Levi Bryant has a powerful and useful conception of objects that might exist, objects that have no relation whatsoever to other objects: he calls them, poetically, “dark objects.” Whether or not these objects actually exist in this reality is open to question. But the fact that OOO allows for their existence is beyond doubt it seems.
The trouble is, when we think of objects, we are subject to extreme observation selection effects. A thought-about object is no longer an object in total isolation. At least one other object is now relating to it, namely my thinking. It's tempting to think that the Kantian correlationist paradigm arose out of such a phenomenon—trying to think an unthinkable object resulted in an observation selection effect whereby that object was bound up with the thinking of it.
It's ironic, then, that the very objects that are the most removed from relations provoke relationist reactions.
Dark objects present us with a paradox—something similar to the Liar or to “the trouble with pretense is, you don't know whether it's pretense or not.” To think them is to think the purest possibility that they might exist. It's the ultimate congruence of withdrawal and Tricksterish illusion. Is there something behind the curtain?
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