“Alien Phenomenology” has confused me a bit since the beginning. Last week, I tried to sum up chapter one as best I could, and this is what I had:

• Idealism -> the world characterised by the way it appears to the self-conscious mind
• Speculative realism is an event rather than a position eg. The Big Bang
• The triple O —> Object Oriented Ontology. Putting thing in the centre of being.

Now this isn’t much I know, but it was the only key ideas I was able to draw from the reading and put into my own words; everything else just didn’t make sense.

I didn’t have any of my own questions from the reading because I didn’t understand enough to have any. I know that sounds silly, but I honestly didn’t. I didn’t know where to even start.

So after going through it in class and hearing everyones ideas, thoughts and questions, I began to have a clearer idea of where to start with the ideas and what it all meant.

Today in class we read chapter two of the reading. This is where the content became a lot more clearer and started making sense. The key ideas I wrote down were:

• ‘Ontology is the theory of the nature of existence and ontography is it’s description’
• All three approaches have one thing in common -> an interest in diversity and specificity
• Ontography involves the revelation of object relationships without necessarily offering clarification or description of any kind
• Ontopgraphy is an aesthetic set theory -> configuration is celebrated on the basis of its existence
• OOO = object oriented ontology. Puts things in the centre of being
• Lists = a way of linking things together, a structure that easily shows how things link

So yes, I had grasp of the main ideas that stood out to me, but still, what does it all really mean? What even is ontology and ontography? Is it an actual thing or a theory?

So my main question was:
How is ontography a description of ontology? How would we differentiate the two?

I figured once this question was answered, then I could know what else I didn’t know and could ask. This was a good starting point. So instead of waiting for Adrian to answer the question in front of the whole class, I thought I’d try answering it myself first.

In order to do this, I made a little mind map in my notebook with the key ideas in most simplistic forms of both ontology and ontography. Then I could visually see the difference between them and hopefully have a better understanding.

And it worked!!

I now finally understand the theory and the difference between the two, just by setting myself this little exercise.

Other questions in the class included:

• How do lists have anything to do with ontology and objects being the centre of being. Is it a way of organising them?What’s the difference between ontography and typography?
• Does Bogart want to find and identify relations between all things?
• How can I practice ontology outside of simply making lists?