1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:03,120 Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to It could happen here. This is Garrison. 2 00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:06,680 Speaker 1: We'll be taking this week off from work so we 3 00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:11,079 Speaker 1: can finally have a break from the daily grind of 4 00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:15,120 Speaker 1: putting out, putting out episodes. So we're gonna be playing 5 00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:19,560 Speaker 1: some reruns for you of some choice older episodes that we, 6 00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:23,280 Speaker 1: you know, still think about. The one that I chose 7 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:27,240 Speaker 1: is my old Hyperobjects and Liminal Spaces episode from Geez, 8 00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:30,640 Speaker 1: almost like two years ago. Now. I think it's a 9 00:00:31,320 --> 00:00:33,400 Speaker 1: it's a fun one. It's it's it's a very simple 10 00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:36,920 Speaker 1: overview of a very complex topic. I've been working on 11 00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:40,480 Speaker 1: a sequel to this episode ever since it first came 12 00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:43,680 Speaker 1: out that kind of goes more in depth into the 13 00:00:43,720 --> 00:00:46,800 Speaker 1: other kind of more niche aspects of Timothy Morton's Hyperrobjects 14 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:50,599 Speaker 1: book and other kind of object oriented ontology types of stuff, 15 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:56,040 Speaker 1: along with like hontology and Uncanny Valley like theories. It's 16 00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:58,520 Speaker 1: I don't know, it's I've I have been slowly building 17 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:01,440 Speaker 1: out a Google doc which will eventually resultant and probably 18 00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:04,440 Speaker 1: a series of sequels to this episode. So I thought 19 00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:07,000 Speaker 1: I might put this one back in circulation in case 20 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,200 Speaker 1: some new listeners haven't heard it. To prepare you for 21 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:17,240 Speaker 1: the unbridled, and to prepare you for the next batch 22 00:01:17,319 --> 00:01:21,720 Speaker 1: of kind of a kind of unhinged. Garrison reads very 23 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:25,880 Speaker 1: silly kind of ontology books, series episodes that I have 24 00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:28,760 Speaker 1: planned in the works. So yeah, here we go, hyper 25 00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:37,880 Speaker 1: objects and our liminal reality. Hey, welcome to it could 26 00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:42,199 Speaker 1: happen here. I'm Garrison, and today I'm gonna be talking 27 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:47,760 Speaker 1: about some really big things and ideas, but hopefully I'll 28 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:50,760 Speaker 1: be talking with them in a way that contextualizes them 29 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:54,720 Speaker 1: and makes you remember that, despite their magnitude, there's still 30 00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:59,040 Speaker 1: very real things that you can interact with. Anyway, I'll 31 00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:01,760 Speaker 1: get started an event. It will kind of make sense. 32 00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:06,800 Speaker 1: So right now we are all living in one massive 33 00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:11,120 Speaker 1: liminal space. For those less online than I am, I'll 34 00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:14,839 Speaker 1: explain what I mean. Liminal spaces became an online meme 35 00:02:14,960 --> 00:02:18,320 Speaker 1: around late twenty nineteen as a term to describe a 36 00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:21,720 Speaker 1: certain type of picture that features architecture or like just 37 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:30,120 Speaker 1: a place that looks off familiar, eerie, lonely, yet mesmerizing 38 00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:34,440 Speaker 1: and beautiful. I've been an avid lurker on the liminal 39 00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:38,239 Speaker 1: space subredit for a while now, and there's an undeniable 40 00:02:38,280 --> 00:02:42,880 Speaker 1: allure to these dreamlike photos of buildings and rooms and 41 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,200 Speaker 1: the effect that they have on me. Describing what makes 42 00:02:47,240 --> 00:02:51,040 Speaker 1: a liminal space photo a liminal space photo as opposed 43 00:02:51,040 --> 00:02:53,560 Speaker 1: to just any other regular photo of a building or 44 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:57,680 Speaker 1: a room can be tricky because, in part the point 45 00:02:57,720 --> 00:03:00,480 Speaker 1: is to elicit a certain feeling without thinking thinking too 46 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:05,360 Speaker 1: much about the why they're not spooky or scary in 47 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:09,080 Speaker 1: the traditional sense. The gist of a liminal space photo 48 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:11,960 Speaker 1: and where it gets its name liminality, is a good 49 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,919 Speaker 1: place to begin to understand what type of feelings these 50 00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:20,919 Speaker 1: pictures are supposed to produce. Liminal refers to a transitional 51 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:26,480 Speaker 1: phase and the ambiguity and disorientation associated with being inside 52 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:30,000 Speaker 1: of a threshold, not on either one side, per se, 53 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:35,480 Speaker 1: but somewhere in between. Now, that threshold can be many things. 54 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:40,320 Speaker 1: A literal transitionary threshold between certain places is a common one. 55 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:45,160 Speaker 1: This can include stuff like hallways and airports. One of 56 00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:49,800 Speaker 1: my favorites, though, is a threshold between time, an ambiguous, 57 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:54,840 Speaker 1: unspecific nostalgia you can't quite place, but it feels awfully familiar, 58 00:03:55,200 --> 00:03:59,960 Speaker 1: like a dream from childhood. Pictures of weird indoor square 59 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:04,400 Speaker 1: playgrounds do this for me. The other threshold is a 60 00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:08,480 Speaker 1: threshold between purpose and use, like a building or room 61 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:13,200 Speaker 1: designed for a very specific special purpose but now no 62 00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:16,640 Speaker 1: longer serving that it's empty and out of date, an 63 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:20,560 Speaker 1: abandoned mall, or cheery birthday party room at an arcade 64 00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:25,320 Speaker 1: photographed desolate and in the dark. There's two other aspects 65 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:29,640 Speaker 1: of liminal space photos that complement the various thresholds we've mentioned. 66 00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:33,520 Speaker 1: Usually they have no visible people, and there's a sense 67 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:37,960 Speaker 1: of artificiality, like a lot of fluorescent and artificial lighting, 68 00:04:38,279 --> 00:04:42,159 Speaker 1: and even when there is a sunny outside, it looks fake, 69 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:46,800 Speaker 1: like a Windows computer screensaver. One of the most popular 70 00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:50,240 Speaker 1: liminal space photos is of an underground bunker in Las 71 00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:53,800 Speaker 1: Vegas that was painted and decorated to look like it's 72 00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:58,400 Speaker 1: outside despite being buried deep within the ground. It's such 73 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:01,160 Speaker 1: a great example of liminal space is because it elicits 74 00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:04,640 Speaker 1: a certain type of cognitive dissonance and a distinct lack 75 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:09,680 Speaker 1: of synchronicity that is difficult to describe. Otherwise, almost never 76 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:14,120 Speaker 1: is quote unquote nature the subject of these photos. They 77 00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:19,160 Speaker 1: nearly exclusively focus on very human constructs, particularly ones that 78 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:23,160 Speaker 1: no longer serve their intended use, or maybe never did 79 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:26,720 Speaker 1: in the first place. So what do I mean by 80 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:31,200 Speaker 1: we're all in one huge liminal space right now. Well, 81 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:35,600 Speaker 1: we are in between a historic economic and technological boom, 82 00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:39,120 Speaker 1: one that's produced machines that resemble the magic of old. 83 00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:42,400 Speaker 1: But on the other side of this valley is global 84 00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:46,320 Speaker 1: climate catastrophe and destruction and change, the likes of which 85 00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:50,159 Speaker 1: humans have possibly never seen or at least remembered. We're 86 00:05:50,279 --> 00:05:54,320 Speaker 1: in the transitionary period between these two states, and that 87 00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:57,599 Speaker 1: dissociation of not being fully in either one, that that 88 00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:01,560 Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance can be kind of minding. It's like the 89 00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:05,440 Speaker 1: nervous anticipation right before the roller coaster goes over the peak, 90 00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:09,040 Speaker 1: or that weird feeling of being alone in an empty 91 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:14,400 Speaker 1: church nursery at night. Similar to liminal space photos, climate 92 00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:18,920 Speaker 1: change transcends a regular perception of time space, and with 93 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:24,560 Speaker 1: that cause an effect. It's more than just a regular thing, phenomenon, 94 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:30,039 Speaker 1: or object. While specifically thinking about climate change, philosopher Timothy 95 00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:37,039 Speaker 1: Morton dubbed these massive space time altering objects as hyper objects. Now, 96 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:41,000 Speaker 1: Morton often writes about things that can't be talked about directly, 97 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:43,159 Speaker 1: so really the only way to discuss it or get 98 00:06:43,160 --> 00:06:46,800 Speaker 1: into the topic is to orbit around it, associating with 99 00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:50,440 Speaker 1: adjacent ideas or words, to get close enough to the 100 00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:53,240 Speaker 1: topic to partially understand it even if you can't get 101 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:58,320 Speaker 1: quite there. Other possible examples of hyper objects besides climate change, 102 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:02,360 Speaker 1: can include stuff like black holes, the biosphere, or the 103 00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:06,440 Speaker 1: solar system. But hyper objects don't need to be just 104 00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:10,120 Speaker 1: massive celestial things. They can also be the sum total 105 00:07:10,160 --> 00:07:13,520 Speaker 1: of all nuclear materials on Earth, or the very long 106 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:17,200 Speaker 1: lasting product of direct human manufacture, such as all of 107 00:07:17,200 --> 00:07:21,280 Speaker 1: the styroformoplastic bags in the world. It can also be 108 00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:24,480 Speaker 1: the sum of all the whirling machinery of capitalism or 109 00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:29,400 Speaker 1: the state. Hyper objects, then, are hyper just in relation 110 00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:33,240 Speaker 1: to some other entity, whether they're directly manufactured by humans 111 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:38,800 Speaker 1: or not. And hyper objects aren't just collections, systems, or 112 00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:43,800 Speaker 1: assemblages of other objects. They are things in their own right, 113 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:47,480 Speaker 1: and they affect more than just humans. They don't come 114 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:50,720 Speaker 1: into being just because humans notice them. They will have 115 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:55,440 Speaker 1: effects on the world whether or not they are observed. 116 00:07:55,720 --> 00:07:59,600 Speaker 1: One of the more obvious differences between hyperobjects and ordinary 117 00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:03,560 Speaker 1: objects is that you can't ever actually see a hyper 118 00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:07,080 Speaker 1: object in its totality. You can only ever witness a 119 00:08:07,160 --> 00:08:11,040 Speaker 1: small extension or piece of a hyper object. Now, this 120 00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:14,240 Speaker 1: makes thinking about them kind of intrinsically tricky. It's like 121 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:17,720 Speaker 1: only seeing a fragmented shadow of a thing and the 122 00:08:17,760 --> 00:08:21,960 Speaker 1: effects that that thing has on all other things. Now, 123 00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:25,960 Speaker 1: the more contrary listeners might protest that we never see 124 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:29,840 Speaker 1: all of any object, even ordinary ones. Now, it's obviously 125 00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:33,280 Speaker 1: true that everything we see has a negative side, the 126 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:36,680 Speaker 1: part behind that we can't actually always look at, but 127 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:41,000 Speaker 1: can reasonably assume is there. Now, the difference is that 128 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:45,920 Speaker 1: hyperobjects transcend not only a regular conception of physical reality, 129 00:08:46,280 --> 00:08:50,200 Speaker 1: but more so our temporal reality. You can hold a 130 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:53,000 Speaker 1: coffee munk and rotate it around in a pretty short 131 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:57,120 Speaker 1: amount of time and witness each side an angle, Or 132 00:08:57,120 --> 00:08:59,160 Speaker 1: if you wanted to get really fancy, you could make 133 00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:01,520 Speaker 1: a three to sixty scan so you could see a 134 00:09:01,559 --> 00:09:05,160 Speaker 1: projected version of the entire object, Or you know more, 135 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:08,199 Speaker 1: simply just get three people in a room to all 136 00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:10,560 Speaker 1: look at different sides of the mug, thus forming a 137 00:09:10,640 --> 00:09:16,000 Speaker 1: consensual reality based understanding of the whole object. Now, not 138 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:20,199 Speaker 1: only can you not hold a hyper object, but even 139 00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:23,239 Speaker 1: if you could, the temporal effects would make it impossible 140 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:26,600 Speaker 1: to rotate it around to witness the totality of what's 141 00:09:26,679 --> 00:09:30,280 Speaker 1: being held, and it would be way too big for 142 00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:33,160 Speaker 1: multiple people to ever witness all sides of the thing. 143 00:09:34,800 --> 00:09:39,760 Speaker 1: Quoting from Morton's book Hyperobjects, The Philosophy and Ecology after 144 00:09:39,800 --> 00:09:44,680 Speaker 1: the End of the World, quote, consider rain drops. You 145 00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:47,360 Speaker 1: can feel them on your head, but you can't perceive 146 00:09:47,400 --> 00:09:51,160 Speaker 1: the actual rain drop in itself. You can only ever 147 00:09:51,200 --> 00:09:56,520 Speaker 1: perceive your particular anthropomorphic translation of the rain drops. Isn't 148 00:09:56,520 --> 00:09:58,760 Speaker 1: this similar to the rift between weather, which I can 149 00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:02,360 Speaker 1: feel falling on my head, and global climate, not the 150 00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:07,760 Speaker 1: older idea of local patterns of weather, but the entire system. 151 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:10,920 Speaker 1: I can think of and compute climate in this sense, 152 00:10:11,280 --> 00:10:14,800 Speaker 1: but I can't directly see or touch it. The gap 153 00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:19,479 Speaker 1: between the phenomenon and the thing yawns wide open, disturbing 154 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:23,360 Speaker 1: my sense of presence and being in the world. Humans 155 00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:27,079 Speaker 1: have been aware of enormous entities, some reels imagined, for 156 00:10:27,160 --> 00:10:29,559 Speaker 1: as long as we have existed, but this book is 157 00:10:29,640 --> 00:10:32,880 Speaker 1: arguing that there is something quite special about the recently 158 00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:37,480 Speaker 1: discovered entities such as climate. These entities directly cause us 159 00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:40,400 Speaker 1: to reflect on our very place on Earth and in 160 00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:45,040 Speaker 1: the cosmos. Perhaps this is the most fundamental issue Hyperobjects 161 00:10:45,120 --> 00:10:48,600 Speaker 1: seem to force something on us, something that affects some 162 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:52,440 Speaker 1: core idea of what it means to exist, what Earth is, 163 00:10:52,760 --> 00:10:57,760 Speaker 1: what society is. There's no doubt that cosmic phenomenons such 164 00:10:57,800 --> 00:11:02,600 Speaker 1: as meteors and blood red moons, tsunamis, tornadoes, and earthquakes 165 00:11:02,640 --> 00:11:07,560 Speaker 1: have terrified humans. In the past, meteors and comets were 166 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:12,560 Speaker 1: known as disasters. Literally, a disaster is a fallen, dysfunctional 167 00:11:12,720 --> 00:11:17,760 Speaker 1: or dangerous or evil star disaster. But such disasters take 168 00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:23,160 Speaker 1: place against a stable backdrop. There is the Ptolemaic Aristolian 169 00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:27,880 Speaker 1: machinery of the stars, which hold fixed stars in place. 170 00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:32,240 Speaker 1: It seems as if there's something about hyperobjects that is 171 00:11:32,320 --> 00:11:38,280 Speaker 1: more deeply challenging than these disasters. The worry is not 172 00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:41,559 Speaker 1: whether the world will end, as in the old models 173 00:11:41,559 --> 00:11:44,520 Speaker 1: of the disaster, but whether the end of the world 174 00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:49,240 Speaker 1: is already happening, or whether perhaps it might have already 175 00:11:49,400 --> 00:11:55,440 Speaker 1: taken place. A deep shuddering of temporality than occurs. For 176 00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:59,240 Speaker 1: one thing, we are inside hyperobjects, like Jonah in the whale. 177 00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:02,120 Speaker 1: This means that every decision we make is in some 178 00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:07,120 Speaker 1: sense related to hyperobjects. These decisions are not merely limited 179 00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:10,880 Speaker 1: to sentences and texts about hyperobjects. When I turn the 180 00:12:10,960 --> 00:12:13,560 Speaker 1: key in the ignition of my car, I am relating 181 00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:17,120 Speaker 1: to global warming. When a novelist writes about the immigration 182 00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:22,160 Speaker 1: to Mars, they are relating to global warming. I am 183 00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:25,520 Speaker 1: one of the entities caught in the hyperobject that I 184 00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:41,679 Speaker 1: here call global warming. Different hyperobjects have numerous properties in common, 185 00:12:42,360 --> 00:12:44,760 Speaker 1: but for our purposes we're going to discuss the five 186 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:49,600 Speaker 1: main points of similarity. Hyper Objects are viscous, meaning they 187 00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:53,320 Speaker 1: stick to beings that are involved with them. They are nonlocal, 188 00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:56,679 Speaker 1: in other words, and any local manifestation of the hyperobject 189 00:12:57,040 --> 00:13:02,920 Speaker 1: is not directly The hyperobject involve very different temporalities than 190 00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:06,040 Speaker 1: the human scale ones that we're used to. In particular, 191 00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:11,239 Speaker 1: some very very large hyper objects have a genuine Gaussian temporality. 192 00:13:11,800 --> 00:13:14,880 Speaker 1: They generate space time vortex is due to general relativity, 193 00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:20,120 Speaker 1: and hyper objects occupy a higher dimensional phase space that 194 00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:24,280 Speaker 1: results in their being invisible to humans for stretches of time, 195 00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:28,480 Speaker 1: and they exhibit their effects inter objectively. That is, they 196 00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:31,280 Speaker 1: can be detected in a space that consists of inter 197 00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:36,320 Speaker 1: relationships between aesthetic properties of objects. The hyper object is 198 00:13:36,360 --> 00:13:39,600 Speaker 1: not just a function of our knowledge. It is also 199 00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:44,800 Speaker 1: hyper relative to worms, lemons and ultraviolet rays as well 200 00:13:44,840 --> 00:13:48,920 Speaker 1: as humans. Now I'm going to go into the five 201 00:13:49,080 --> 00:13:51,840 Speaker 1: different points of similarity in more detail to kind of 202 00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:56,400 Speaker 1: help flesh out what these things hyper objects, what they are, 203 00:13:56,640 --> 00:13:59,160 Speaker 1: and how they might actually be a useful way to 204 00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:04,480 Speaker 1: think about really big stuff. So, first off, viscous hyper 205 00:14:04,520 --> 00:14:08,160 Speaker 1: objects adhere to any object they touch, no matter how 206 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,120 Speaker 1: hard the object tries to resist. In this way, hyperobjects 207 00:14:12,320 --> 00:14:15,960 Speaker 1: overrule ironic distance, meaning that the more an object tries 208 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:19,480 Speaker 1: to resist a hyperobject, the more glued to the hyper 209 00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:23,080 Speaker 1: object it becomes. Now, the more you learn about any 210 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:25,840 Speaker 1: big topic, the more you'll end up noticing it in 211 00:14:25,880 --> 00:14:29,480 Speaker 1: the world. This is the law of synchronicity. But the 212 00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:32,080 Speaker 1: more you know about climate change, the more you realize 213 00:14:32,160 --> 00:14:36,120 Speaker 1: how perversive it is. The more you discover about evolution, 214 00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:39,960 Speaker 1: the more you realize how much our entire physical being 215 00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:44,840 Speaker 1: is caught in its meshwork. Immediate intimate symptoms of hyperobjects 216 00:14:44,880 --> 00:14:49,520 Speaker 1: are very real, vivid, and often painful, yet they carry 217 00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:54,520 Speaker 1: with them this trace of unreality. A good example of 218 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:59,880 Speaker 1: hyperobject viscosity would be radioactive materials. The more you try 219 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:02,320 Speaker 1: to get rid of them, the more you realize you 220 00:15:02,440 --> 00:15:09,000 Speaker 1: can't they seriously undermine the notion of away. There is 221 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:13,320 Speaker 1: no away. Flushing vomit down the toilet doesn't make it disappear. 222 00:15:13,680 --> 00:15:15,640 Speaker 1: It makes its way to the ocean or the water 223 00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:20,480 Speaker 1: treatment facility, and eventually just back to us again. I'll 224 00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:24,480 Speaker 1: quote from the book Hyperobjects quote light itself is the 225 00:15:24,520 --> 00:15:28,320 Speaker 1: most viscous thing of all, since nothing can surpass its speed. 226 00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:33,720 Speaker 1: Radiation is Sartra's jar of honey par excellence, a luminous 227 00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:38,880 Speaker 1: honey that reveals our bone structure as it seeps around us. Again, 228 00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,800 Speaker 1: it's not a matter of making some suicidal leap into 229 00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:45,520 Speaker 1: the honey, but discovering that we are already inside it. 230 00:15:47,160 --> 00:15:50,840 Speaker 1: This is it, folks, This is the ecological interconnectedness. Come 231 00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:53,240 Speaker 1: in and join the fun. But I see that you're 232 00:15:53,280 --> 00:16:00,360 Speaker 1: already here. Unquote. Yeah, that is a that's fun. The 233 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:03,040 Speaker 1: next point of similarity we're to discussed is the molten 234 00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:08,480 Speaker 1: or Gaussian quality. Hyper Objects are time stretched to such 235 00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: an extent that they become impossible to hold in the mind. 236 00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:15,920 Speaker 1: Hyper objects are so massive that they refute the idea 237 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:20,240 Speaker 1: that space time is fixed, concrete and consistent. The size 238 00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:23,240 Speaker 1: of hyper objects can make them basically invisible, just because 239 00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,760 Speaker 1: they're so big. It's like swimming in Crater Lake in 240 00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:29,760 Speaker 1: southern Oregon, one of the deepest lakes in the world. 241 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:32,840 Speaker 1: But it's not just deep, it's also very very clear. 242 00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:37,920 Speaker 1: So the water is so deep yet so clear. It's 243 00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:40,160 Speaker 1: like you're swimming in the sky. It's like you're swimming 244 00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:43,320 Speaker 1: in nothing. It'd be like if you approach an object 245 00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:47,720 Speaker 1: and more and more objects emerge because we can't see 246 00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:52,040 Speaker 1: the end of them. Hyperobjects are necessarily uncanny. They have 247 00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:56,440 Speaker 1: to be. Just like my favorite liminal space photos. Hyper 248 00:16:56,480 --> 00:17:00,760 Speaker 1: objects seem to beckon us further into themselves, making us 249 00:17:00,840 --> 00:17:04,879 Speaker 1: realize that we're already lost inside them. The recognition of 250 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:08,639 Speaker 1: being caught in hyper objects is precisely a feeling of 251 00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:17,200 Speaker 1: strange familiarity and a familiar strangeness. Next up is non locality. 252 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:20,720 Speaker 1: Hyper objects are massively distributed in time and space, such 253 00:17:20,760 --> 00:17:26,160 Speaker 1: as any particular local manifestation never actually reveals the totality 254 00:17:26,160 --> 00:17:29,680 Speaker 1: of the hyper object. For example, climate change is a 255 00:17:29,760 --> 00:17:35,600 Speaker 1: hyperobject that impacts meteorological conditions such as tornado formations. Objects 256 00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:41,160 Speaker 1: don't feel climate change, but instead experience tornadoes as they 257 00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:46,160 Speaker 1: cause damage in specific places. Thus, nonlocality describes the manner 258 00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:49,840 Speaker 1: in which a hyperobject becomes more substantial than the local 259 00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:55,640 Speaker 1: manifestations that they produce. Putting Morton again. For a flower, 260 00:17:55,960 --> 00:17:59,880 Speaker 1: nuclear radiation turns its leaves a strange shade of red. 261 00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:04,240 Speaker 1: Global Warming for the tomato farmer rots the tomatoes. Plastic 262 00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:07,199 Speaker 1: for the bird, strangles it as it becomes entangled in 263 00:18:07,280 --> 00:18:10,600 Speaker 1: a set of six pack rings. What we are really 264 00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:13,360 Speaker 1: dealing with here are just the aesthetic effects that are 265 00:18:13,640 --> 00:18:18,080 Speaker 1: directly causal. The octopus of the hyperobject emits a cloud 266 00:18:18,119 --> 00:18:21,879 Speaker 1: of ink as it withdrawals from access. Yet this cloud 267 00:18:21,880 --> 00:18:25,159 Speaker 1: of ink is a cloud of its effects and effects 268 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:30,840 Speaker 1: these phenomenon themselves are not global warming or radiation action 269 00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:34,680 Speaker 1: at a distance is involved. It's like confusing the map 270 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:40,200 Speaker 1: with the territory. Hyper Objects cannot be thought up as 271 00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:44,560 Speaker 1: occupying a series of now points in time or space. 272 00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:48,560 Speaker 1: They confound the social and psychic instruments we use to 273 00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:53,159 Speaker 1: measure them. Even digital devices have trouble. Global warming is 274 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:56,640 Speaker 1: not just a function of our measuring devices. Yet, because 275 00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:00,520 Speaker 1: it's distributed across the biosphere and beyond, it's hard to 276 00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:03,840 Speaker 1: see it as a unique entity. And yet there it 277 00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:07,080 Speaker 1: is raining down on us, burning down on us, quaking, 278 00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:12,000 Speaker 1: the earth spawning giant hurricanes. Global warming is an object 279 00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:16,439 Speaker 1: of which many things are distributed pieces. The rain drops 280 00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:19,199 Speaker 1: falling on my head in northern California, the tsunami that 281 00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:23,520 Speaker 1: pours through the streets of Japanese towns, the increasing earthquake 282 00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:27,359 Speaker 1: activity based on changing pressure on the ocean floor. Like 283 00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:30,879 Speaker 1: a moving illusion picture. Global warming is real, but it 284 00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:35,520 Speaker 1: involves a massive, counterintuitive perspective shift for us to see it. 285 00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:40,080 Speaker 1: Convincing some people of its existence is like convincing some 286 00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:44,720 Speaker 1: two dimensional flatland people of the existence of apples based 287 00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:49,000 Speaker 1: on the appearance of a morphing circular shape in their world. 288 00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:54,800 Speaker 1: Next point of similarity is phasing. So our sense of 289 00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:59,919 Speaker 1: being in a time and inhabiting a place depends on 290 00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:04,040 Speaker 1: forms of regularity, the periodic rhythms of day and night. 291 00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:07,919 Speaker 1: The sun coming up, Only now we know that it 292 00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:12,119 Speaker 1: doesn't really come up. It's now common knowledge that the 293 00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:15,639 Speaker 1: Moon's phases are just the relationship between the Earth and 294 00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:20,520 Speaker 1: the Moon as they circumnavigate to the Sun. Hyperobjects seem 295 00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:23,440 Speaker 1: to phase in and out of the human world. They 296 00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:27,480 Speaker 1: occupy a higher dimensional phase space that makes them impossible 297 00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:30,720 Speaker 1: to see as a whole. On our regular three dimensional 298 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:34,919 Speaker 1: human scale basis, but they might appear differently to an 299 00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:39,560 Speaker 1: observer with a higher dimensional view. We can only see 300 00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:42,600 Speaker 1: pieces of a hyper object at a time. The reason 301 00:20:42,640 --> 00:20:46,520 Speaker 1: why they appear non local and temporarily foreshortened is precisely 302 00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:51,639 Speaker 1: because of this transdimensional quality. We can only see pieces 303 00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:54,520 Speaker 1: of them at once, like a tsunami or a case 304 00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:58,080 Speaker 1: of radiation sickness. If an apple we're to invade a 305 00:20:58,119 --> 00:21:02,400 Speaker 1: two dimensional world, veristic people would see some dots as 306 00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:05,359 Speaker 1: the bottom of the apple touched their universe, and then 307 00:21:05,359 --> 00:21:08,600 Speaker 1: a rapid succession of shapes that would appear like an 308 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:12,720 Speaker 1: expanding and contracting circular blob, diminishing into a tiny circle, 309 00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:17,240 Speaker 1: possibly a point, and then disappearing. That's why you can't 310 00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:20,520 Speaker 1: directly see climate change. You would need to occupy some 311 00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:24,960 Speaker 1: higher dimensional space to see the hyper object unfolding explicitly. 312 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:28,800 Speaker 1: Like the people in the two dimensional flat land, we 313 00:21:28,840 --> 00:21:32,320 Speaker 1: can only see brief patches of this gigantic object as 314 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:36,560 Speaker 1: it intersects with our world. The brief patch called hurricane 315 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:40,680 Speaker 1: destroys the infrastructure of New Orleans. The brief patch called 316 00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:43,879 Speaker 1: drought burns the planes of Russia and the midwestern United 317 00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:48,399 Speaker 1: states to a crisp our body's itch with yesterday's sunburn. 318 00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:53,840 Speaker 1: But don't relegate hyper objects as a simple abstract notion. 319 00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:59,639 Speaker 1: The gay hyperobjects as transdimensional real things is valuable. Global 320 00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:03,480 Speaker 1: warming is not simply a mathematical abstraction that doesn't really 321 00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:07,639 Speaker 1: pertain to this world. Hyper Objects don't just inhabit some 322 00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:11,680 Speaker 1: conceptual beyond in our heads or out there. They are 323 00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:15,960 Speaker 1: real objects that affect other objects. We tend to only 324 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:19,520 Speaker 1: think about hyperobjects as they phase in and connect to other, 325 00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:24,040 Speaker 1: more static objects. This is a mistake and contributes to 326 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:28,320 Speaker 1: non action. Whether or not we perceive objects and hyperobjects 327 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:33,000 Speaker 1: connecting doesn't affect the existence and the inevitable effects of 328 00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:37,480 Speaker 1: the hyper object. What we experience as the slow periodic 329 00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:41,280 Speaker 1: re occurrence of a celestial event such as an eclipse 330 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:46,040 Speaker 1: or a comet is a continuous entity whose imprint simply 331 00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:49,280 Speaker 1: shows up on our social and cognitive space for a while. 332 00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:53,960 Speaker 1: The gaps I perceive between moments at which my mind 333 00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:56,760 Speaker 1: is aware of the hyperobject and moments at which it 334 00:22:56,880 --> 00:23:02,320 Speaker 1: isn't do not matter in relation to the hyper object itself. Okay, 335 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:06,639 Speaker 1: and now onto our final point of similarity. Inter objective 336 00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:12,840 Speaker 1: hyperobjects are formed by relations between more than one object. Consequently, 337 00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:17,040 Speaker 1: objects are only able to perceive the imprint or footprint 338 00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:23,320 Speaker 1: of a hyperobject upon other objects revealed as information. It's 339 00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:29,200 Speaker 1: all an ecological mesh of interconnectedness and interobjectivity. For example, 340 00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:33,840 Speaker 1: climate change is formed by interactions between the sun, fossil fuels, 341 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:40,040 Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, economic growth, among other things. Yet climate change 342 00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:44,119 Speaker 1: is made apparent through emissions levels, temperature changes, and the 343 00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:48,240 Speaker 1: sea level rising, making it seem as if global warming 344 00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:51,720 Speaker 1: is a product of scientific models rather than connected to 345 00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:57,000 Speaker 1: an object that predates its own measurement. Hyper Objects exist 346 00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:01,440 Speaker 1: in and between objects and things we deal with every day, 347 00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:06,320 Speaker 1: but it's not simply those objects. Plastic bags are not 348 00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:11,520 Speaker 1: climate change, but those things are both intertwined. Hurricanes are 349 00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:15,040 Speaker 1: not climate change, but they can be a shadow like 350 00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:21,399 Speaker 1: local manifestation of it. A mesh consists of relationships between 351 00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:26,080 Speaker 1: criss crossing strands and the gaps between strands. Meshes are 352 00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:30,560 Speaker 1: a potent metaphor for the strange interconnectedness of things, an 353 00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:35,800 Speaker 1: interconnectedness that does not allow for perfect, lossless transmission of information, 354 00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:40,320 Speaker 1: but is instead full of gaps and absences. When an 355 00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:44,560 Speaker 1: object is born, it is instantly meshed into a relationship 356 00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:49,840 Speaker 1: with other objects in the mesh. The mesh isn't inside 357 00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,359 Speaker 1: of all things, but it's on the edge or floats 358 00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:57,720 Speaker 1: on top of all things. Inter objective mesh is the 359 00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:02,240 Speaker 1: extra connecting layer between the mass and the mask of 360 00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:09,440 Speaker 1: all objects, almost like a universal skin Fashia. Interobjectivity provides 361 00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:13,679 Speaker 1: a space that is ontologically in front of objects in 362 00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:18,720 Speaker 1: which relational phenomenon can emerge. The massiveness and distribution of 363 00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:22,240 Speaker 1: hyperobjects simply force us to take note of this fact. 364 00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:28,200 Speaker 1: Hyper objects provide great examples of interobjectivity, namely the way 365 00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,720 Speaker 1: in which nothing has ever experienced directly, but only as 366 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:37,359 Speaker 1: mediated through other entities in some shared consensual space. We 367 00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:41,359 Speaker 1: never hear the wind in itself, only the wind in 368 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:45,120 Speaker 1: the door, the wind in the trees. This means that 369 00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:48,639 Speaker 1: for every objective system, there is at least one entity 370 00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:53,000 Speaker 1: that is withdrawn from the relationship. We see the footprint 371 00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,440 Speaker 1: of a dinosaur left in some ancient rock that was 372 00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:01,320 Speaker 1: once a pool of mud. The dinosaur's reality exists inter objectively. 373 00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:06,280 Speaker 1: There is some form of shared space between the rock, ourselves, 374 00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:11,360 Speaker 1: and the dinosaur, even though the dinosaur isn't there directly. 375 00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,520 Speaker 1: The print of a dinosaur's foot in the mud is 376 00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,080 Speaker 1: seen as a foot shaped hole in a rock by 377 00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:24,000 Speaker 1: humans sixty five million years later. There is some sensuous 378 00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:28,159 Speaker 1: connection then, between the dinosaur, the rock, and the human, 379 00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:34,040 Speaker 1: despite their vastly differing time scales. The dinosaur footprint in 380 00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:39,080 Speaker 1: fossilized mud is not a dinosaur. Rather, the footprint is 381 00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:44,359 Speaker 1: a trace of the hyperobject evolution that joins me the dinosaur, 382 00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,480 Speaker 1: and the mud together, along with the intentional act of 383 00:26:48,600 --> 00:27:01,320 Speaker 1: holding them in the mind. I found the hyper object 384 00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,640 Speaker 1: banner as a useful tool to help my brain think 385 00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,600 Speaker 1: about things that are just too big, things that have 386 00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,400 Speaker 1: effects so spaced out in time that using our ordinary 387 00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:15,399 Speaker 1: models of thought are just inadequate. It can also reconcile 388 00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:18,720 Speaker 1: the opposing views that cast climate change as the very 389 00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,720 Speaker 1: real series of disasters or a complicated, interlocking mesh of 390 00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:27,280 Speaker 1: systems that can feel very unreal and overwhelming. Just thinking 391 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,560 Speaker 1: of big things as abstract systems has the habit of 392 00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:34,560 Speaker 1: divorcing you from the real world impacts things like hyper 393 00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,680 Speaker 1: objects can cause. Sometimes we forget that climate change is 394 00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:42,080 Speaker 1: a thing we interact with every day and can inform 395 00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:49,400 Speaker 1: choices we make now. The almost impossible to comprehend totality 396 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:52,800 Speaker 1: of our situation is not great for mental well being. 397 00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,040 Speaker 1: You can end up tail spinning down a black hole 398 00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:01,399 Speaker 1: of fate, conspiracy, coping, denial, and doom. It's very easy 399 00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,680 Speaker 1: to trip and fall into a void of negation. Things 400 00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,440 Speaker 1: that are hyperobjects fundamentally break our conception of reality temporality 401 00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:12,480 Speaker 1: and cause an effect. And it's already a really weird 402 00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:16,080 Speaker 1: time to try to suss out reality. We're constantly being 403 00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:19,320 Speaker 1: bombarded with products and services trying to usurp the real 404 00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:24,119 Speaker 1: That's what marketing is. First we had the Internet, with 405 00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,480 Speaker 1: its limitless possibilities as a digital universe. Then we got 406 00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,959 Speaker 1: the world of social media with all of its fractured 407 00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:36,600 Speaker 1: and fractaled realities. There's immersive gaming and the allure of 408 00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,480 Speaker 1: getting lost within thousands of unique worlds. And now we 409 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:45,480 Speaker 1: have vr AR and the metaverse, more layers of digital 410 00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:50,160 Speaker 1: fabrication trying to be passed off as an almost hyperreality, 411 00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,680 Speaker 1: a promise to make a reality even more real and 412 00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:59,160 Speaker 1: immersive than our status quo. The Internet itself is another 413 00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:03,560 Speaker 1: hyper object, and all of this extra reality can take 414 00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:08,240 Speaker 1: a strain on the human mind. Derealization the perception that 415 00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:12,520 Speaker 1: actual waking reality is an artificial construct. The feeling of 416 00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:16,160 Speaker 1: being de attached from your surroundings, like the world's made 417 00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,760 Speaker 1: of cardboard or you're looking at everything through a cloud 418 00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,880 Speaker 1: of fog, is becoming more and more common, especially among 419 00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,280 Speaker 1: so called gen Z, the generation that grew up with 420 00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:31,560 Speaker 1: the Internet being a staple of life. Now. How we 421 00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,760 Speaker 1: got here is a dissociation between humans and what we 422 00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:39,440 Speaker 1: call nature or the environment. The problems aren't getting fixed 423 00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,880 Speaker 1: because we're so disassociated from the effects, just as the 424 00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:47,360 Speaker 1: effects are from the cause. That resulting alienation of all 425 00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:51,000 Speaker 1: things makes this worse. All of the worst effects of 426 00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,960 Speaker 1: climate change aren't gonna be felt for hundreds of years. 427 00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,800 Speaker 1: And that is a weird feeling. That is cognitive dissonance 428 00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,600 Speaker 1: that I don't know how to so understand that, and 429 00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,760 Speaker 1: that makes making decisions about our situation now feel distant 430 00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:09,440 Speaker 1: yet also urgent. It's both and it's neither, and it's confusing. 431 00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:14,040 Speaker 1: The resulting alienation of all things makes this worse. It 432 00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,720 Speaker 1: produces this lack of immediate and close in proximity consequences. 433 00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:22,640 Speaker 1: We must purposely remove these layers of separation and abandoned 434 00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:28,520 Speaker 1: our anthprocentric thinking. Nature isn't other from us. We are nature. 435 00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,240 Speaker 1: It's the same thing. We are all part of this 436 00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:36,320 Speaker 1: big mesh. This sacred idea of nature isn't natural and 437 00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,240 Speaker 1: can never be naturalized. We have to learn how to 438 00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:44,640 Speaker 1: have an ecology without nature, without nature as a separate thing. 439 00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,040 Speaker 1: To have a genuine ecological view, we must relinquish this 440 00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:53,640 Speaker 1: idea that nature being separate from us, once and for all. 441 00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:57,240 Speaker 1: We have to kill the anthepra scene in our own head. 442 00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:02,600 Speaker 1: A quote from one of Morton's books titled Ecology without Nature. 443 00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:07,200 Speaker 1: Putting something called nature on a pedestal and admiring it 444 00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,040 Speaker 1: from afar does for the environment what patriarchy does for 445 00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:15,440 Speaker 1: the figure of a woman. It's a paradoxical act of sadistic, 446 00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:23,560 Speaker 1: possessive admiration. So within Morton's branch of philosophy, reification, the 447 00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,520 Speaker 1: making of a thing into a thing, is precisely the 448 00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:30,880 Speaker 1: reduction of a real object to its sensual appearance. For 449 00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:36,560 Speaker 1: another object, raification is reduction of one's entity to another's 450 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:41,320 Speaker 1: fantasy about it. Nature is a reification in this sense, 451 00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:45,800 Speaker 1: and that's why we need an ecology without nature. Maybe 452 00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:50,720 Speaker 1: if we turn nature into something more fluid, it might work. Now, 453 00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:55,120 Speaker 1: most of our modern political discourse can be boiled down 454 00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:58,480 Speaker 1: to what things are real and what things are not. 455 00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,479 Speaker 1: Hyper objects and climate change don't just play into this debate, 456 00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:06,040 Speaker 1: but crash into it, decimating all the other toys in 457 00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:10,200 Speaker 1: this sandbox. As Morton says, the threat of global warming 458 00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:14,320 Speaker 1: is not only political but also onto logical. The threat 459 00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:19,480 Speaker 1: of unreality is the very sign of reality itself. And 460 00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:23,760 Speaker 1: oh boy, do we be experiencing this simultaneous disillusionment of 461 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:28,640 Speaker 1: reality and the overwhelmingly real presence of hyperobjects which stick 462 00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:32,720 Speaker 1: to us, which are us. The worry is not whether 463 00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:36,120 Speaker 1: the world will end, but whether the end of the 464 00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:39,400 Speaker 1: world is already happening, or whether perhaps it might have 465 00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,640 Speaker 1: already taken place. The idea of the end of the 466 00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:48,000 Speaker 1: world is very active in environmentalism, but the weights usually 467 00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:51,880 Speaker 1: framed kind of fosters its own negation. The end of 468 00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,760 Speaker 1: the world is coming idea is not really effective, since 469 00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,120 Speaker 1: to all kinds of purposes, the being that we are 470 00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:03,080 Speaker 1: supposed to feel anxiety about and care for is actually 471 00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:06,760 Speaker 1: already gone. This does not mean that there's no hope 472 00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:11,040 Speaker 1: for ecological politics and ethics and a better future. Far 473 00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:14,160 Speaker 1: from it. In fact, Morton and I would argue that 474 00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:16,440 Speaker 1: the strongly held belief that the world's about to end 475 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,960 Speaker 1: unless we act now is paradoxically one of the most 476 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:24,920 Speaker 1: powerful factors that inhibit a full engagement with our ecological 477 00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:29,400 Speaker 1: coexistence here on Earth. The strategy of the ecological hyperdobject 478 00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:33,000 Speaker 1: concept is to then awaken us from this dream that 479 00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:36,080 Speaker 1: the world's about to end, because action on Earth, like 480 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:38,960 Speaker 1: the real Earth depends on it, the end of the 481 00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:44,680 Speaker 1: world has already happened. Using the hyperobject idea helps sort 482 00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,760 Speaker 1: out these overly systematic things into a package that I 483 00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,840 Speaker 1: can actually think about. There's something about discovering the language 484 00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:55,720 Speaker 1: for a feeling, being able to name it that is empowering, 485 00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,720 Speaker 1: a way of finding a handhold in the dim light 486 00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:04,560 Speaker 1: of confusion, rather than scrambling around in the dark. So 487 00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,600 Speaker 1: how would you convince two dimensional flat land people of 488 00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:12,280 Speaker 1: the existence of apples based on the occasional phasing appearance 489 00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,480 Speaker 1: of a morphing circular shape in their world? Now, hyper 490 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:20,360 Speaker 1: objects can really assist in understanding the cognitive dissonance around 491 00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:24,239 Speaker 1: climate denial. You can't point to something like rising sea 492 00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,600 Speaker 1: levels and say that is climate change, because yeah, that 493 00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:32,799 Speaker 1: isn't climate change the hyperobject rising sea levels are just 494 00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:37,120 Speaker 1: an environmental effect, and since the effects are so disattached 495 00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:39,719 Speaker 1: from the cause, that fosters a lot of room for 496 00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,440 Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance. When people point at extreme weather and call 497 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:47,880 Speaker 1: it something else. It's our lack of ecology, our seeing 498 00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:52,719 Speaker 1: of interconnected things as separate problems or manifestations, missing the 499 00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,520 Speaker 1: fact that almost all of our problems don't have a 500 00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,400 Speaker 1: shared root cause, but instead are just part of a massive, 501 00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:04,840 Speaker 1: shared bungee cord like mesh network. When so many local 502 00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,720 Speaker 1: manifesting problems and natural disasters are blamed on climate change, 503 00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,759 Speaker 1: even if you believe climate change is the cause, which 504 00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,920 Speaker 1: it it is, it still feels weird because climate change 505 00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:20,200 Speaker 1: isn't just a simple thing. It's such an amorphous shape 506 00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:24,120 Speaker 1: shifting time traveling idea that for the climate denier or 507 00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:28,520 Speaker 1: climate skeptic, seeing very real physical effects be blamed on 508 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,080 Speaker 1: such an abstract thing is hard for them and their 509 00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:37,560 Speaker 1: understanding of reality. For many people, rejecting hyperobjects is a 510 00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,439 Speaker 1: lot easier than thinking about them, because once you start 511 00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:45,200 Speaker 1: thinking about them, finding solutions to problems so displaced in 512 00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:51,680 Speaker 1: time is not only difficult, but encourages procrastination. The greenhouse 513 00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,919 Speaker 1: gas emissions up there in the air right now won't 514 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,640 Speaker 1: reach their full effects for decades and centuries. That's not 515 00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:02,239 Speaker 1: downplaying the earthy of the problem. In fact, that should 516 00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:07,239 Speaker 1: make the problem more urgent. The cause is our brief luxury, 517 00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:12,120 Speaker 1: and the effect is terraforming the world. And we are 518 00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:17,520 Speaker 1: right now caught in between the uncanny hyperobject of all 519 00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:22,040 Speaker 1: liminal spaces. The end of the world has already happened. 520 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:24,759 Speaker 1: We are on the path and about to enter a 521 00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:28,839 Speaker 1: new world. We are in the liminal space hallway of 522 00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:32,759 Speaker 1: all liminal space hallways. The door behind us is closed, 523 00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:34,839 Speaker 1: and at the other end of the hallway is a 524 00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:38,120 Speaker 1: black hole. We cannot backtrack and re enter the door 525 00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:42,200 Speaker 1: behind us. Already are we getting sucked forward into the hallway. 526 00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:45,400 Speaker 1: But there are many doors ahead of us, and we 527 00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,960 Speaker 1: get to choose which one to open. At this point, 528 00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:52,879 Speaker 1: we have passed some of the prettier doors, but don't 529 00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:55,560 Speaker 1: be tricked into thinking that there are none left. We 530 00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,480 Speaker 1: must not focus on preserving an old way of life, 531 00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:02,839 Speaker 1: but instead need to carefully carve out our new reality. 532 00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:07,400 Speaker 1: We need to pick our new door. Well. That is 533 00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:15,560 Speaker 1: my essay. Read Thing episode Amalgamation about hyper objects, limital spaces, 534 00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,560 Speaker 1: and our New Reality. I hope you found some of 535 00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:25,600 Speaker 1: the ideas useful, despite their kind of abstract and anti 536 00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:28,719 Speaker 1: abstract in nature. If you want to learn more about this, 537 00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:33,840 Speaker 1: I would recommend reading Timothy Morton's book hyper Objects. It 538 00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:37,160 Speaker 1: is an academic read, but it's not that bad. Would 539 00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,120 Speaker 1: I would recommend picking it up. If you want to 540 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:42,080 Speaker 1: learn more about these things, I'm sure I'll talk about 541 00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,239 Speaker 1: them more in the future. Thank you for listening. Everybody 542 00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:52,040 Speaker 1: see you on the other side. It could Happen here 543 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,760 Speaker 1: as a production of pool Zone Media. For more podcasts 544 00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,920 Speaker 1: from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com 545 00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,759 Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, podcasts, or 546 00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,799 Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for 547 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:07,160 Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com 548 00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:09,080 Speaker 1: slash sources. Thanks for listening.