Body wıthout organs

    Deleuze and Guattari respond to the problem of the relationship between machines and organisms. According to Daniel Smith, the problem's philosophical history should be considered. One of the features discussed in this history is the contrast between machines and organisms regarding their movements. The first is considered measurable, predictable, and calculable, while the latter is unpredictable and spontaneous. The second aspect of philosophical history is that machines are designed to achieve specific purposes. On the other hand, organisms do not need any explanation tied to a "purpose." The last point is reproduction; organisms can reproduce themselves while machines do not construct other machines. 

    Deleuze and Guattari emphasize, on the contrary, the ability of the machine to create something new and the normalizing and constraining aspects of the organism. Deleuze and Guattari advance their concept of the "body without organs" as a new way of understanding the relationship between "life" and "machine." According to Smith, their point is a criticism of the organism, and the development of their concept of the "body without organs" can be defined as the becoming-machine of the organism.

    In the understanding of Deleuze and Guattari, the word organism is a type of body that is organized in a certain way;" centralized," "hierarchized," and "self-directed." The organism is the higher-order construction that holds the organs together, giving them a unified, regularized form. They say that the "enemy" is not the organs but the organism, which refers to the arrangement. It restricts its capacities. "The body without organs is the full set of capacities or potentialities of a body prior to its being given the structure of an organism, which only limits and constrains what it can do."

    In terms of a machine's predictability and productive capacity, these capacities can only emerge once it combines with other machines. According to them, machines can do something other than what they were designed to in terms of relationality with other machines. This is the unpredictable aspect of them.

    Organs, similar to machine ideas, have the capacity to develop in different directions. Deleuze and Guattari also go against the idea that an organism is a "closed unity." So, even though an organism is regularized and organized, organs within it can go in different directions. 

    In short, Deleuze and Guattari understand machines according to what they do (function) rather than their form. Also, they understand organisms according to their structure rather than their function.