Good afternoon. Hello for this afternoon session, which will be starting with Ian Hamilton Grant, who's professor of philosophy at the University of West of England in Bristol. He translated several seminal works from French postmodern philosophy that also influenced his own work. I just mentioned Jean Baudrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death and Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Libidinal Economy, but also being an expert in German philosophy, several texts from German. Also his important monography from 2006 is dedicated to the great speculative German
idealist Schelling, a book he entitled in his usual very modest way. So it comes across from the title as a secondary literature book, but it's much more than that. The book's called Philosophies of Nature After Schelling, 2006. And I just briefly want to mention two features, not only of the book, but in general of Ian's thinking that making a very important contributor for today's conference. One is his concentration on matter and materiality in his research. And the second one is that whatever his interests are, whatever he works on, there's always a relation to contemporary science. And this, I mean, in both sense, in German, you differentiate between zeitgenössisch und gegenwärtig.
So it's both like today's science, but also like in the case of Schelling, like the whole Naturphilosophie and natural science around 1800 and early 19th century. So I think Ian's thinking is an example both for philosophical speculation, also in the sense I mentioned in my introduction as a rationalist practice and a project. His talk today, I think, is a perfect beginning for our afternoon session. In the morning, we had two realist or new realist positions. And in the afternoon, we might have more materialist positions or at least investigate these questions. and he'll discuss later with Robin we'll have the question of immaterialization or manipulation of matter and the ontological impact this has for materialist philosophy.
Ian's talk is the construction of matter and the deep field problem which I had to Google. Well, thank you, Armin and thank you for all of those involved in the exhibition. The exhibition itself and the artists involved in its production are extraordinary and well worth a visit if you haven't already seen it. What I want to talk about today is indeed, or how I want to start this today, is indeed available on Google, which is surprising for me. It's the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which consists of an image published in 2006, but shot between September 2003 and January 2004, of a tiny part of the galaxy, a constellation called Fornax, which lies just below Orion in the night sky.
this consisted of the Hubble telescope taking photographs of the most red shifted that is furthest from us light available to it and it took the Hubble project according to the project leader it took the Hubble project to within a stone's throw of the Big Bang which is the whole point so this bizarre situation where an image which is taken of a period they estimate to be between 800 and 400 million years after the big bang should have taken 13.7 billion years to produce
and remains incomplete that's how long it takes the universe to make a self-portrait it's not even complete if this were a portrait of an individual it would be one with the majority of the supporting mechanism for the face removed. We see lots of portraits like that, but we're not accustomed, I think, to thinking of the universe in terms of a partial portrait of the whole thing. The problem it poses, or amongst the problems this poses that I want to talk about today, are two. The first consists in the locality of the selected area of the galaxy. If you consider, for example, that one galaxy is insufficient to chart the origin of the universe. Think how much less sufficient one constellation is within that galaxy.
It's a tiny fragment of the cosmos, not remotely approximating to the whole thing. The hypothesis is that by looking locally, you can get as close as possible within a stone's throw of the Big Bang. And that problem will remain a problem insofar as, should the stone reach its destination, the portrait of the universe would be of it in existence. That is to say, should a photograph be taken of the origin of the universe, that photograph would consist in part of the universe not being there. It doesn't matter how long we allot for that process to be completed, nor how long the exposure takes. It would always be the case that inexistence would be entailed.
In other words, all the material complexity, all the laws of physics, all the technology, all the engineering involved in producing this image, which took 13.7 billion years to produce, are necessarily insufficient to copy the universe of which itself, all that technology, is itself a product. So that's my starting point. the question it raises philosophically is a question concerning the construction of matter the construction of matter is a project associated with Immanuel Kant Kant's construction of matter is summed up in the following phrase which comes from a book published after his death called therefore opus postumum where he says he who would know the world must first manufacture it
And there is a caveat he adds, there's a Gedankenstrich, and then comes the following, in his own mind indeed. He who would know the universe must first manufacture it, however, is the paradox I want to concentrate on. Think about that in the context of the deep field. Think about that, in other words, of the context of a field so deep as to reach, as it were, beneath the surface of creation, as to reach underneath creation, to reach, in other words, in existence. If we think about that in the context of manufacturing a world, in whatever cosmos we care to manufacture one, so whether it's Kant's own mind or in Kant's respondents' own minds is largely irrelevant, any cosmos in which the world must be constructed must be one that presupposes its own inexistence
and at the same time is ultimately subject or ultimately responsive to its manufacture. That is to say, to manipulability. It's responsive, in other words, to sense. It's responsive to palpability. So if we touch it, it will respond. It's responsive to intellect. The origin of the universe is a conceivable phenomenon. However laughable the concepts of the origin of the universe may turn out to be. It's a conceivable phenomenon. And it's responsive to tactility, to palpability. It's responsive, in other words, to the urge to manufacture. So these questions, then, are posed by the construction of matter. The second question that's posed by the constructability of matter is the following.
If matter is construction, if matter is to be constructed, in what sense does this correspond to what we think of as being matter? And this is quite an important question. we tend to think of matter always in the form of raw material, of materials for something else. However, if matter itself is to be constructed, if the cosmos is to be constructed, then it turns out that not just this or that piece of matter may be used for some other purpose, but rather all matter must be responsive to manipulability in the sense of being constructible. This creates a universe shaped in the following manner. All universes shaped in accordance with this hypothesis would have these properties.
First, they would derive from their inexistence. Second, they would be responsive to sense, intellect, and palpability for the reasons stipulated. But third, they would presuppose a context of emergence, which in fact would be forced to be outside that cosmos, outside that universe. In other words, he who would know the world must first manufacture it, does not supply a medium. In his own mind indeed does supply a medium. So even if the cosmos is mere intellect, even if the cosmos is Kant's mind, and I heard recently that Kant is considered a holy man in China, so this may not be too far from the truth as it were. If this is the case, then that mind, while it is the medium, is not the locale of its construction. The locale of
its construction is outside that universe, just as the Hubble ultra-deep field reveals, as it were, within a stone's throw, the Big Bang as being dependent upon the inexistence of the universe. Okay, so those are the problems I kind of want to address in today's talk. To start, I want to show where the construction of matter arose as a problem, and there are really two environments from which it arose. One is chemistry and the other is Kant's epistemology. It's from, indeed, chemistry that Kant derives his epistemology. Kant says in the beginning of the Critique of Pure Reason, the preface B to the Critique of Pure Reason, that it is insufficient
should we wish to understand a phenomenon merely to analyze it into its constituents. It must also be synthesized. This he takes from an experiment by Georg Ernst Stahl, a well-known vitalist, but luckily in this context not being used because of his vitalism, but because he deigned to synthesize matter. This is still a criterion in, for example, geology. Should you wish to understand a rock formation, it is a requirement to understand that rock formation, but not only it be analyzed into its constituents, but also that it be synthesized. And I loved it when I heard that geologists synthesize rocks. I mean, imagine some giant chunk of marble having to be synthesized
in some crucible. Imagine the temperatures involved. We might indeed get a new universe from this. This is extraordinary. The mere thought is extraordinary. Okay, so the constructability of matter, in other words, is the synthetic dimension that Kant says is necessary on the example of chemistry in order to understand a given phenomenon. And again, we can understand this quite simply. Imagine a piece of matter you wish to understand. Imagine some piece of organized matter, in other words, you wish to understand. You take it into its constituents. You discover, for example, the chemical elements out of which it is composed. You might even hypothesize the fundamental forces that hold it in the particular form it has, and you might begin to investigate how it responds to those fundamental forces and those chemical constituents
in a manner different from other phenomena. Why is this rock a rock and not a dog? These would be questions you might wish to understand. In order to do this, however, it is insufficient merely to look at its components. It must be palpably produced. How, in other words, are you to know you understand a recipe unless you can cook the cake. It's not possible to understand something, Kant insists, unless it be cooked, unless it be palpable. The raw is insufficient. The constituent is insufficient. The problem is that what this entails is that it's fine at the level of particulars, but appalling at the level of the universal. So if it's true that, for example, to understand a phenomenon entails its synthesis,
not merely its analysis, then it must be true for all things that this is so. If it's true for all things that this is so, then it follows that all, the universe, the cosmos, must itself be constructed. Now, all of a sudden, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field doesn't seem so bizarre. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field merely responds, as it were, to Kantian epistemic imperatives. You know, the manufacture of the universe is the imperative in order to understand it. So since we must manufacture the cosmos, what does this mean about the cosmos then manufactured? I've already drawn attention to the conclusion of any medium-specific construction of matter.
And by medium-specific, I mean a medium such that it may be differentiated from some other medium. So in this case, the constructing medium, the mind, and the constructor can't. So the constructor must belong to a different medium than the matter constructed. If this is so, then in advance, the entire problem of Genesis, the entire problem of the emergence of the cosmos, the origin of the universe, is displaced. We have a secondary phenomenon. The constructed universe entails its being a secondary phenomenon, understood or not.
But at the same time, if this is what matter is, responsive to sense, to intellect, and to manipulability, then it follows that whatever universe it is from which this secondary universe arises, it cannot be part of the same universe as is constructed. There is no place, no locus from which such a universe may be constructed. okay now when insofar as matter is meaningful at all and there is good reason to assume it is not or if it is it is always meaningful in such a way that the question what is matter can only be answered by a total catalog of all the things that are insofar as that's the case let's say we
want to insist good materialists that we might be that the origin of the physical universe must itself be physical. In other words, we wish to deny the medium specificity of the creation of the universe. We wish to say that for any universe that is created, what it is created out of must itself be a universe. We're close already to an ancient debate between Proclus and Philoponus, which I adore, about the eternity of the world. I'll just let that sink a little. The eternity of the world. Insofar, however, as we think it must itself be a material context from which it emerges, then what becomes of the matter, qua context from which the material universe emerges after it's been constructed, in terms of its materiality? That universe cannot be a material
universe. This is, if you like, the ontological cost of the hypothesis that the cosmos must be constructed. So the cost to what exists of Kant's imperative that in order to understand the phenomenon it must be synthesized and not merely analyzed, the cost in other words of the cooked universe as opposed to its raw ingredients is precisely that any context from which it emerges must itself be immaterial. Is this a theory of the creation of the universe or not? Well, it is manifestly a theory of the creation of the universe, but I want to show it's a bad one, but not a bad one in a way that might be suggested. For example, close in our heads,
as soon as we have a designer agent outside the universe being constructed, we have hypotheses of a creator, deity, and so forth. This is the medium specificity problem, writ large, as it were. But we have no such hypothesis in play should we be materialists. Or do we? If there is a deity that manufactures the cosmos, would it or would it not be medium-specific? That is to say, would it or would it not be within the cosmos? If there is a cosmos, and the cosmos is the precondition for the emergence of a cosmos, then it follows that any deity that is not medium-specific must be part of that cosmos. So nature, in other words, includes such things as creator deities.
This follows from it at great cost. It becomes a non-discriminatory concept, it does matter. It becomes something, as soon as its universalities insisted upon, completely non-discriminatory. It tells us nothing about the phenomena we are examining. Okay, so that's the problem, in effect, of the universal claim about the construction of the universe, insofar as it stems from a particular claim about construction of this or that phenomenon, whether a chemical compound or a rock. That's the difference. The difference is the ontological cost of the former is to say that any material universe that is created must follow from an immaterial one, or must follow from one that is not material. Let's be more general, just say it is not material.
And in that sense, the particular case of the synthesis of matter or the particular case of the construction of matter looks rather than benign and at great benefit to our understanding, itself set on a course to become, as it were, utterly a problem for ontology. Why is ontology important? I just want to pause and say something about why ontology is important. Ontology concerns all that is. Ontology concerns being. What is it, therefore, that ontology investigates? Philosophers always acknowledge that ontology cannot investigate this or that thing. This begins in Aristotle. Heidegger's not new here. It begins in Aristotle.
Ontology does not investigate this and that, every this and that particular thing, but rather investigates being itself. Insofar as it investigates being itself, that investigation of being itself, ontology, takes place, of course, in a cosmos. It belongs to the furniture of the cosmos, it belongs to the furniture of the material world or of nature, that there exist such things in it as ontology. So any ontologizing that takes place, takes place as a particular within that cosmos. This creates a problem, however. Since if being is, let's say, a property shared by all things that are, so we can say without tautology that everything that is, is by virtue of being, then it must follow from this, that the being is not this particular concept of being or this or that particular ontology, but rather everything that is.
So how, therefore, can it be the object of an investigation unless it is by cataloging each and everything that is? Ontology, therefore, is important insofar as it addresses the concept of the universal, but locally. Insofar as it does so, in other words, it is a local feature of the universe. It does not, as it were, gain medium specificity and thus step outside the cosmos in order to grasp all that is. On pain, therefore, on pain of realizing a two worlds ontology. On pain of realizing, in other words, an inconsistent ontology. science of being that excludes being from being and therefore is a contradiction in terms. I've never held that a two worlds ontology, in every single paperback edition of every
single copy of Plato's Republic, it is stated that Plato is a two worlds philosopher. What arendt nonsense. This is drivel. No one ever thought this until editors of cheap paperback editions of Plato's Republic were asked to write introductions for them. If you look at, for example, the opening line of Proclus' commentary, of which a fragment still exists, on Plato's Timaeus, the first line is the following. It is manifest to all who are not illiterate that Plato's Timaeus deals with the cosmos and everything in it. This is an alien concept to anyone that's ever studied philosophy in the 20th century, I think, or in the 21st indeed, that, for example, Plato might be a one-world theorist.
But it was understood by all. One world such that it includes within it all the phenomena described by Plato. At the very least, as a minimally obtaining, or sorry, as a minimal entity, at the very least, these things exist as thought. But in fact, Plato claims little more than that at a certain level about what these things are. However, that's another story. So, inconsistent ontology are medium specific. The medium in which ontology arises is the same medium in which the cosmos that supports ontologizing creatures, i.e. this one or any such cosmos in which there is ontology. Therefore the ontology that emerges is precisely a local ingredient in that cosmos. But it deals with the all.
Insofar as it deals with the all of all that is, das all, the universe, insofar as it deals with all these things, then it is necessary that, however, it not merely be a local concept, but must have, qua concept, a universal extension. If it has a universal extension, however, it tells us absolutely nothing about what is. So we have a very strange mixture of contrary pressures on the very idea of ontology. Why, however, therefore must it be important? Precisely because it explores these paradoxes, precisely because it is involved irresolvably or irrecoverably in these paradoxes, much as any attempt to construct the material universe will only ever come within a stone's throw of its origin.
Imagine being the person who is manning the telescope, so to speak. So you've got your space suit on, you're out there on Hubble, and your job is to press the shutter. Bear in mind you've got to be there for five months, so this is not a light ask. This is a fairly important task. So insofar as you're pressing the shutter, you are the person that is first there to view the origin of the universe. What are you viewing? It's not the origin of the universe. Why? Because the origin of the universe being viewed includes within it the viewer of that universe, you in your spacesuit on Hubble, plus Hubble, plus the 13.7 billion years of evolutionary history necessary to arrive at this point. So it's never the origin of the universe.
It's the origin of the universe 2.0, or the origin of the universe constructed. So these are the problems and the paradoxes with which the deep field problem is concerned. The deep field problem is precisely this. I want to come back to an earlier point now, however, concerning if we have a medium-specific cosmos construction, what happens to the locus from which that cosmos is constructed? Where is it that, as it were, Archimedes stands in order to manipulate the whole universe? This, we already argued, cannot be itself a material cosmos if medium specificity holds. So if it's not a material cosmos, what is it? We like to think that by penetrating beneath the surface of things
we get to that material layer which is fundamental for all that is. In other words, we could claim once we've reached that material layer that we have the fundamental layer, the fundamental stratum of all that is. Ontology's bedrock, or if you like, being's plasticine. It matters little. What in fact have we discovered? That such a layer disappears, it evaporates. Why does it evaporate? not merely because of the conceptual equipment with which we approach it, but rather precisely because if matter is merely intellect-responsive, sense-responsive, and manipulable, then it entails that that's all that matter is. Anything that is not sense-responsive, intellect-responsive, or manipulable is not matter.
In other words, there is nothing other as regards matter than manipulable matter. Okay, so that's, I was going to say my starting point, but that's the middle, isn't it? Do forgive me, I do enjoy this once I get going. It's surprising. It's especially surprising, actually, for various reasons I won't go into now. All right. Okay, let's say, let's put some of these problems to one side and now say that nonetheless, despite the problems of the constructability of the cosmos or the constructability of matter, we agree with Kant that to understand something, it is necessary both to analyze it and to synthesize it, to put it back together again, to cook the cake. The great cake of being, to paraphrase A.O. Lovejoy's fantastic book from 1936,
the great cake of being. Now you can have your cake and eat it, is the claim. Let's say we do this, let's say we insist on the constructability hypothesis. We've already seen there are problems with so doing. Are we entitled now, having seen that there are problems with insisting on this hypothesis, to eliminate it, to say, therefore, construction is an error, and because it's an error, does not exist, does not take place? Or must we rather find a place within the cosmos wherein construction does in fact take place? Well, this is easy, as it turns out, because constructions of the cosmos take place every time a cake is baked. Every time there is synthesis, there is a construction of the cosmos. But like ontology, that construction is a local feature of the cosmos.
In other words, there is no construction of the cosmos that is not A, additional to that cosmos and B, therefore, a local ingredient within it. So should we wish to understand the concept cosmos and we wish to separate that from everything else, if we wish to treat it negatively, if we wish to treat the concept merely as all that is and investigate the concept cosmos on its own, we discover perhaps all sorts of conceptual features that make it a rich and interesting concept, but we never discover a concept in it. Why? Because it is in that thing of which it is the concept. It occurs within a context, in other words, from which that concept emerges. So although we can find no fundamental substratum, no ground, if you will, for the construction of the cosmos,
ungrounded construction is nonetheless not ruled out. An ungrounded construction, rather, takes place wherever there is any construction whatsoever. If this weren't the case, then the universe's emergence would not have been the case. The universe, remember, to emerge, must emerge from a context which is not itself the universe. If it does, that context can only be the universe's in existence. If the universe's in existence is that locus from which the universe emerges, then it cannot be the case any longer that what persists at the fundament of this process is matter. A question arises at this point when I'm dealing with these themes, which is, what then is the best way to understand the origin of the universe?
and since it's difficult to give up on such an idea what would we be doing if we just a priori decided that we could give up on the idea of understanding the universe I'll tell you what would happen 20th century philosophy as Schelling said in the freedom essay of 1809 the common feature of all modern philosophy is that nature does not exist for it. The common feature. And he's writing about Descartes, but he's writing not only about Descartes, but of the common feature of all modern philosophy consequent to Descartes. If you want to test this,
go look at what Heidegger has to say about nature. Virtually nothing. And when he does, he denies he's doing so. This is both wonderful and extraordinary. I admire his brazen confidence to be able to say, whatever it is that nature is, it cannot be whatever has been conceived of nature. In fact, the only science Heidegger ever goes near in support of his concept of nature is ethology, is behaviorism, is von Uxku or Lorenz, latterly. These characters play a role for Heidegger. But anyway, for modern philosophy, all modern philosophy has this in common, that nature does not exist for it.
I hope this to be true, incidentally. Moment. Okay, so if it is the case then that we have all these criteria in place for understanding what a construction is, what ontology is, providing only that it's groundless, on condition in turn that the origin of the universe is itself groundless, because if it were grounded, then it wouldn't be the origin of the universe. It would take place non-medium specifically. That is to say it would take place within some context which is not in fact that universe. I save the day rather by saying the inexistence of the universe rather than saying some other context for it. It is the inexistence of the universe that the Hubble ultra-deep field or perhaps the Hubble ultra-ultra-deep field or the Hubble ultra-to-the-infinite-power-deep field
must recover is precisely that. And to do so, it must recover the inexistence of the universe. Interesting, isn't it, how a materialist practice, one might assume, like the natural sciences, are premised, in fact, on the discovery of immateriality. Okay, so insofar as this is the case, insofar as we've discovered the locality or localization of these moments investigating the universal, whether it be ontology or the construction of the cosmos, within the cosmos within which that occurs, what follows? What follows is very basically this, that there is no construction of the cosmos as a totality that is not, A, an additional element of that cosmos or of the cosmos within which it takes place, and B, therefore, never captures
the origin of the cosmos per se. And just to wrap things up, I want to demonstrate why that is the case. If you consider what would be entailed by recording, let's go back to our space telescope, let's consider what would be entailed by recording the origin of the universe. We do so, we get there within a stone's throw of it, we get there within a stone's throw of the Big Bang, according to NASA. Who knew there were stones that close to the Big Bang, actually? Where is the stone thrown from? It's thrown from 13.7 billion years in the future. That's an aim, isn't it? That's a good aim. Insofar as this is the case, insofar as we think about this, then imagine what would be entailed if we do capture the origin of the universe.
Would it be the whole universe? No, because the capturing of the origin of the universe would be a local feature within the universe that now exists. In order to capture that local feature as part of the universe that we want to capture the origin of, we would need an additional astronaut positioned, let's say, one removed from us to take a photograph of that. So that the recording of the origin of the universe is itself recorded within the imaging of the origin of the universe. But if this is the case, then we'd need a third astronaut. This is called the third astronaut problem. If it is the case, then we need a third astronaut on the shoulder of the second in order to do the same all over again. Now, what does this mean? Does this mean it's an impossibility? Does the contradiction mean it's an impossibility?
No. According to Plato, the law of non-contradiction stipulates that a unity is falsely ascribed when a distinction is discovered that cannot be supported by it. In other words, we think of something as unity when we have not perceived the sufficient differences to be able to tell them apart. The law of non-contradiction merely tells us, in other words, not that two things cannot be so, but rather that the oneness, the unity in question, is falsely ascribed. To what, therefore, does unity belong? Does it belong to the cosmos? To being? Does it belong to matter? Does it belong to reality? Fundamentally not. It cannot. What the unity principle does belong to is particularity, which is irreducible. That is to say, the law of non-contradiction is itself a non-equivalence
principle which holds that nothing is anything else or everything is exactly as it is. Thank you. Yeah, I think you got an idea what it means when I meant in the introduction that about Ian's modesty doing a bit of history philosophy so this was a bit of Kant philology that we just heard like and that's what Ian makes out of that the only problem I have is like I was so blown away by the talk that at one point I had to ask myself am I concentrating on asking a question or do I continue
being fascinated and listening to you and I opted for the second so I'm not prepared for question so I hope like you've got questions wonderful I was hoping. Yeah, thank you. That was brilliant. I think I agree with almost everything. Just one interesting remark and then an attempt at an objection or really just a question. So the first just remarked, you know, recently the Heidegger Gesellschaft published a brief exchange that Heidegger had with a geologist of the ETH Zürich called Das Argument gegen den Brauch, das an sich seiendes seienden. And Heidegger there raises the question whether the fact that the earth existed before there were human beings on it says anything against his philosophical project and discusses that. Quite interesting because
it's ancestrality and he had this exchange. Mirad Bos is part of his Zurich-based psychoanalysis with whom he was teaching seminars. So there's suddenly geology but only for a brief moment so probably you know that might be just interesting for you. But apart from that, So here's the question. Why speak of the all? I myself run very similar arguments in a similar ontological context. And I come to just your conclusion that ontology really can only be ultimately a list of all the things. So there is no such thing as a universal layer for similar reasons. But I take the third astronaut argument, which I call the photography argument. But just the third astronaut.
By the way, there's a beautiful illustration of this in the second movie of the classical Planet of the Apes trilogy. Which is that? Battle or Congress? I think it's battle. I think it's in battle. Okay, so, and there's this Dr. Heslein, Dr. Otto Heslein, and he illustrates his theory of time on television. And he says, if you want to understand time, you have to understand infinite regression, he says. And then the journalist says, oh, but what does this mean? mean? And then he says, well, it means the following, and then he runs the photograph argument or the third astronaut argument. So I'm just wondering why speak of the all there? So because in a certain sense I would say it's a non-all, because I cannot conceive of a procedure or an algorithm that structures going from one astronaut to the next. I think
it's a non-coincidental feature of your presentation of the argument that you didn't have to say where exactly the astronaut is. Well, any astronaut. There doesn't seem to be a rule encompassing the transition from one astronaut to the next. All you need is another astronaut. So the question is how to avoid the universal there, and whether the all carries any weight, because it doesn't seem to carry weight in your argument. Well, certainly in space the all carries no weight. But to address the question, If it is true that, for example, being can only address the totality of things that are, then amongst the totality of things that are is the concept being. And the concept being has its extension, the universal. But it is merely one of the things that are. So if we're to be maximally inclusive, as it were,
if ontology, rather, is to be maximally inclusive, then it entails its inclusion. So that would be my brief point about that. So there are questions of transition, as it were, between regarding the all internally and regarding the all externally. or regarding it locally, which is the external one, or regarding it internally, or universally, which is to say within it and situating things. I take it that the situation problem emerges from precisely the third astronaut problem to this extent, that providing only a location in space and time, or providing only some location, any dimensionality whatsoever, in other words, is sufficient to place the astronaut, the first astronaut, sufficient, therefore, to place the second and the third. And the directionality is provided, or the vector, if you like, of the astronaut's camera
is provided simply by the distance of 13.7 billion years in the present instance. So it's really any set of coordinates will supply, as it were, sufficient conditions of locality. The sufficiency of the conditions of locality, however, entails the insufficiency of the conditions of universality. So I agree. I agree. But to that extent, it doesn't mean that the universal doesn't exist. does exist but as a particular. Okay. The next question is by Maurizio Ferraris, but please do give me science. I'm going to look around if you want to ask questions. I perfectly agree with the description of the non-interest of a 20th century philosophy, even partly of a 19th century philosophy on nature, because already Schelling was speaking
speaking about its age and what happens after an increase in proof of this but I there is it's not my responsibility I also find that coexistence the fact that that you exist and me exist at the same time creates this problem. This is not a philosophical problem. It's a technical problem. They explain to me that if two microphones are in the same time, it's a discovery that I recently made. Well, no, but many people know that.
But the point, I also find the point the difficult point in Kant that you should construct and how can you construct the origin of the universe. But the point in which I disagree is the fact that in fact Kant was confusing in all his system is typical ontology and epistemology. I mean what there is and what we know about what there is. And in this case it makes it so that What there is is constructed, but what we know what there is. Conclusion, all the paradox you listed. But if we say that there is a straight separation between what there is and what we know about what there is,
I find that some of the paradox you listed can be solved. This was just as I suggest. I mean, it's not necessary that we attend the origin of the universe. And it's also a good thing that it's not necessary. Otherwise we will not be there. Yeah, I think if we do attend the origin of the universe, then we wouldn't be there. To a certain extent, I agree with your characterization of Kant's approach here. He does separate ontology from epistemology, and to an extent, at some points wants to reduce the latter to the former, and at other points wants to leave open ground between the two. the most conspicuous element of that leaving an open ground emerges from the critique of pure reason
where he literally says that what can be said about being is that it consists of things. On what possible basis can he say such a thing? So he does have, to quote Heidegger, he does have a thesis about being. It's just not very explicit. Whether that furnishes sufficient material, as it were, to resolve those paradoxes, I think would be a really interesting question to go into. My hunch is I doubt it, precisely because he does have a stipulation about being, and because being is particular. If being is irreducibly particular in the manner in which he suggests, or more than particular, simply things, i.e. already constituted, already constructed, then this adds a problem to the construction of matter that he set out to achieve in the first place. That problem being, if what is is things, and the construction of things is necessary in order, the construction of the world is necessary in order that the world be known, then the knowing of the world that is constructed is not the world that consists of things.
This is context specificity or a medium specificity problem, which arises right there. And I think that's all I would need in order to get the paradoxes going, as it were, at the level of the requirement for synthesis on the part of the understanding. Sorry, this is coming a little bit too late. But Hubble is unmanned. Yes, I know. Okay, I just thought that might be an important aspect, as you keep talking about these people, and to make that relationship, to think about the idea that it's unmanned, might be something to think about too. Yeah, definitely. In fact, I wish it were, because then it would be a concrete illustration of precisely the paradox that I'm trying to get at.
Yeah, but even without a person up there in a space suit and so forth, we have a camera there, and to an extent that obviates the requirement for any other kind of subject, The camera is the recording device, putatively present or hypothetically present, as it were, as the dawn of all things. So the cameras, we may have a third camera problem rather than a third astronaut one. Which actually Marcus mentioned a moment ago, the third photograph problem. Okay, I just would like to ask you, are you always looking for... here? Oh. Where are you always looking for an origin? Like the universe just fluctuates and synthesis
just happens spontaneously and compounds are just generated spontaneously and destroyed spontaneously. So with the universe could happen the same. You don't have to look for an origin always. It could be there all the time, destroying, generated, I don't know. Yeah, no matter doesn't have to be generated. No, I completely I completely agree. It's to this extent, okay? The hypothesis got going with which I was working on the basis that Kant has as an imperative that synthesis is required in order for proper understanding. If synthesis is required for proper understanding, we know what that means in terms of chemical compounds or even rocks. But we don't know what that would entail or we should know what that entails about the origin of the cosmos. So I agree that synthesis happens spontaneously, but I would still ask the question where?
You know, what is the locus of spontaneous emergence? What is the locus of, you know, in other words, if we have an attractor, a singularity that builds into the universe, where is the singularity? The medium specificity problem bites there. So, yeah, I agree that the search, while imperativized by a certain epistemological strand born of chemistry in the 18th century, but still used as an imperative in many of the natural sciences today. Although CERN is a good example of this. You know, the creation of antimatter? What a magnificent thing. Antimatter has a postcode. That's an extraordinary thing. Switzerland is home not merely to cuckoo clocks and chocolate, but also to antimatter. There was one element in your fantastic reading of Kant,
like the philosopher who spent like, I don't know, four or five, depending on how you read it, decades on trying to avoid reason becoming speculative, writing several critiques in order to reason not to become speculative, in your reading becoming speculative after his death, in his posthumous reading. So there was one element particularly that I found fascinating, also in the context of, because I'm sitting here, I always saw you in the background, the anonymous materials question, what you said about the construction of matter, that matter is never something that is just a material that's there, but always needs manipulation, as you said. So what I wanted to ask you, whether you can extrapolate on that in a few words, both what that means for epistemology,
what kind of theory of science does that imply, and, of course, what this could mean for art. Without getting into concrete art examples, but what kind of ontology of art that could mean? To an extent, a lot of this emerges from... Well, no, I'll not start there. To take your Kant question first, Jesse became speculative according to the publisher's records after his death. The Opus Postumum contains an ether deduction. Ha ha ha! QED! bam you know it's fantastic this ether deduction takes the place of all the critical mechanisms that have been put in place by the three critiques prior to that so there is that that's definitely
there but it was always there and it's there in the moment of construction it's there but given the requirement of construction what Kant wants is an alibi for the claim that any knowledge is dependent upon the knower and to the extent that that is so there can be no knowledge of anything that isn't so dependent, in which case we have no reason to accept any hypothesis about anything independent of the knower. In terms of the ontology of artworks, I think what's manifestly the case when anything is made is that there is an additional element, and that additional element is part of the context from which it came. It's very specifically part of whichever context it comes from, but it is nevertheless an additional element.
There is something new in the world. To that extent, exactly the problem of paradoxes, exactly the problem of astronauts or indeed cameras applies also to the artwork. So I think this is a claim at that level for the full positivity, ontologically speaking, of artworks. I don't think they need be anything else. Taken in accordance with precisely the non-equivalence principle that I hope I've indicated can derise from a platonic reading of the law of non-contradiction. I can't believe I'm saying this. The non-equivalence principle simply stipulates that what is is exactly what it is. What it doesn't stipulate is that it is material. What it does stipulate, however, is that the construction be an additional element in whatever cosmos of whatever constitution it should happen.
Thank you. talked about medium-specific questions or issues. What does it mean for you, medium-specific? Because the medium, to understand it, you need consciousness. And even to understand the medium and to make a difference between them, to see a differing point of you, you
need consciousness. What is medium-specific for you? That's the first question. And the The second question is, you were told just a nice aim that the planet will survive 13.7 billion years. We, science is not thinking so. We think that the Earth is going to survive 5 billion years and afterwards we will be too close to the sun and everything will go away here from this planet. Could you tell what you think, secondly, about astrobiology and it means the construction of this planet and the importance of it. Because you are very evolutional. I'll answer these, but in conjunction
with the next one. We put the questions together, a short one this time, please. My question is, you talk a lot about locality from the different perspective of the different astronauts and actually, if you consider the world, the universe, not being local, which is kind of a concept which is in physics. I think the whole argument is kind of much shorter and much easier that just there is no way to externally observe or to externally learn anything about the whole universe if you are always part of it and if there is nothing like locality. So maybe you can comment on this. Sure. I don't know why you didn't give the paper actually. That was much quicker. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, yeah. But nevertheless, it has entailments for other concepts. So the
materials with which it is dealt conceptually include, for example, the understanding of emergence, include, for example, the understanding of locality, even if the universe is non-local. The question of non-locality, in other words, arises itself from a context. But that context is precisely one of locality, insofar as the positioning of the inquirer is concerned. Its elimination, the groundlessness of such inquiries, are precisely the point to get to. So yeah, that's the terminus, if you like. You're quite right. I think the question about what a medium is or whether, as you implied, that such a medium must be consciousness, I would say the following. It's a citation from Marshall McLuhan from an interview he gave to Playboy in the 1960s. He was asked, what is the importance of content? And he said, content is as important as the stenciling on the side of an atomic bomb.
The understanding, in other words, is consequent upon the construction. The understanding is simply evidence precisely of a process which is not mind-dependent, which is precisely, as it were, that thing from which mindedness emerges. So, yeah, the construction of planet Earth is important, certainly is as far as we're concerned, but it's no alibi, as it were, for the maintenance of the idea that there could be a phenomenology of spirit, given the third astronaut problem. But, on the other hand, I wanted to say something about this in general. I mean, the idea of a complete recollective universe is not confined, as it were, to physics or to philosophy or what have you. The idea of the total memory of the universe consists, for example, in the numerous gene banks that are emerging or the seed banks that are emerging.
I was talking to Yngwie about seed banks for apples that he's going to explore in a short while. I wish I could come with because it entails a lot of cider. So, yeah, I think this request for anamnesis, as it were, for the universe's total self-recollection is precisely articulated in your question. But I would refer you back, therefore, to the insight that McLuhan's somewhat trite response gives. Thanks a lot, Ian. Every time I start doubting about whether we still need philosophy in the 21st century, I think of inviting Ian. Thanks for having been here and the great talk. We'll immediately...