WEBVTT - Hyperobjects & Our Liminal Reality 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:09.400 Hey, welcome to It could happen here. I'm Garrison, and 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:13.760 today I'm gonna be talking about some really big things 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.560 and ideas, but hopefully I'll be talking with them in 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.720 a way that contextualizes them and makes you remember that, 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.720 despite their magnitude, they're still very real things that you 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.400 can interact with. Anyway, I'll get started and eventually it 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:33.839 will kind of make sense. So right now we are 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:38.520 all living in one massive liminal space. For those less 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.920 online than I am, I'll explain what I mean. Liminal 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.120 spaces became an online meme around late twenty nineteen as 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.600 a term to describe a certain type of picture that 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:57.440 features architecture or like just a place that looks off familiar, eerie, lonely, 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:02.800 yet mesmerizing and beautiful. I've been an avid lurker on 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.199 the liminal space subpreddit for a while now, and there's 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.720 an undeniable allure to these dreamlike photos of buildings and 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.720 rooms and the effect that they have on me. Describing 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.959 what makes a liminal space photo a liminal space photo 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:21.840 as opposed to just any other regular photo of a 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.960 building or a room can be tricky, because, in part, 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.240 the point is to elicit a certain feeling without thinking 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:34.240 too much about the why they're not spooky or scary 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.640 in the traditional sense. The gist of a liminal space 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.800 photo and where it gets its name liminality is a 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.680 good place to begin to understand what type of feelings 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:49.120 these pictures are supposed to produce. Liminal refers to a 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:54.680 transitional phase and the ambiguity and disorientation associated with being 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:59.040 inside of a threshold, not on either one side, per se, 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.520 but some where in between. Now, that threshold can be 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:08.520 many things. A literal transitionary threshold between certain places is 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:13.040 a common one. This can include stuff like hallways and airports. 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:17.200 One of my favorites, though, is a threshold between time, 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:22.400 an ambiguous, unspecific nostalgia you can't quite place, but it 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:28.640 feels awfully familiar, like a dream from childhood. Pictures of weird, indoor, 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.240 squishy playgrounds do this for me. The other threshold is 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:37.040 a threshold between purpose and use, like a building or 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.920 room designed for a very specific special purpose but now 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.960 no longer serving that it's empty and out of date, 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.560 an abandoned mall or cheery birthday party room at an arcade, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:54.280 photographed desolate and in the dark. There's two other aspects 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.680 of liminal space. Photos that complement the various thresholds we've mentioned. 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:04.079 Usually have no visible people, and there's a sense of artificiality, 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.880 like a lot of fluorescent and artificial lighting. And even 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.520 when there is a sunny outside, it looks fake, like 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.799 a Windows computer screen saver. One of the most popular 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.239 liminal space photos is of an underground bunker in Las 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:22.799 Vegas that was painted and decorated to look like it's 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:27.400 outside despite being buried deep within the ground. It's such 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.280 a great example of liminal spaces because it elicits a 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.760 certain type of cognitive dissonance and a distinct lack of 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.800 synchronicity that is difficult to describe Otherwise. Almost never is 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:43.520 quote unquote nature the subject of these photos. They nearly 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:48.320 exclusively focus on very human constructs, particularly ones that no 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.280 longer serve their intended use, or maybe never did in 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.200 the first place. So what do I mean by we're 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:00.640 all in one huge liminal space right now? Well, we 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.880 are in between an historic economic and technological boom, one 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.320 that's produced machines that resemble the magic of old. But 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.800 on the other side of this valley is global climate 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.600 catastrophe and destruction and change the likes of which humans 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.440 have possibly never seen or at least remembered. We're in 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:24.120 the transitionary period between these two states, and that disassociation 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.200 of not being fully in either one, that that cognitive 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.560 dissonance can be kind of mind boggling. It's like the 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.480 nervous anticipation right before the roller coaster goes over the peak, 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.040 or that weird feeling of being alone in an empty 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:44.560 church nursery at night. Similar to liminal space photos, climate 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:49.120 change transcends a regular perception of time space, and with 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:54.719 that cause and effect, it's more than just a regular thing, phenomenon, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.880 or object. While specifically thinking about climate change, philosopher to 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.720 with the Morton dubbed these massive spacetime altering objects as 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.800 hyper objects. Now Morton often writes about things that can't 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.359 be talked about directly, so really the only way to 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.080 discuss it or get into the topic is to orbit 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.559 around it, associating with adjacent ideas or words to get 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.680 close enough to the topic to partially understand it, even 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:26.520 if you can't get quite there. Other possible examples of 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.479 hyper objects besides climate change, can include stuff like black holes, 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:35.800 the biosphere or the solar system. But hyper objects don't 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.880 need to be just massive celestial things. They can also 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.440 be the sum total of all nuclear materials on Earth, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.320 or the very long lasting product of direct human manufacture, 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:48.839 such as all of the styroform of plastic bags in 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.280 the world. It can also be the sum of all 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:57.560 the worling machinery of capitalism, or the state. Hyper objects, then, 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.520 are hyper just in relation to some other entity, whether 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:06.320 they're directly manufactured by humans or not. And hyper objects 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:11.960 aren't just collections, systems or assemblages of other objects. They 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.159 are things in their own right, and they affect more 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.880 than just humans. They don't come into being just because 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.000 humans notice them. They will have effects on the world 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:26.400 whether or not they are observed. One of the more 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:31.279 obvious differences between hyper objects and ordinary objects that you 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.279 can't ever actually see a hyper object in its totality. 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.240 You can only ever witness a small extension or piece 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.240 of a hyper object. Now, this makes thinking about them 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.120 kind of intrinsically tricky. It's like only seeing a fragmented 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.000 shadow of a thing and the effects that that thing 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.839 has on all other things. Now, the more contrarian listeners 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.560 might protest that we never see all of any object, 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.200 even ordinary ones. Now, it's obviously true that everything we 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.599 see has a negative side, the part behind that we 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:09.080 can't actually always look at, but can reasonably assume is there. 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.360 Now the difference is that hyper objects transcend not only 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.600 a regular conception of physical reality, but more so our 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.680 temporal reality. You can hold a coffee monk and rotate 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.440 it around in a pretty short amount of time and 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.760 witness each side and angle. Or if you want to 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.600 get really fancy, you could make a three sixty scan 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.920 so you can see a projected version of the entire object, 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.000 or you know more, simply just get three people in 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.760 a room to all look at different sides of the mug, 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:45.640 thus forming a consensual reality based understanding of the whole object. Now, 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.920 not only can you not hold a hyper object, but 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.720 even if you could, the temporal effects would make it 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.480 impossible to rotate it around to witness the totality of 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:00.120 what's being held, and it would be way too big 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.320 for multiple people to ever witness all sides of the thing. 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:09.520 Quoting from Morton's book hyper Objects, The Philosophy and Ecology 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:14.840 after the End of the World. Quote, consider raindrops You 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.520 can feel them on your head, but you can't perceive 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.720 the actual raindrop in itself. You can only ever perceive 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:27.160 your particular anthropomorphic translation of the raindrops. Isn't this similar 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.520 to the rift between weather, which I can feel falling 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.320 on my head, and global climate, not the older idea 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:38.240 of local patterns of weather, but the entire system. I 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.480 can think of an compute climate in this sense, but 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.320 I can't directly see or touch it. The gap between 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.720 the phenomenon and the thing yawns wide open, disturbing my 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.600 sense of presence and being in the world. Humans have 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:57.480 been aware of enormous entities, some realism imagined, for as 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.160 long as we have existed, but this book has argueing 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.560 that there is something quite special about the recently discovered 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.760 entities such as climate. These entities directly cause us to 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.400 reflect on our very place on Earth and in the cosmos. 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.560 Perhaps this is the most fundamental issue. Hyper objects seem 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.200 to force something on us, something that affects some core 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.640 idea of what it means to exist, what Earth is, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:27.960 what society is. There's no doubt that cosmic phenomenon such 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.760 as meteors and blood red moons tsunami's, tornadoes, and earthquakes 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:37.720 have terrified humans. In the past, meteors and comets were 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:42.679 known as disasters. Literally, a disaster is a fallen, dysfunctional, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.920 or dangerous or evil star disaster. But such disasters take 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:53.280 place against a stable backdrop. There is the Ptolemaic Aristolian 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:58.040 machinery of the stars, which hold fixed stars in place. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.200 It seems as if there's something about hyper objects that 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:08.160 is more deeply challenging than these disasters. The worry is 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.240 not whether the world will end, as in the old 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.320 models of the disaster, but whether the end of the 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:18.880 world is already happening, or whether perhaps it might have 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:24.040 already taken place. A deep shuttering of temporality then occurs. 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.920 For one thing, we are inside hyper objects, like Jonah 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.560 in the whale. This means that every decision we make 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:36.160 is in some sense related to hyper objects. These decisions 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.600 are not merely limited to sentences in texts about hyper objects. 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.640 When I turned the key in the Ignition of my car, 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.320 I am relating to global warming. When a novelist writes 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:51.199 about the immigration to Mars, they are relating to global warming. 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.800 I am one of the entities caught in the hyper 0:10:54.840 --> 0:11:08.840 object that I hear call global warming. Different hyper objects 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:13.640 have numerous properties in common, but for our purposes we're 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.920 going to discuss the five main points of similarity. Hyper 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.080 Objects are viscous, meaning they stick to beings that are 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.360 involved with them. They are nonlocal, in other words, and 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:28.119 any local manifestation of the hyper object is not directly 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:33.200 the hyper object. They involve very different temporalities than the 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.560 human scale ones that were used to. In particular, some 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:41.400 very very large hyper objects have a genuine Gaussian temporality. 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.960 They generate space time vortexes due to general relativity, and 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.840 hyper objects occupy a higher dimensional phase space that results 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.440 in their being invisible to humans for structures of time. 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.640 And they exhibit their effects inter objectively. That is, they 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.400 can be detected in a space that consists of inter 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:06.480 relationships between aesthetic properties of objects. The hyper object is 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.760 not just a function of our knowledge. It is also 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.720 hyper relative to worms, lemons, and ultra violet rays as 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.680 well as humans. Now I'm going to go into the 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.880 five different points of similarity in more detail to kind 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:26.080 of help flesh out what these things hyper objects, what 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:28.920 they are, and how they might actually be a useful 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.920 way to think about really big stuff. So, first off, 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:37.640 viscous hyper objects adhere to any object they touch, no 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.440 matter how hard the objects tries to resist. In this way, 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.319 hyper objects overrule ironic distance, meaning that the more an 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:49.000 object tries to resist a hyper object, the more glued 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.480 to the hyper object it becomes. Now, the more you 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.240 learn about any big topic, the more you'll end up 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.760 noticing it in the world. This is the law of synchronicity. 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.439 But the more you know about climate change, the more 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.560 you realize how perversive it is. The more you discover 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.880 about evolution, the more you realize how much our entire 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:14.120 physical being is caught in its meshwork. Immediate intimate symptoms 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.920 of hyper objects are very real, vivid, and often painful, 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:23.760 Yet they carry with them this trace of unreality. A 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:28.920 good example of hyper object viscosity would be radioactive materials. 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:31.400 The more you try to get rid of them, the 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:36.319 more you realize you can't. They seriously undermine the notion 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:41.920 of a way there is no away. Flushing vomit down 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.439 the toilet doesn't make it disappear. It makes its way 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.199 to the ocean or the water treatment facility, and and 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:51.160 eventually just back to us again. I'll quote from the 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.640 book hyper Objects quote late itself is the most viscous 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.920 thing of all, since nothing can surpass its speed. Radiation 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.199 is Sartra's jar of honey, Part excellence, a luminous honey 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:09.040 that reveals our bone structure as it seeps around us. Again, 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:11.960 it's not a matter of making some suicidal leap into 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.640 the honey, but discovering that we are already inside it. 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:21.000 This is it, folks, this is the ecological interconnectedness. Come 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.400 in and join the fun. But I see that you're 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:30.520 already here. Unquote. Yeah, that is a that's fun. The 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.200 next point of similarity where to discussed is the molten 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:38.640 or Gaussian quality. Hyper Objects are time stretched to such 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.440 an extent that they become impossible to hold in the mind. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.080 Hyper objects are so massive that they refute the idea 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.480 that spacetime is fixed, concrete, and consistent. The size of 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.680 hyper objects can make them basically invisible just because they're 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.680 so big. It's like swimming in Crater Lake in southern Oregon, 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.400 one of the deepest lakes in the world. But it's 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.760 not just deep, it's also very very clear. So the 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.400 water is so deep yet so clear. It's like you're 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.160 swimming in the sky. It's like you're swimming and nothing. 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:13.800 It would be like if you approach an object and 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:18.040 more and more objects emerge because we can't see the 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.160 end of them. Hyper objects are necessarily uncanny. They have 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:26.600 to be just like my favorite liminal space photos. Hyper 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:30.920 objects seem to beckon us further into themselves, making us 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:35.080 realize that we're already lost inside them. The recognition of 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.800 being caught in hyper objects is precisely a feeling of 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:46.640 strange familiarity and a familiar strangeness. Next up is non locality. 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.920 Hyper objects are massively distributed in time and space, such 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:56.280 as any particular local manifestation never actually reveals the totality 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.800 of the hyper object. For example, climate change is a 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:04.320 high project that impacts meteorological conditions such as tornado formations. 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:11.120 Objects don't feel climate change, but instead experienced tornadoes as 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:16.080 they cause damage in specific places. Thus, nonlocality describes the 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.240 manner in which a hyper object becomes more substantial than 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:24.960 the local manifestations that they produce. Quoting Moreton again, for 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:29.280 a flower, nuclear radiation turns its leaves a strange shade 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.880 of red. Global warming for the tomato farmer rots the 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.560 tomatoes plastic for the bird strangles it as it becomes 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.240 entangled in a set of six pack rings. What we 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.200 are really dealing with here are just the aesthetic effects 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.240 that are directly causal. The octopus of the hyper object 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.440 amits a cloud of ink as it withdrawals from access. 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.840 Yet this cloud of ink is a cloud of its 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:59.360 effects and effects these phenomenon themselves are not global warming 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.560 or radiation. S action at a distance is involved. It's 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:08.920 like confusing the map with the territory paper. Objects cannot 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.960 be thought up as occupying a series of now points 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:17.240 in time or space. They confound the social and psychic 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.639 instruments we use to measure them. Even digital devices have trouble. 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.520 Global warming is not just a function of our measuring devices. Yet, 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.560 because it's distributed across the biosphere and beyond, it's hard 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.840 to see it as a unique entity. And yet there 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.640 it is raining down on us, burning down on us, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:41.640 quaking the earth, spawning giant hurricanes. Global warming is an 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:46.240 object of which many things are distributed pieces. The rain 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.200 drops falling on my head in northern California, the tsunami 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.200 that pours through the streets, of Japanese towns, the increasing 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.840 earthquake activity based on changing pressure on the ocean floor 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.840 like a moving illusion picture. Global warming is real, but 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:05.240 it involves a massive, counterintuitive perspective shift for us to 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.320 see it. Convincing some people of its existence is like 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:13.480 convincing some two dimensional flatland people of the existence of 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.800 apples based on the appearance of a morphing circular shape 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:23.720 in their world. Next point of similarity is phasing. So 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.200 our sense of being in a time and inhabiting a 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:33.439 place depends on forms of regularity, the periodic rhythms of 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.360 day and night, the sun coming up, Only now we 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.399 know that it doesn't really come up. It's now common 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:45.240 knowledge that the Moon's phases are just the relationship between 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.240 the Earth and the Moon as they circumnavigate to the Sun. 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.119 Hyper objects seem to phase in and out of the 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:56.439 human world. They occupy a higher dimensional phase space that 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.440 makes them impossible to see as a whole on our 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.560 regular There a three dimensional human scale basis, but they 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.480 might appear differently to an observer with a higher dimensional view. 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.200 We can only see pieces of a hyper object at 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.199 a time. The reason why they appear non local and 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:19.800 temporarily for shortened is precisely because of this trans dimensional quality. 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.919 We can only see pieces of them at once, like 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.840 a tsunami or a taste of radiation sickness. If an 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.399 apple were to invade a two dimensional world, first the 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.080 stick people would see some dots as the bottom of 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.639 the apple touched their universe, and then a rapid succession 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.159 of shapes that would appear like an expanding and contracting 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.760 circular blob, diminishing into a tiny circle, possibly a point, 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:49.160 and then disappearing. That's why you can't directly see climate change. 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.159 You would need to occupy some higher dimensional space to 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:57.119 see the hyper object unfolding explicitly. Like the people in 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.000 the two dimensional flat land, we can only see brief 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:04.200 patches of this gigantic object as it intersects with our world. 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:09.040 The brief patch called hurricane destroys the infrastructure of New Orleans. 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.880 The brief patch called drought burns the planes of Russia 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.440 and the midwestern United States to a crisp our. Bodies 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:22.239 itch with yesterday's sunburn. But don't relegate hyper objects as 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:25.880 a simple abstract notion. Thin game of hyper objects as 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:30.960 transdimensional real things is valuable global warming is not simply 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.919 a mathematical abstraction that doesn't really pertain to this world. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.480 Hyper Objects don't just inhabit some conceptual beyond in our 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.440 heads or out there. They are real objects that affect 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.440 other objects. We tend to only think about hyper objects 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.520 as they phase in and connect to other, more static objects. 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.879 This is a mistake and contributes to non action. Whether 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.800 or not we perceive objects and hyper objects connecting doesn't 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:04.280 affect the existence and the inevitable effects of the hyper object. 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:09.199 What we experience as the slow periodic re occurrence of 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.240 a celestial event such as an eclipse or a comet, 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.879 is a continuous entity whose imprint simply shows up on 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:21.119 our social and cognitive space for a while. The gaps 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:24.639 I perceive between moments at which my mind is aware 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.359 of the hyper object and moments at which it isn't 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:32.520 do not matter in relation to the hyper object itself. Okay, 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:36.800 and now onto our final point of similarity. Inter Objective 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:43.040 hyper objects are formed by relations between more than one object. Consequently, 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:47.200 objects are only able to perceive the imprint or footprint 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:52.160 of a hyper object upon other objects revealed as information. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:58.000 It's all an ecological mesh of interconnectedness and inter objectivity. 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:02.720 For example, climate changes formed by interactions between the sun, 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:09.240 fossil fuels, carbon dioxide, economic growth, among other things. Yet 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.800 climate change is made apparent through emissions levels, temperature changes, 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.719 and the sea level rising, making it seem as if 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:21.080 global warming is a product of scientific models rather than 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:26.320 connected to an object that predates its own measurement. Hyper 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:30.720 objects exist in and between objects and things we deal 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:35.360 with every day, but it's not simply those objects. Plastic 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:40.160 bags are not climate change, but those things are both intertwined. 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:44.439 Hurricanes are not climate change, but they can be a 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:50.199 shadow like local manifestation of it. A mesh consists of 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:55.080 relationships between criss crossing strands and the gaps between strands. 0:22:55.720 --> 0:23:00.120 Meshes are a potent metaphor for the strange interconnectedness of things, 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:05.120 an interconnectedness that does not allow for perfect, lossless transmission 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.480 of information, but is instead full of gaps and absences. 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.919 When an object is born, it is instantly meshed into 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:18.480 a relationship with other objects in the mesh. The mesh 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:22.520 isn't inside of all things, but it's on the edge 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:27.320 or floats on top of all things. Inter objective mesh 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:31.560 is the extra connecting layer between the mass and the 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:36.920 mask of all objects, almost like a universal skin fascia. 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:42.159 Inter objectivity provides a space that is ontologically in front 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:47.920 of objects, in which relational phenomenon can emerge. The massiveness 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:51.480 and distribution of hyper objects simply force us to take 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:55.600 note of this fact. Hyper objects provide great examples of 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.400 inter objectivity, namely the way in which nothing has ever 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:04.320 experienced directly, but only as mediated through other entities in 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:10.000 some shared consensual space. We never hear the wind in itself, 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:13.680 only the wind in the door, the wind in the trees. 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.719 This means that for every objective system, there is at 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:22.159 least one entity that is withdrawn from the relationship. We 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:25.520 see the footprint of a dinosaur left in some ancient 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:29.160 rock that was once a pool of mud. The dinosaur's 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:33.800 reality exists inter objectively. There is some form of shared 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:38.920 space between the rock, ourselves, and the dinosaur, even though 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:44.280 the dinosaur isn't there directly. The print of a dinosaur's 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:47.440 foot in the mud is seen as a foot shaped 0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:52.040 hole in a rock by humans sixty five million years later. 0:24:52.760 --> 0:24:57.000 There is some sensuous connection then, between the dinosaur, the rock, 0:24:57.560 --> 0:25:02.919 and the human despite their vastly differing time scales. The 0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:08.120 dinosaur footprint in fossilized mud is not a dinosaur. Rather, 0:25:08.320 --> 0:25:12.080 the footprint is a trace of the hyper object evolution 0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:17.040 that joins me the dinosaur and the mud together, along 0:25:17.080 --> 0:25:20.439 with the intentional act of holding them in the mind. 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:33.600 I found the hyper object banner as a useful tool 0:25:33.720 --> 0:25:35.840 to help my brain think about things that are just 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:39.439 too big, things that have effects so spaced out in 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:42.560 time that using in our ordinary models of thought are 0:25:42.600 --> 0:25:46.639 just inadequate. You can also reconcile the opposing views that 0:25:46.760 --> 0:25:50.240 cast climate change as the very real series of disasters 0:25:50.960 --> 0:25:53.960 or a complicated, interlocking mess of systems that can feel 0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:58.600 very unreal and overwhelming. Just thinking of big things as 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:02.600 abstract systems has the habit of divorcing you from the 0:26:02.640 --> 0:26:06.879 real world impacts things like hyper objects can cause. Sometimes 0:26:06.920 --> 0:26:10.000 we forget that climate change is a thing we interact 0:26:10.040 --> 0:26:15.680 with every day and can inform choices we make now 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:21.440 the almost impossible to comprehend totality of our situation. It's 0:26:21.480 --> 0:26:24.200 not great for mental well being. You can end up 0:26:24.400 --> 0:26:29.240 tail spinning down a black hole of fate, conspiracy, coping, denial, 0:26:29.359 --> 0:26:32.640 and doom. It's very easy to trip and fall into 0:26:32.640 --> 0:26:36.359 a void of negation. Things that are hyper objects fundamentally 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:39.879 break our conception of reality temporality and cause an effect. 0:26:40.480 --> 0:26:43.480 And it's already a really weird time to try to 0:26:43.600 --> 0:26:47.520 suss out reality. We're constantly being bombarded with products and 0:26:47.560 --> 0:26:51.760 services trying to usurp the real That's what marketing is, 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:55.560 you know. First we had the Internet with its limitless 0:26:55.600 --> 0:26:59.080 possibilities as a digital universe. Then we got the world 0:26:59.080 --> 0:27:03.800 of social media with all of its fractured and fractal realities. 0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:07.840 There's immersive gaming and the allure of getting lost within 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:11.879 thousands of unique worlds. And now we have VR a 0:27:12.160 --> 0:27:16.840 R and the metaverse, more layers of digital fabrication trying 0:27:16.840 --> 0:27:20.960 to be passed off as an almost hyper reality, a 0:27:21.000 --> 0:27:24.440 promise to make a reality even more real and immersive 0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:30.240 than our status quo. The Internet itself is another hyper object, 0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:34.400 and all of this extra reality can take a strain 0:27:34.520 --> 0:27:38.920 on the human mind. De realization the perception that actual 0:27:39.080 --> 0:27:42.920 waking reality is an artificial construct, the feeling of being 0:27:43.280 --> 0:27:47.200 de attached from your surroundings, like the world's made of cardboard, 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:50.720 or you're looking at everything through a cloud of fog 0:27:51.440 --> 0:27:54.879 is becoming more and more common, especially among so called 0:27:55.080 --> 0:27:58.000 gen Z, the generation that drew up with the Internet 0:27:58.040 --> 0:28:02.320 being a staple of life. Now. How we got here 0:28:02.400 --> 0:28:05.880 is a disassociation between humans and what we call nature 0:28:06.040 --> 0:28:10.040