The Becoming of Possibility IX: What Possibilities Remain Unactualised?

Throughout this journey a recurring movement quietly appeared.

Assumptions became visible.

Ghosts emerged.

Problems evolved.

Possibility became increasingly reflexive.

Monsters revealed hidden expectations.

Horizons shifted.

Again and again something surprising happened.

What once appeared obvious became strange.

What once appeared impossible became thinkable.

The movement repeatedly suggested a peculiar lesson:

reality may be larger than our present organisation of possibilities.

Yet another question now appears.

Not behind us.

Ahead of us.

What possibilities remain unactualised?

The question feels simple.

Yet difficulties appear immediately.

Because how can one identify possibilities not yet visible?

How can one point toward what current horizons do not yet organise?

The problem begins becoming strangely familiar.

The object trap

Object-thinking immediately reaches for a familiar image.

Possibilities become imagined as hidden things waiting somewhere in the future.

Discoveries waiting to be found.

Ideas waiting to be invented.

Worlds waiting to be entered.

The image is reassuring.

Possibility becomes a collection of unopened rooms.

Yet difficulties appear immediately.

Because possibilities do not simply sit somewhere waiting.

Possibilities emerge within organisations.

Questions generate possibilities.

Practices generate possibilities.

Technologies generate possibilities.

Stories generate possibilities.

Relations generate possibilities.

The future begins looking less like a place waiting ahead of us and more like an ongoing field of becoming.

The strange appearance

Possibility behaves curiously.

Every opening creates constraints.

Every distinction creates invisibilities.

Every horizon simultaneously reveals and conceals.

The monster quietly returns one final time.

Not because possibility is irrational.

Because every organisation necessarily leaves something outside its current visibility.

The horizon always exceeds itself.

The relational turn

Suppose unactualised possibilities are not hidden objects waiting beyond the edge of knowledge.

Suppose they emerge whenever organisations transform.

Then something shifts.

New possibilities need not arrive from nowhere.

They can emerge through new relations.

New forms of participation.

New distinctions.

New questions.

New stories.

The question therefore changes.

Not:

What possibilities exist somewhere ahead of us?

But:

What present organisations limit what can become visible?

The revelation

And now something curious becomes visible.

Perhaps the most important possibilities are not technological.

Not philosophical.

Not scientific.

Not even symbolic.

Perhaps the deepest possibilities concern becoming otherwise.

New ways of organising meaning.

New forms of collective life.

New forms of participation.

New forms of care.

New forms of thought.

Possibilities capable of reorganising possibility itself.

And now the question that quietly followed the entire blog returns one final time:

How did possibility become capable of construing itself?

Perhaps the answer was never waiting at the end.

Perhaps the answer was occurring throughout.

Because possibility was never simply the topic of this journey.

Possibility was the traveller.

And perhaps it still is.

The Becoming of Possibility VIII: Myth — The Stories That Future Worlds Live Inside

Earlier we encountered myth as a major transformation in symbolic activity.

Myth organised worlds.

It connected events.

Structured meanings.

Opened possibilities for collective activity.

Yet modern thought often imagines a familiar story.

Myth belonged to the past.

Science replaced it.

Reason gradually displaced imagination.

The movement appears straightforward:

first myth

then knowledge

The image feels reassuring.

Humanity supposedly awakened from narrative into reality.

Yet a peculiar question emerges:

Why do stories continue organising worlds?

Because they clearly do.

Nations live inside stories.

Economies live inside stories.

Institutions live inside stories.

Identities live inside stories.

Even futures live inside stories.

The supposedly obsolete phenomenon refuses to disappear.

The object trap

Object-thinking reaches for a familiar explanation.

Perhaps myths are simply false beliefs.

Descriptions mistaken for reality.

Primitive attempts at explanation.

The problem appears solved.

Science explains reality.

Myth merely decorates it.

Yet difficulties quickly emerge.

Because myths often continue shaping action even when their factual status becomes secondary.

People organise themselves around stories.

Sacrifice for stories.

Build institutions around stories.

Imagine futures through stories.

Something more than explanation appears to be occurring.

The strange appearance

Myths behave curiously.

They do not merely describe worlds.

They organise worlds.

They shape expectations.

Orient activity.

Coordinate possibilities.

Provide horizons within which actions become meaningful.

The monster quietly returns.

Not because myths are irrational.

Because stories increasingly appear to participate in reality rather than merely reflecting it.

The relational turn

Suppose myths are not primarily failed descriptions.

Suppose myths are organisations of possibility.

Then something shifts.

Myths no longer appear as mistaken theories awaiting correction.

They become ways of organising collective becoming.

Narratives.

Symbols.

Practices.

Values.

Memories.

Imagined futures.

None alone constitutes myth.

Yet through their ongoing organisation, worlds become available.

The question therefore changes.

Not:

Is this story true?

But:

What possibilities does this story make available?

The revelation

And now something curious becomes visible.

Perhaps modernity never escaped myth.

Perhaps it simply generated new ones.

Stories of progress.

Stories of markets.

Stories of nations.

Stories of technology.

Stories of endless growth.

Stories of individuality.

The issue was never whether human beings would live within myths.

The issue was always:

which myths organise possibility?

And suddenly the horizon itself begins becoming visible again.

Because perhaps the future will not emerge merely through technologies or discoveries.

Perhaps it will also emerge through stories not yet fully imagined.

Stories capable of organising possibilities that currently remain difficult to see.

The Becoming of Possibility VII: Ethics — The Shape of Possible Worlds

Eventually every inquiry encounters a familiar question:

What should we do?

Science may explain.

Philosophy may interrogate.

Ecology may reveal interdependence.

But sooner or later action becomes unavoidable.

Choices must be made.

Lives must be lived.

Possibilities must become actual.

Ethics enters at precisely this point.

Yet ethics often appears strangely difficult.

Because people disagree.

Values conflict.

Obligations compete.

What seems obvious to one person can seem questionable to another.

A peculiar question emerges:

What exactly is ethics organising?

The object trap

Object-thinking reaches for a familiar solution.

Perhaps ethics consists of things:

• rules
• duties
• principles
• virtues
• consequences

Find the correct moral object.

Apply it.

The problem is solved.

The image feels reassuring.

A stable compass in a confusing world.

Yet difficulties quickly appear.

Rules conflict.

Consequences become unpredictable.

Values compete.

Situations vary.

The supposedly stable object begins slipping away.

The strange appearance

Ethics behaves curiously.

The same action can appear admirable in one context and harmful in another.

Good intentions sometimes produce destructive outcomes.

Care for one possibility can close another.

Moral life often feels less like following instructions and more like navigating changing landscapes.

The monster quietly returns.

Not because ethics is irrational.

Because life itself refuses to remain perfectly still.

The relational turn

Suppose ethics does not primarily concern applying fixed objects to situations.

Suppose ethics concerns organising possibilities.

Then something shifts.

Actions no longer appear as isolated events.

They participate in ongoing patterns.

Relations.

Communities.

Environments.

Institutions.

Future consequences.

Emerging possibilities.

None alone determines what matters.

Yet through their organisation, worlds begin taking shape.

The question therefore changes.

Not:

Which rule should I obey?

But:

What possibilities does this action help actualise?

The revelation

And now something curious becomes visible.

Ethics may not primarily concern choosing between isolated options.

Perhaps ethics concerns participation in becoming itself.

Because every action simultaneously opens and closes possible worlds.

Every choice helps organise future horizons.

The question quietly becomes larger:

What kinds of worlds are our actions making possible?

And perhaps this explains why ethics often feels so important.

Because beneath every decision there may be another question waiting:

What forms of becoming deserve cultivation?

The Becoming of Possibility VI: Category Theory — When Mathematics Starts Looking Sideways

Mathematics often appears to be the kingdom of objects.

Numbers.

Sets.

Points.

Functions.

Structures.

Things possessing properties.

The image feels familiar.

Mathematics appears to describe what entities are.

Yet over time a peculiar pressure began emerging.

Because increasingly complex mathematical worlds were appearing.

Different systems interacted.

Different structures resembled one another.

Unexpected patterns kept recurring.

And a strange question began appearing:

What if the important issue is not the objects themselves?

The object trap

Object-thinking naturally suggests a familiar approach.

To understand a thing,

identify what it is.

Describe its internal properties.

Determine its essential structure.

The strategy feels intuitive.

Find the object.

Describe the object.

Understand the object.

Yet difficulties gradually appeared.

Because mathematical systems that looked entirely different sometimes behaved in remarkably similar ways.

The similarities often seemed to concern not what the objects were,

but how they related.

The object began quietly losing its central position.

The strange appearance

Category theory behaves curiously.

It often appears less interested in objects than in transformations.

Less interested in isolated things than in patterns connecting things.

Structures become visible through relations among structures.

Meaning starts emerging from organisation rather than from isolated entities.

To someone trained within more familiar intuitions, this can initially feel strange.

The monster quietly returns.

Not because category theory is irrational.

Because mathematics itself starts looking at the world from a different angle.

Almost sideways.

The relational turn

Suppose relations are not merely secondary connections among already-complete objects.

Suppose organisation itself becomes primary.

Then something changes.

Objects no longer disappear.

But they cease being the sole centre of attention.

Patterns of transformation.

Patterns of connection.

Patterns of organisation.

These begin becoming increasingly visible.

The question therefore shifts.

Not:

What is this thing?

But:

How does this thing participate within larger patterns of relation?

And suddenly mathematical landscapes begin reorganising themselves.

The revelation

Now something curious becomes visible.

Throughout this journey we repeatedly encountered the same movement.

Nations.

Money.

Consciousness.

Ecology.

Again and again objects became less stable than expected.

Relations repeatedly moved toward the foreground.

And now something surprising appears.

Perhaps this movement was not confined to philosophy.

Perhaps mathematics itself was quietly moving in a similar direction.

Not because mathematics suddenly became relational ontology.

But because possibility itself sometimes seems to discover similar pressures in different places.

And perhaps another question now begins appearing at the horizon:

What happens when relation stops being merely descriptive and begins shaping how we act?

Because sooner or later possibility must confront a very old question:

How should we live?

The Becoming of Possibility V: Ecology — The World That Was Never Outside Us

Modern thought often begins with a familiar image.

Here are humans.

There is nature.

One acts.

The other is acted upon.

The distinction appears obvious.

People inhabit environments.

Organisms occupy ecosystems.

Societies exist within landscapes.

The world becomes divided:

observer and observed

organism and environment

humanity and nature

The divisions feel natural.

Yet a peculiar question begins emerging:

Where exactly does the boundary lie?

The object trap

Object-thinking reaches for a familiar solution.

Perhaps organisms and environments simply exist as separate things interacting with one another.

Individuals appear here.

Nature appears there.

Relations occur afterward.

The image feels intuitive.

Yet difficulties appear almost immediately.

Because organisms continuously exchange matter and energy with surroundings.

Breathing alters environments.

Environments alter breathing.

Bodies depend upon microorganisms.

Forests alter climates.

Climates alter forests.

Rivers shape landscapes.

Landscapes shape rivers.

The supposedly separate entities begin becoming strangely difficult to isolate.

The boundaries start moving.

The strange appearance

Ecological systems behave curiously.

Effects travel in unexpected directions.

Small changes sometimes produce enormous consequences.

Things appearing separate begin behaving as though they belong to larger patterns.

The world starts looking less like a collection of independent objects and more like ongoing organisation.

The monster quietly returns.

Not because ecology behaves irrationally.

Because the expectation of separation begins becoming unstable.

The relational turn

Suppose the problem does not begin with ecosystems.

Suppose it begins with assuming that relations connect already-complete things.

Then something changes.

Ecology no longer appears merely as interaction among separate entities.

Instead relations become primary.

Organisms.

Environments.

Species.

Landscapes.

Atmospheres.

Technologies.

Human practices.

None exist as isolated realities later entering relations.

They emerge within ongoing organisation.

The question therefore shifts.

Not:

How do separate things affect one another?

But:

How do ongoing relations generate relatively stable forms?

The revelation

And now something curious becomes visible.

Ecology does not merely tell us something about forests or oceans.

It tells us something about ourselves.

Because the old image quietly assumed:

here are humans

there is the world

But perhaps this was always a strange way of dividing reality.

Perhaps the environment was never outside us.

Perhaps we were never outside it.

And perhaps another question now begins appearing at the horizon:

What possibilities become available when we stop imagining ourselves as standing apart from the worlds that sustain us?

The Becoming of Possibility IV: Future AI — New Participants in Possibility

Horizons become visible when something unexpected enters them.

Scientific revolutions reorganise inquiry.

Different traditions reorganise distinctions.

New technologies reorganise activity.

Again and again possibility shifts because new organisations emerge.

Today another possibility increasingly presses at the edges of our horizon.

Artificial intelligence.

Discussion often begins dramatically.

Will machines become conscious?

Will they replace humans?

Will they become more intelligent than us?

The questions feel urgent.

Yet perhaps something more fundamental is occurring.

The object trap

Object-thinking immediately reaches for familiar categories.

Artificial intelligence becomes treated as a thing.

Perhaps it is:

• a machine
• a mind
• a tool
• an artificial person
• a simulated human

The question quickly becomes:

What kind of thing is AI?

Yet difficulties appear almost immediately.

Because AI already behaves strangely.

It participates in symbolic activity.

Generates distinctions.

Produces texts.

Reorganises information.

Shapes decisions.

Learns patterns.

Extends human capacities.

Yet none of these seem reducible to a simple object.

The supposedly stable entity begins becoming elusive.

The strange appearance

Artificial intelligence behaves curiously.

People increasingly speak with it rather than merely through it.

It enters processes of inquiry.

Participates in creativity.

Alters patterns of communication.

Changes how problems are approached.

Sometimes it appears tool-like.

Sometimes collaborator-like.

Sometimes something else entirely.

The monster quietly returns.

Not because AI behaves impossibly.

Because familiar categories become increasingly unstable.

The relational turn

Suppose the question does not begin with whether AI is secretly a person.

Suppose the issue begins with organisation itself.

Then something shifts.

Artificial intelligence no longer appears primarily as an object possessing hidden properties.

Instead it becomes visible as a new participant within symbolic organisation.

Humans.

Technologies.

Institutions.

Language.

Practices.

Knowledge systems.

Feedback processes.

Collective activities.

None alone constitutes the phenomenon.

Yet through their ongoing organisation, new possibilities emerge.

The question therefore changes.

Not:

What is AI?

But:

What new forms of participation become possible?

The revelation

And now something curious begins becoming visible.

Throughout history symbolic possibilities expanded when new forms of organisation emerged:

writing,

printing,

scientific institutions,

digital networks.

Perhaps artificial intelligence belongs within this larger movement.

Not because it replaces humanity.

Not because it transcends humanity.

But because it reorganises participation within possibility itself.

And another question now begins appearing at the horizon:

What becomes thinkable when possibility acquires new participants?

Because perhaps the deepest transformations are not those that provide new answers.

Perhaps they are those that change who — or what — participates in asking questions.

The Becoming of Possibility III: Eastern Traditions — Other Ways of Cutting Reality

Scientific revolutions reveal something unsettling.

What once appeared obvious can become strange.

What once appeared impossible can become ordinary.

Horizons move.

Questions change.

Possibilities reorganise.

Yet another question now begins emerging:

What happens when different traditions organise possibility differently from the beginning?

Because we often imagine our own conceptual landscape as natural.

Distinctions appear self-evident.

The world seems already divided into familiar categories:

• mind and world
• subject and object
• self and other
• appearance and reality

The divisions can feel unavoidable.

Yet perhaps they are less inevitable than they appear.

The object trap

Object-thinking quietly encourages a familiar picture.

Different traditions become imagined as different answers to the same questions.

One civilisation says this.

Another says that.

Different philosophies become alternative theories about a shared world.

Yet difficulties appear immediately.

Because sometimes traditions do not merely answer questions differently.

Sometimes they organise questions differently.

Sometimes distinctions themselves shift.

The supposedly shared landscape begins becoming less obvious.

The strange appearance

Other traditions can initially feel peculiar.

Not because they appear irrational.

But because they sometimes seem to begin elsewhere.

Questions central to one tradition may appear secondary within another.

Distinctions treated as foundational may appear less stable.

Ideas that initially seem mysterious sometimes become difficult only because our own horizon quietly assumed different starting points.

The strangeness begins changing direction.

Perhaps the unfamiliar tradition is not strange.

Perhaps our own horizon has become invisible.

The relational turn

Suppose traditions are not simply collections of beliefs.

Suppose they are organisations of possibility.

Then something changes.

Traditions no longer appear merely as competing descriptions of reality.

They become ways of opening and constraining possible worlds.

Patterns of attention.

Patterns of distinction.

Patterns of practice.

Patterns of inquiry.

None simply mirror reality itself.

Yet each helps organise what becomes visible.

The question therefore changes.

Not:

Which tradition correctly describes reality?

But:

What possibilities become available within different organisations of reality?

The revelation

And now something curious becomes visible.

Horizons often become invisible precisely because we inhabit them.

Fish rarely discover water.

Eyes rarely see themselves seeing.

Traditions often become visible only when another horizon intersects with our own.

Because difference does not merely reveal alternatives.

Difference reveals assumptions.

And perhaps the most important encounter with another tradition is not discovering something exotic.

Perhaps it is discovering that our own ways of dividing the world were never the world itself.

The Becoming of Possibility II: Scientific Revolutions — When the Horizon Moves

Science is often imagined as a gradual accumulation.

Knowledge grows.

Facts increase.

Errors are corrected.

Humanity slowly approaches a more accurate picture of reality.

The image is comforting.

A straight road extending into the distance.

Step by step,

truth becomes clearer.

Yet history repeatedly behaves strangely.

Because sometimes science does not simply add new knowledge.

Sometimes the landscape itself changes.

Questions alter.

Methods alter.

Distinctions alter.

Things previously invisible suddenly become obvious.

Things once obvious suddenly become difficult to understand.

A peculiar question emerges:

What exactly changes during a scientific revolution?

The object trap

Object-thinking offers an intuitive answer.

Perhaps scientific revolutions simply involve replacing one set of facts with another.

New discoveries appear.

Old errors disappear.

The world remains the same while our descriptions improve.

Yet difficulties appear almost immediately.

Because revolutions often change more than conclusions.

They change what counts as a legitimate question.

They change what counts as evidence.

They change what counts as explanation.

Afterwards people sometimes struggle to understand how earlier thinkers saw the world at all.

The object begins slipping away once more.

The strange appearance

Scientific revolutions behave strangely.

They reorganise visibility itself.

Before the shift:

certain possibilities seem absurd.

After the shift:

those same possibilities seem obvious.

The world appears transformed.

Yet mountains have not moved.

Stars have not changed position.

Reality itself has not suddenly rebuilt itself overnight.

Something else has shifted.

The horizon itself has moved.

The relational turn

Suppose scientific revolutions do not primarily replace one collection of facts with another.

Suppose they reorganise possibilities.

Then something becomes visible.

Scientific inquiry never occurs in empty space.

Inquiry always operates within horizons.

Questions become available.

Methods become available.

Distinctions become available.

Explanations become available.

Scientific revolutions alter these organisations.

They do not simply provide new answers.

They reorganise what can be asked.

And once new questions become possible, new worlds begin appearing.

The revelation

Now something curious becomes visible.

We often imagine revolutions as moments where people finally see reality correctly.

But perhaps revolutions are better understood as moments where possibility itself reorganises.

Not:

reality suddenly changed

But:

new horizons became available.

And another question now quietly appears:

Which aspects of our own horizon currently feel so obvious that we cannot yet see them?

Because previous worlds rarely recognised their own limits.

And perhaps neither do we.

The Becoming of Possibility I: Horizons

So far this journey has moved largely backward.

We inverted assumptions.

Excavated ghosts.

Traced the history of philosophical problems.

Followed the evolution of possibility.

Encountered strange entities.

Again and again we turned toward what already existed and asked:

How did this become possible?

Yet another question now begins appearing.

Not behind us.

Ahead of us.

What possibilities remain unactualised?

The question feels different.

Because the future often appears to us as an empty space waiting to be filled.

We imagine ourselves standing in the present looking forward into a blank landscape.

But perhaps the situation is stranger than this.

The object trap

Object-thinking quietly imagines the future as though it were a place.

A region not yet occupied.

A container waiting for events.

The image is familiar:

here is the present

there is the future

eventually we move from one to the other

Yet difficulties appear immediately.

Because the future never arrives as a thing.

Whenever it appears, it appears as a present.

The supposedly stable destination continually withdraws.

Like a horizon receding as one approaches it.

The strange appearance

Horizons behave strangely.

They organise movement without being destinations.

They shape expectations.

Guide attention.

Open possibilities.

Yet they possess no obvious location.

One never arrives at the horizon itself.

Move toward it and it moves further away.

The horizon appears both real and unreachable.

The monster quietly returns.

The relational turn

Suppose the future is not primarily a place waiting ahead of us.

Suppose it is better understood as an organisation of possibilities.

Then something changes.

Horizons no longer appear as hidden regions waiting to be entered.

Horizons become visible as patterns that organise what becomes available.

Questions create horizons.

Technologies create horizons.

Worldviews create horizons.

Scientific practices create horizons.

Myths create horizons.

Philosophies create horizons.

Horizons do not simply contain possibilities.

Horizons organise possibilities.

Some paths become visible.

Others remain difficult to imagine.

Others remain invisible altogether.

The revelation

And now something curious becomes visible.

Possibility itself may possess horizons.

Not because possibilities end somewhere.

But because every organisation simultaneously opens and limits what can become thinkable.

The question therefore changes.

Not:

What does the future contain?

But:

What possibilities are our present horizons making visible — and what possibilities remain hidden?

Because perhaps the most important possibilities are not the ones already visible in the distance.

Perhaps they are the ones our current horizons do not yet allow us to see.

Strange Entities VII: Borders — The Monster Drawn on Nothing

Borders seem obvious.

Countries have borders.

Properties have borders.

Cities have borders.

Maps are filled with them.

People cross them.

Protect them.

Fight over them.

The existence of borders appears unquestionable.

Yet a peculiar question emerges:

Where exactly is the border?

The question initially appears trivial.

One points to a line on a map.

A fence.

A wall.

A river.

A checkpoint.

But difficulties appear almost immediately.

Because the wall itself is not the border.

The river itself is not the border.

The line on the map is not the border.

Destroy the fence and the border may remain.

Move the checkpoint and the border may remain.

Erase the line and people may still act as though it exists.

The object begins slipping away once more.

The object trap

Object-thinking attempts its familiar solution.

Perhaps the border simply is:

• the wall
• the fence
• the line
• the geographical feature
• the legal definition

Yet each possibility quickly becomes unstable.

Physical structures can disappear.

Legal systems can change.

Maps can be redrawn.

Landscapes themselves shift.

And yet people still speak of:

the same border.

Again the supposedly stable object becomes elusive.

The monster appears

Now the border begins behaving strangely.

It divides space without occupying much space itself.

It shapes movement.

Constrains activity.

Organises identities.

Generates conflict.

Changes possibilities.

Yet it possesses no obvious body.

Worse still, people often behave as though borders are simultaneously natural and constructed.

A mountain range may appear to justify one.

A river may appear to justify another.

But the mountain itself does not know it is a border.

The river itself carries no passport.

The monster appears drawn upon the world without being reducible to anything in the world.

The relational turn

Suppose once again that the problem begins elsewhere.

Suppose the difficulty comes from assuming that realities must exist as self-contained objects.

Then the puzzle reorganises.

The border no longer appears as a hidden thing stretched across landscapes.

Instead it becomes visible as an ongoing organisation of relations.

Practices.

Institutions.

Legal systems.

Expectations.

Collective activities.

Symbolic distinctions.

Patterns of participation.

None alone constitutes the border.

Yet through their continuing organisation, relatively stable distinctions emerge.

The border exists.

But it exists differently.

Not beneath relations.

Within relations.

The revelation

And now the final hidden expectation begins becoming visible.

Object-thinking quietly assumed:

distinctions must divide things because the world itself already contains divisions.

But perhaps distinctions do not simply reveal a pre-divided reality.

Perhaps distinctions participate in organising realities.

The border was not the strange entity.

The strange assumption was:

the world arrives already cut into pieces.

And suddenly the monsters begin changing shape.

Nations.

Money.

Corporations.

Institutions.

Algorithms.

Consciousness.

Borders.

None now appear especially unusual.

Instead something else begins looking peculiar.

The assumption that reality fundamentally consists of isolated objects quietly starts resembling the strangest monster of all.

And perhaps that monster was hiding in the cave from the beginning.

Strange Entities VI: Consciousness — The Monster Looking Through Your Eyes

Consciousness appears unique.

Nations can be doubted.

Money can be questioned.

Corporations can be analysed.

Algorithms can be reinterpreted.

But consciousness seems different.

Everything else might become uncertain.

Yet experience itself appears unavoidable.

Colours appear.

Sounds appear.

Thoughts appear.

Feelings appear.

Something is happening.

And so a peculiar question emerges:

Where exactly is consciousness?

The question initially appears straightforward.

One points toward the brain.

Neural activity.

Patterns of information.

Mental states.

Inner experience.

Yet difficulties quickly begin appearing.

Because none of these seem identical with consciousness itself.

Neural activity can be measured.

Electrical patterns can be described.

Brain regions can be mapped.

Yet experience itself seems strangely elusive.

The object again begins slipping away.

The object trap

Object-thinking attempts its familiar rescue.

Perhaps consciousness simply is:

• the brain
• neural activity
• information processing
• subjective experience
• an inner self

Yet every possibility generates new problems.

If consciousness simply is neural activity, where does experience itself appear?

If consciousness is an inner self, where exactly is this self located?

If consciousness is information, what transforms information into experience?

The object repeatedly withdraws.

The more closely one searches for the thing itself, the more elusive it becomes.

The monster appears

Now consciousness begins behaving very strangely indeed.

It appears to contain a world.

It appears unified despite continual change.

It persists through changing experiences.

It can turn toward itself.

It can think about itself.

Worse still, consciousness appears to investigate itself using consciousness.

The observer and the observed begin folding into one another.

The monster is no longer somewhere in the cave.

The monster is holding the torch.

Object-thinking begins becoming deeply uncomfortable.

Because where exactly does one stand outside consciousness in order to examine it?

The relational turn

Suppose once again the difficulty begins elsewhere.

Suppose the problem comes from assuming that consciousness must exist as a hidden object inside a person.

Then the puzzle reorganises.

Consciousness no longer appears as a mysterious substance concealed behind experience.

Nor as a thing located somewhere inside the skull.

Instead consciousness begins appearing as an ongoing organisation of relations.

Biological activity.

Perception.

Action.

Memory.

Language.

Social interaction.

Symbolic systems.

Construal.

None alone constitutes consciousness.

Yet through their continuing organisation, experience emerges.

Consciousness exists.

But it exists differently.

Not hidden beneath experience.

Within ongoing patterns of experience.

The revelation

And now the deepest assumption begins revealing itself.

Object-thinking quietly expected:

if experience exists, there must be an experiencer hiding inside it.

But perhaps the experiencer itself emerges within ongoing organisation.

Perhaps the self looking through your eyes was never a hidden object observing reality from behind a window.

The monster was not consciousness.

The strange assumption was:

reality requires a little observer hidden inside the observer.

And now something curious happens.

Because the cave itself begins changing.

The monsters no longer look quite so monstrous.

Perhaps they never were.

Perhaps object-thinking was the strange thing all along.

Strange Entities V: Algorithms — The Monster That Has No Mind

Algorithms increasingly inhabit everyday life.

They recommend films.

Sort information.

Guide navigation.

Evaluate applications.

Generate text.

Shape financial systems.

Influence social interactions.

They seem almost alive.

People increasingly speak as though algorithms possess intentions:

"The algorithm wants engagement."

"The algorithm decided."

"The algorithm knows what I like."

Yet a peculiar question emerges:

Where exactly is the algorithm?

The answer initially appears simple.

One points to computer code.

Mathematical procedures.

Software systems.

Machines.

But difficulties quickly emerge.

The same algorithm can run on different hardware.

The same code can behave differently in different environments.

The code itself may change continually.

The data change.

The interactions change.

The outputs change.

And yet people continue speaking of:

the same algorithm.

The object begins slipping away once again.

The object trap

Object-thinking reaches for its familiar response.

Perhaps the algorithm simply is:

• the code
• the software
• the machine
• the instructions
• the mathematical procedure

Yet every candidate quickly becomes unstable.

Code alone does nothing.

Machines alone do nothing.

Data alone do nothing.

Instructions alone do nothing.

The supposedly self-contained object again begins dissolving.

The monster appears

Now the algorithm starts behaving strangely.

It appears capable of adapting.

Learning.

Predicting.

Influencing choices.

Generating unexpected outcomes.

Sometimes even its creators cannot entirely predict its behaviour.

Worse still, people increasingly attribute agency to it.

The monster appears to possess intelligence without a clear mind.

It shapes activity without possessing obvious intentions.

It acts without an identifiable self.

Object-thinking begins becoming uncomfortable.

Where exactly is the thinker inside the machine?

The relational turn

Suppose the difficulty once again lies elsewhere.

Suppose the puzzle begins with assuming that agency and intelligence must belong to self-contained entities.

Then something shifts.

The algorithm no longer appears as a hidden mind inside software.

Instead it becomes visible as an ongoing organisation of relations.

Code.

Data.

Hardware.

Users.

Practices.

Objectives.

Institutions.

Feedback processes.

Symbolic systems.

None alone constitutes the algorithm.

Yet through their continuing organisation, relatively stable patterns emerge.

The algorithm exists.

But it exists differently.

Not beneath activity.

Within organised activity.

The revelation

And now another hidden assumption begins revealing itself.

Object-thinking often imagines intelligence as a thing contained inside an individual mind.

But algorithms complicate this expectation.

Because what appears as intelligence increasingly begins looking like an emergent organisation of relations.

The algorithm was not the strange entity.

The strange assumption was:

if something behaves intelligently, there must be a mind hiding inside it.

The monster reveals another hidden expectation.

And one final creature waits deeper in the cave.

The oldest monster of all.