edenism

Across disciplines, the 21st century has brought a gust of optimism. This is meant in the sense of the term “poptimism”: apologia for that which is sincere, quaint, traditional, naive, and easy-to-disparage. Philosophy is among those disciplines invigorated by this spirit, with the very structure of the term “Speculative Realism” revealing the this spirit's coy, subtly dangerous attitude. What I owe to this spirit I redouble here: double the naivete, double the stakes. Besides that, the primary creditor of this work's spirit is Alain Badiou, for the refreshing clarity, insight, and restraint of his Second Manifesto for Philosophy.

Ontology

The revival of ontology has not rid the tradition of a bias towards the atemporal – Being comes before Event. If I am to uncover a path forward, I would like to do it in the opposite way such that the dynamic qualities of an object have primacy. This allows us to answer questions about the structure of reality necessary for describing Being-There (Dasein), by a simple trick: reality must have exactly enough structure to allow for the dynamics of that which is within it.

From this we can derive an axiom of local evolution: let reality at time t, R(t), be a topological space such that the time-evolution of reality is continuous. What this means is, roughly, that we consider the geometry of reality to be a geometry that makes time-evolution local. In other words, if one object can affect another (even entangled particles), then these objects are said to be close in some sense.

The interaction between reality and a subject we call an appearance. This takes the form of a continuous function f from R(t) to a new space, X. We have no reason to assume, for now at least, that this space X is common across subjects – for all we know, each subject could have a unique X. We can then visualize the interactions between reality and subjects as a hub-and-spoke diagram – each subject producing its own model of reality.

The “materialist” hypothesis itself lies in the assumption that everything which can effect the visible universe can be included in the topology, R(t), that we have constructed (even if this R(t) is contrary to our usual notions, including those of materiality).

Social Objects

The most rich and elusive objects are social: art, symbols, myths, etc. are much more dangerous than tables, chairs, and their ilk. Without tiresomely repeating the whole of Social Geometry, we can recapitulate the basic ideas here.

The hub-and-spoke diagram risks misleading us into forgetting that subjects are part of Reality itself. The result of this is that we must consider the effect each subject has on the others. An easy way to do this, across media, is to observe patterns in the content produced and consumed by these subjects. We call this content Text. Text can be a painting, song, mannerism, etc.

To analyze these phenomena without encountering a number of pitfalls, we take the following approach: first, identify patterns in the Text between actors. One might consider this to be a social equivalent to psychoanalysis – first recognize a pattern of behavior or speech, and then ascertain its meaning. Similarly, problems of transference and countertransference apply here as well; we must recognize above all that our identification of these patterns is in itself subjective, that is, it relies on our own appearance of reality, not the reality itself. A more general way of seeing what this means is, in Lacanian terms, that the symbolic order can appear differently to all.

These patterns in Text we call the Viral.

Autonomy

To focus on the Viral for too long might lead us to a deterministic perspective. This is not the intent, but in order to unravel autonomy, we must first understand the nature of subjectivity.

Briefly, the subject is defined by a temporal loop. Consider the case of identity, where one (as Zizek loves to say), becomes what they always were. At each moment, the subject is searching for an identity that will explain the past (hopefully in a flattering way), while providing a basis for future action. Autonomy is characterized by the same temporal loop. Think phenomenologically for a second: how do you recognize whether an action was taken of your own volition? It can only be after the fact.

A common error in exercising autonomy is to, instead of actually performing an action, merely telling oneself to perform the action, as if saying “I should get out of bed” will cause oneself to get out of bed. But this clearly will not work, because it violates the temporal rule we set out: you will know when you have succeeded in making the decision, because the action will already be done.

There is still the strange matter of having autonomy, but not autonomy over our own autonomy. In other words, our autonomy is finite, not always present, present at different magnitudes when it is present, etc. Strangely, if there is anything that is not done in volition, it is thinking, which is, as Badious calls it, “violence done to us.” The only sure thing is that our autonomy is incomplete. We can consider this analogous to original sin, an analogy which leads us a step further: the autonomy we do have is analogous to grace.

Divinity

Through our presentation of the world so far, we can immediately identify two “divine” gifts.

a. Grace (as described above). b. Efficacy of communication.

Failures of communication are widely understood (at least among the potential audience for this piece), so I will not devote time to it here. Successes of communication receive less attention, and are really something spectacular. To those who doubt that communication is successful at all, I suggest looking at R. M. Hare's “Missionaries and Cannibals” thought experiment. Without belaboring the point, it is truly a spectacular thing that we can be so confident our debates about morality, spirituality, etc. are truly debates about the same things, when the extensions of our terms are so different. Is it not spectacular that a pantheist and a Christian can be referring to the same “God,” when by any rational assessment they are referring to different things?

It just so happens that we can also construct a biblical schema for this divine gift. Failure of communication is the reality for those scattered from the Tower of Babel, and the successes of communication are a gift given during the miracles of the Pentecost.

Interpretation

We now have elucidated the process of identifying patterns of Text, and have asserted, without real justification, that there is some possibility for real success in communication. What remains is to stitch these two components together to provide a formula for interpretation. Again, this section will overlap greatly with Social Geometry, so it will be kept concise.

The primary claim we can make about a Viral pattern of Text, transmitted across a network of subjects, is that it must have a “form” which allows its propagation. Consider the conservative reaction to transgressive art, which is to say “now absolutely anything can be art, from a urinal to a paper ball! I could become an artist right now!” This account is exactly backwards, when anything could be art, it is even more confounding than ever to attempt to explain what is art. What better place to begin than with the realization that this definition of art, with its transgressive motifs, must be succeeding in propagating across social networks?

A second realization is that Text that accounts for its own failure in advance tends to have an advantage. This can be (and often is) in subtle, symbolic ways, but it can also be in blatant ways. For example, advocates of extreme diets will warn you about a “detox” period, after which you will surely be healthy.

A key error here is to make an interpretation without the realization that it is subjective, i.e. filtered through one's own symbolic lens.

Rejected Hypotheses

If our (eventual) goal is to fulfill the promise of this new wave of philosophical optimism, we must briefly explain where our proposition differs from its competitors, or risk getting caught in the undertow. Here are the following rejected hypotheses:

a. Disillusionment Hypotheses

These come in various flavors, but our position rejects all variants. Theology did not die at the hands of modern disillusionment, and modernity did not die at the hands of postmodern disillusionment. This includes the rejection of promises to “revive” either theology or modernity, since they are still alive and well.

b. Complexity Hypotheses

This (sometimes called a source of disillusionment) is the claim that 20th- and 21st-century life is inherently more complex, and that this complexity either invalidates “old ways of thinking” or is qualitatively different from prior problems.

The short explanation for both of these rejections is that many find it necessary, when proposing philosophical optimism, to first insert it into a historical narrative of philosophical pessimism. While it may make for good rhetoric, I see no evidence for the existence of such pessimism.