Hyperstition & The New Weird II (Session 2)

I hate that light. Oh, dear. Hello, and welcome to the second session of Piperstition and the New Weird, Fictional Worlds and Possible Futures. In this session, we're going to talk about David Lewis's Motor Realism and Possible Worlds Theory. It has a lot of influence in literature and philosophy. along with that we will discuss China Mievo's City in the City and see if we can sort of maybe attempt to use this theory to map out some of the novel or just discuss the novel in general. Hello and welcome to the second session. Sorry, one second. Yeah, it's stupid when you have the YouTube going at the same time, so when it goes live,

it repeats, so sorry about that. So I guess first we can open, I'll open up the session to see if, does everybody feel like the week in between is good to read the novels, or do we want to go back to the old schedule? Are we good with this schedule? Like spending a week in between to read? You can just say yes or no. Yeah, sure. Okay. I like the change that we made to have it every week. Oh, that's right. Yes, okay. Good. Good.

I'm not actually involved, Yeah, you are. Very involved. Just making sure that it wasn't, that, you know, it will work for us. I think it will be a little bit easier to be able to consume these books. Members a lot more, I think members are a lot more difficult, so the week will be useful, I think. Much more atmospheric novel. and if I'm not we just spoke with Michael or Ben did and he had confirmed that he can come so he will come to the session so since he'll be here

a good thing would be to prepare questions because we have the guests very nice to do like a sort of interview we have a way of doing an interview session or a Q&A So if you'd like to question him about anything else other than member, a book that you've read maybe of his, that's also fine. So just saying that ahead of time. Anybody have any questions about the last session, about the Melisu thing before we move on to Melisu? Nope. Okay. Good. And, all right, so then I would just ask for, before I ask Ben to start in with the Lewis

text, I would ask if we have any questions about this text. I know it's dense, it's analytic, so it's quite difficult to read. For some people, for me it is. I'm more used to something totally different. So, yeah, if we have any questions, if you don't want to say anything live, just put it in the sidebar. It'll help us kind of be able to go through this text, because, yes, it's quite dense, 92 pages, and we don't want to waste time going through things that you might not be interested in, rather focus on things that caught your eyes. Is anybody familiar with this theory at all?

Some people maybe in literature have come across it, maybe, or maybe from a different aspect, maybe from like, from Grad to Echo, or even Brandom. Okay. All right, Ben, I guess we'll jump in, because it seems like we have open range to talk about whatever we want in the text, so. We're going to open up our hackpad. But Ben, would you like to begin? Yep.

Yeah, I mean, Lewis, David Lewis in The Possibility of Worlds is, I mean, for some analytic philosophers, a sort of notorious text in a way. People know it's kind of, it's well known, the sort of well known response to it is called The Incredulous Stare. people have heard this that when Lewis outlined the theory people give him a really weird look and that it's seen as something completely alien to the general kind of sobriety of analytic philosophy this fact that every world

is just as real as our world and that he means that what he says in a literal sense is quite odd proposition. He tries to demonstrate why it's not. So the first kind of basic thing is how he defines world. And the way he defines world is pretty massive and pretty inclusive. Even compared to somebody like the Greeks or someone who would, we could almost equate world with cosmos. For Lewis, I think it's even bigger. In a sense, world is everything that was, is, and could be, you know, in some way interconnected within itself.

There's an interconnection between the parts. And that's why he says, you know, everything from pterodactyls to, you know, what's here right now in front of you kind of counts as part of the world. so in a sense the world is for Lewis it's maximally big thing and his kind of claim is that this fact that our world that we're in this kind of collection interrelationships between all these things which make up this massively big thing is only actual because we can index and reference it

that are easier than other worlds or possible worlds. So he says, you know, actual is just an index. And so he claims that even though... So he claims that, you know, every possible world is actual. They actually exist. They're as real. he says they're the same sort of thing in our world so he says the kind or the quality of world or worldliness differs in the stuff that makes it up but that it's still a world and then he claims that the concept of world is irreducible and this list of things I'm doing right now is the kind of basic tenets of his philosophy

so you can find it anywhere he says the actuality is indexable so our world is just a world that we can locate ourselves in and then he says worlds are unified by their parts and then he says possible worlds are causally isolated from our world and from each other and I actually find that the strangest, I think I find isolation the strangest claim maybe. Or how he justified that isolation to me seems quite odd. I think it also it's odd in the sense

of the text that we're reading as well. One of the criticisms was that, right, the possibility that two possible worlds exist in one fiction is a major criticism of the possible world's theory, I think. It breaks his theory. Yeah, for sure. That's important. I'll also touch maybe a little bit on the fact that the difference... Yeah, I think it's gone now, though, but maybe. The fact that the difference between a fictional world and maybe a possible world in Lewis's sense? This is kind of, I guess, a question,

but would it be the possible world that is actual possible world? I would define possible world and fictional world, right? So possible world is something in which it's determinant and it's complete, correct? Whereas fictional world... Whereas a fictional world is always indeterminate and incomplete. We can always, there are always things that we can say about a novel, but there are always things that we'll never know, or that you can never make an infinitely long text to encompass the complexities of the world. Yes, this isolates a major distinction between possible and fictional world.

But Lewis, what I wanted you to say more about, and I guess what I'm confused a little bit about, is Lewis is saying the opposite. He's actually saying that, well it seems like he's confusing possible fictional worlds sometimes. when you, like in, and I'm not sure, it's not something we did, but have you read Truth in Fiction, which is like the article version of this, where he's actually trying to deal with truth, value statements in fiction? No. Okay, so I'll post that. So Catherine has a good

if you don't mind I'm going to say it she says Lewis, hypothetical in which different world-like parts exist in one world as in the novel or as in city this is page 76 of the PDF the world-like parts might share a common space-time, there might be several populations, yes, interpenetrating without interacting in a single space-time where all of them live. And so, of course, the inhabitants had better not interact with the shape of their space-time as we do with the shape of ours. Else this interaction enables the different populations to interact indirectly with fundamental... This is a really good quote, actually, for this novel. Thank you for that. Mm-hmm.

He doesn't then deal with that hypothetical ever again, so I don't... It's unclear what he thinks about it. He was smart enough to leave that to China. Yeah. Oh, this is... Yeah, this is a very good one. I like this one. In 72, so what section is this in the PDF? I'm looking for it. It's in the isolation section, so it's like chapter one, part six. Yeah. So, Catherine, did you find any of,

well, have you read anything on possible words theory before? Not in so, like, not in terms of analytical things about possible worlds, just more speculative, I suppose, but I, no, not really. All right, so like the concept, the concept makes sense, but not in the sense of like if P, not P, these sorts of, like, semantic logic. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I mean, the concept is, like, approaching common sense. Like, it's everywhere in, like, the popular imagination.

In my opinion, the multiple worlds theory, you know. It's everywhere in comic books. Yeah, I don't know. It's, like, gotten ahead of itself. yeah I mean then you have multiverse theory crowded world's then you have many different versions aside from this I'll none of which is like articulated or like in in this analytical distinguished when it or you distinguish from one another and it appears of the organization. It was interesting. Ben, I kind of cut you off there.

I don't know if you want to pick back up in this. I guess since we pulled this quote from the isolation section, we can maybe continue on this topic for a little bit and see if we can pull a little bit more out of it. If this is the only, to take Catherine's suggestion or award for it, if this is the only time that he's actually talking about it, are there other parts of the text that we can sort of maybe, like, pull out and close the gaps slightly? yeah I mean maybe I'm just always very skeptical

of the of the isolation argument because it doesn't really seem it always seemed to me that he kind of just assumed it had to be the case and I didn't really understand yeah to me it was just like everything weird about the theory that was the hardest thing to buy Let's see. There was one part that I'm trying to find. Sorry.

The silence might sound like, you know, very urgent, but I think it's fine. I'm in this giant creepy building, so it sounds even more urgent. I mean, I guess because the isolation is so logically motivated in such a way that's often divorced from the fact that the self-consistency

of the world is so important because the concept of world in itself is so vague. Maybe vague to get too far, but he often has this kind of set theoretical logic to things, right? That a world is basically like a really, really big self-consistent set. Whereas so if worlds could interact with one another, than sort of set theory work. And it's a bit weird on the one hand because he wants to claim, you know, one of the famous quotes by him is that he always says that a possible world isn't any crazier than something like set theory because these mathematical constructions allow us to make certain arguments with tools we didn't have otherwise. Right, that's a lot to go on.

like, well, like for him, when he's defining possible worlds, it's based on belief. Or, in another text, he says, I believe that things could have been different in countless ways. I believe the permissible paraphrases of what I believe. And taking the paraphrases is face value. I therefore believe in the existence of entities that might be called ways things could have been. I prefer to call these things possible worlds, quote unquote. quote. So it is very vague what his definition of a world is, whether it's between existence of entities in some kind of determinate complete state

or something, I don't know. Or not. Yeah, and it seems like he wants it to be sort of maximally useful, but somehow also ultimately stable system of reference in a way, right? The fact that but in claiming that they're real you almost feel like in saying that their realness should be taken the realness of the world should be taken literally I think he's almost getting around the fact that because each world is real, they don't have to necessarily interact with each other whereas I feel like if worlds interact with one another, then determining their realness and the consistency

of any reference would become really, really just bizarre or perhaps impossible. And the other weird thing is that when people talk about impossible worlds, which is something Kripke talked about, it's almost always talked about in terms of logical terms. You know, like an impossible world is where these two basic forms of life that contradict each other couldn't exist in that world. Which in a way kind of goes back to what we were talking about last week in terms of the Meisu and the relationship between ontology and epistemology. You know, this idea that you have a world where science doesn't exist. You know, where Meisu claims

it could still be sense or some kind of experience. Even if you couldn't, even if you could only narrativize it. narrative in a way whereas Lewis seems to be saying that in the opposite sense that some kind of structured epistemology or knowledge determines possibility or impossibility of everything else so in a way and sort of causality would just complicate causal interactions between worlds would complicate that picture, I think. But there, I mean, there's also a distinction between

our, it's a quantifier, right? In Lewis's sense, it's a quantifier, so in the sense that there are like the possible world differs from our world based on like what goes on in our, what goes on in our world, what we can index in our own world, right? But But they don't differ in kind. That's like a mess. So actually our world exists within a plurality of possible worlds already. But it's not a sort of difference in kind. So when we're speaking about isolation, I'm trying to... Yeah. I thought a little ahead of myself. I mean, if we're thinking these are qualitatively different, mutually co-existent worlds, if

they were to interact, then they should be able to interact, shouldn't they? They never toss. I will... No, I lost Eric. Okay. I don't know, so it's mostly because we exist in this world, is why we call it our world rather than any other possible world that could exist. So this goes back to, of course, the indexicality. Yeah, I mean it's a weird use of location in a way because he says our world is the actual

world because we're here Sure The dike for the index makes sense to me But he also doesn't he also say that the actual world is whichever whatever world you're in. So there are many actual worlds for Lewis. Right, the actual world, what is possible for us might be actual for possible variation. That's what I think you said, yeah. Yeah, because that's what we're trying to kind of circle around is that it's based on here and now or whatever we're able to index

or it's sort of like a, I don't know, it seems to be a very naive proposition. But, yes. I mean, does he describe, I mean, does he think of it as kind of stable? Is it like a harmonious kind of stable thing that he's describing? I think he is. I think he's existing. Like, we live in this actual world here, and within this world there are countless possible worlds that exist.

Each in its own holds its own logic, right? Because he gives the examples of gravity, and then he gives the example of 2 plus 2 equals 5, and these sorts of... That each possible world exists in its own complete and determined logic. At least that's how I want to say it is, because that allows me to separate a possible world from the fictional world, which is how I said earlier. But, Ben, I'm not sure if I'm stepping too ahead of myself. I mean for me what's interesting in terms of relating the fictional and the possible also is that you know of course possibilities can create and generate fictions and fictions

can generate possibilities and so the question is how do you divide the function different function between those one of the things I thought of was I don't know if people know the Philip K. Dick story, The Man in the High Castle, which is the sort of story about this alternative possible history that where the Nazis invade America and World War II kind of goes very differently. And of course, in the story, there's a book called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. And the book, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, is an alternative history in which the Allies won. but it's not our history it's not our actual history it's more like it

than actual history is in Command and the High Castle but it's still quite different and so I think that's an interesting example of how possible and fictional kind of feedback on each other you know in that this you know the fiction you know the fiction for us and the fiction for the people in the story it's like the fiction for the for the fiction functions as a possible world for them in a political sense which you know something is more related to Mayville's book and also of course the and High Castle functions as a possible world for us as well

but like the difference there I think is not in terms of fictional impossible it's about the as Tony said, there's a limit to the fictional in terms of what can be narrated but the advantage of narrativization allows you to charge the possibility or certain possibilities in a particular way so that the fact that it's a fiction that it's a snippet or it's a part of a possible world allows it to be actually more possible because it is a fiction. It's this sort of, you know, a microcosm of a possible world that is kind of more...

This is, on the one hand, you know, safe from being merely possible because it is narrativized, if that makes sense. You know, the kind of fictional mode, kind of narrativizing mode, mode allows you to kind of celebrate this particular possibility in a particular way, which would be very different from, I think, what Lewis wants to do. Sorry, did you say that you said something about the possibility of that world because it's narrativized. Sorry.

I was trying to get my head around that bit. The fictional world is indeterminate. And it can be... But we can only narrativize it in indeterminate ways. So there are gaps. There are always going to be gaps whether it's an aesthetic choice or not. Or whatever it might be. Like, for instance, in a novel, you know a novel that somebody dies, but you don't know what the person's favorite character or color was or something like this. This is an indeterminate sort of element of the world. Whereas in a possible world, we have a complete world or a determinate world, I think is what he's saying.

and Ben was putting it in the sense of we can narrativize it, I guess but it's the same as the complete and complete and I want to correct myself I said that possible worlds exist with their own logic it's actually the opposite of what I wanted to say is that the one thing that holds possible worlds together we have the infinite possible worlds is logic and arithmetic It's very sort of Descartes, sort of like a, it sounds like a lot of his work in meditations, when he's talking about all the sensory experience, and he has all the sensory experience,

but he can be secure, he can be secure on the foundations of the existence of God, truth, laws of logic and arithmetic, similar to, I think, what Lewis is saying, because he says that all possible worlds are governed by unique principles of logic. But, yeah, so. Which is, I mean, which is one of the reasons why a fictional world, like, a fictional world can play out so well in our imagination, maybe. But he gives the example of the possible world where there is no gravity remains conceivable,

right? So this is the same. This to me sounds very much like, well this sounds like the Mable Sue example we were talking about, right? Even the short story we were reading. Whereas a possible world where 2 plus 2 equals 5 is inconceivable. So why does he hold so strongly to this principle of logic? Why does he assume that we can conceive a world without gravity? Because we can believe that a world exists without gravity, however the logic, but however 2 plus 2 equals 5 is logically

irreceivable. But the world in which there is no gravity means there is a world in which space-time is non-Nuclidean. But again, you're asking the same question I'm asking. Why? Why? Why? So I'm wondering if anybody has any thoughts on that. I'm going to catch up on what Derek just says here. I'm sorry, Derek. This is probably going back, right? Because I took us a little bit off track. No, I don't know whether that's going back or forwards or sideways. It's just from the Lewis text.

It's this thing about fiction. I mean, it's just something he talks about in that text. I guess the gravity, 2 plus 2 equals 5 thing is, I guess he sees it really straightforwardly that there are planets maybe where gravity functions differently. so how differently does gravity have to function before it's possibly non-existent I don't know I mean that's we don't know we don't know sorry Patrick go ahead

we don't know I just I find it so curious we would suppose we can imagine It seems to believe in a possible world in which physics and chemistry are different is conceivable, but if we try to think of logic and arithmetic, this is just not, we can't, that's a foundation that we can't touch. And I'm wondering if that's just a... It's a foundation that doesn't exist. I mean, like the 20th century, maybe I'm just being naive, but wasn't the conclusion

of Bertrand Russell and I think it was Whitehead that they couldn't prove that 1 plus 1 equaled 2? Like it's just, I mean, it's axiomatic. Right, that's exactly the point that he's trying to sort of make here, is that rules of logic are systems a priori, whereas physics is, so they're extra world, right, they exist beyond our world, they're a priori, but then with physics and chemistry we have a posteriori arguments. They exist for a particular world. That's the only, I mean that's like the baseless

argument. So I think he takes these things for granted. So, I don't know, Ben anything Yeah, it takes these things for granted. And so, am I, I don't know, Ben, anything on this? I mean, it's, yeah, to me there was a problem of separating the formal from, Yeah, I mean, from any kind of... Like, sort of separating formal structure from the conditions by which those structures came to be.

Sure. And just, you know, the very basic fact of, you know, how do you talk about... I mean, yeah, there could be a world of different chemistry and different physics, but then the way in which you conceive or the way in which certain cognitive structures occur, but then maybe the way in which logic is expressed may also come out differently. And I always find it strange that logic is one of the few things that we think ultimately can be divided from some kind of material ground. I always find it a bit, you know, just because something is maximally assignable assignable to multiple things.

You know, it doesn't mean that it's... It can be completely separated from the particular nested conditions, physical, chemical, biological, you know, solar, whatever. It means that the same amount of logic would... The same process of logic would produce different outcomes chemically and physically, right? Yeah, because I always get the other way around. This part of me to see worlds as sort of consistent and contained in the way he wants them to be.

Could we say that a world is a system of logic and arithmetic for him? No. For him. I mean, it is a priori condition. Okay, I mean, I'll let this go if I'm being a mosquito in the room about all of this, but what is it that we can't imagine a world in which 2 plus 2 equals 5? it's not as if there's no place in this world

in which 2 plus 2 doesn't equal 5 I mean to somebody I've made that mistake and in saying that you implicate the logic of our world and these other worlds which are supposed to be self-contained so I just don't see how this comes together But I'll admit, I could not make it through this text, so I'll stop. I appreciate the antagonism, so you keep going. As long as you want to say anything, go ahead. I mean, it's a fundamental issue with truth conditionals that you're having, right? They're constructed differently in fiction. I mean, I'm not entirely sure.

I just, I don't know, I don't need to antagonize, I'm just, I feel frustrated that I can't see how this is supposed to connect. Okay. Well, hopefully we'll get there. And that's probably fine. Because, honestly, this is, you know, I've read about it through Echo, but never actually had read the Lewis text until this session, so this is actually quite interesting for me to pull apart as well. And, yeah, the thing about, and Ben has his own issues with this, with the separation of logic and material ground,

I think all of us are kind of, all have our stipulations about it. And I think when we try to talk about City in the City, it's actually going to be quite... It's going to be difficult, and I think it's going to bring new questions. I hope it's going to bring new questions to the sets. Yeah, and I just want to say that it's not that I couldn't make it through the Lewis because it... It was only because it, I don't know, it was a little too dense and analytical for me to follow. It's not, I don't mean to antagonize it,

is all I'm saying. Okay, I mean, if you wanted to, I think it's fine too. So. It's an analytic project that is in another possible world, isn't it? It's sort of made as difficult for us. Okay, now that's got me very interested. Like Lewis is, I forget the name of the book inside of the man in the high castle.

somehow it's made its way into our universe. I think so. It's the only explanation I have for it. I think, well, maybe, Derek, you don't want to talk about this, but I know we were talking about how you had presented, you presented a little bit on possible worlds from a different aspect, from the Leibniz, Deleuze, Guattari aspects. I'm wondering, I'm just wondering your thoughts on reading this text and how, sort of like where you find gaps between the two or where you find maybe some, where one works better than the other,

where one is sort of like answering to some of these questions maybe. Hmm. I don't know, I mean I think, I mean I couldn't really speak about this, the text. we've read. I mean, I didn't get through it. I couldn't get through it. I mean, for me, it's like, I mean, I'm still struggling. It's like, what do we mean by the possible? What does Lewis mean by the possible? I think that's perhaps would be a good place to start a discussion. I mean the difference so I guess the difference there is I was just thinking that's the

difficulty with my kind of thinking about possible worlds and certainly in the work I've been looking at within Deleuze and Guattari's use of possible worlds, you know, kind of a kind of plane of the possible, you know, where kind of art exists or what art contributes to. Fiction, music, you know, these things are on this plane of possibility. That seems very different to Lewis's, I guess, approach.

Right, if we use the metaphor of the folding, right, in Deleuze-Gautry, in Watt's philosophy, we have the actual, which is all of the possible worlds enfolded, right? All of the possible worlds subsist and exist within, which the artist is like a molder of the material and sort of unfolds sections of this, if you think in Michel Steyr, like a crumpled paper or a handkerchief, right? He's just unfolding certain sections. And that's what the artist has the ability to sort of do.

And I'm trying to, well, and then fiction, but there is a major gap, the obvious gap is between the definition of truth, truth value, I think is what major, which is a major separation between these two, and which kind of like... Yeah, truths of existence, maybe. Truths of existence. Sure. Yes. And in general, I guess. Sort of... But I'm trying to think if I can... If the logic of sense here makes sense, if it can make meaning of this sort of ground,

but I don't think I have anything on it. I'm just thinking out loud. One of the really interesting things about the Lewis book, I think, is right at the beginning, the avoidance or the disclaimer about the whole Leibniz, Leibnizian kind of possible worlds. Lewis not being, what does he say, anything you might say will be amateurish. And best left unsaid. Do you actually know exactly? Do you have a... Well, that's right in the introduction, I think. Yeah, it's in the book.

What does he say? It may come as a surprise that this book on possible worlds also contains no discussion of the views of Leibniz. And I think that's, you can see in, you know, if Leibniz has this kind of glass pyramid of infinite possible worlds, right at the top he has the God or the being that kind of the god or the being that kind of selects, that Deleuze replaces with the chaosmos or something. But Lewis talks about, his reference is kind of flatland, the abbot kind of flatland,

So that's kind of quite interesting, how he sort of lays out this flattened structure. Yeah, sorry, rambling. I think it's interesting what you're saying right now. I'm just trying to get to that example. So it's on page three that, so it really, you know. Yeah, the preface where he's talking about Leibniz, right? Yeah, yeah. He's saying that he considered, he says that when he, yeah, he says he can't, it's not, it's persuaded to say it's no easy matter to know what his views are when he reads serious historians of philosophy.

But he says that, yeah, he's saying he's no expert, right? he would be, he would feel inadequate, I guess, to approach Leibniz's philosophy, which is sad, I wish you would, because I think in a lot of ways we have some interesting relations between the two, but I'm sure somebody has done that. I guess we're more used to being amateurs right now. It's like what we all do. Yeah, I'm an amateur for a living. I find it interesting that Lewis considers Leibniz a non-possible world.

You want to find a non-... I'm sorry, all I heard was a non-possible world. Sorry, I think it's interesting. Hopefully I'm not losing. my connection. I hear you now. In the quote that Ben posted, he seems to be saying that the world of Leibniz is not a possible world. That all there is is like exegesis of Leibniz and not any kind of logic, I guess. Okay, that's an interesting way of reading it. Or too many kinds of logic. Yeah, I think he said, yeah, he's trying to, in a very short one paragraph, a sentence

trying to say that, why did I write this giant book and I don't even talk about Leibniz once. And basically to say he's no expert, but I feel that it's lacking in the text, that he's not approaching it, but that's probably just my preference. So I guess we're... Derek, you mentioned once that... mentioned in the beginning of this talk that, or the beginning of what we just did when

I asked you the question was that you would like to know more about his definition of a possible world, right? I guess of, yeah, of the possible even. Oh, the possible, okay. Yeah, I mean, mostly, you know, I tend to have worked within that sort of Deleuze-Ghutari kind of area where the kind of possible, this discussion of the possible is, you know, it's kind of quite, I guess, quite complicated, isn't it?

Just in, it's not a straightforward thing to talk about a relation between the possible and the real. Yeah, I think with the DG stuff, the best way I've been able to sort of understand it is like the earlier Deleuze, difference in repetition, and when he's talking about the the possible and the theory of the other in context of the real. Yeah, I think that there's almost three ways, I think. Well, there's certainly two. There's the Leibniz and Borges, and there is the faciality and the other, which they

They will be the two ways I would say that that would work. The kind of frightened face I think is how Deleuze puts it in difference in repetition. The frightened face. I've been in a thousand times in this bar. Sorry, I didn't want to take us away from the Lewis text. I mean, it's kind of... I think we'll kind of come back to it. I'm trying to think of how to frame Lewis as possible in the sense of how it might relate

or not relate to how Lewis is talking about our effects. I mean, for him, right, he defines, in Lewis he defines, I'll try to, let me try to explicate it to see if I can connect. But in Lewis he's defining modal realism, right, as a very simple thesis on page three of the PDF right after the Leibniz thing. He's saying that it's, that there are other worlds, right, and other individuals inhabiting these worlds, and that these are of a certain nature, and they're suited to play certain theoretical rules. I don't know, it seems, he says it's an existential claim. And I

think it's interesting here, he says, when he says this claim is not unlike what I would be if I were to say that Loch Ness monsters or red moles in the CIA or counter examples of Berman's conjecture or seraphim. So he's saying that in some way this is a system, and this is what I was trying to get at earlier, it's a system of belief, I think. Okay. Petra, I like the joke. It's probably true, actually. So it's...

We'd better all unread or we're all in danger. But... So... Yeah, to try to explicate what the possible is for him is that there... It's to be able to... I don't know if this is true, but to be... Actually, I'll pose it back as the question because I'm not really sure, but is it to think otherwise is possible? And, of course, we're having in the beginning a difficulty with actually defining for Lewis what a world even meant. So we're having sort

of... Yeah, I mean when Ben was introducing earlier, it sounds like for Lewis the world is a universe. I think it's an enclosed complete system is a world. That's the—I know I've said that a few times now, but that's like the clearest that I'm able to make of this is that it's a—that, I mean, right in the beginning in the thesis of plurality of worlds, he says the world in which we live is a very inclusive thing, So obviously we know there's a lot of, every, there's a lot of, it's a system.

And so there are things like stones, sticks, and the planet Earth, the solar system, the entire Milky Way, the remote galaxies, these things that we see through telescopes, right, so then again he's talking about these things in which we can perceive, which are indexical, that are here, which exist within our realm, within our world. And then simply put, we live within a countless number of plurality of worlds, however, because if we don't exist within that world. And I guess I'm repeating Ben's thing.

It's an issue with place. It's the fact that we're placed within this system which makes it different from the countless number of other possible worlds that also exist. So it's spatially inclusive in that we have all these things in place, but he also says that the world is also inclusive in time. So no longer on ancient Romans, no longer on pterodactyls, no longer on primordial clouds of plasma are too far in the past. So it takes on an element of deep time as well, which is very difficult.

But I mean, this is his definition, it seems to be inclusive, an inclusive, and I would say determinant system. But if anybody wants to say anything different or correct me or anything. No. He also says it's the way things are.

It's a very reactive element of what the world is. The way things are. How analytical. Yeah, the world is just the way things are because we exist in them and we can index them. and they're isn't that helpful sure go ahead I'm sorry go ahead Catherine

quotes here causation cannot flow between worlds But implication can. Sorry, I don't know. I'm sorry, I'm going to step back. No, I mean, I think in that sense you're actually bringing up something really interesting in the Deleuze and Grottery sense in the sense that all worlds, all possible worlds, worlds are implicated in the actual world. And I don't know if, and I think if we were to say this in the sense of Lewis, all possible worlds are implicated in the actual world

because of the logic and arithmetic. But I'm not sure, I mean, I could... Well, yeah, yeah, I agree. Like even, well, I don't know if I agree, but if we can imagine 2 plus 2 equaling 5 but not a world without gravity, then all of these Luizian possible worlds are implicated in whether or not 2 plus 2 equals 5. Okay, yeah, sure. Right, as, what did you say? Just as things are. The way things are, yes.

Very conservative definition. Hey guys, can you hear me? Hi, how are you? Yes, I can. Hi, sorry for being a bit late, but, well, what do you think if we put it a bit, if we we try to approach it in a naive way and just say what we like and what we don't like about Lewis. For example, what I like is that his definition of world sounds very much to me as a definition of the object from an object-oriented ontology logical view. The thing you said, like worlds are things, universes, they are closed, but nevertheless never fully, you

We can never fully grasp them, they withdraw. I mean, we could maybe fill in some of our definitions we have about objects coming from a speculative realist view. But what I don't like, or is, I mean, to anticipate the theme of the subject of next week, is that the world is always a thing that is totally given. I mean, if we think about Marcus Gabriel, who says there is no world, and the same for guys like Timothy Morton or whoever. I mean, you know what I mean. Like, the givenness of this world is, for me, problematic. The same is if we talk about what is possible, then I'm not sure.

I mean, there is also, I mean, right after, it's not right after, but it's somewhere in the beginning, where he says that if I'm not, if I'm, wait a second, I'll try to look for it. So it's the first page, like page five of the PDF, where he says, had I not been such a commonsensical chap, I might be defending not only a plurality of possible worlds, but also a plurality of impossible worlds. So the other point of critique would be, is his notion of contingency interesting enough and open enough to really, I mean, you know, approach the subject of the possible as maybe we can find in Deleuze or wherever. So what I like is the object-oriented OOO approach. For example, that's really right

in the beginning where he says that it's not about an epistemological thing, it's really about ontology. What I don't like is that he, from the beginning, really narrows the concept or the notion of the contingent to something possible which would be something we can imagine but maybe there is more we can't even imagine so far or now or whatever so yeah I just have a question for you like Tim Morton says so can we consider um... I think the similarity that you pointed out is worth pursuing, and Tim Morton is always talking about what he calls the infinite inner space of all of these withdrawn objects.

is it within that inner space that these other worlds have contained? Or are you saying that it just bears a resemblance to the language that they're using? I don't know. Was this a question for me? Yes. Yeah, yeah. The problem is I didn't really get to because there were lots of, the connection wasn't very good, but I mean, I recently read a book called something, Minimal Ethics Anthropocene. It is by Joanna Silinska, maybe somebody knows it.

And I mean, what I really like is that she talks about all that things, like it's about ethics in the Anthropocene. What is ethics in the Anthropocene? and she's using a lot Tim Morton, but she doesn't narrow, she doesn't fix the ontological categories from the beginning. I think Tim Morton doesn't do that. I think it's more Harmon, guys like Graham Harmon who do that. But I really like that approach because she just says, I don't know what objects are. I don't even know if they withdraw. I don't even know and so on and so on. She just starts to use some concepts that can be found in that field of theory and then she just tries to make an ethics out of it. So I think I really,

for me this gesture was really revealing to express that very like this confession on confession on the first page like to say, okay, this is common sense, analytical philosophy, and I only talk about possible worlds and not about impossible worlds. So there is like a rift in the possible. And there is still something that stays impossible and is like non grata or whatever. And why do we have to do that? I mean, if this is, I mean, the chapter is called Philosopher's Paradise, so why don't you go even further? But at the same time, I like the gesture that he just says, okay, that's what I am, that's where I am, that's who I am,

and I just do it like this, and you can recognize it, and you can criticize it, or you can buy it, or whatever. Sure, I think that's good. I think that's actually quite a good response to, you know, sort of the things that I've been kind of obsessed with today, which is the idea of the a priori world that's given to us, which is based on logic and arithmetic for him. he's not trying to think anything out in a sense he's presenting himself to say that I might be talking about these things but there's a reason why I'm narrowing it

and I only talk about things that pertain a different way maybe to say it is that he's only talking to things that pertain to what he's defining as moral realism which is based on truth conditional logic. So anything outside of that possible worlds theory could not contain, I guess. And we did talk about Samir, if you go to the Anthropocene course that Carlos talked earlier this year, he did a session on this text.

actually did like most of the work was building towards this book here, this Minimal Ethics for Anthropocene. So if it is something you've just read and you're interested in, that's a good place to go to look. Ben's been very shy today, so I want to pull him out of this muted state and ask him if he wants to say anything in response to Samir's questions or Derek's or Petro's? I mean, no, I'm always happier when other people talk. It's better for the class, always. I think it's interesting about Lewis's notion of possibility

as opposed to actuality in that, you know, we talked about it in terms of location and the world in which we're in, and it often has this particular kind of temporal kind of temporal side to it, in that but that's only detectable through statements, right, it's really about language, it's about claims we can make, and so, like, you know, for him, possibility is really just that which explains how, you know, Moodle statements function, like, you could have done this and that would have happened, as opposed to saying you did this and that happened, right? So in that sense, the kind of time series

locates us in the actual world, because that happened and now we're here, as opposed to the fact that this other thing could have happened and something else would have occurred. So I think, really, you know, The possibility is just, for him, it's this very functional, basic aspect of making statements like this could have been, right? It's just that which is not necessary or impossible. It's just that kind of large category of claims that's somewhere in between. and so I think that's why on the one hand I kind of understand why he would limit it in a sense because it's already such a huge you know like he says it's an overcrowded world

so I think yeah I mean I think it's interesting that he limits it to that and other people have worked on Impossible Worlds following him so could you tell us Who has worked on Impossible Worlds? Because I'd be interested in looking at that. Besides, I think Kripke introduced it, I think. But then it also comes up in fictionalism, which is related to Impossible Worlds. I think Steven Yablo is one of them. I can get the reference really quick. Oh, I think Grand Priest is also another big feature.

Oh yeah, this guy, M. Yeiko. I'll write it down. Ben, when you were just talking about the temporality, it sounded as though Lewis constructs

sort of possibles retroactively? Do you think that's the case? Like, you can only extrapolate from... You can only extrapolate possibles from the actual. I mean, I think you can have statements that are future-oriented, but still about possibility. We could say, like, I could do this. Right, that's still about possibility. But I think in splitting actuality from possibility, it has to be retroactive. In a sense, right, because you don't know what's going to happen,

but you know what happened as opposed to what didn't happen, at least in some narrow sense. Like, you know, you rolled the die, and you got this number instead of that number. so yeah there's a kind of the split between them is retroactive but I don't think it has the possibility it can still be projective because you could say I could do this right now and then you could or couldn't and that's yeah not retroactive right but it's based on the conditions of the actual of the world in which we're enclosed Right, in the form of the claim you make within that Yeah, so then the possible is still

within the realm of the conditions of the actual in a sense, right? Well, I guess it is, but also the world is so huge that it's not really clear what the tension is between the hugeness of the world and the location in the hugeness of the world, in terms of making claims even about possibility because there's still probably a spectrum in terms of what's more or less possible and then you can be more or less certain about how projective that might be or even how actual that might be like you could say I could you could say I could do something impossible for instance and then that gives kind of a weird yeah if you say

if you say that do we do we transfer from a realm of possible into a realm of fictional or do we have to further us like if you're speaking about something that's well to say something is impossible might be fun but to say a sentence that has no truth conditional value to it can for instance like fictional sentence which is not necessarily true not necessarily false I mean, do we have to, when we're speaking with Louis, do we have to, is that why maybe we're separating the two, or do we have to jump into the starting thing about fictionalizing, is the question?

Yeah, no, it could be, I mean, it's possible, right? If it's a case, I don't know, I mean that's, yeah. Not a good question. So, I guess we're gonna take a break here in a little bit, but it did take, we'll take a 10 minute break, maybe in about 10 to 15 minutes. I'd like to leave the last 15 minutes maybe, I think we've pulled out what we can of questions that we're gonna get out of Lewis, but maybe we can try, since we're at this point now, to try to define further, we've tried to kind of explore and define possible worlds,

what a world is, what a possibility is, based on Lewis with the theoretical method. Let's try to say maybe a little bit about like, fictionality, And I want to say maybe a few things. Maybe go back to, because Ben, when you were talking, you mentioned something about, I think you said fictionality theory or something of this. I don't know exactly what genre of thought you're talking about here. So I'd like to just say a little bit about it. But I guess a major distinction, right, is...

One major distinction is based on semantic value, right? The fictional... Fictionality is not purely semantic, and you can't set truth conditionals that are valid for all types of fiction, whereas you can set truth conditionals, apparently, for all types of possible. But I guess, so you have, in a sense, you have fictional semantics and you have Lewis's modal semantics. And of course this is, to go without saying this, also there's many criticisms that fictional

worlds make no reference to anything outside the text. They do not have semantic features because of this. So a sentence is neither true or false. But there are many different ways to approach that, depending on who you're thinking of. I know one good text in terms of fictionality, or one good text that I would recommend is Gregory Curry's text. It is the nature of fiction, pretty basic text, but I think it's quite good for this. Because he's defining...

He thinks that fictional texts do have semantic properties, but concepts of truth and truth and fiction are different for him. is going to distinguish the difference between truth and truth and fiction. Whereas, so for instance, we could fictionalize and say that 2 plus 2 equals 5 in a story in a world, whereas that's a false truth condition in real life and the way things are. Fictionalism. Okay, thank you. I'll just read this, I guess.

But fictionalism, Ben says this, about a region of discourse can provisionally be characterized as the view that claims made within discourse are not best seen as aiming at literal truth, but are best regarded as a sort of fiction. So this is, I would say, like Gregory Curry's in this realm, right, in this realm of discourse. So as you'll see, this first characterization of fictionalism is in several ways rough, but it is useful. It is useful point of departure. Okay. And then there's a link to this. Is Gregory Curry in this? I'm wondering.

But I mean, so this is the obvious difference between a possible world and a fictional world, is based on these truth values, these truth conditions, and in Lewis's case it's a semantic distinction. And there's some silence. Is that clear? Is there any questions that you problematize it. I was going to say that I think it's was it Gregory Curry you mentioned? Yes. The nature of victory.

I think he also has something to say about possible worlds having like to like a contingent aspect and a kind of like contingency and futurity being caught up in the idea of possible worlds which I thought was interesting as well. I'll try and dig out the quote. He does, I'm trying to look for it as well. Right. I mean, he He's very critical of applying, right, the possible world's theory.

I know that he's very critical of applying possible world's theory to literature. And, like, I'm not sure exactly on your citation, so if you can give me that, that would be very nice. Yeah, that might be someone else. Might be trying off this. Curry's main... Okay, because Curry's main... Curry's main criticism is this determinate indeterminacy between possible worlds and fictional worlds, I guess, that I was entering earlier.

So the fact that it's impossible for any reader to decide whether the statement in a fiction is true or false, right? This is Nature of Fiction, page 54. It says, if on the basis of the information presented in the text, it is impossible for the reader to decide whether a given statement is true in the fiction or not, then the statement is neither true nor false. But I don't know about contingency, I'm sorry. No, I think it was, I was only really, you know, this thing about impossibility is really

interesting, I think. And I'm just thinking about the last session with my issue and contingency and the future possibility of the impossible, I guess. I don't know how you phrase it but kind of extremes of contingency let's say that's quite interesting in relation to the discussion earlier about impossible worlds the possibility of impossible worlds okay I think that's

yeah that's quite interesting talk to put on the table, I don't know if, we'll re-approach hopefully. But I think to make the connection is nice. I mean, with, so males' aspect of contingency is that things could be otherwise, right, so, but that we, yeah, I would like to table it for now. Maybe come back. Yeah, I guess including the possibility of, you know, a godlike being reinserting themselves at the top of Leibniz's pyramid. All right, so, I did find, I am still looking,

I did find a text by Currie on characters and contingency, but I'm not sure if that's mine. Sorry, I'll look in a second if we take a break or something. He says that the contingency of events in this and in other stories is important. The story would affect us in quite a different way if we were thought to be working out a necessity. Yeah, this is mostly on... So maybe it'll help, but I'll look to it as well. I would say, does... Ben, if you have one last thing you might want to say about fictional worlds,

will you ask? And then if anybody else has anything, we'll take a... After that, we'll take a ten-minute break, come back, and we can discuss the novel. But Ben, if you don't, if you're satisfied, we can just break now. BEN FRIEDMANN BELCHERMANN Yeah, I say we just take a break now. BEN FRIEDMANN Okay. Everybody else OK with a break? Or do you want to say one last thing about this? We don't include this and we want to move on. OK. Fine, let's take a 10 minute break. We'll be back at 6.45. My time, 11.45. People in Ireland. at your time you care and and then the other half but your argument i try to learn some air and burn are

or thank you for being christian since Thank you.

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All right, I would ask if we can start coming back. I'll touch that. Daniel, you'll have to let me know if you're here, because you've had your camera off, so I'm not sure.

Okay. Okay. So, Yeah, we'll spend the last, we have about 45 minutes to discuss this book. And like the first half, if we can, I mean, I thought the first half was actually quite useful and quite helpful. We were all kind of like throwing out questions and discussing rather than just having my mundane voice or Ben likes to have more people talking anyway. So we can kind of take a naive approach, and like Samir took him a first text, and perhaps

we can just say a little bit about what we appreciated about the text, what we didn't like about the text, and maybe a little bit about maybe if we can start thinking about questions in the realm of this possible fictional impossible actual virtual world and I think this has this book this this novel is extremely interesting one for for the fact that the Mievo this is a text that's sort of different for him and he takes on a crime drama genre there are no monsters as you know we normally seen this text, however they are most, I think. All right, so Derek, you're opening us up with this quote

there, do you want to say something? About it, or you just, no, no, no, okay, sorry. And there's such a great bit that precedes that part of the quote. We should go to it, don't we? Well, I don't know. I'll try to be as brief as possible because it's not really all that much to do with the city of the city, I think. But going back to possible worlds, Dominic in Cold World says something to the effect, and I'm paraphrasing, which I'm sure he would hate.

But, uh, um, he says, like, Schopenhauer being, um, too optimistic in his pessimism, uh, doesn't realize that, um, this isn't only the worst of all possible worlds, um, it's worse than the worst of all possible worlds because this world is impossible. I think that's fascinating And then It goes on to say what Derek Says, not only is another world Possible, but the present world is impossible It's very apparent is a kind Of ontological mishap Like the shoulder of the real I think that's great It's a book that I need

But unfortunately I have not read I need to read that And now maybe it's going to start it up in this first whole movie. However, I don't know if I'm doing it yet. Yeah, I think it would be very interesting. I mean, I haven't read the whole world that, you know, it's your reference, Petra, that pointed me at it. but I do think that City in the City does seem like a kind of disorder of the real. Yeah, that's a very good point.

I mean, I think one of the things in reading it that struck me and in reading it in parallel with thinking about possible worlds was just how, and actually it started at the beginning of the discussion today, was how popular notions of parallel worlds, the kind of philosophical possible worlds and fictional worlds, get kind of, they're very kind of interpenetrating at the moment, I think.

And I think that's quite interesting. When you're reading City in the City, it's easy to forget at times that you're not really seeing a kind of... You're not reading a parallel world science fiction, science fantasy novel. You're reading something weirder than that. Yeah, yeah. A homicide detective caught in a disorder of the real. It's good if you would put it. Sure, and I think even with the setup, right, even the setup of the two cities and then

the city in between, and then the possible or impossible place, right, in which the archaeologist is trying to, that believes in, right, who believes in this world, you have a lot, I think, a lot of, like, interesting questions, I mean, not about the metaphysics of the perceivable of, I mean, you can think about this politically in a much different sense with the seeable and the stable, but just in the sense of the fact that you could have, I think one thing that this brings up of interest is this idea of isolation, because in order for him to

sort of, I think in order for Mabel to sort of produce this text in an aesthetic manner, He has to take this principle of isolation into account, right, as a setup to sort of reveal this sort of in-between world. But also to speak a little bit about, to Derek and to Petra earlier, in this sort of enmeshing in the world, It's quite difficult not to read this as an allegory, even though Mievo in most interviews is sort of like, kind of goes towards more the metaphor than the allegory, but the allegory

between the Gaza Strip. So you have this sort of like salient actual events occurring, and you have, and what the weird in this is this sort of, I think the weird in this sort of confusion between this fictional world and its city-states, its proper names, and then actual proper names like Berlin and Gaza and these things. And I think this sort of confusion is part productive. And it is a confusion. Mabel has spoken on that metaphor and says it has something to

do with that, but that's not what I'm trying to say necessarily. I mean, specifically speaking to the gods of Palestine. And, you know, the terrifying wall and the breach, you know, he acknowledges that it has something to do with that, but also wants to be much weirder than that. Yeah, sure, this is why I think it's much better to think in terms less of allegory where we're trying to sort of think of it as a fictionalized story about this actual event, rather than, or to think of it more in terms of how he, or how I assume him to think of a metaphor as this sort of infinite possibilities,

sort of like aesthetic play with the metaphor, because it has extra, like an extra aesthetic value to it. And, yeah, so, I mean, these are just my initial thoughts to reading it when trying to think about, also when trying to think of this existence between possible and fictional. And I think what's one thing also is that there are levels, so that's right, there are levels to the reader and the fictional world in itself being a multi-layered possible worlds world. And then there's of course the actual fictional world in itself which is dealing with the

logic of possible worlds. So we could talk about that on either layer. Of course we're going to have different... If we approach the text from a readership perspective and taking the world of City in the City itself as a fictional world, then we're going to have a different approach rather than if we think inside of the text. So these are just my initial thoughts. Anybody else want to say any initial thoughts about reading this text? Sameer? Yeah, just one initial thought was that the very claim of the isolation and the separateness

of these two worlds is ideological. I mean... Yeah. So, that questions the whole ideological potential of this concept of isolation. I think that's a great thing, and I just want to sort of reiterate that he says, that Lewis says it's the way things are. It's the way things are under an ideology that is policed by an unthinkable force that terrifies everybody. Sorry, the way things are can also be critical. I mean, if we think again about Morton, for him it's always, I mean, accuracy is always a critical move.

If you look at things how they are, we will, like, you know, strip off this ideology of the world, and we will see that it's actually one place that has, you know. I mean, I really like the analogy of the Gaza Strip, because there we have this blur of, like, those worlds are isolated, but they are also at the same place. at the same time, so it's neither one nor the other thing, so... And Morton, I think when Morton talks about that, unless he's changed his stance on this, he calls it the mesh, right, that objects are enmeshed, and that's cross-hatching inside the text of the city and the city.

And it's so interesting that the world that takes place within the border that you cross through, where you walk into a door and then you walk out the very same door into another city, right? It's something that kind of unifies, I don't know, like this cross-hatching becomes something of a higher order. I don't quite know how to say what I'm thinking here. I'm trying to...

Yeah, I... Sorry, Petra, I had you up until that last statement. Well, I guess what I'm trying to say... So there's the building in which you can, with a passport, move from one city to the other, right? the other, right? And this is the only instance in which these worlds share, I don't know. They share, ladies, in a sense of confusion of where you are, right? When you're in the

station they never, I think it's like chapter 24, like they say right in the beginning is that they went to the, they left the station, right, and they didn't know which world they were in, it was sort of liminal, it's like the building is a liminal space between the the but or its kind of fly a a you notified real air who actually and I guess that's how I want to put it you know like it's the one instance of the unified real in which this ideology

of isolation is not like what seems like a supernatural force, the breach, right? And it's that, like, to take it back to Morton, I mean only because I think the language is really interesting, and I guess this is Harmon really, about how objects withdraw, it's violating that withdrawal that invokes the breach, right? It's like it's crossing over that isolation, which should be, which is by law impossible. Yeah, it's like reversing Hamlet's, the famous Hamlet quote,

that time is out of joint life, and this is like space is out of joint energy, it's not temporal. Yeah, exactly. And I think, in a way, you can look at the spatial qualities of the city and the city and the city. It is like an old illustration of the cosmos, right? like a pre-Caperican or whatever world of not quite concentric domains that

meet in this building and it kind of implies a limit of thought like the edge of the thinkable I don't know. I've lost it. I'll step back. Yeah, well, I mean, I think what you're trying to explain is that you have these, like, the confusion or the sort of aspect of not knowing is that these two spaces are literally folded on top of, within one another, right? They're folded over one another. So there's a difference here between... space and maybe what we can think more ideologically, we can think of, there's like a, if we want

to speak about it clearly, we can speak about space and place. Because you're placed in two different worlds, but spatially they're one and the same, I don't know if that makes sense. Trying to sort of pull this out. It's not, maybe it's not that they're one and the same, but that they're like co-possible in a way. Like, I don't know. I hesitate to use this word, but like dialectical. And then what we learn, like as the mystery unfolds, is that there is this third, like

There is this third city underneath it all, right, that confuses that, what we could call a dialectical relationship between the two cities. It's like a pre-synthesis or something, I don't know. So, one question I guess it's less about, or I guess in a very tangential way it relates, but it's more of a question I want to kind of put out, is that you have, I don't know

I don't know how to pronounce the city, so I apologize there, but Orsini is this place in between. And we have this sort of connection coming up at the end of the book, like rounding around 19, 20, where Orsini as we know it is this sort of like, this is the city in between, and it represents the spatial representation. But then you have the connection with that, with the breach, and it represents the sort of agency. But the... I guess the question that comes here is that,

this is the first time that I noticed that there's a possibility that these two are the same thing, or the same entity or something in that sense. But I don't know if that's... Opposed, but unified? Yeah, you sort of have the spatial... I mean, nobody knows much about either or, right? One is represented sort of as the agency, and the other is represented as the city is in itself, but what? But could they just be two perspectives of the same thing, right? One being the city and one being the agency of the city, or the agency of the government, the governmentality.

This is another confusion, sort of like possibility, I think, which is interesting in this world. Yeah, that is interesting. What do you think about, I mean, the setting is very weird and crazy, but the language is very un-weird and un-crazy. What does this do? I mean, it's a novel, no? So if it's a novel, we would call weird fiction. The language seems to be very simplistic very often. I mean, there is one quote I just wrote down. I don't remember where it is, but it has to be in the first third. There's weird shit out there. There's weird shit going on. Also, to say, sorry, Petra, but just really quickly.

Just to exaggerate this, I mean, there's weird shit out there. If we're talking about Tim Morton, the mesh, it's, no, it's about, there is no outside. I mean, he's talking about ambiant poetics. He's talking about the entanglement, being inside. There is no outside. There is no world. There's just a biosphere, and there's no distinction of organism, no clear distinction, at least, of organisms and the environment. So, I mean, this is really a challenge for our preconceived conceptions about how we think our being in the world. and this is really weird but at the same time a weird that connects to the reality will live through but if I have a setting that seems to be very weird

but if I have a language that is that is just a very simplistic I mean that's I didn't read the whole novel so I can't say how it turns out in the end but this was the my my kind of ss sceptic skeptical impression from the beginning So, like, just to make it clear to me, you mean, like, the language of the narration or the language of the dialogue or all of it just seems like, I mean, like prosaic or something or just not weird enough? Yeah, kind of all of it, but of course the dialogues could be unweird and it would make sense, but if there is no weirdness in it at all. It seems to be the description of

a very weird world in very worldish words. Where's the point? Well, maybe the point is to, how did Lewis put it? To show the world as it is or something. Maybe it's better to talk, you know, maybe we come closer to the weird without weirding language as we approach it. At least in the text, I think. Yeah, and also, I guess it was interesting to me that this is a medieval novel without monsters or any of the weird aspects already in it.

But also that he chose the—yeah, I know, the liminal space, right, the symbolic space could be considered a monster in itself. Space in itself is considered a monster, but the— Light and shadow are kind of a monster, right, and homicide is kind of a monster. Sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted. No, I think you're correct. I just think monster in the sense of the fantasy aspect of it, not monster as an evil. But also, in this novel, he's taking the form of a detection novel, of a crime novel. So a lot of it is to rationalize reason with this world,

and perhaps this is one explanation for the sort of, simplistic language, sort of trying to take it from this perspective. I wanted to say that to see if I can bring Catherine into this, but I don't know if she will want to say something, because she's been working on detective genres and hyperstition, and she posted on our classroom a work that she just did that's getting published very soon. I just saw proof of the book, actually. And they shared it on the classroom, if nobody's read it, but I just want to know if you wanted

to say maybe a little bit about either that work or... I suppose so. I was kind of, sorry, yeah, I was, in terms of The City and the City, I, like, agree with Samir that it's kind of, it's very, like, it's very kind of realistic, like, the way it's written in terms of it doesn't engage with its own weirdness so much, and even the kind of, the conclusion seems to me to indicate that it's not necessary that there actually be any metaphysic weirdness going on at all. If it's just a political separation maintained in the minds of the occupants, it's like ideology is enforced by the breach. I mean, it doesn't make a difference

really to the weirdness of living in the cities, which doesn't relate to the texts that Cleve and myself wrote, but that's my takeaway from the city of the city. Yeah, our, our, our text is in the Seraphil anthology. It's coming out on Wednesday. It's probably more about time travel and from that vantage point. I kind of lost myself in this train of thought. It would be really great. Well, yeah, I just wanted you to basically introduce it to the class so they can go on

and read it. I think it was very nice of you to share with us. Maybe we could, if we have some time at the end of the Cisco section, or we can talk about it and these things. I just thought it was a good time to maybe bring up that text. Yeah, thank you. Thanks very much. Yeah, our text deals with specifically Douglas Adams' work. So I guess kind of indicates a broader interest in the effect of metaphysics on crime and detection, which obviously relates to The City and the City. But, yeah, not that I don't want to say too much about it.

I could reiterate it here, sorry, it's in the, Samir, it's in the classroom, it's called Murder by Telephone Numbers, and it relates pretty strongly to Improbability, that would be its main connection. Of these, and like, as is the case with, like, hyperstition generally, of course, like, the moment that we finished writing it, I discovered that I started reading Encarnadine, which came out I think earlier this year or late last year, which is like couldn't be... it's like... I don't want to say it's like the perfect hyperstition detective novel, but like it's pretty good and it deals a lot

with improbability and using fiction and selfistry and chaos as a murder weapon, and as a method of detection. Okay, that sounds very interesting. Sorry if that's unclear. Please. I think it's interesting. I would say, I would recommend that we should maybe try to, it's not too long, it's 19 pages

or something. Maybe it's shorter than that. But, yeah, 18 pages. Yeah, if anybody has any feedback, I think it would be nice. And we could talk about, like, because one thing I was interested in was his choice for the detective genre for this. Yeah, I can say a little bit to that as the official China-Mietville apologist. So, not that what he imagines his project is should have everything to do with what the project is, in the spirit of hyperstition.

but he talks about writing the book in a very specific way which was it's quite unlike everything else that he's written and one thing that he was really determined to do was to was like quote follow the rules and not cheat and there Whereas in the readership of detective fiction, that's something that is, how do I put this, you can't disrespect the reader by not placing prosaic enough clues for them to do the detection

themselves. So he wrote this for detective novel readers, and I think part of the reason why the language is so prosaic is one, on the affect of being a homicide detective, and two, making sure that he doesn't cheat in some way. you know, by not complicating it with intentionally weird language such that the rules are logical, or at least consistent in the way that detective readers, detective fiction readers, all but demand with their, you know, money.

So, that was longer than that. No, I think that's great. I mean, one of the things he does say is that he wrote it for his mother, who is obsessed with damn crime-intensive novels. And she was about to die, is that true? I'm sorry? She was about to die, is that true? I don't know. Yeah, I read this. She was dying, and she said, please write me this novel, or he did it for her, whatever. That's what I read, I think, on Wikipedia, so it's not really secret. But I'm thinking about, I mean, I really get this point and I really like it, but I'm thinking about another writer who writes from what I think is also weird fiction, and it has

also some detective-ish, like, you know, whatever, characters, features in it. It's not detective prose. And it's also very approachable, and he has a huge fan group, at least in his home country, Argentina, and this guy is called Cesar Aira. I don't know if you know him. No, but if you could put it in the chat. Yeah, just put it there. He's about... I mean, in South America, he's like a star. He has written like 19 novels, which are all about 100 pages long and he writes about three novels a year in all possible he publishes in all possible editors

around the South American Latin American continent he's really phenomenal this guy and it's weird fiction but he also he has a deep reflection on the avant-garde he uses different style devices I don't want to criticize Mieville too much I just want to say there is another it's also possible to write or to approach the weird from this kind of linguistic or stylistic angle I think like very clear up until, sorry Petro, sorry I have one short thing to say

that it's a bit it's very clear up until probably about the last chapter I don't know like sort of the breach avatar thing at the end of the novel is sort of like very I don't know it doesn't end as a as clear as normal as a detective novels would do and at the end he kind of weirds it but yeah that's all I wanted to say so Petra it kind of lacks the always required parlor scene we kind of have it with that avatar of the breach, kind of but it's weirder than a parlor scene, right? which is the moment

in the mystery or detective in which it's all unraveled and explicated to the reader and we approach that and then it just gets I don't know, it just leaves the trope in a way. I think that's really interesting. But one thing I wanted to say is that I think we see the same type of language in like Jeff Vandermeer in Annihilation and Authority Authority reminds me a lot of the city and the city. I don't know if you've read that, but there's like the voice that he can never quite tell. Like, this voice that he is beholden to on a telephone

that he can never quite answer to after just being promoted to director of this department exploring this very strange spatial location. and still you have common language being used to tell this exceptionally weird story. I think there's something to be said for that, you know, about both approaches for sure. Yeah, I think I want to back you up there and say I think there is quite an interesting aesthetic quality to be able to talk about something that's seemingly not very complex but it's littered with a massive amount of complexities, I think,

that we end up at the end of this book with. And that happens also, yeah, I'd say Vandermeer's style in that trilogy is quite similar. However, I've never read Cesar Ayura's work, so I couldn't comment too much on it, but I would like to... If there are only 100 pages, I could probably get through one and comment before the end of this. I will. The other obvious reference to style or relation is Brunov Schultz. I don't know if people have read any of Schultz's work. Brunov Schultz is an Eastern European who wasn't... Yeah, you have? Okay, good.

He did a lot of drawings. He had never really published anything, did a lot of short stories. and it's actually if you have the book I don't think it's on the e-book that I shared, but the book starts with the premise from a Bruno Schultz story about this forking road in which two different streets are on the same path so he produced a lot of short stories that are quite interesting and I think he's taking a lot of style and that stuff Good, another one. Yes, thank you for the Schultz thing. I think I have a few texts that I can post by him. I'd probably recommend it. He's very interesting. He's kind of weird but not. Kind of a writer and not.

I guess, I mean this, go ahead I was just thinking one of the things that it's like the way the way cognition is constructed the idea of sort of partially seeing you know you could say this is kind of maybe metaphorical or something. But normally you might say that the sort of seeing, the way we see, or what we see is our possible world, possible world that's kind of structured by powers and potentials.

But this is something that's sort of channeling those powers, those cognitive powers, to kind of... I don't know, I just thought that was... It wasn't just a kind of physical separation, but it was a kind of cognitive separation. It was talking a lot about that. I found that aspect of this kind of novel really interesting. Sure, even when a detective at the end of the novel is, you know, who is the character who's telling, who reveals the avatar or something with an A. But when, you know, the detectives, even within, cannot determine, never can determine which city, you know, that one occupies.

occupies, because the city is always placed in reference to the symbolic agency that is or CINI or whatever, the breach or, I mean, it's a place that, I guess, produces cognitive dissonance in a way. Yeah, that's a very good point, to bring cognition into this. It's almost as if the ideology is that the cognition of the citizens is the spatial architecture,

in a way, of this location, whichever city we're asking this question of. The architecture is in the cognition, in a way. Yeah, and sort of how would somebody like the detective who is able to transgress between worlds, how are you to determine which possible world you are in when you're always in the actual world? I don't know. It's sort of difficult to discuss. There was that sort of rapid sort of mediation of cognition as well.

There's a sort of, I can't remember one of the detective's names, but in moving through from part one of the novel into part two, he goes through this sort of rapid, mediated immersion in order to see in another way, in order to be able to enter the city with someone else's eye. I thought that was kind of, I mean, part of it is sort of very knowing, isn't it? It's very sort of like the embedding of The City in the City as a novel or a kind of text within the book.

It's sort of, it's kind of quite sort of playful in that way as well. It sort of knows its sources. knows how to play its readership in that way. It's doing the same kind of cognitive job on its readers as being done to the occupants of the fictional world. Yeah, exactly. And if we think about the classic archetype of the detective, the detective is somebody

who can move across all classes of society, which is kind of afforded only to detectives. And this is not possible for the detectives in this location. Or it's all they can do. All they can do is transverse one domain into the next without having any clue when they've done so. That's true, but I think also that the detective, Borloo, when he does go into the

I think he's changed by the experience, I think. But it's sort of a new trend. I don't know. Just enough to entice us to continue to think that he is this classical detective archetype that can transverse these domains. And then in the end, we learned that this is somehow weirder than all that. Sure, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's definitely a narrative device to drive the story further.

Because it does change his mind as well on the truth value of the possible worlds, and it changes the entire thing and it becomes a food change. But yes, we are just now at the two and a half hour mark and I don't want to cut off the conversation but I also don't want to keep the people who are like sitting there at two in the morning waiting for this to end. So I would say I'll open the floor to any last minute Comments or suggestions Or I always like book suggestions I've gotten a lot today That's very nice Good relations, relevance

And If there are no questions We can just End the session and continue the discussion Either through Facebook Or through the classroom I wanted to ask Samir, do you have access to the classroom? Samir Bhutaniyavani Yes. Okay. Yeah, so if you have any of those texts you were mentioning, please post them there. That would be nice. I'll look for them as well. But does anybody have any last-minute comments or questions or suggestions or any kind? Well, my question is if, or my suspicion is that the weird is more powerful.

We experience it in a more powerful way if it happens in a genre that isn't supposed to be weird. Like Cesareira, for example, is just novels. We don't know. I mean, now we know if we know the guy. So, because we kind of know what we expect from him, but then also it's unpredictable. But there's also other writers like, you mentioned Bruno Schulz, which is a classical one. Or there's also a French writer called Eric Cheviar, who is, I don't know if he's translated, but he's one of the most interesting French contemporary writers. Not very known, even not in France. But he kind of, it's a kind of writing that plays on logical structures.

He starts with a presupposition and then he just spells out the logical consequences of it. And it gets weirder and weirder and weirder and weirder. So there we don't expect it because it's a very cerebral language and a very cerebral setting. And there is no characters and no story and no plot, nothing. But it turns out to be very uncanny and weird or whatever. And there's also a Portuguese writer. I didn't read him, but a friend of mine told me that he's supposed to be weird in a non-expected way, and his name is Gonzalo Tavares, I can write the name down. So I think I'm more interested in novels that are not really refined to that genre where we really expect it.

Sure, yeah, that already has a basic logic that it's following. And I guess then next week will be very interesting for you, considering the massive difference in prose style between the Sistela and the other. Be speaking more about atmospherics than logical causalities. I guess the only thing I want to throw out from the novel that we haven't talked about, that I don't have much to say about, but that these are... There's one difference between the possible world theory that Lewis presents us and the fact that possibility runs through them, I believe, right?

So this is the same sense. In this one, you have the two cities and then the possible city in which all these cities are possible. You have the two cities and then the symbolic city, but their mutual causality runs between them, which I think is something just as a provocation to put out there, to think further on this. I would ask Petra or Derek or Ben, if you were around. If you have any last comments, if not, we can end the session.

So I'm just going to end.