CONCEPT
Hyperobjects
Entities massively distributed in time and space that transcend spatiotemporal localization — climate change, nuclear waste, and the smooth.
Timothy Morton coined hyperobject in his 2013 book Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World to name entities so vast they defy human perception as wholes. Examples include global warming, nuclear radiation, the Pacific garbage patch, and — as the Timothy Morton — On AI simulation argues — the AI transformation itself. A hyperobject cannot be pointed to directly; one can only point to its local manifestations. You are always already inside it. The boundary between observer and observed dissolves.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Morton identifies five properties that define hyperobjects. Viscosity: they stick to everything they contact, restructuring entities irreversibly. Nonlocality: they are distributed across many places simultaneously, manifesting differently at each location. Temporal undulation: they operate on timescales radically mismatched to human experiential time. Phasing: they appear and disappear from perception without regularity. Interobjectivity: they are constituted by relationships with other entities rather than existing independently. These properties interact to produce the characteristic experience of hyperobjects — ontological disorientation, the collapse of the subject-object distinction, and what Morton calls