The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

Is there a virtual ontology?

Is there a virtual ontology? Think of the virtual as the
promulgation of the image and its phenomenological retention. Such
is the debris or cast-off of the real, no more or less virtual
than any other sensory modality and its reception. This is an
important point; we can no more live in the virtual now than we
could, then, that is, at any other point. The image always carries
its own imaginary which is a confluence and culturally-dependent,
sensorially dependent as well. This imaginary itself carries a
confluence of poetics, but at this point we're at a distance from
the obdurate hardness of ontology. Now ontology is something one
must be careful of, in relation to thinking through it. One need
not be careful _of_ ontology itself, which characterizes existence
whatever one might think, and here is where scientism enters into
the picture: what is this carelessness? I think within the
ordinary attitude, it is something that might well be abandoned,
outside the aegis of technology.  [...] So no, there's not a
virtual ontology, or rather one might think of virtual ontology as
equivalent to any other, fulfilling the same contracts, offices,
and rules...

There is 'an other hand' to this - for how can a snippet answer or
re/consider such complex matters in detail? It's too simple and we
might as well reverse everything: Think of the virtual as the
harboring of the image and its constitution and reconstitution.
The real might then be a production or cast-off of the virtual
(which also includes the imaginary) - a real no more or less real
than any other: think of mathesis, physics, cosmology, over-the-
horizon of the holographic universe. Then the real carries its own
obdurate, not dependent on the virtual, but co-habiting with it -
and at this point we're at a distance from the suppleness of
ontology, which may well be considered a flow or flux. One might
be careless of thinking through ontology, but one need be careful
_of_ ontology, particularly as suppleness lends itself everywhere
and everywhen. Here is where poetics enters into the picture, and
what is the care that poetics takes? I think within the ordinary
attitude, it is something that must be tended, stewarded,
inhabited beyond the aegis of the technology. Or rather the
technological is pulled along with it. [...] So yes, there's a
virtual ontology, or rather one might think of virtual ontology as
_that_ ontology among others, abandoning contracts, offices, and
rules...

And have we really reversed anything here? Anything at all?