Beyond Deleuze

How 'The Conference of Difference' Completes Deleuze's Ontology

Introduction: The Missing Rules of Engagement

Deleuze's Difference and Repetition was a Molotov cocktail thrown at the cathedral of Western metaphysics.^[1] With a single mantra—'Difference is not diversity'—he shattered the idol of Identity, insisting that being is groundless flux: a carnival of divergences without a ringmaster. But here's the rub: a carnival without rules is just a riot.

Deleuze gave difference its sovereignty but not its statecraft. His world is all differends and no diplomacy—a cosmic improvisation where every note is dissonant, yet somehow, against all odds, we wake up to a universe with laws, shapes and even hangnails. Why? Because Deleuze's ontology, for all its brilliance is incomplete. It lacks the protocols for adaptation, creation, transformation in which differences negotiate reality.

Enter The Conference of Difference (CoD).^[2] This model agrees with Deleuze that existence is dependent on difference, but insists that difference alone is not enough. To exist is to differ together—not in a bland harmony, but in a relentless, dynamic conferencing where divergences declare, adapt, and transform one another. In the Gospel of Being, the CoD declares:

All existence is a conference of difference, a condition of bearing together, transforming the 'condition of bearing apart'.^[3]

Without the CoD, differences would only bear apart, leaving us with infinite static, no stars, no selves, no Starbucks.

This article unfolds in three acts:

1. Diagnosis: Deleuze's unmediated flux is a dead end (or more precisely, a never-starting one).
2. Intervention: Conference as the missing mechanism—difference's 'parliamentary procedure.'
3. Implications: From quantum physics to consciousness, why reality runs on the CoD, not just difference.

Let's begin by auditing Deleuze's books.

Deleuze's Blind Spot: The Unmediated Flux

Deleuze's ontology is a masterpiece of anti-foundationalism. For him, difference is not a deviation from sameness (as in Aristotle or Hegel), but the very stuff of being:

Difference is the state in which one can speak of determination as such.^[4]

The world is a plane of immanence where virtual multiplicities actualize through endless differentiation, like a Mandelbrot set spawning infinities.

But this radical vision stumbles on two questions:

1. The Coherence Problem

If difference is truly primary, why isn't reality pure noise? Deleuze's answer—repetition—is sly but insufficient. Repetition, he claims, generates the illusion of stability (the same returns only because difference disguises itself).^[5] But this begs the question: What governs the disguises? Why do some differences repeat (e.g., laws of physics) while others vanish? Deleuze's flux lacks an internal principle of selection—a rule of conference to explain why certain differences 'stick' as stable phenomena.

2. The Structure Problem

Deleuze's world has no why for this. Why do differences resolve into ecosystems, languages, or the Standard Model—rather than an infinite scribble? His appeal to intensities ('difference engines') feels like a deus ex machina. As Adrian Johnston quips:

Deleuze's metaphysics often resembles a Rube Goldberg device missing its ball bearings—all elaborate contraptions and no traction. The virtual differs from the actual, but what drives the differentiation? The dark precursor? This is less an answer than a black box labeled 'answer'.^[6]

Johnston is right to demand Deleuze ‘show his work'—the virtual/actual split is a black box. Deleuze's ontology, for all its grandeur, is incomplete—it reveals the what but can only gesture towards the how. This is not a fault of Deleuze but rather as far as he was able to go with his model at the time. The CoD takes Deleuze one step further by solving not only for the what but the how and the why.

Order in the House

Deleuze's world is a glorious anarchy—a metaphysical mosh pit where differences collide without rules, spawning infinite variations. But anarchies, however thrilling, rarely build cathedrals or coral reefs. For that, you need something subtler: not just difference, but the conference of difference. This is the wager of the CoD Model: existence doesn't transform in difference: the 'condition of bearing apart' alone but rather in the conference: 'condition of bearing togther' of that which differs: 'bears apart'.^[7]

In a Deleuzian reading of quantum theory, superposition exemplifies pure difference—a particle's spin as both ‘up' and ‘down,' a simultaneity of unresolved claims awaiting actualization.^[8] But when a measurement intervenes, the outcome isn't a cosmic treaty or a collapse into permanence. Rather it's simply an historical record of the wavefunction at that moment—a snapshot of differences caught mid-conference. The apparatus isn't a delegate with veto power but like a photographer, capturing a single frame from the ongoing conference. What we call 'collapse' is just an illusion of state—like mistaking one photograph of a dance for the entire performance. The wavefunction? It's the dance itself—forever changing, adapting and transforming.

This isn't process philosophy in disguise. Whitehead's 'actual occasions' prehend one another like polite dinner guests, absorbing their neighbors' vibes without argument. In the CoD, differences don't just vibe—they compete, co-pete and reciprocate, thus giving rise to both adaptability and probability in existence. Relation isn't given but arises through mutual declaration.

Deleuze, of course, sensed the need for this. His 'dark precursor'—the enigmatic operator that 'makes differences communicate'—was a stab in the same direction.^[9] But Deleuze's 'precursor,' much like Adam Smith's 'invisible hand,' is a sibling in theoretical crime—one a capitalist fairy tale, the other a poststructuralist fable. Both smuggle order into chaos without ever stopping at customs to declare what's in the black box. The 'invisible hand' pretends markets self-regulate; the 'dark precursor' pretends differences self-organize.

But The CoD eliminates the need for a ‘Dark Precursor.' Rather than positing the virtual as an occult second tier of reality, it shows how abstracta (Deleuze's ‘virtual,' e.g., numbers, time) are not themselves existent but revelatory operands: the CoD of $3+4$ doesn't create $7$, it reveals—unveils it. Meanwhile, existent variables (like 2O₂ and C atoms) don't reveal a prexisting CO₂ molecule rather they transform into a new CO₂ molecule.

Simply put:

• transformation is a function of the CoD of existent variables (Deleuze's actual); and
• revelation is a function of the CoD of abstract operands (Deleuze's virtual).

The Conference of Difference cuts out the middleman: differences don't need a 'dark precursor' to confer nor do markets an 'invisible hand'. Instead in the CoD, equilibrium is a function of the mutual regulation that manifests through reciprocity: the 'condition of like forward, like back'. The payoff is a metaphysics where structure isn't imposed (Plato's Forms) or illusory (Deleuze's disguises) but contingently achieved.

The Temporal Diplomacy of Existence

What we call 'time' is not a river, a hall of mirrors, or even a dimension—but a value assigned to existence: a token of recollection or anticipation. The past is no more 'existent' than the number 7. Hence, existence doesn't unfold in time but is rather, understood through it.

We think of the past as fixed, the future as open and the present as the knife-edge between them. But this is an illusion of scale. Zoom in, and you'll find no 'now', only negotiations in session—differences debating what will be binding, what will be archived, and what will be tabled for later. The past isn't a locked vault; it's the memory of old conferences, their sense still echoing in today's deliberations. The future isn't a blank slate; it's the provisional agenda, always in drafting but never final.

Consider memory. For Deleuze, the past 'coexists' with the present like layers in a Bergsonian tapestry—an enduring, quasi-substantial ether. But this smuggles into existence that which is only a value. A memory isn't a ghost whispering in your ear; it's a delegate sent from no country, invoking procedural precedent (‘Article 7: That Summer Day') to sway the present's debate. When two witnesses disagree, it's not because timelines collide—but rather their temporal recollections differ in the CoD and yet to ratify the record.

Even entropy submits to the conference of difference. Here the so-called ‘arrow of time' isn't a law of decay but the leaning ledger of relational possibilities. As resolutions accumulate, the weight of past conferences doesn't forbid reversal—it just makes certain outcomes (like shattered glass reassembling) statistically improbable. The second law of thermodynamics isn't simply physics—it's the universe's quorum call: a drift toward states where differences are so diffusely related that old alliances lose their margins. This isn't disorder or the loss of relation, but its redistribution into softer symmetries.

The Payoff: Why This Beats Deleuze

Deleuze's time is a ‘crystal of becoming'—every moment splinters into infinite pasts and futures, all equally real. But Deleuze gives no explanation as to why some splinters (like revolutions) harden into history, while others (like yesterday's gossip) dissolve. The CoD grounds time in abstracta: the past is not a dimension but memory—a constantly transforming recollection of past actions and consequences that give meaning to what has occurred. These recollections accumulate as knowledge, contributing to intelligence: the 'condition of choosing between' of one being: 'action to be' over another.

This isn't just wordplay. It solves real problems:

• Quantum Retrocausality: Not a paradox but a retrospective reclassification of quantum records.^[10]
• Deja Vu: Not a glitch but old recollections recognizing a familiar motion.
• Free Will: Not the illusion of being 'unbound' but the will to secure the path of least resistance.

Conclusion: The Conference Adjourns (But Never Ends)

Every ontology seeks at the first instance to give an account of that which is foundational to existence. Deleuze posits difference as this foundation, but is this enough? We began by challenging Deleuze's anarchic flux, not to discard it but to organize it. Where his differences spiral infinitely, ours confer: 'bear together to adapt, create and transform.

The implications are not just philosophical but existential:

1. For Physics

Quantum fields (existent) negotiate; particles (abstracta) are simply snapshots of that process. Retrocausality isn't real—it's a category error that conflates temporal records (abstracta) with physical transformations (existents), as if to wind back the time on a clock could wind back reality.^[11] Entanglement isn't magic—it's a cosmic handshake—the deal is done before the particles split.

2. For Mind and Agency

Consciousness isn't a ghost but the 'measure of knowing together' that forms through the CoD—a shared tracking of sensory motions, mutual drafting of resolutions. Free will isn't unbound want—but the negotiated gradient of existence, where all being is inclined toward resolution at minimal cost.

3. For Power and Truth

True democracies (non-competitive) echo the cosmos—not as singular truth, but as a participatory order where stakeholders transform difference through conference, sustaining balance through diversity.

4. For the Sacred

God as Creator i.e. 'that which creates' doesn't dictate outcomes only the process that is the conference of difference in which all abstracta are revealed and all that exists transforms.

The Final Gavel

Let the objections come. The materialists, the mystics, the post-structuralists—all have the floor. But the CoD's authority is immanent: not from some 'dark precurser', 'invisble hand' or all-powerful supernatural being but by virtue of the process that is the conference of difference itself.^[12]

The Gospel of Being

by John Mackay

A rigorous yet readable exploration of how existence functions—and how that relates to you.

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