---
slug: thinker-gilles-deleuze
title: Gilles Deleuze — The Rhizome and Multiplicity
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---

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# Gilles Deleuze — The Rhizome and Multiplicity

## §SELF — thinker-gilles-deleuze

**What this page is:** An explanation of two concepts from Gilles Deleuze's philosophy — the rhizome and multiplicity — and their relevance to network and protocol design.
**What it explains:** Rhizomatic versus arborescent (tree-like) structures, and the idea that identity is defined by connections rather than properties.
**Why read it:** To understand why hierarchical models fail for certain types of systems, and why a flat, connected graph is a better architectural model for open protocols.

### What Gilles Deleuze Is

Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was a French philosopher. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzsche, Kant, Bergson, and others, and collaborated with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari on two major works: *Anti-Oedipus* (1972) and *A Thousand Plateaus* (1980). This article addresses only the concepts from *A Thousand Plateaus* that are applicable to structural and protocol design.

### Why It Matters

Most information systems use hierarchical (tree-like) organization: file systems have directories and subdirectories; organizations have managers and subordinates; taxonomies have kingdoms, phyla, species. Deleuze and Guattari identified an alternative structural model — the rhizome — that describes networks without hierarchy. The web itself is rhizomatic: any page can link to any other page, with no central authority defining the structure. Understanding this distinction helps in designing systems that need to grow organically, accommodate unexpected connections, and resist single points of failure.

### The Key Idea

The rhizome is a network structure with six characteristics (Deleuze and Guattari list these in *A Thousand Plateaus*, chapter 1): (1) Connection and heterogeneity: any point can connect to any other point. (2) Multiplicity: the rhizome is made of dimensions, directions, and lines, not units. (3) A signifying rupture: a break at one point does not stop the network; it can resume elsewhere. (4) Anti-genealogy: the rhizome has no fixed origin or center. (5) Cartography: the rhizome is mapped, not traced — it is open to modification. (6) Decalcomania: there is no ideal underlying structure that the network copies.

The opposite of the rhizome is the arborescent (tree-like) structure: a hierarchy with a root, a trunk, branches, and leaves. In an arborescent system, every element has exactly one parent (except the root). Paths are predetermined. The rhizome has no root, no trunk, no predetermined paths. A subway map is rhizomatic: you can transfer from any line to any other at interchange stations. A corporate org chart is arborescent: each employee reports to exactly one manager.

Multiplicity is the ontological counterpart. In classical ontology (the study of what exists), reality is made of discrete things (substances) that have properties. A cat is a substance; "furry" and "four-legged" are its properties. Deleuze argues this is wrong: reality is made of continuous, connected processes. A thing is not defined by what it is (its properties) but by what it does (its actions) and what it connects to (its relations). A body is defined by its speeds and slownesses, its capacities to affect and be affected — not by its form or its organs.

### What They Got Right

**The rhizome as a structural model.** The concept correctly describes networks (the web, social networks, fungal mycelium, the brain's neural network) that grow by connection rather than by branching from a center. This model has predictive value: systems organized as rhizomes are resilient to localized failure (cut a branch off a tree and the branch dies; cut a segment of a mycelium network and the network reroutes).

**Multiplicity over substance.** The shift from "things with properties" to "processes with connections" aligns with modern systems thinking, actor-network theory, and object-oriented programming (where an object's behavior — its methods — matters more than its data fields). In graph databases, a node's identity is defined by its edges; remove all edges and the node is isolated, effectively nonexistent in the network.

**The critique of hierarchical classification.** Taxonomies (tree-like classification systems) impose a single organizing principle. The rhizome model allows multiple, overlapping, non-exclusive organizations. This matches how knowledge actually works: a single concept belongs to many categories simultaneously.

### What They Got Wrong or Left Unfinished

**The rhizome is not a universal model.** Some systems require hierarchy. A military chain of command, a legal appeals process, and a filesystem with nested directories work because they are arborescent. Deleuze and Guattari sometimes write as if the rhizome should replace all tree-like structures. This is excessive.

**No operational definition.** The six characteristics of the rhizome are described metaphorically (using examples like crabgrass, burrows, and wasp-orchid symbiosis). There is no mathematical or formal definition. This makes the concept hard to apply precisely in engineering contexts.

**Multiplicity risks incoherence.** If everything is defined by its connections and nothing has intrinsic properties, it becomes difficult to distinguish between entities or to establish stable reference. A protocol needs identifiers that persist regardless of what connections exist at a given moment.

**Political overextension.** Deleuze and Guattari extend the rhizome/arborescent distinction to political and psychological domains (capitalism, schizophrenia, fascism). These extensions are speculative and not supported by the argument that justifies the structural model.

### How It Connects to Other Ideas

**Graph theory.** A rhizome is an undirected graph with high connectivity and no designated root. Graph theory provides the formal tools (degree distribution, clustering coefficient, path length) that Deleuze's description lacks.

**Distributed systems.** Peer-to-peer networks (BitTorrent, IPFS) are rhizomatic: no central server, each node connects to others dynamically. This is the engineering implementation of the rhizome principle.

**Foucault's power networks.** Michel Foucault described power as circulating through a network of relations rather than emanating from a sovereign center. This is structurally similar to the rhizome, though Foucault's focus is on social institutions rather than abstract structure.

**Object-oriented ontology.** Graham Harman and others in the Speculative Realism movement argue that objects have withdrawn essences independent of their relations. This directly contradicts Deleuze's multiplicity (where essence is relational). The debate between relational and non-relational ontology is ongoing in contemporary philosophy.

### Sources

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1980). *Mille Plateaux* (translated as *A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia*). University of Minnesota Press, 1987.

Deleuze, G. (1968). *Difference and Repetition* (translated 1994). Columbia University Press.

Protevi, J. (2006). "A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy." Edinburgh University Press. (Entry on "Rhizome".)

---

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- [Self-describing protocol](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-self-describing-protocol)

## Related on this shelf

- [Alan Kay — The Big Idea Is Messaging](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-alan-kay)
- [Alfred North Whitehead — Process and Reality](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-alfred-north-whitehead)
- [J.L. Austin and John Searle — Speech Acts](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-austin-searle)
- [Barbara Liskov — Abstract Data Types and Distributed Consensus](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-barbara-liskov)
- [Bram Cohen — BitTorrent and Content-Addressed Protocol Design](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-bram-cohen)
- [Butler Lampson — Protection and Access Control](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-butler-lampson)
- [Carl Hewitt — The Actor Model](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-carl-hewitt)
- [Charles Sanders Peirce — Signs, Abduction, and Pragmatism](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-charles-peirce)

## Machine surfaces

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