The Matter of Wonder by Loriliai Biernacki

The Matter of Wonder by Loriliai Biernacki

Author:Loriliai Biernacki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00


So, like Wheeler, for Abhinavagupta the world arises first out of an indistinct immateriality that only later begins to be defined into the objectivity that makes for a “fully completed picture.” This turns what was inward knowledge into an object, an “it.” First, reality is indistinct, knowledge, and this knowledge, like Wheeler’s information, is indistinct, not defined. Then it becomes defined into matter. For Wheeler, the object comes to exist through a process of definition that makes information, which was indistinct into something distinct as object, an “It,” or a “This” if we draw from Abhinavagupta’s language. Wheeler describes the process by comparing how we get “It from Bit” in a quantum reality to a game of 20 Questions.58 Only, the game of 20 Questions Wheeler has in mind is one where the players have not yet decided upon what the object would be; the questions themselves steer the creation of the object to its particular form. In this comparison, Abhinavagupta’s concept of activity (kriyā), extending outwardly, and the actions of Māyā, as delimiting one thing and not another would be Wheeler’s probe, the questions that Wheeler points to that create and define the object.

Wheeler, for his part, is quite reticent in his speculations on how consciousness might play into the mix. He acknowledges that his model of the information-theorectic seems to point like a smoking gun toward the idea of consciousness59:

“Consciousness.” We have traveled what may seem a dizzying path. First, [an] elementary quantum phenomenon brought to a close by an irreversible act of amplification. Second, the resulting information expressed in the form of bits. Third, this information used by observer-participants—via communication—to establish meaning. Fourth, from the past through the billeniums to come, so many observer-participants, so many bits, so much exchange of information, as to build what we call existence.60



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.