What is the content that makes up a drive? An early step toward understanding desiring machines.

I read an article today for class that gives some good insight into Freud's ideas concerning psychic forces/energy. Deleuze and Guattari (D&G) will hammer him on these, and they surely won't write about (though they probably understood) how these concepts were very much a product of Freud's time in history and his background in scholarship: heavy on scientific method, to say the least. Therefore, I'm going to try to write something short that will be helpful in setting the historical stage upon which D&G's analysis stands. Briefly, Freud comes along at a time when the neuron is just being discovered. Its electrical properties buzz through the minds of the scientifically minded, and the possibilities of scrutinizing the mother of all neural networks—the brain—via the scientific method, flourish. In this model—which Freud eventually abandons (yet its legacy in the dominant medical model of today is still obvious)—it is envisioned that actual physical energy flows through the system of neurons that compose the nervous system. The following quote by Freud comes a little later, but the history of thinking according to his old model remains as a metaphor:

we seek not only to describe and classify phenomena, but to understand them as signs of an interplay of forces on the mind, as a manifestation of purposeful intentions working concurrently or in mutual opposition. We are concerned with a dynamic view of mental phenomena.

Professor Robert Paul points out that the words "dynamics" and "energy" (used often elsewhere) in connection to psychic life show that Freud is in the realm of metaphor when trying to explicate the detail and subtlety of these "forces." The metaphor is mixed, or confused, in interesting ways. Here I will quote Paul directly as he explains how.

At least three different theories seem to be present in the quotation [above]. There is the basis for a semiotic view, mental phenomena that are understood as "signs"; there is a physical science metaphor, in which the mind is seen having "forces"; and there is an intentional view: these "forces are also "purposeful intentions."

These all point in useful directions, but they have been refined separately from one another (and should stay that way). The concept of "forces of the mind" is indicative of the time in history—a sort of mental physics. While Freud eventually rejected the psychic apparatus as a literal model of the mind, key aspects of it remained in his analogy: a purely psychological apparatus or organ (not identical with the nervous system), in and through which conjectural psychological energy was flowing; it was to be treated as if it were like electricity or a fluid in a hydrodynamic system. Again, Paul:

Since his clinical observations revealed conflicts within the mind, in which ideas seemed to be kept out of consciousness by something like a force counter to their demand for expression in thought or action, he needed to envision psychodynamics as a conflictual system in which at least two forces opposed each other or were in some kind of tension. He stuck to this view throughout his career, although he changed his conception of the opposed forces.


The two forces or drives became 1) the libido and 2) for self-preservation or ego instincts. It is important to note that Freud, at the time of this theory, now believes that "energy" cannot be observed directly—it can only be observed through thought, speech, or action. So, what is the content that makes up a drive? If they are neither somatic nor physical, and if they are neither analogous to the dynamism of energy intake and work output, nor the chemical systems of hormones, then what are they?

For now it is enough to ask the question. Besides, I don't have a short or particularly well formed answer for you. However, D&G do have one; see: partial object flows; production of production, which is fueled by desire; etc. There biggest beef with Freud is how he commits to a duality (see 1 & 2 above). Hopefully we'll uncover a healthier way to look at things.

Hopefully this helps (a little).

Cheers,
Josh