Autopoietic Machines and Schizogenic Minds: Thinking with Félix Guattari

Tim and I turned our attention to Guattari’s book Chaosmosis and in particular chapter 2 on machinic heterogenesis. I shared a few thoughts yesterday about the same chapter:

Tim and I discuss Varela’s concept of autopoiesis, Guattari’s machinic assemblages, Whitehead’s relational ontology, and the need to recover a new from of truth sensitive to singularities.

The distinction between autopoietic machines and machinic assemblages becomes central. While Varela emphasizes organizational closure and structural coupling, Guattari critiques this for lacking evolutionary and cognitive openness.

My suggestion that we shift from ontological “relativity” to “relationality” results from my deeper concern to uphold a concept of truth that resists absolutism yet avoids nihilistic relativism. We must reconstruct a concept of truth as emergent, participatory, and situational—a shared event rooted in singularity and ongoing processes of mutual implication. Relating this to political action, the framing of truth as incarnational and contextually bound could empower resistance to oppressive ideologies while fostering pluralistic solidarity.

Tim’s discussion of molecular evolution and the pharmacological effects of exogenous substances (e.g., psilocin) highlights the porous boundaries between the autopoietic and machinic. These substances disrupt established neural patterns, fostering new configurations—a vivid example of machinic processes in biology. This dovetails with Guattari’s machinic heterogenesis, where disruptions lead to the emergence of new systems, assemblages, and truths.

Guattari’s critique of Heidegger’s deterministic view of technology as a “malefic destiny” introduces a hopeful, non-totalizing alternative. Machinic assemblages are singular, open-ended, and precarious—a source of multiple potentials rather than inevitable doom.

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