Presence and adaptation

Between active presence and constrained adaptation, cultivating an “adaptive presence”: an ethics of creative resistance in the face of transformations that overwhelm us.

Presence, a state of active consciousness

What I call presence is a particular state of relation to oneself and to the world, which could be compared to a form of lucid trance. It constitutes a profound opening, which allows one to receive and simultaneously integrate a multiplicity of parameters, while maintaining a capacity for immediate action. This presence translates into an expanded perception, intimately linked to a disposition toward action, bodily movements, written expression, speech, gestures. My concept derives from what Martin Heidegger called Dasein, that being-there characterized by its openness to the world (Erschlossenheit, in Being and Time, 1927).

The reflex that makes us catch an object before it hits the ground, for example, perfectly illustrates this state of active presence. In this instant, we act from a state of presence of which we are not necessarily conscious, but which our metabolism has spontaneously activated.

The concept of presence as I propose it is quite different from contemplation; it is a capacity for action anchored in the instant. Maurice Merleau-Ponty proposes in Phenomenology of Perception (1945) the idea that our body is always already engaged in the world, in a pre-reflexive relation with our environment, just as Bergson in Matter and Memory (1896), explains that perception is always already virtual action; to perceive is to outline the possible actions of our body upon things.

Adaptation, between vital necessity and imposed transformation

Adaptation, unlike presence, is a process of transformation made necessary by the evolution of external contexts. History offers us multiple examples: the advent of the internal combustion engine caused the disappearance of trades related to horse-drawn vehicles, post relays, grooms, coachmen, etc. This technological revolution forced entire professional bodies to reinvent themselves, to acquire new skills, while infrastructures and industrial systems transformed to exploit the possibilities offered by the acceleration of communications and travel.

And today, the emergence of generative artificial intelligences places us before a similar challenge. Tasks once exclusively human are progressively being assumed by machines, with superior efficiency. Adaptation then becomes an injunction, whose options remain limited: learn new trades, develop unprecedented skills, or risk obsolescence.

This technical transformation is well analyzed by Gilbert Simondon in On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (1958): the human being must constantly reinvent their relation to technical objects that transform their milieu.

Presence constitutes a state of the instant, while adaptation is a process inscribed in duration. These two movements might appear antagonistic, but their articulation conceals a potential for mutual benefit, for synergy, which I think is important to illuminate.

The violence inherent in adaptive processes

The objective of this reflection is to establish some principles in the direction of developing modalities of thought and being-in-the-world that equip us for transformations. It is not simply a matter of “better adapting,” because adaptation itself can be instrumentalized in service of systems of domination. Industries evolve without consideration for human dignity, summoning individuals to adapt urgently.

The conception of the human being as a resource finds its roots in concentrationary ideology which, after World War II, infused the capitalist conception of work. Former Nazis contributed to erecting work as an absolute value, in contempt of the human. Paradoxically, the sought value did not reside in work itself, but in the profits generated by productive systems, in which human work was only one cog among others.

Capitalist logic does not hesitate: if machines can replace humans to increase profits, if relocation allows margins to be increased through reduced wages, the human immediately becomes a variable for adjustment. In this context, adaptation can become a process of extreme violence. It carries intrinsic violence because it imposes a transformation dictated from outside, not chosen. “Those who do not adapt die” is a discourse that presents itself as normal.

Presence and adaptation: a transformative dialectic

Cultivating presence precisely offers the means to reduce this adaptive violence. The perpetual change of the world is inescapable. The evolution of contexts and the necessity of adaptation do not derive solely from the will of dehumanized capitalists; they participate in the very ontology of the human in their changing milieu.

Even in prehistoric times, when temporal rhythms differed from those of today, adaptation was permanent. Living environments presented instability far greater than what we know today, without the quasi-unlimited access to goods that contemporary monetary exchange allows.

For example, regarding food: it was not regular as we practice it today. The body had biologically adapted, in its capacity for intermittent fasting: one ingests maximally when food is accessible, to store, and then one can live long without eating, consuming one’s reserves. And in doing so, the body detoxifies through the consumption of its own waste, and activates its self-restoration. In moments of fasting, the body’s energy is devoted to care and not to digestion. The body is not “lacking” food, it is in presence, which puts it in a capacity to adapt, in the present, to extremely diverse and changing situations, food or no food, and in doing so also to heal itself.

Cultivating the qualities of presence, this anchoring in oneself oriented toward action rather than reaction, allows one to adapt without losing oneself, because through presence we compose with reality, which is in perpetual change, at each instant. And this is an opportunity to question our foundations, to better reaffirm them. Crises often reveal individuals to themselves, awaken them to unsuspected dimensions of their being. Constrained adaptation to hostile contexts can paradoxically lead to self-transcendence, to inner growth, to a deepening of consciousness and capacities for action.

The stake is then conscious adaptation and voluntary reflection on our positioning in the world. Apparently imposed adaptation becomes an opportunity to affirm and practice one’s presence with renewed intensity. External constraint transforms into an occasion for inner deepening, necessity into reconquered freedom.

Adaptive presence: an ethics

Félix Guattari developed a concept, ecosophy in his book The Three Ecologies (1989). It is a practical wisdom that articulates three essential dimensions of our being-in-the-world: environmental ecology (relationship to nature), social ecology (relationship to economic and social realities) and mental ecology (relationship to the psyche and the production of subjectivity). He insists on the necessity of thinking together these three spheres to face contemporary crises, and invites the invention of new collective, creative and singular practices, capable of resisting the uniformization imposed by integrated world capitalism. Ecosophy thus aims to constitute a “wisdom of dwelling,” where each individual and each community actively reinvents their way of existing in the world, taking care of themselves, others and the environment.

For my part, I propose the very practico-practical concept of adaptive presence. It is a dialectical synthesis, which allows one to live in an ethics of existence that is neither contemplation detached from the world, nor blind submission to the adaptive injunctions of the system, in an acting and free consciousness. Thus in the world, which transforms permanently, cultivating this adaptive presence is in my opinion not only a vital necessity, but also an act of creative resistance in the face of forces that would reduce the human to a simple variable for adjustment.