According to Donald Hoffman’s theory which I have discussed several times (Literature review ), we did not evolve to see reality as it truly is, as has been argued. Rather, we evolved to see the sort of reality we need to see to for ‘optimal fitness’. We perceive far less than there actually is because to see it all would be unhelpful. What’s more, according to Hoffman, the objects we see, including space and time are like desktop icons – constructed objects that represent the goal we are either after or trying to avoid. As hard as this is to understand, and Hoffman admits he may very well be wrong but that his theory makes the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness approachable, his idea sits well with many of the other theories I have been reading about since I picked up The Ego Trip by Julian Baggini (2011) (when I began UVC) followed by a raft of other books exploring similar themes.
I have been trying to express and understand these subjects in my writing, and looking at and photographing objects and phenomena in the world. The photoshopped images below are attempts to explore these ways of thinking about the world.
Fred Ritchin’s After Photography (2009) has some good sentences which I will introduce into my Lit Review and no doubt take forward into the essay.
“…some quantum theorists, foremost amongst them, Neils Bhor and Heisenberg himself, argued that fundamental reality is essentially indeterminate, that there is no clear fixed, underlying ‘something’ to our daily existence that can ever be known. Everything about reality is and remains a matter of probabilities […] We have tried to use the photograph to concretize the probabilities (isn’t that what the “decisive moment” is all about?), reassuring us that reality is more solid than what our theories tell us.” (180)
In Data Selves (2019) Deborah Lupton quotes Kember and Zylinska (2012) to describe how photography is an “agential cut” aimed at imposing “meaning and order” and “delimiting choices” (29). As Ritchin says an alternative “may be too disconcerting, if not terrifying.” (ibid) As he describes, digital technology and photography in particular “can begin to be receptive to the oddities described by newer theories” [quantum and consciousness related]. (177) Superpositions, endless possibilities, entanglement, for instance, can all be alluded to using malleable data either as a process or a representation (which if one takes Hoffman’s idea on board are completely intra-related in any case).
Some sketches – I wonder if these would benefit from more contemporary mixes (a bit like Flowers for Donald). Still a bit Guardian headline pics for my liking :
(See Orpheus story – trees to this day in shape of dance to his music)
Hoffman, D. D. (2019) The case against reality: how evolution hid the truth from our eyes. London: Allen Lane.
Lupton, D. (2019) Data selves: more-than-human perspectives. Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA: Polity.
Landscape with Bridge – Anonymous, Italian, 17th century (s.d.) At: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/landscape-with-bridge-anonymous-italian-17th-century/EwHp9J9QWhanmw (Accessed 10/11/2019).
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