253
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_27
Chapter 27
The Metaphysics of Photography
27.1 The Photographic Ecosystem
Syrian asphalt—bitumen (a natural petroleum), lavender oil, and a thin sheet of
pewter. Who would have thought that in the mid-1820s in France this unlikely concatenation in a little artist’s studio might together concoct an after-image, leaving
posterity with riddles and the dilemma of self-examination against the context we
would conspire to break? Two centuries later, the explosion of imagery in our lives
has occasioned the human investiture of every corner of the planet, pixel manipulations and geographical information systems that, by their intrusiveness and uncanny
durability, have normalized every life form, personal identity, catastrophe, and cartographic nuance. The only things left are metaphysical aftermaths which compete
with photography in the mind to either preserve or desecrate: The photographic
ecosystem (Fig. 27.1).
“What is there? What is it like?”
1
When you’re there is it really you? Taking
compulsive pictures, storing images in the memory bank that is now a global commons, all vulnerable?
This was core to the characteristics challenged by Leibniz’s foremost “Principle” –
his “Law of the Indiscernibility of Identicals.”
2
These look-alikes within the thought
process—the digital minions representing what was free, prior to the investitures by
the human imagination—encompass the minutiae of Philosophy and Physics, subatomic Weak and Strong Forces/Principles, and counterintuitive, counterfactual,
counter-philosophical absolutes. We have no way of understanding whether other
species store memories to this degree, or for anything like the human purposes,
1 What is it (i.e., whatever it is that there is) like? Hall, Ned (2012). “David Lewis’s Metaphysics”.
In Edward N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2012 ed., Center for the
Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Fall, 2012.
2 Discourse on Metaphysics, 1686; See Alyssa Ney, 2014, Metaphysics: an Introduction, Routledge,
Oxford, UK
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_27
Chapter 27
The Metaphysics of Photography
27.1 The Photographic Ecosystem
Syrian asphalt—bitumen (a natural petroleum), lavender oil, and a thin sheet of
pewter. Who would have thought that in the mid-1820s in France this unlikely concatenation in a little artist’s studio might together concoct an after-image, leaving
posterity with riddles and the dilemma of self-examination against the context we
would conspire to break? Two centuries later, the explosion of imagery in our lives
has occasioned the human investiture of every corner of the planet, pixel manipulations and geographical information systems that, by their intrusiveness and uncanny
durability, have normalized every life form, personal identity, catastrophe, and cartographic nuance. The only things left are metaphysical aftermaths which compete
with photography in the mind to either preserve or desecrate: The photographic
ecosystem (Fig. 27.1).
“What is there? What is it like?”
1
When you’re there is it really you? Taking
compulsive pictures, storing images in the memory bank that is now a global commons, all vulnerable?
This was core to the characteristics challenged by Leibniz’s foremost “Principle” –
his “Law of the Indiscernibility of Identicals.”
2
These look-alikes within the thought
process—the digital minions representing what was free, prior to the investitures by
the human imagination—encompass the minutiae of Philosophy and Physics, subatomic Weak and Strong Forces/Principles, and counterintuitive, counterfactual,
counter-philosophical absolutes. We have no way of understanding whether other
species store memories to this degree, or for anything like the human purposes,
1 What is it (i.e., whatever it is that there is) like? Hall, Ned (2012). “David Lewis’s Metaphysics”.
In Edward N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2012 ed., Center for the
Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Fall, 2012.
2 Discourse on Metaphysics, 1686; See Alyssa Ney, 2014, Metaphysics: an Introduction, Routledge,
Oxford, UK