The development and deployment of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) engender “AI colonialism”, a term that conceptually overlaps with “data colonialism”, as a form of injustice. AI colonialism is in need of decolonization for three reasons. Politically, because it enforces digital capitalism’s hegemony. Ecologically, as it negatively impacts the environment and intensifies the extraction of natural resources and consumption of energy. Epistemically, since the social systems within which AI is embedded reinforce Western universalism by imposing Western colonial values on (...) the global South when these manifest in the digital realm is a form of digital capitalism. These reasons require a new conceptualization of AI decolonization. First this paper draws from the historical debates on the concepts of colonialism and decolonization. Secondly it retrieves Achille Mbembe’s notion of decolonization as disenclosure to argue that the decolonization of AI will have to be the abolishment of political, ecological and epistemic borders erected and reinforced in the phases of its design, production, development of AI in the West and drawing from the knowledge from the global South. In conclusion, it is discussed how conceiving of decolonial AI as form of disenclosure opens up new ways to think about and intervene in colonial instantiations of AI development and deployment, in order to empower “the wretched of AI”, re-ecologise the unsustainable ecologies AI depends on and to counter the colonial power structures unreflective AI deployment risks to reinforce. (shrink)

Drawing on reflections from a collaborative autoethnography, this article argues that ultramarathon running is defied by a 'dark' ecological sensibility (Morton 2007, 2010, 2016), characterised by moments of pain, disgust, and the macabre. In contrast to existing accounts, we problematise the notion that runners 'use' nature for escape and/or competition, while questioning the aesthetic-causal relationships often evinced within these accounts. With specific reference to the discursive, embodied, spatial and temporal aspects of the sport, we explore the way in which participants (...) begin to appreciate the immense power of nature, while being humbled by the fragile and unstable foundations of human experience. Accordingly this article contributes novel insights into the human-nature complex that seek to move beyond Romantic analyses towards a more sophisticated understanding of the relationships between (nature) sport, people and place. (shrink)

Since René Descartes famously separated the concepts of body and mind in the seventeenth century, western philosophy and theory have struggled to conceptualize the interconnectedness of minds, bodies, environments and cultures. While environmental psychology and the cognitive sciences have shown that spatial perception is 'embodied' and depends on the aforementioned concepts' interconnectedness, architectural design practice, for example, has rarely incorporated these insights. The article presents research on the epistemological foundations that frame the communication between design theory and practice and juxtaposes (...) it with scientific research on embodied experience. It further suggests that Asian aesthetics, with its long history in conceiving relations and art as interactive, could create a bridge between recent scientific insights and design practice. The article outlines an approach to the interconnectedness of minds, bodies, environments, the sciences and cultures, in favour of a future that is governed by creative wisdom rather than 'smart' efficiency. (shrink)

Luuletajad Jaan Kaplinski ja Tomas Tranströmer, keda lahutas raudne eesriie, kasvasid üles väga erinevates maailmades. Ent siiski said neist hingesugulased. Artiklis osutan, kuidas nende läheduse tuuma iseloomustas sügavalt juurdunud hoiak, mis põhines ökoloogiast inspireeritud maailmatunnetusel. Tugevasti lihtsustades võiks öelda, et oma egosse investeerimise asemel nägid mõlemad luuletajad end millegi suurema teenritena. Nad hindasid mõlemad kõrgelt avatuks jäävat vaadet enestele, oma tööle ja maailmale, millesse nad kuulusid. Kui nende egod viibisid pidevas taandumises, avardus nende vastuvõtlikkus maailma suhtes ning köitvus luuletajatena. --- (...) Separated by the Iron Curtain, Jaan Kaplinski and Tomas Tranströmer grew up in very different worlds. And yet, they became soulmates. What then informed the core of their kinship? This article aims to show that it was above all a deeply rooted sentiment grounded in an ecologically inspired view that brought the two poets together. To put a complex matter all too simply, Jaan Kaplinski and Tomas Tranströmer saw themselves as servants of something bigger: they shared a profoundly felt sense of “openness,” something which also lies at the heart of their success as poets. In Jaan Kaplinski’s and Tomas Tranströmer’s work and habits of thought, this core sentiment left easily overlooked but nevertheless telling traces. They include, as this article points out, their conversation concerning the translation of an essential term in Eastern thought, namely śūnyatā. Tranströmer followed Kaplinski’s unique suggestion, which was meant to capture more of the essence and spirit inherent in the term śūnyatā. As a consequence, in the final version of one of his best-known poems, entitled “Vermeer”, Tranströmer changed to “openness” what in Buddhism is commonly referred to as “emptiness”. Yet probably more significantly, what above all held Kaplinski and Tranströmer captive, as this article also aims to show, is a reversal in our understanding of the ego. Collectively, both poets agreed, we, as human beings, would be well advised to embrace a less intrusive role in the world to which we belong. Importantly, what Kaplinski and Tranströmer advocated does not amount to an impoverishing stance. On the contrary: only when we step away from our previous deeply entrenched positions of human dominance, both poets agreed, a richer world and more sustainable sense of self can come into view. To at least gain a glimpse of the fuller complexity of what brought both poets together, the observations offered in this article are meant to help us understand how, for Kaplinski and Tranströmer, changes in our view of the ego embody “openness”. Instead of increased ego noise, they urged the merit of a more modest ego. Not preoccupied with themselves, their goals and desire to intervene, both poets wrote poems focussed on the diminished ego as a key value. The more we step into the background – Kaplinski and, together with him, Tranströmer believed – the more the world opens up and the more we ultimately flourish. In addition to seeing “openness” surface in their self-effacing view of themselves, and, associated with it, their concentration on a vision of a world beyond human design, this article furthermore draws attention to another equally prominent manifestation of “openness” that brought both poets together: how can language make “openness” appear, they asked? We are invited to consider several intertwined answers Tranströmer and Kaplinski offered. They include embracing the untamed and stepping away from any decorative use of language – “all rhetoric must be left behind,” Tranströmer, echoing Kaplinski, categorically insisted; evoking the self-cancelling of language itself; or moving altogether beyond language: seeking to transcend it by employing a theme, introducing a practice, or setting up a signpost, all meant to point away from language. And finally, in league with “openness”, “silence” also constitutes a shared recurring theme in Kaplinski’s and Tranströmer’s work, as this article suggests. In order to better explain the importance of “silence”, the article draws attention to American composer John Cage. Informed by the altogether different logic of “openness” Cage employed, for him “silence” became the performance, as it were, and the ambient sounds of the concert hall its music. Acting as a particularly compelling embodiment of “openness” – not unlike the blank page of the poet, the unpublished manuscript of the writer, or the white canvas of the painter – “silence” too united Jaan Kaplinski and Tomas Tranströmer, as servants in their masterful quest for “openness”. (shrink)

RESUMEN ¿Por qué cuando Platón quiere justificar su definición del sofista como un «fabricante de imágenes», se apoya sobre dos versos auténticos de Parménides que aluden, sin duda alguna, al camino recorrido por los «mortales que nada saben»? ¿Quiere acaso sugerir que esos «mortales», que son en realidad «fabricantes de opiniones», son un antecedente de los sofistas, que son «fabricantes de imágenes»? ABSTRACT Why, when Plato wants to justify his definition of the sophist as an "image maker", he quotes two (...) authentic verses of Parmenides that undoubtedly allude to the path taken by the "mortals who know nothing"? Does he want to suggest that these "mortals", who are actually "opinions makers" are ancestors of the sophists, who are "image makers"? (shrink)

Self-cultivation—taking pedagogical action to educate oneself—is an integral part of non-formal adult education. Ever since Greek antiquity, it has been a central ingredient in the western philosophical and educational tradition. However, we argue that the global challenges that have emerged in the present era of the ecological crisis call for a new kind of understanding of this basic educational phenomenon. Based in particular on recent work in dark ecology and its central concept of the ‘uncanny’, we outline a few key (...) features of our time in relation to the contemporary challenge of self-cultivation. We then review extant literature on self-cultivation to ascertain whether the theoretical resources that have been used to conceptualise it in the past are capable of addressing these new aspects of self-cultivation. We conclude that each of the theoretical resources analysed here offer valuable insights into the novel challenges facing self-cultivation, though not all important questions can be answered. By specifying the contributions and limitations of these theoretical resources, we pave the way for future work on conceptualising self-cultivation for our times. (shrink)

RESUMEN El siglo XXI ha visto el auge de la "filosofia ambiental", preocupada por problematizar la crisis ecológica global. En esta bibliografia quedan relegados los aportes de Félix Guattari, uno de los primeros en desarrollar una filosofia ambiental en su obra Las tres ecologías. Este artículo propone analizar el centro problemático de esta obra pionera. Asi, se insiste en la importancia de volver al texto original; de revisar sus temas principales en cada dominio ecosófico ; y de sostener su vigencia (...) incluso a la luz de la actual filosofia ambiental. Además, en este análisis se consideran los aciertos y los desaciertos de sus apuestas y pronósticos: es notable que su incumplida esperanza práctica contrasta con su agudo diagnóstico teórico. Este texto arguye que esta obra no solo resiste bien el paso del tiempo, sino que además cumple con el propósito de clarificar la actual catástrofe planetaria. ABSTRACT The 21st century has seen the rise of "environmental philosophy", concerned with the problematization of the global ecological crisis. In this bibliography, the contributions of Felix Guattari remain relegated -even when he should be acknowledged as one of the first to develop an environmental philosophy in his work The Three Ecologies-. This article proposes an analysis of the problematic center of this pioneering work. Thus, it insists on the importance of returning to the original text; of revising its main topics in each ecosophical domain ; and of upholding its relevance even in the light of current environmental philosophy. Furthermore, in this analysis, the successes and flaws of its wagers and forecasts are considered: it is of note that its unfulfilled practical hope contrasts with its sharp theoretical diagnosis. The present text argues that this work not only passes the test of time, but also fulfills the purpose of clarifying the current planetary catastrophe. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 13, Issue 4, Page 299-305, October 2021. According to recent accounts, we experience the emotion of “being moved” when a situation brings into play our core values. What are the core values evoked by nonhuman landscapes, however, particularly as the distinction between man-made and natural environments becomes increasingly blurry in the so-called Anthropocene? That is the central question tackled by this article. I start by rethinking the sublime as an affect that, since Romanticism, has shaped Western attitudes (...) toward nature. I argue that today's climate crisis calls for an expansion of our affective engagement with the nonhuman: the sublime can be part of our emotional repertoire, but only if it is complicated by feelings that point to constitutive human–nonhuman entanglement. (shrink)

Often, political theories of the subject detach the subject from nature or else reduce the subject to a mere aggregate of natural features. Consequently, many attempts to articulate theories of the subject purport to preserve political theoretical concepts such as freedom, normativity, or responsibility by means of disjoining the subject from its environment. This article proposes a new theory of the ecologically conditioned subject. Developing the concept of companion ecologies, the article employs three examples – architecture, the human microbiome, and (...) indigenous Amazonian ontologies – to show how theorizing the subject at all necessitates theorizing her ecological conditions, as well. Companion ecologies do not refer merely to our environmental conditions, then. The term also functions as a referent. Ultimately, companion ecologies reveal that the individuation and formation of the subject is a process that takes place, paradoxically, only because of the ecological plurality underlying it. From this, I derive a minimalist theory of the subject for which subjects are materially and temporally extended and causally distributed morphogenetic sites, which emerge only in the context of interactive, multiscalar, and overlapping companion ecologies. (shrink)

Theoretical applications of time and temporality remain a key consideration for both climate scientists and the humanities. By way of extending this importance, we critically examine Timothy Morton’s proposed “ecological awareness” alongside Slavoj Žižek’s “parallax view”. In doing so, the article introduces a “past-present parallax” in order to contest that, while conceptions of the past are marked by “lack”, equally, our conceptions of and relations to Nature remain grounded in an ontological incompleteness, marked by contingency. This novel approach presents an (...) ecological awareness that remains temporally attuned to the impasses and inconsistencies which frame our relations in/with Nature. (shrink)

This article has two parts. The first one compares the ontological and epistemological implications of two main philosophical stances on how reality relates to appearance. I call the first group the “plane of superficiality,” where reality and appearance are the same; there is no gap between what a thing is and how it manifests itself. I call the second group “volume of representation,” in which reality is beyond appearances; there is an insurmountable gap between the thing and its phenomena. The (...) second part of the article focuses on Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) as the second group’s contemporary position. Within the OOO epistemological model of “knowledge without truth,” Harman’s schema of the observer’s participation in the object’s knowledge production is questioned. Alternatively, based on the notion proposed here of “flat representativity” in which each appearance is equally valuable to represent different aspects of the object, I argue for the full spectrum of the sensual as the basis for “knowledge without truth.” In particular, the aesthetic method, excluded from Harman’s concerns about knowledge, is suggested as another contribution to the episteme. (shrink)

This article has two general aims. It first of all critically reconsiders the empirical turn’s dismissal of transcendentalism in the philosophy of technology, in particular through the work of Ihde and Verbeek, and defends the continuing relevance of the notion of the transcencental in thinking about technology today, illustrating this mainly through a reading of Stiegler’s understanding of the human condition as a technical condition and his view of human (noetic) evolution as proceeding from a process of technical exteriorization. The (...) crucial issue that is missed by postphenomenology and the empirical turn is that technology itself in its empiricity occupies the (periodically changing) place of the transcendental. It thus fails to consider the transcendental operativity of technical artifacts within its own empiricist stance. Secondly, it argues for the continuing importance and usefulness of the idea of Technology with a capital T, equally discarded by the representatives of the empirical turn, in particular against the emerging backdrop of the Anthropocene as the age of decisive anthropogenic forcing of the planet and the growing dominance of what has recently been called the technosphere in Earth system science. With Stiegler I show that a proper, inherent dynamic of technology must be acknowledged historically, anthropologically, techno-evolutionarily as well as (techno)phenomenologically. I conclude by demonstrating that our time of planetary crisis summons us to redirect our attention to technology from the empirical to the transcendental, and from the micro-level to the macro-level again. (shrink)

Diverging definitions of what the human being is or should be polarize the ongoing debate about human enhancement between so-called bioconservatives and transhumanists. This essay seeks to review some of the central issues at stake in this discussion and in a wider sense within current, mostly philosophically oriented approaches that endeavor to understand “human being” or “human nature” in relation to technology. It does so specifically on the basis of a discussion of two recent works that thoroughly grapple with these (...) topics. (shrink)

An ecological focus is not simply an additional perspective to add to a multidimensional approach to feminist theologies. Ecological thinking requires a fundamental shift of perspective, so that the focus of feminism, traditionally a human focus, is rethought within the frame of the materiality that constitutes not only humans but Earth and cosmos. As a way of situating feminist theological discourses and experiences ecologically, this article focuses on a shared materiality as a basis for reframing human being, dwelling, agency and (...) labour, in terms of co-being, habitat, co-agency and more-than-human labour. This reframing implies a rethinking of human freedom that has implications for how we engage with feminist theologies in relation to the future of Earth and humankind. (shrink)

Drawing on Roberto Esposito’s conceptualization of ‘affirmative biopolitics’, this article examines the relationship between bedbugs and humans in the Glasgow neighbourhood of Govanhill. Through an analysis of ethnographic field notes and interviews with people who live in the area, this article traces their experiences from first encounters. The trajectory of this experience shows a shift from a desire to immunize their homes through total annihilation of the creatures to the more pragmatic position of learning how to live with them through (...) an orientation toward ‘shared vulnerability’. This case study raises interesting questions for biopolitical theory: how can we conceive of affirmative biopolitics when the limitations of species being are evident, and is it possible to conceive of a multi or even interspecies munus or obligation? (shrink)

This essay uses Ulrich Beck’s concept of risk society to understand the threat of catastrophic climate change. It argues that this threat is “abstract-corporeal”, and therefore a special kind of threat that poses special kinds of epistemic and ecological challenges. At the center of these challenges is the problem of human vulnerability, which entails a complex form of trust that both sustains and threatens human survival.

Bruno Latour (2004) claims that modernist critique, the kind that removes the false veils of ideology, ‘has run out of steam’. Despite its theoretical variety, it often consists in pointing out how...

Nature has been widely represented in literature and culture as healing, redemptive, unspoilt, and restorative. In the aftermath of the First World War, writers grappled with long cultural associations between nature and healing. Having survived a conflict in which relations between people, and the living environment had been catastrophically ruptured, writers asked: could rural and wild places offer meaningful sites of solace and recovery for traumatised soldiers? In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier, Nan Shepherd’s (...) The Weatherhouse and Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song, trauma severs emotional, social, and cultural relationships with the natural world. These interwar literatures offer counter-narratives to simplistic depictions of nature as a healing space and highlight the difficulties of returning to rural environments and ‘reconnecting’ with known and natural places. (shrink)

Nature has been widely represented in literature and culture as healing, redemptive, unspoilt, and restorative. In the aftermath of the First World War, writers grappled with long cultural associations between nature and healing. Having survived a conflict in which relations between people, and the living environment had been catastrophically ruptured, writers asked: could rural and wild places offer meaningful sites of solace and recovery for traumatised soldiers? In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925), Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918), (...) Nan Shepherd’s The Weatherhouse (1930) and Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song (1932), trauma severs emotional, social, and cultural relationships with the natural world. These interwar literatures offer counter-narratives to simplistic depictions of nature as a healing space and highlight the difficulties of returning to rural environments and ‘reconnecting’ with known and natural places. (shrink)

A new book by Timothy Morton, Being Ecological, is reviewed. Being Ecological is a project into the ethics and discourse that emerge between speculative realism and ecological politics. This book is intended to build on the object-oriented ontology that Morton has espoused in previous volumes, however with a greater emphasis on the current state and future of ecological discussions. The book's core methodology is to outline the failures of the current modes of discussion environmental and ecological concerns and provide ways (...) of entering into a more authentic philosophical discussion. The book differs from Morton's usual verbose and highly poetic form in favor of a more grounded and accessible entry into his large project. (shrink)

This dissertation is based around conceptual conflicts introduced by the notion of rewilding and the challenges rewilding poses to place and cultural landscapes. Rewilding is a recent conservation strategy interested in the return of wilder, less human-managed environments. Often presented as an antidote to increasingly homogenized, organized, and managed environments, rewilding deliberately opens up space for the return of wild nature, typically by removing human elements that have obstructed or diminished its free reign or by reintroducing locally extinct species to (...) re-activate trophic cascades. There is, however, an increasing awareness that rewilding in many places will threaten cultural landscapes that are prized for their human meanings and histories. This dissertation does not attempt to resolve this conflict but instead takes a hermeneutic interest in it and tries to understand better what is at stake in such a conflict. This is attempted by means of a hermeneutic detour through the concepts of place and of wilderness, and ultimately the dissertation argues that instead of understanding rewilding simply as undermining notions of place, we should understand rewilding itself as placemaking. This conceptual work is informed by actual cases of rewilding and an examination of the conflicts arising out of the various modes of placemaking rewilding performs. Three modes of placemaking are demonstrated: wilderness placemaking, experimental placemaking, and place-regenerative placemaking. Taken in total, these reveal ways in which rewilding confronts us with relations with nonhuman others and with questions of belonging and not belonging that are increasingly at issue. (shrink)

Defining posthumanism as a single, well-oriented philosophy is a difficult if not impossible endeavour. Part of the reason for this difficulty is accounted by posthumanism’s illusive origins and its perpetually changing hermeneutics. This short paper gives a brief account of the ecological trend in contemporary posthumanism and provides a short prescription for the future of posthumanist literature and potential research avenues.

This research project aims to accomplish two primary objectives: (1) propose an argument that a posthuman ethics in the design of technologies is sound and thus warranted and, (2) how can existent SBD approaches begin to envision principled and methodological ways of incorporating nonhuman values into design. In order to do this this MRP will provide a rudimentary outline of what constitutes SBD approaches. A particular design approach - Value Sensitive Design (VSD) - is taken up as an illustrative example (...) given that it, among the other SBD frameworks, most clearly illustrates a principled approach to the integration of values in design. -/- This explication will be followed by the strongest arguments for a posthumanist ethic, primarily drawing from the works of the Italian philosophers Leonardo Caffo and Roberto Marchesini and Francesa Ferrando. In doing so I will show how the human imperative to account for nonhuman values is a duty and as such must be continually ready-to-hand when making value-critical decision. (shrink)

Both current and past analyses and critiques of transhumanist and posthumanist theories have had a propensity to cite the Greek myth of Prometheus as a paradigmatic figure. Although stark differences exist amongst the token forms of posthumanist theories and transhumanism, both theoretical domains claim promethean theory as their own. There are numerous definitions of those two concepts: therefore, this article focuses on posthumanism thought. By first analyzing the appropriation of the myth in posthumanism, we show how the myth fails to (...) be foundational and how we need to rethink the posthumanist mythological framework. We then introduce Haldane’s Daedalus figure as a fruitful analogy to understand the demiurgic posture that critics mean to unveil by first using Prometheus. Daedalus embodies the artisan role, whose status as an inventor for the mighty preserves from the gods' direct opprobrium. Thereafter, we introduce the Camusian Myth of Sisyphus as a competing analogy that ultimately serves as a myth better suited to address the posthumanist position on an existential standpoint. we ultimately show that Sisyphus, as the ‘absurd man’ that Camus claims him to be, is himself the posthuman, thus serving as a more ideal foundational myth for posthumanism and preserving the importance of narrative in posthuman discourses. To conclude, we specifically show that the concept of Sisyphus as a posthuman icon has significance that reaches beyond narrative value to current ecological debates in posthumanism. (shrink)

Modernism has provided a strong case for technoprogressivism, innovation and speculation on future possibilities. However, drastic and often devastating consequences have followed modernism such as global warming and mass biodiversity loss. In Leonardo Caffo and Azzurra Muzzonigro’s new book, a case for posthumanism as a means for envisioning and rethinking futures studies is argued and practical means by which those futures can be realized are outlined.

Current discussions on artificial intelligence, in both the theoretical and practical realms, contain a fundamental lack of clarity regarding the nature of artificial intelligence, perhaps due to the fact that the distinction between natural and artificial appears, at first sight, both intuitive and evident. Is AI something unnatural, non-human and therefore dangerous to humanity, or is it only a continuation of man’s natural tendency towards creativity? It is not surprising that from the philosophical point of view, this distinction is the (...) basic question that fundamentally affects all other considerations and conclusions pertaining to artificial intelligence. In this article, I would like to explain this difference and draw attention to some conclusions, which may result from a naturalistic perspective with regard to recent philosophical posthumanism. For this purpose, I present several examples of the natural–artificial distinction in the different fields of the philosophy of science and then discuss their implications for the problem of intelligence. Based on Dennett’s conception of intentionality and the naturalistic perspective, I demonstrate that besides the traditional conception, there is a non-anthropocentric evolutionary view in which the natural–artificial distinction disappears and it is possible to see a united process of intelligence creation. (shrink)

The significance of educational research is today predicated on its ability to engage with the ecological, economic, and political challenges of the anthropocene, for where we might take seriously education’s commitment to the future necessitates a sustained encounter with the implications and questions raised in the wake of ‘our’ mutated planetary ecology. To repeat in the image of those educational practices, models and patterns of thinking that have contributed to the contemporary ecological crisis of the planet falls gravely short of (...) apprehending what it might entail to live in the contemporary moment. Yet further, where education is intimate to teleology, it is today clear that the image of the future posited educationally has fallen out of synch with the ‘outside thought’ of ecocatastrophe, or rather, our being ‘thought’ from the inhuman perspective of a planet destined to go on without us. Educationally, this threat poses a quite remarkable opportunity, for where human thought might be doomed to extinction, the question of how and where we might think assumes urgency. In this vein, this essay explores the wisdom that ‘we’ are and will be thought from perspectives alien to human desire becomes a catalyst for how educational research might be rethought otherwise in a more-than-human world. (shrink)

This article draws on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas to consider, from an ethical perspective, the current transparency and accountability agenda in Australian schooling. It focuses on the case of the My School website and the argument that transparent publication of comparative performance data via the website provides a basis for making things better in schooling. The article argues that while technologies of accountability may have potential benefits, they cannot provide a basis for this ethical project. Instead, the ethical experience (...) described by Levinas arises from an encounter with opacity in the face-to-face relation with the Other, who is harshly illuminated by the transparency promised through calculation and comparison. Such encounters with opacity hold the potential to disrupt the politics of visibility promoted by transparency agendas and provide an alternative to the growing practice of 'accountability at a distance' based on performance data. (shrink)

Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology has employed a variant of occasionalist causation since 2002, with sensual objects acting as the mediators of causation between real objects. While the mechanism for living beings creating sensual objects is clear, how nonliving objects generate sensual objects is not. This essay sets out an interpretation of occasionalism where the mediating agency of nonliving contact is the virtual particles of nominally empty space. Since living, conscious, real objects need to hold sensual objects as sub-components, but nonliving (...) objects do not, this leads to an explanation of why consciousness, in Object-Oriented Ontology, might be described as doubly withdrawn: a sensual sub-component of a withdrawn real object. (shrink)