. The cloud of the virtual is a creative means of knowing what reality is actually and what reality might be possible in terms of qualitative identity. If the virtual is no less real than the actual with Deleuze’s ontology, then the creative act is a way to access a ‘pure memory’ for Bergson, memories held together with the actual, constantly overlapping reality of problems-solved and problems-yet-to-be-solved. To perceive things as clouds of intensity becoming reality and not becoming reality, for Deleuze and for someone else.
Aurelio Madrid