I thought this deserves its own thread.
The fantastically brilliant and weird Tim Morton is part of the Object Oriented Ontology movement.
Basically it wants to think humans as being on an equal plane with all other objects. The table, the floor, oxygen, molecules. The universe is just objects inside other objects. Each object is split between its essence and its appearance. For example, think about how the computer screen in front of you is an object that exists on its own, independent of your mind, and would still be there if you suddenly died. It also exists as an appearance in your own mind and in the mind of everyone else who looks at it. "An object is withdrawn, even from itself".
That's a very crude cartoonish sketch of what its about based on my limited understanding.
It's trying to say that we humans are not special. We don't create the universe through giving it meaning or naming it. The universe was here before us, will be here when we are gone and would still be here if we went extinct tomorrow. We aren't the centre of everything.
Thoughts are objects. (You can find pictures of thoughts forming as neuron firings in the brain). We are trapped inside objects and can't get out. Objects are inside each other. You are one. You are composed and formed by external objects. You're an unrepentant oxygen junkie.
You can read Tims book Realist Magic
here
