How to Fold Uncanny Valleys into Habitable Mountains

Abstract

The chapter is devoted to an ecological work of art; the proof that senses, inventions and worlds are not to be considered in isolation. It examines the process of folding an ‘uncanny valley’ into an ‘inhabitable mountain’ across seven points. First: Amor fati, the Nietzschean call to be worthy of what happens to us. Second: Decoding and Reterritorialisation, the emergence of sensibilia as expressive features. Third: Superjects and Objectiles, the primacy/exteriority of relations. Fourth: Isomorphism without Resemblance, the vital asymmetry between the virtual capacities and actual properties. Fifth: Schizoanalysis, the non-entailment of material inference, a.k.a. abduction. Sixth: Mutation of Boundary Conditions, the downward causation of enabling constraints. Seventh: Geology of Morals, recasting ethics as a problem of power, not duty. To quote Le Clèzio, “Perhaps one day we will know that
there wasn’t any art but only medicine.”