I have been reading through CCRU and Nick Land’s writings recently. CCRU stands for Cybernetic Culture Researdh Unit, and used to be a philosophical group based in the University of Warrick in the nineties. At least for a while that is, and their most prominent member was Nick Land. Their writings have blended fiction and philosophy, and their writings were in many ways prophetic. I am naturally drawn to literature that blends mysticism with modern rationalism. And one of their ideas was the hyperstition. In the words of CCRU, hyperstition is:
“fictions that make themselves real”
And examples of hyperstion given in this video, are the Byzantine general’s dilemma and the mememing of Trump into office in 2016. The Byzantine general’s dilemma was solved in Bitcoin by Proof of work.
But then I watched this video:
And it dawned on me. The dire wolf, a creation of the Colossal Biosciences, which wasn’t really a dire wolf but rather a genetically modified grey wolf is a perfect example of hyperstition. Check this out:
The dire wolf featured in George R.R Martin’s Game of Thrones and the fictional dire wolf served as an inspiration to Colossal Biosciences. I think another case of hyperstition would be the models and designs created by Leonardo da Vinci, he has drawn a helicopter, a tank, and even a humanoid robot centuries before these things were created.
But I think hyperstition is fancy word for human imagination leading to realization. I am reminded of the Heideggerian idea of technology leading to scientific understanding and not the other way around. Humans imagine tools like the telescope, thermometer, or the metric system that lead to greater knowledge and the greater knowledge helps the humans imagine better tools and thus creates a loop.
