The Weirdness of the World; The Science of Weird Shit

We might start from the presumption that “weird shit” is no longer an exception to how things can be, an outlier, perturbation, or aberration. We surely know by now that weird is wired, the new normal, in everything except perhaps dentistry, polyamory, and AI-mashed-up “art”: a comfort in the first two, and a tiresome burden in the third.This is a review of two books about weirdness. One shows that the “weird” of its title is scientifically explicable and very likely not weird at all, the other that the whole cosmic/ quantic tractatus physico-philosophicus is necessarily weird and dubious. You’d think these were opposed to one another—the one reformist, reducing “wonders” to banality; the other revolutionary, problematizing the “obvious”—but the aim of this review is to show that they are facets of the same search for “truth,” and that in addition to contributing to philosophy, they also have something to offer art. Pace Wittgenstein: Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we should not shut up, but write about, make art about, and celebrate in theory and practice.It is to be expected that these two texts on the “weird” might satisfy the multiple criteria of value for the artist-researcher-philosopher that one might take a typical Leonardo reader to be. For this reviewer, art is research (a more or less systematic inquiry whose goal is knowledge) and a kind of mainly visual philosophy, perhaps with transformational or political dimensions—at least on a good day. Philosophy and physics often seem to aspire (sometimes resignedly) to the condition of each other. Art should join the party.Schwitzgebel has written that the world is fundamentally weird: “By this I mean that with regard to foundational matters in cosmology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind, one or another of various bizarre possibilities must be true, but our best science and philosophy don’t put us in a position to know which of those bizarre possibilities is in fact correct.” Questioned in various online interviews, he often responds (at first) “I don’t know,” which is nice. Because, of course, mostly we do not know. He wants us to admit that, first, all possible explanations for most of the important stuff are going to be weird. And then that the acceptance of that, rather than imposing simplistic, less weird “explanations” about everything, is the only way to go. There is a near-Buddhist feel about this, which is rather persuasive. It’s almost a freedom. He contrasts the philosophy of opening with that of closing or exclusion: “We can learn by addition as well as subtraction.”The book “unmoors” us by asserting that the results of removing common sense (not a reliable guide) as a constraint on questions about mind and world are bizarre and beautiful possibilities that, once open, refuse to shut. I like his three possible explanations of why metaphysics is always bizarre: either (a) we want it to be, else it would be “downmarket”; (b) we want a simpler metaphysics but haven’t achieved that yet; or (c) we can’t have one. Of course, he is for the last one.The next section takes seriously three weird possibilities that are implausible “but not as implausible as all that.” The possibilities are that the United States is conscious; that we don’t really exist, being simulated or “envatted brains”; and that reality is nonmaterial, brought into being by our minds. He is not arguing for or against these propositions, really, but showing that if we think seriously about the questions they apply to, we are going to end up in a skeptical weirdness.The following section considers the “it’s all in my mind” possibility and the many-worlds idea. At the extremes of scale, the former suggests that the universe is all in just one (his) mind, the latter that the universe is infinite and almost everything you do causes almost everything else. “Among the least likely possibilities is that the universe is the size we might unreflectively think it is,” the observable universe with us at the center.Solipsism—my consciousness is all that exists—must “surely” be untrue. Our faith is strong and doesn’t need proof, but Schwitzgebel is dancing on the roof, the better to overthrow that particular silly rejection of ours based on common sense (not that he really thinks it’s true): “The two most famous attempts to cure radical solipsism from within come from Descartes . . . and from Kant. . . neither succeeds.” Neither do Russell or G. E. Moore. The former gets short to medium shrift, Moore gets less. The author’s nice proof of the falsity of solipsism is to play twenty games of chess against a former graduate student, Alan Tonnies Moore, who collaborated on chapter six and is a better player. Remember that Schwitzgebel is a solipsist for the purposes of this experiment, so neither “seeming-Alan,” chessboard, nor pieces exist outside his consciousness. The seeming-opponent defeated him in seventeen games out of twenty. You cannot specifically imagine the moves of an expert player if you’re not one, so “it feels hard to avoid the conclusion that something exists that exceeds my own conscious intelligence in at least this one arena” and “we are not justified in believing any general theory of consciousness.”Then how can we know whether future AI systems are conscious or possess any consciousness at all? How will we treat them if we’re unsure? What if we’re mistaken? And then what if actually we, life, the universe, and everything are “just” a simulation? Considering such questions and then going along with the book’s very convincing thesis that most theories are crazy, but probably not wrong, and that the ones that seem a gnat’s breath closer to truth are inevitably weird and dubious might make a reader depressed. However, the uncertainty on all levels seems to delight and excite him, and because he writes well, even if there are sometimes feelings of déjà vu, I found his book an exciting and very stimulating read. His various videos and interviews are good too. He laughs a lot: always a good sign.A point where I diverge from his Zen-like, quizzical observation and enjoyment of life’s (or whatever’s) joke, is in the context of AI. This area is either of lesser importance than the cosmological questions or is of paramount supremacy for us, especially if we’re just in a necessarily intelligent simulation. The author is used to seemingly rational discussions with seemingly rational people. They can enjoy the weird. My fear is that decisions between what is usefully weird and criminally weird are likely to be culturally determined.“Violations of common sense have to be earned” (Schwitzgebel). Indeed. But whose common sense? It could consist in recognisng that weirdness is inevitable in descriptions of existence, or in the outing of those and their followers who trade in a (to some, commonsensical) weirdness, sometimes for money, power or to make themselves feel better. Or (worse?) to those who sincerely believe their own apparent nonsense—the “Weird Shit” of Chris French’s title, which I suppose was a good marketing idea.Both Schwitzgebel and French are doing us a favor. Both are famous sceptics. Both have an “open” approach. French, for example, Emeritus Professor and head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London (which institution also houses the excellent Gustav Kahn’s unit studying the science of magic) writes that many psychics genuinely believe they do have special powers. Both authors demystify for us the processes by which we can recognize and begin to handle weirdness. It’s not a strawman alternative to the “truths” of the weaponizers of assertive dubiety, and it’s not magic.French’s “weird shit” has nothing to do with the weirdness of the world. Just because we should believe six impossible things before breakfast does not entail us taking afternoon tea with alien lizards. But in admirably explaining everything from ectoplasm to exploding head syndrome, and privileging psychology over wishful thinking in areas from dowsing to divination, he unravels, not unsympathetically, the psychology of those who need simple answers (even if weird ones) to the big human questions and who often find magic energies and conspiracies to be far more congenial than any of Schwitzgebel’s scientific and philosophical delights.Two chapters in The Science of Weird Shit about remembering being abducted by aliens and the near-death experiences beloved by believers exemplify French’s methods and clear-headed approach. In the former, we learn that the term “flying saucer” appeared in 1947 following press interest in reports of strange craft flying at amazing speeds. These were reported and drawn by Kenneth Arnold as being boomerang-shaped, but he described their motion as comparable to a saucer skimming over water. The media found headlines using “flying saucers” excited people, and that took hold. So people started describing, in great detail, saucer-shaped UFOs in subsequent sightings. The advent of photoshopping makes the author nostalgic for the old days when photographic “evidence” depended on (usually saucer-shaped) models or household objects suspended on string.As for the strangely common factors in really close encounters of various kinds, we have the usual delusional, fantasizing, or simply mistaken people (and some right nutters) talking of Scandinavian-ish blondes, naughty breeding attempts, and the usual anal probes and strange marks left on bodies after the dream—sorry, encounter—was over. Alien implants often mysteriously disappear when about to be examined or turn out to be a dental filling. Recovered memories are, to say the least, to be regarded with deep suspicion.Perhaps the most entertaining thing French recounts is that many ufologists believe the initial lack of memories noted in accounts of the (in one way or another arousing) abductions is that the aliens wipe the memories of the victims afterward, which would indeed explain a lot. Fortunately, there are always a few tiny give-away details that enable the later recovery of the whole weird story. And there is a checklist! Have you ever woken paralyzed with a strange sensation of someone or something in the room? Experienced a period of time, an hour or more, in which you were apparently lost but could not remember why or where? Felt yourself flying through the air though not knowing how or why? Seen unusual lights in a room? Found marks on your body that you don’t remember receiving? Four to five yeses and you’ve been abducted by aliens. But they probably wiped your other, more specific memories.Another interesting chapter is headed “Dying To Know The Truth.” Yes, you guessed it: near death experiences (NDEs), out of body experiences (OBEs), seeing yourself from above, tunnels with lights at the end, pain-free peace, someone appropriately dressed in white and light telling you your time has not come yet, waking up back in your hospital bed. What was said, if anything, to the non-returners we shall, of course, never know. How we long to not die, you know, not really really die. (We shall float over in silence the less talked about terrifying experiences of devilish torture or being alone forever in an infinite void. I suppose it depends on your background.)There are explanations aplenty. One is that it’s a memory of traveling down the birth canal. Against that: Babies aren’t usually born headfirst, it wouldn’t be peaceful, and babies can’t lay down memories. Crucially, surely, babies born by cesarean section can also have NDEs when grown up. NDEs can also happen to people who only believe they are dying but aren’t really, and surely this latter should give a clue?There are striking similarities between NDEs and testimonies from fighter pilots passing out and experiencing the effects of a lack of blood going to the brain because of extreme gravitational maneuvers: floating, tunnels, bright lights, OBEs, euphoria, friends and families felt present, not wanting to be disturbed out of it, dissociation. . . . There is much more evidence that some or all of the NDE experiences can be produced by means not depending upon a soul. There is also exaggeration and downright fabrication in the stories of people floating up and seeing things on top of cupboards. A famous case of a blind person who could describe everything going on during a NDE was later admitted to have been made up by a researcher “for illustrative purposes”! People do so want to believe. But why?We are so good at fooling ourselves, switching off rational thought when it suits us. This can lead us into beliefs far more dubious and counterintuitive than any of Schwitzgebel’s weird hypotheses. In fact, after reading the (to me) tragically crazy stuff demolished or made dubious in French’s book, to return to scientifically likely cosmic weirdness was a relief.As French’s book reached its end via stories of dowsing rods and TV programs “testing” the existence of a psi energy but designed to give some positive results, I realized I was never going to change my mind, just as the believers rarely change theirs.Will any general AI and its philosophical and scientific apparatuses become steps on the way to making us more intelligent, more open, rational, and (sorry) less nasty? Or will it give rise to a new, unanswerable, self-certifying charlatanism and gullibility 2.0, where people do the mental equivalent of drinking bleach to cure viral infections, forever? Neither of these excellent and frequently amusing books gives grounds for supposing there’s any third alternative.Art, on the other hand, should and often does contain within its representations or “statements,” for want of a better word, questions about its own ambiguities. Where tabloid newspapers, mad social media users, and much popular culture normalize hard binary attempts to make sense of the world, art and literature are surely one of the few resources we now have left to open things up rather more. Both of these books give permissions, perhaps obligations, to be usefully and even rigorously weirder than is generally expected of us.Humans tend to think that when something happens (or is represented or displayed) near them, it happens to them for a purpose. They seem to think this in every situation except bookshops and art galleries. Yet perhaps there is a hope. What upsets the conjurors of normalcy the most? The crazy, dubious, commodified, cynical, conservative, revolutionary, useless, spectacular, distracting, gouging, woke, stupid, brilliant, kind, cruel, sometimes magnificently weird work of artists, writers, musicians, and (even!) philosophers and psychologists

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Paranormal · Shit · Medicine · Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs · Philosophy