Originally, I had planned to put up this article after the proposal defense, but while writing it I realized that in fact it was nothing more than citing some things I had written before, so I shelved it. But today a troll came by my Theses on Media Ontology, which just happens to give me a good occasion to post this article as a response.
In fact, this troll’s objection was similar to the question Professor Sun raised back then. Of course, Professor Sun always poses his questions haughtily but without losing decorum, whereas internet trolls are different. I very much welcome criticism and questioning, especially the sort Professor Sun offers, but trolls are not treated with courtesy in the teahouse. The first way to identify a troll is to see that he does not expect you to answer his question; he trolls and that’s that, as if convinced that he has seen through everything and that I cannot answer. Second, for some reason, the sort of trolls I encounter are all anonymous, with their nicknames and email addresses thrown together carelessly. This phenomenon is worth noting—if you are so confident, why are you unwilling to leave your name?
The issue raised by this troll friend is the distinction between natural media (the eye) and artificial media (the keyboard). Of course, I did not discuss this question in detail in the theses, and I failed to take into account the place where readers were most likely to have doubts; that is my fault. But of course, I had long since noticed this issue.
And at the proposal defense, some of the similar questions Professor Sun raised were mainly these: I also described the epistemological turn of modern philosophy as a discovery of mediality, but as for the senses as mediations, are they fundamentally different from technical objects such as telescopes as mediations? What is seen through a telescope can still be seen with the eyes, but seeing with the eyes seems to be a direct, irreplaceable way of grasping things.
As I understand it, this idea is even present among some phenomenologists: namely, the belief that things have a most direct, or rather the most “natural,” way of being given; a telescope can be reduced to naked-eye seeing, but naked-eye seeing is the most basic.
On this question, first, I must admit that seeing with the naked eye and seeing through a telescope are different ways of seeing, just as seeing through a telescope and seeing through an infrared lens are different, and just as grasping something with glasses and grasping it with the hand are different. One of the basic features of media ontology is that what is called “media” are actual and rich.
Second, I must also admit that seeing with the naked eye has a certain priority over seeing through a telescope; in most environments, the naked eye is indeed the most “natural” way of seeing. But this “naturalness” is not some abstract principle floating in a world of ideas; it is also actual and historical. On the one hand, the priority relations among vision, hearing, and touch still need to be distinguished; according to McLuhan, in oral culture hearing and touch are slightly primary, whereas in written culture vision occupies an overwhelming position. On the other hand, even media technologies embodied in technical objects rather than in the flesh can become natural. For example, if some society had children put on lenses as soon as they were born, then when they took off the lenses as adults, it would be the “seeing” of their naked eyes that would be “unnatural.” Here “natural” is in a certain sense both historical and innate, because this historicality refers to a living environment into which everyone is born and into which everyone is thrown.
In addition, the alleged priority of seeing with the naked eye over seeing through a telescope also depends on “what one is seeing.” Different objects have their most “natural” mode of presentation: a weight tends to be weighed in the hand, wine tends to be smelled and tasted, the text on a book is best seen from about 30 centimeters away, and mountains are better viewed from afar. Each thing only most vividly reveals itself—reveals what it “is”—when it is seen in certain specific ways. Before I lift the cup, take a small sip, and say, “This is a cup of baijiu,” I already have a prior grasp of it, and this grasp leads me to think of choosing a particular way (a medium) to approach it and reveal it. If I were examining a cup of sulfuric acid in a chemistry lab, I would not bring my mouth close to it, but would use some specific tools or techniques.
In particular, many entities in modern science, such as electrons and photons, can only be disclosed through certain high-tech media. In fact, under certain conditions the human retina can sense a photon. But even so, we still need to confirm the readings on the instruments in order to be certain that this is a photon. On the other hand, holding the graphs and tracks of data provided by instruments, scientists will also say: I saw the trajectory of an electron, this is a beam of photons, and so on. And in the world-picture given by modern science, electrons and photons are even more “real,” more “natural,” than tables and chairs.
Finally, just like the naked eye, and just like the telescope, the hand and the keyboard are both detachable for analysis; that is to say, we can analyze this medium-object in an objectifying way. In fact, modern neuro-cognitive science is precisely doing this sort of thing. It breaks down the structure of human perception into “brain—nerves—eyes—object.” In order to study “perception,” it analyzes step by step “inwardly”: extracting the eye to look at and analyze its structure, extracting the nervous system to look at and analyze its structure. Cognitive science tries, through such efforts, to clarify the structure of “seeing.” But what such analysis reveals is nothing more than the structure of the medium-object of seeing, similar to analyzing the structure of a telescope. Such analysis does indeed help us understand the process of “seeing,” but it misses the intentional structure of seeing. In this sense, eye biology or neuroscience does not occupy a more essential epistemological position than lens studies.
One more point, which was also raised by a teacher during the defense: if I do this, then everything becomes a medium—so what, then, is not a medium? Indeed, the so-called media ontology binds the concepts of medium and being together, and of course that makes it all-encompassing. But on the other hand, not everything is a medium. For example, a telescope being toyed with in one’s hand is not a medium, and an eye currently being analyzed by life science is not a medium. Simply put, anything that is “ready-made” is not a medium. But anything is potentially a medium.
As for the next question raised by the troll friend: “Imagine your computer breaks down. It is your medium. Please tell us, what is manifested for you—the keyboard, the mouse, the CPU, or the computer as a whole? Perhaps you manifested each one in turn, and if you’re unlucky, even something unrelated to these, like the fact that ‘xiaolongbao tastes good,’ was also manifested.” — I already mentioned this issue in Media Realism. This phenomenon precisely proves that so-called “real objects” are not things standing there all by themselves in ready-made isolation, but merely nodes in the web of the world. A train is sitting there; if there are no tracks and stations in this world, and only those few carriages standing there, then it is not a “train.” If one keeps pursuing the matter, the presentation of an isolated thing is always with the joint participation of the whole world; as for just how far it is presented, that depends on when your search stops. My computer breaks down, I begin to search; if I discover that the keyboard cable is broken, then what is manifested is the keyboard; if in the end I find a xiaolongbao in the case, then the xiaolongbao is indeed manifested as well. It is like this: you walk along, see a piece of wood lying on the ground, and perhaps glance at it and step over it; then what is manifested is a piece of wood. If you look around a bit, perhaps you will then see a ginkgo tree; if you search further, perhaps you will see the construction crew cutting down the tree nearby; if you continue searching, perhaps you will finally discover that this is a photography set, that the ginkgo tree is fake, and that it is still just a piece of wood… What exactly is manifested depends on when you begin searching and when you interrupt the search. In a certain sense, it really is a matter of “luck.”
Finally, let me quote several related passages I wrote before; for related questions, you can click through and pursue them further:
Some phenomenological scholars also seem to insist that what is called “intuition” is only when some tangible, medium-sized ready-made thing is placed not too far and not too near for us to see. This concept of “intuition” is very naive, but not true. Any “intuition” is also always achieved through certain media and technologies (including bodily technologies). For example, if a person is highly myopic and not allowed to wear glasses, then he cannot “see” anything at all—how, then, could there be intuition? If one can have intuition through glasses, why not with a telescope? A magnifying glass? Then what about a microscope? An electron microscope? Through what kind of medium is what is presented by it not allowed to be called intuition? People always tend to think of things in a ready-made way, so when we think about the concept of “intuition,” we often imagine a ready-made space, ready-made things, standing there ready-made, and then a subject quietly contemplating them. But in fact, whether there is intuition or not does not depend on these ready-made distances and spatial relations, but on the degree of skill in handling activity. An infant who has not yet become familiar with its own bodily functions has no intuition; a blind person who has just regained sight cannot immediately intuit with the eyes; and someone who has just gone blind has lost the ability to intuit the objects “in front of” them, but through training and familiarity, even without eyes, the blind person can also perform intuition. Intuition is an ability, the ability to use one’s immediate techniques “with ease,” and thereby to reach the object directly. “With ease” means letting the medium completely incarnate itself as oneself, with the medium merging into “oneself” and becoming highly transparent; at this point, the presentation of the object is intuition. https://yilinhut.net/2010/08/24/2564.html
Of course, different things have different “modes of appearing”; it is not the case that only when you “directly” see some thing is that thing in a mode of presence. Or rather, for different things, the meaning of “direct contact” is different. Perception is always realized through some medium; in general, our body is the most basic medium, and with respect to different things and corresponding contextual backgrounds, when we grasp things intuitively we will do so through different kinds of bodily participation. For example, when identifying a cup of water, we generally do so by looking at it from a certain distance with the eyes; but if the background is that I also have an expectation—namely, that this cupful may be water and may also be white vinegar—then I need to bring it close and smell it with my nose in order to grasp it. At other times, we may need to use media such as glasses or telescopes to obtain intuition. And with other objects, such as mathematical objects, we may present them intuitively through deductive means. Also, as an aside, contemporary electronic media have brought about some profound effects on the mode of presence of things. Which is more “present”: the audience watching a “live broadcast” in front of a television set, or the “audience on the scene”? https://yilinhut.net/2010/03/26/2534.html
For example, if a person with poor eyesight can only “intuit” the object in front of them through glasses as a medium, then here the medium is precisely the way directness is established. So-called “direct confrontation” merely means “maintaining an appropriate distance,” and direct confrontation with a cup and direct confrontation with a mountain range require different distances. For the former, perhaps 50 centimeters apart is the most direct; for the latter, perhaps 50 li apart is the most direct. Seeking “intuition” is at the same time seeking the “appropriate intermediary.” And people’s making and using all sorts of media technologies is just like trying to intuit a cup by means of different distances: it is precisely in order to try, through different media, to grasp all kinds of things. For the same thing, we intend it in different intentional ways, or rather, we approach it through different media; each actual medium is precisely an embodiment of one intentional way, or rather, each intentional structure is nothing more than a potential medium
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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