6 ms·

'A reckoning for our species': the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene

62 points by diodorus 9y ago

pavement 9y ago
Timothy Morton wants humanity to give up some of its core beliefs, from the fantasy that we can control the planet to the notion that we are ‘above’ other beings. So... you're telling me there are too many chiefs, not enough Indians?
sillyquiet 9y ago
This doesn't sound like philosophy so much as a quasi-Gaianistic religion.
biofox 9y ago
Without knowing anything about Tim Morton, other than what's in this article, I'm struggling to see what's novel here. It sounds like the exact same stuff that came out of the environmental movement of the 60s. What am I missing?
- VLM 9y ago
  From a "Two Cultures" analysis the original 60s/70s stuff was discovered by Team Science, think of DDT and Carson and "Silent Spring". That all got co opted away from Team Science and run by Team Humanities which is in charge of propaganda, so as a kid I got to sit in school thru videos and coloring books about Condor birds with no thought beyond playground diplomacy of whos now cool (Condors, apparently) and whos now not cool anymore (Some chemical acronym with Ds and Ts). The new stuff is pure "Team Humanities" from the start, a compelling narrative untainted by science or logic, and it shows. From a distance they do look the same. Its like the difference between a good "Inspired by a true story" cable TV psuedo-documentary movie and a purely fictional movie.
  - philipkglass 9y ago
    Morton's better stuff seems cribbed from Team Science. There's already a serviceable, perfectly-compatible-with-Team-Science philosophy that reminds humans that we are part of, made of, and embedded within nature: physicalism. I don't understand the appeal/utility/whatever of Morton's odd original contributions (hyperobjects, conscious boulders). It doesn't refute popular misconceptions of a nature-human gulf any better than plain physicalism. It's also not a very appealing basis for Team Humanities propaganda (as you style it) -- who's going to make a Hyperobjects Coloring Book? Morton's philosophy reminds me of those old herbal remedies that turned out to contain one active herb plus a bunch of superfluous materials and preparation rituals. There's a bit of something valuable in what he says but you can find it purer and simpler elsewhere. Of course even today some people deliberately seek out remedies made with a bunch of superfluous ritual and inactive ingredients, because they like complication for its own sake. Maybe that personality type forms the core of Morton's fans.
penland 9y ago
Alan Jacobs has a pithy overview of Morton, and the following is taken from a recent post on Morton by him: This strategy of employing familiar language in unfamiliar contexts gives the appearance of being radical but may not be quite that. It strikes me as being largely a reversal of Skinnerian behaviorism: the behaviorists said that human beings are nothing special because they're just like animals and plants, responding to stimuli in law-governed ways; now the object-oriented ontologists say that human beings are nothing special because animals and plants (and hammers and black holes) all possess the traits of consciousness and desire that we have traditionally believed to be distinctive to us. The goal of the philosophical redescription seems to be the same: to dethrone humanity, to get us to stop thinking of ourselves as sitting at the pinnacle of the Great Chain of Being. It's hard for me to take Morton too seriously because our ( by which I mean his and mine ) Metaphysics are so diametrically opposed. Hyperobjects are so ontologically complex as to give the feeling they have been invented solely to justify the philosopher's pre-existing beliefs ( though in fairness, you can write that about a lot of things ).
- yellowapple 9y ago
  "the behaviorists said that human beings are nothing special because they're just like animals and plants, responding to stimuli in law-governed ways; now the object-oriented ontologists say that human beings are nothing special because animals and plants (and hammers and black holes) all possess the traits of consciousness and desire that we have traditionally believed to be distinctive to us. The goal of the philosophical redescription seems to be the same: to dethrone humanity, to get us to stop thinking of ourselves as sitting at the pinnacle of the Great Chain of Being." Reminds me of a bit from the Jargon File's chapter on "Anthropomorphization" (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/anthropomorphization.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/anthropomorphization.html): "Almost all hackers subscribe to the mechanistic, materialistic ontology of science (this is in practice true even of most of the minority with contrary religious theories). In this view, people are biological machines — consciousness is an interesting and valuable epiphenomenon, but mind is implemented in machinery which is not fundamentally different in information-processing capacity from computers. "Hackers tend to take this a step further and argue that the difference between a substrate of CHON atoms and water and a substrate of silicon and metal is a relatively unimportant one; what matters, what makes a thing ‘alive’, is information and richness of pattern. This is animism from the flip side; it implies that humans and computers and dolphins and rocks are all machines exhibiting a continuum of modes of ‘consciousness’ according to their information-processing capacity. "Because hackers accept that a human machine can have intentions, it is therefore easy for them to ascribe consciousness and intention to other complex patterned systems such as computers. If consciousness is mechanical, it is neither more or less absurd to say that 'The program wants to go into an infinite loop' than it is to say that 'I want to go eat some chocolate' — and even defensible to say that 'The stone, once dropped, wants to move towards the center of the earth'."
cubano 9y ago
Firstly, isn't labeling this epoch "Anthropocene" somewhat premature and mostly political in nature? According to data surrounding the channeled scablands[0] in Washington state, the earth has been through at least 19 severe cooling periods in the past 2 million years, the approximate time homo sapian and our very close evolutionary ancestors have survived and, in our case at least, thrived beyond all possible expectation. All this with mostly just the barest bits of technology...fire, sharpened flints etc etc. These cooling events have been massive in scope; Manhattan Island was under 2 miles of ice and glaciers came all the way down to north Georgia. In other words, we are really good at dealing with a changing environment no matter what the cause could be. As I read the article, this "philosopher prophet" seems to be nothing of the kind, unless you consider a religious-type zeal for a silly and pretentious prediction of the total destruction of the earth's ecosystem some sort of deep insight. That's utterly preposterous. Ice core samples[1] of greenhouse gases (you know, actual data points not so-far-very-inaccurate computer models) show we seem to be right on cycle basically and show little scientific basis for the hysterics that this man is being genuflected for in the article. Of course we should all be concerned about keeping a cleaner environment...who the fuck is for dirty water and air? Others say the blame for the despoliation of the Earth should be laid at the feet not of humanity in general, but of (predominantly white, western and male) capitalism. Oh now we are getting at the meat of things. Sure of course blame "white men" for all the worlds ills. Predictable...and for the record I am not a "white" male. Aren't these the same "white men" who basically gave us the industrial revolution, anti-biotics and vaccines that have saved 100's of millions, and a global economy tied to the WWW that is lifting 100's of thousands out of poverty daily? More to the point...would this be the same capitalism that is responsible in the US for an over 12% reduction in CO2 over the past 10 years?[2] Yes I know..all this just becomes political in nature and I certainly am not going to change any minds here or anywhere, really. I just can't for the life of my understand why so many people feel the need to underestimate humanity's abilities to fix and deal with pretty much anything the environment throws at us. Besides a huge meteor impact of course. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_Scablands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_Scablands [1] http://cdiac.ornl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical.jpg http://cdiac.ornl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical.jpg [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8714#results https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8714#results
aeorgnoieang 9y ago
> This means changing our relationship with the other entities in the universe – whether animal, vegetable or mineral – from one of exploitation through science to one of solidarity in ignorance. If we fail to do this, we will continue to wreak havoc on the planet, threatening the ways of life we hold dear, and even our very existence. If we discover another epoch-making asteroid on a trajectory that intersects with Earth, I'd prefer that someone exploit the hell out of it with science instead of standing in solidarity in "ignorance" with the minerals.
neolefty 9y ago
This is a discussion that I've encountered a lot lately -- it seems to boil down to: Is civilization different from nature? Is it doomed to be destructive, or can it create something new and better? Many people I've met lately are intellectual materialists, and they are pretty pessimistic about the future. I have to say though that I'm on the side of civilization. We've got problems, but I think we'll get our act together over the next few centuries.
futun 9y ago
This strikes me as popular, feel-good philosophy. The world is already awash in such faux highbrow, emotionally driven "science". > "He believes all beings are interdependent, and speculates that everything in the universe has a kind of consciousness, from algae and boulders to knives and forks." Just because something is fanciful, or gives rise to warm fuzzy feelings of universality, spiritual "one-ness" and egalitarianism, does not make it logical or true. Morton seems to be channeling prior generations of "Gaia" believers, who also personified and deified a universal ecosystem (because it felt good to do so.) I am not surprised that Mr. Morton has a following in the low-logic, high-bullsh*t, pseudo-intellectual world of art. Or that Björk is his champion. ... Cue the believers telling me that I "just don't understand"...
pier25 9y ago
Reminded me of this essay by the biologist Eric R. Pianka. http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/VanishingBook.html http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/VanishingBook.html
golemotron 9y ago
Ecological movements like this along with social theories like intersectionality make me wonder about the difference between groups organized around particular sets of values and religious groups. There doesn't seem to be any real difference.
rwnspace 9y ago
I have a sense this person is popular not for the gravity of his thinking... But the attractor function of philosophical-ecological critique for lefties. Particularly those that have a high verbal IQ. If you don't have a good map for the different levels on which kinds of things can be said to operate, then it's intellectually trivial to lay your noodly appendage across a few, and name whatever comes out some combination of latin-greek roots. I'm all for redirecting and expanding perceptions of what is meaningful and what is moral, but it seems that there are a lot of different flavours for the same thing: 'x category definition leads to y outcome'. What determines the momentum of this claim relates to timing and status, fools gold for prescience. If we are to take any insight from whatever thing that 'hyperobjects' points to, then it should be the notion that the material consequences of our actions are entwined with our state of mind at the point of consequence. Every experience I have of action informs the kind and timing of future actions. Whatever is held to be more essential of these (action|conception) to some phenomena prescribes what kind 'really matters'. In Morton's world this is hyper-objects - in my world, evolutionary essentialism. Non-departmental 'philosophy' (edit: I mean 'non-canonical') unfortunately often seems to lead to, 'we started with these popular categories and their features, applied some functions, now we have something different, guess we didn't need those other categories since we retained features. We promise this is unique and cool. And that we definitely retained those features. We fail to mention possibility of knock-down responses, or look for analogues in other fields since we want some money and fame. We hope you get the experience of intellectualism without the effort. Buy my book.' It's not impressive to take strands of popular rationality and make knots.
- headelf 9y ago
  When did you forget how to communicate?
EGreg 9y ago
I think that Malthus may have identified the major first-order reason for the anthopocene. Even though he, like the Luddites, were too early in their predictions. David Harvey speaks about us being able to stave off the inequality wreaked by automation and outsourcing of work by the expansion of consumer credit in the 80s. Now, household debt AND public debt are at all-time highs, the borrowing spree has ended. Similarly we have been able to stave off the malthusian trap for decades, we've been destroying biodiversity and turning the world into monoculture and farms. We've had a population explosion and have been releasing entropy and heat on the earth even faster than that. Will the bill come due? Or will we find ways to capture the carbon and put it underground? This is one of the scariest reads: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...

62 points by diodorus 9y ago

Timothy Morton wants humanity to give up some of its core beliefs, from the fantasy that we can control the planet to the notion that we are ‘above’ other beings. So... you're telling me there are too many chiefs, not enough Indians?

sillyquiet 9y ago

This doesn't sound like philosophy so much as a quasi-Gaianistic religion.

biofox 9y ago

Without knowing anything about Tim Morton, other than what's in this article, I'm struggling to see what's novel here. It sounds like the exact same stuff that came out of the environmental movement of the 60s. What am I missing?

VLM 9y ago
From a "Two Cultures" analysis the original 60s/70s stuff was discovered by Team Science, think of DDT and Carson and "Silent Spring". That all got co opted away from Team Science and run by Team Humanities which is in charge of propaganda, so as a kid I got to sit in school thru videos and coloring books about Condor birds with no thought beyond playground diplomacy of whos now cool (Condors, apparently) and whos now not cool anymore (Some chemical acronym with Ds and Ts). The new stuff is pure "Team Humanities" from the start, a compelling narrative untainted by science or logic, and it shows. From a distance they do look the same. Its like the difference between a good "Inspired by a true story" cable TV psuedo-documentary movie and a purely fictional movie.
- philipkglass 9y ago
  Morton's better stuff seems cribbed from Team Science. There's already a serviceable, perfectly-compatible-with-Team-Science philosophy that reminds humans that we are part of, made of, and embedded within nature: physicalism. I don't understand the appeal/utility/whatever of Morton's odd original contributions (hyperobjects, conscious boulders). It doesn't refute popular misconceptions of a nature-human gulf any better than plain physicalism. It's also not a very appealing basis for Team Humanities propaganda (as you style it) -- who's going to make a Hyperobjects Coloring Book? Morton's philosophy reminds me of those old herbal remedies that turned out to contain one active herb plus a bunch of superfluous materials and preparation rituals. There's a bit of something valuable in what he says but you can find it purer and simpler elsewhere. Of course even today some people deliberately seek out remedies made with a bunch of superfluous ritual and inactive ingredients, because they like complication for its own sake. Maybe that personality type forms the core of Morton's fans.

penland 9y ago

Alan Jacobs has a pithy overview of Morton, and the following is taken from a recent post on Morton by him: This strategy of employing familiar language in unfamiliar contexts gives the appearance of being radical but may not be quite that. It strikes me as being largely a reversal of Skinnerian behaviorism: the behaviorists said that human beings are nothing special because they're just like animals and plants, responding to stimuli in law-governed ways; now the object-oriented ontologists say that human beings are nothing special because animals and plants (and hammers and black holes) all possess the traits of consciousness and desire that we have traditionally believed to be distinctive to us. The goal of the philosophical redescription seems to be the same: to dethrone humanity, to get us to stop thinking of ourselves as sitting at the pinnacle of the Great Chain of Being. It's hard for me to take Morton too seriously because our ( by which I mean his and mine ) Metaphysics are so diametrically opposed. Hyperobjects are so ontologically complex as to give the feeling they have been invented solely to justify the philosopher's pre-existing beliefs ( though in fairness, you can write that about a lot of things ).

yellowapple 9y ago
"the behaviorists said that human beings are nothing special because they're just like animals and plants, responding to stimuli in law-governed ways; now the object-oriented ontologists say that human beings are nothing special because animals and plants (and hammers and black holes) all possess the traits of consciousness and desire that we have traditionally believed to be distinctive to us. The goal of the philosophical redescription seems to be the same: to dethrone humanity, to get us to stop thinking of ourselves as sitting at the pinnacle of the Great Chain of Being." Reminds me of a bit from the Jargon File's chapter on "Anthropomorphization" (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/anthropomorphization.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/anthropomorphization.html): "Almost all hackers subscribe to the mechanistic, materialistic ontology of science (this is in practice true even of most of the minority with contrary religious theories). In this view, people are biological machines — consciousness is an interesting and valuable epiphenomenon, but mind is implemented in machinery which is not fundamentally different in information-processing capacity from computers. "Hackers tend to take this a step further and argue that the difference between a substrate of CHON atoms and water and a substrate of silicon and metal is a relatively unimportant one; what matters, what makes a thing ‘alive’, is information and richness of pattern. This is animism from the flip side; it implies that humans and computers and dolphins and rocks are all machines exhibiting a continuum of modes of ‘consciousness’ according to their information-processing capacity. "Because hackers accept that a human machine can have intentions, it is therefore easy for them to ascribe consciousness and intention to other complex patterned systems such as computers. If consciousness is mechanical, it is neither more or less absurd to say that 'The program wants to go into an infinite loop' than it is to say that 'I want to go eat some chocolate' — and even defensible to say that 'The stone, once dropped, wants to move towards the center of the earth'."

cubano 9y ago

Firstly, isn't labeling this epoch "Anthropocene" somewhat premature and mostly political in nature? According to data surrounding the channeled scablands[0] in Washington state, the earth has been through at least 19 severe cooling periods in the past 2 million years, the approximate time homo sapian and our very close evolutionary ancestors have survived and, in our case at least, thrived beyond all possible expectation. All this with mostly just the barest bits of technology...fire, sharpened flints etc etc. These cooling events have been massive in scope; Manhattan Island was under 2 miles of ice and glaciers came all the way down to north Georgia. In other words, we are really good at dealing with a changing environment no matter what the cause could be. As I read the article, this "philosopher prophet" seems to be nothing of the kind, unless you consider a religious-type zeal for a silly and pretentious prediction of the total destruction of the earth's ecosystem some sort of deep insight. That's utterly preposterous. Ice core samples[1] of greenhouse gases (you know, actual data points not so-far-very-inaccurate computer models) show we seem to be right on cycle basically and show little scientific basis for the hysterics that this man is being genuflected for in the article. Of course we should all be concerned about keeping a cleaner environment...who the fuck is for dirty water and air? Others say the blame for the despoliation of the Earth should be laid at the feet not of humanity in general, but of (predominantly white, western and male) capitalism. Oh now we are getting at the meat of things. Sure of course blame "white men" for all the worlds ills. Predictable...and for the record I am not a "white" male. Aren't these the same "white men" who basically gave us the industrial revolution, anti-biotics and vaccines that have saved 100's of millions, and a global economy tied to the WWW that is lifting 100's of thousands out of poverty daily? More to the point...would this be the same capitalism that is responsible in the US for an over 12% reduction in CO2 over the past 10 years?[2] Yes I know..all this just becomes political in nature and I certainly am not going to change any minds here or anywhere, really. I just can't for the life of my understand why so many people feel the need to underestimate humanity's abilities to fix and deal with pretty much anything the environment throws at us. Besides a huge meteor impact of course. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_Scablands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channeled_Scablands [1] http://cdiac.ornl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical.jpg http://cdiac.ornl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical.jpg [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8714#results https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8714#results

aeorgnoieang 9y ago

> This means changing our relationship with the other entities in the universe – whether animal, vegetable or mineral – from one of exploitation through science to one of solidarity in ignorance. If we fail to do this, we will continue to wreak havoc on the planet, threatening the ways of life we hold dear, and even our very existence. If we discover another epoch-making asteroid on a trajectory that intersects with Earth, I'd prefer that someone exploit the hell out of it with science instead of standing in solidarity in "ignorance" with the minerals.

neolefty 9y ago

This is a discussion that I've encountered a lot lately -- it seems to boil down to: Is civilization different from nature? Is it doomed to be destructive, or can it create something new and better? Many people I've met lately are intellectual materialists, and they are pretty pessimistic about the future. I have to say though that I'm on the side of civilization. We've got problems, but I think we'll get our act together over the next few centuries.

futun 9y ago

This strikes me as popular, feel-good philosophy. The world is already awash in such faux highbrow, emotionally driven "science". > "He believes all beings are interdependent, and speculates that everything in the universe has a kind of consciousness, from algae and boulders to knives and forks." Just because something is fanciful, or gives rise to warm fuzzy feelings of universality, spiritual "one-ness" and egalitarianism, does not make it logical or true. Morton seems to be channeling prior generations of "Gaia" believers, who also personified and deified a universal ecosystem (because it felt good to do so.) I am not surprised that Mr. Morton has a following in the low-logic, high-bullsh*t, pseudo-intellectual world of art. Or that Björk is his champion. ... Cue the believers telling me that I "just don't understand"...

pier25 9y ago

Reminded me of this essay by the biologist Eric R. Pianka. http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/VanishingBook.html http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/THOC/VanishingBook.html

golemotron 9y ago

Ecological movements like this along with social theories like intersectionality make me wonder about the difference between groups organized around particular sets of values and religious groups. There doesn't seem to be any real difference.

rwnspace 9y ago

I have a sense this person is popular not for the gravity of his thinking... But the attractor function of philosophical-ecological critique for lefties. Particularly those that have a high verbal IQ. If you don't have a good map for the different levels on which kinds of things can be said to operate, then it's intellectually trivial to lay your noodly appendage across a few, and name whatever comes out some combination of latin-greek roots. I'm all for redirecting and expanding perceptions of what is meaningful and what is moral, but it seems that there are a lot of different flavours for the same thing: 'x category definition leads to y outcome'. What determines the momentum of this claim relates to timing and status, fools gold for prescience. If we are to take any insight from whatever thing that 'hyperobjects' points to, then it should be the notion that the material consequences of our actions are entwined with our state of mind at the point of consequence. Every experience I have of action informs the kind and timing of future actions. Whatever is held to be more essential of these (action|conception) to some phenomena prescribes what kind 'really matters'. In Morton's world this is hyper-objects - in my world, evolutionary essentialism. Non-departmental 'philosophy' (edit: I mean 'non-canonical') unfortunately often seems to lead to, 'we started with these popular categories and their features, applied some functions, now we have something different, guess we didn't need those other categories since we retained features. We promise this is unique and cool. And that we definitely retained those features. We fail to mention possibility of knock-down responses, or look for analogues in other fields since we want some money and fame. We hope you get the experience of intellectualism without the effort. Buy my book.' It's not impressive to take strands of popular rationality and make knots.

headelf 9y ago
When did you forget how to communicate?

EGreg 9y ago

I think that Malthus may have identified the major first-order reason for the anthopocene. Even though he, like the Luddites, were too early in their predictions. David Harvey speaks about us being able to stave off the inequality wreaked by automation and outsourcing of work by the expansion of consumer credit in the 80s. Now, household debt AND public debt are at all-time highs, the borrowing spree has ended. Similarly we have been able to stave off the malthusian trap for decades, we've been destroying biodiversity and turning the world into monoculture and farms. We've had a population explosion and have been releasing entropy and heat on the earth even faster than that. Will the bill come due? Or will we find ways to capture the carbon and put it underground? This is one of the scariest reads: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...