Quantum Mechanics & Ontology · žižek archive

In his words 35

“For Lacan to sexualize the universe means that we should opt for a different ontology — an ontology of incompleteness, of a deadlock.”
25:23 Lacan and Sexual Difference · Lacanian re-sexualization as ontological incompleteness

“The terrifying lesson of quantum physics: we are wrong to think that if you want to be a materialist, reality should be fully ontologically constituted. The difficult thing is to think incompleteness without God.”
1:05:05 Ontological Incompleteness in Painting, Literature and Quantum Theory · materialist ontological incompleteness without theology

“The true materialist task is to imagine this imperfectness of reality — you get close to it, it's not fully constituted, it gets fuzzy, it just dissolves into nothing.”
25:07 Can One Really Tolerate A Neighbor? · ontological incompleteness as the basis of true materialism

The stories that teach it

the jokes and anecdotes he reaches for when he works in this idea, ranked by how many of its talks they turn up in; each card is one story, with every retelling on its page

joke · in 12 of its talks

coffee without cream / coffee without milk

A customer orders coffee without cream; the waiter says they have no cream but can offer coffee without milk. Even though the result is identical, the absent supplement matters, Hegelian negativity in a joke.

example · in 7 of its talks

Kurosawa's Hamlet

Kurosawa's 1961 Japanese corporate-setting adaptation of Hamlet (The Bad Sleep Well) is the best cinema version of Hamlet precisely because it transposes it to a totally different cultural context, proving the work's universal greatness.

anecdote · in 6 of its talks

God as Lazy Programmer

God is described as a 'lazy programmer' who left reality 'non-all' (incomplete) not out of ignorance, but because it is ontologically undetermined, allowing for the gap of subjectivity.

example · in 5 of its talks

Zeuxis and Parrhasius

Two painters compete; one paints grapes so real birds peck them; the other paints a curtain. The second wins because he organizes the surface to generate the appearance of something behind it.

anecdote · in 5 of its talks

Heydrich playing Beethoven string quartets

Reinhard Heydrich, organizer of the Wannsee Conference, played violin and held private string quartet evenings with his SS friends playing late Beethoven, an 'ontological scandal' showing that authentic aesthetic appreciation and absolute evil can coexist.

example · in 5 of its talks

Antigone rewritten, three alternate scenarios

Žižek describes his book rewriting Antigone in three alternate-history versions: (1) Sophocles' original; (2) Antigone wins the argument with Creon but this triggers revolt and ruin; (3) the Chorus executes both Antigone and Creon as traitors establishing Jacobin terror. He us…

Lacanian jealous husband5 Santa Claus Belief5 Billy Bathgate / bad novel and bad movie generating virtual ideal4 Eliot on Artistic Change4 Light at the end of the tunnel is another train4 Žižek's father dying, no deathbed reconciliation4 The Wolfman Case4 Da Vinci Code / Da Vinci, sex displaced onto Jesus4 Lenin's Wife and Mistress4 Stephen Hawking's brain-wired wheelchair4

Where it comes up 106

194 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there

Slavoj Žižek & Sean Carroll: Quantum Physics, the Multiverse, and Time Travel | RP #1182023-07-23 · 1:48:39

35:55 ontological incompleteness

… are we back with many worlds in determinism or do is this openness of the universe maintained? wonderful idea for me that you love, even if you look at details, details.

47:24 superposition

… i like so much the notion of superposition because i think, i will try to put it in very simple terms, but it's a more complex theory.

1:12:41 caught God with his pants down

… too far and he said that that there is a long, at least in europe, a outstanding joke about this that quantum physics is one big proof that god is lazy.

+3 more in this talk

Slavoj Zizek On Jacques Lacan (Full Lecture)pub. 2017-01-05 · 4:34:05

0:00 ontological incompleteness

… is inherently linked to failure, incompleteness, and so on—to sexualize the universe means that we should opt for a different ontology, an ontology of incompleteness, of a deadlock and so on, which is why I think Joan Copjec was right when, in her classical text *The Euthanasia of Reason*, she read as th …

1:51:18 less than nothing

… What exists is less than nothing.

1:42:01 Higgs field

… The Higgs field controls whether forces and particles behave differently or not.

+3 more in this talk

Interview with Slavoj Zizek2017-07 · 1:01:36

36:21 ontological incompleteness

… me and it's a very abstract idea philosophically in quantum physics is A this idea of and I vary it a lot of times in my books this idea of ontological incompleteness of reality it's not as Lenin and naive materialists thought reality is out there fully real we just cannot get to know it no what if realit …

50:38 Kantian antinomies

… this idea that what Lacan is describing there and he wasn't aware of it I checked with his people who knew Lacan are the very structures of Kantian antinomies dynamic antinomies are what Lacan calls feminine mathematical antinomies are what Lacan calls masculine so of course I'm not talking about …

38:28 materialism without matter

… us we with quantum physics we as it were caught God with his pants down you know ah you were too lazy but now comes the true definition of materialism for me we can think this incompleteness without God you don't need a creator just reality is incomplete that's one mega result then there a …

+1 more in this talk

Slavoj Žižek: Wokeness, Psychoanalysis, and Quantum Mechanics | Robinson's Podcast #109pub. 2023-07-02 · 1:36:25

1:22:59 ontological incompleteness

… I—I really like this idea of ontological openness and reality not being completely programmed.

56:49 materialism without matter

… o be changed precisely to save materialism, to redefine—it is a more radical materialism, although it may sound as if it is, let’s call it, materialism without matter.

1:24:09 caught God with his pants down

… but now, as they say, as you say I think in English, "We—we caught God with his pants down," as it were, you know.

+1 more in this talk

The life and philosophy of Slavoj Žižek | Interviewpub. 2023-11-25 · 15:10

12:37 ontological incompleteness

… is this only, as they say, user's illusion? i think note i think we have to, it's more important than ever, we have to accept this ontological openness of nature already, of history.

13:34 superposition

… to understand something a historical event you should read it as in a superposition with other possible events when.

10:49 caught God with his pants down

… and we were a little bit too bright for god and we, as you say in english, caught god with his pants down, as it were.