Hyperianism

{{pseudosciencenav}}
'''Hyperianism''' is a fringe belief system created by "Morgue",  who has claimed to have come into contact with "[[secret society|secret societies]]" that revealed the means to bring "timeless knowledge to the public" so that the world can reach "the next step of [[evolution]]" and "become whole."<ref>https://www.iamhyperian.com/whatishyperianism/</ref> Morgue argues that material reality is a myth and that we all exist in a shared dream in which one can manipulate and control.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM47Vp008Fs</ref> This belief system is based on the notion of "Ontological Mathematics" which is described as its "rational core".<ref name=ontomath>https://www.iamhyperian.com/ontologicalmathematics/</ref>

Hyperianism claims to be an ideology based around logic and reason (though how hyperians often apply these tools doesn't speak favorably to their competence), and see their movement as anti-[[scientism]], anti-[[new age]], and anti-[[religious]]. Ironically Hyperianism itself may be just as problematic as the ideologies and belief systems it rejects, even if that is not immediately obvious to Morgue himself. Hyperianism has been critiqued by [[TJ Kirk]].

==Morgue==
The Grand Poobah of Hyperianism, Morgue is a "shock artist" who performed at the Venice Beach Freakshow in Southern California before it closed in 2017, and formerly starred on the AMC reality show {{wpl|Freakshow (TV series)|Freakshow|.}}<ref>https://www.laweekly.com/the-venice-beach-freakshow-is-taking-back-a-word-that-used-to-be-an-insult/</ref> According to a fansite about the show, Morgue was born in [[Montana]] and "was [[Homeschooling|home-schooled]] and grew up in relatively isolated circumstances."<ref>https://freakshow.fandom.com/wiki/Morgue</ref>{{dead link}} later on in life,  Morgue joined his father in Orange County, California, where he joined the Venice Beach Freakshow run by Todd Ray.

==The Basic Idea==
===Teleological 
Human
 Hyperian Evolution===
Morgue believes his claims regarding hyperianism being the next step of evolution is compatible with the theory of [[natural selection]], referencing the term "[[Teleology|teleological]] evolution".<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsvqBCZUu_0</ref> This is problematic as the theory of natural selection and subsequent evolutionary processes laid out both by Darwin and post-Darwin is explicitly non-teleological. Natural Selection itself is a means of describing the origin of species without a need for any conscious director. Ascribing intent to evolution may seem to be implied when biologists make reference to "function" but to ascribe that the intent is actually there is controversial at best. To avoid some of these seeming teleological implications in biology, philosophers of biology and biologists themselves often try to come up with an account of the term "function" that doesn't imply things such as purpose, goals, or intent in fear that may introduce evaluative assessments in statements which are meant to be strictly descriptive.<ref> Okasha, S.(2019). ''Philosophy of Biology: A Very Short Introduction''. Oxford University Press </ref> Ascribing actual conscious goals to evolution is often regarded as an archaic remanent of when naturalists used to study and describe animal behaviour under the context of [[creationism]]. It's this misunderstanding that is often at the heart of individuals who see evolution as hierarchal seeing some species as "more evolved" than others and thus superior; or alternatively,  they see evolution as not simply being a product of a complicated causal interaction between a population of organisms and their environment but instead as an active process working towards some ultimate aim. This is simply not the case in biological evolution, evolution is not a conscious being that uses natural selection/gene flow/genetic drift/genetic mutation to shape organisms towards a desired outcome. 

Morgue seems at least partially aware of this as he says himself his ideas are compatible with "teleological evolution" but not "random evolution", though it's not clear what is exactly meant by that because even non-teleological or non-guided evolution is not entirely "random".<ref> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsvqBCZUu_0 </ref>

Morgue's conceptions on evolution are heavily influenced by the evolutionary theory of the Jesuit Priest Teilhard de Chardin, as Morgue admits in his videos.  Teilhard's theory is not that evolution is directly guided per se — rather all things will eventually return to an "Omega Point," which he likens to God (so a form of [[pantheism]]). He uses the fact that the living material world is consistently growing and becoming more complex, as evidenced by comparing the first life on our planet with human beings now. While he claims the non-teleological evolution of Darwin does not address this complexity factor, other than saying it seems "absurd in the highest degree possible" but yet he still admits that it exists.

===Fracture, Unity, and The Shadow Self===
Hyperianism partially centres itself around the idea of becoming "whole" which in this context means...
{{cquote|Depression, weakness, loss, and loneliness ultimately originate from fracture. Power, strength, harmony, love, and happiness result from unity. When you deny a fundamental aspect of yourself, you are not a whole being. You are a fractured being and thus you are not as expressed, actualized, or powerful as you could be. The people of this world have chosen to deny either their shadow or light. We use shadow and light as metaphors to represent apparently opposite forces, yet in actuality, they are different aspects of one force. Since they are general terms, they can take on different meanings depending on the context|||from the website ''I am Hyperion''.<ref> https://www.iamhyperian.com/becomewhole/</ref>}}

What comes from this is the concepts known as the forces of shadow and the forces of light, where attempting to repress or deny one aspect of is seen as an active attempt to deny one's life itself.<ref>https://www.iamhyperian.com/becomewhole/</ref>

This concept of the force of life leads to another idea known as the shadow self, the part of oneself that one keeps tucked away to meet the demands and pressures of society.<ref>https://www.iamhyperian.com/shadowself/</ref> You can think of this shadow self as the repressed or authentic self. This concept of the shadow self comes from Carl Jung and is used as a description to define one of the aspects of the unconscious mind.<ref>{{wpa|Shadow_(psychology)}}</ref> Morgue claims this is just psychology, but contemporary psychology has abandoned the psychoanalytical theories of [[Freud]] and Jung long ago and is typically described within the field as unscientific.  This is because the theories that typically surround psychoanalysis and it's unconscious processes are largely untestable, and thus unfalsifiable. There are however unconscious mechanisms within the mind that can be empirically studied and often are in the context of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, but these processes are more akin to background perceptual processing, and simple automatic processes such as for involuntary physiological actions (such as non-manual blinking) and less about some suppressed personality or self influencing one's actions and emotions in the way Jung or Freud would describe. There doesn't seem to be any meaningful way to experimentally test the existence of some unconscious repressed self, which is why folks like [[Karl Popper]] took such an issue with psychoanalysis.

===Anti-Materialism & Quantum Woo===
What shouldn’t be surprising for the topic of this article is that Hyperianism rejects "[[scientism]]" and the belief that [[reality]] is in fact material.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh9cHcJ1894</ref> The argument they provide to refute [[materialism]]? Why, a bad understanding of [[quantum mechanics]] and modifications of existing philosophies of [[idealism]], of course!<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=s5531W81t9U </ref> Hyperians don’t believe reality to be material instead they believe it to be made up of “mathematical frequency patterns”.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=s5531W81t9U</ref>

Morgue treats the mind and mathematical frequency patterns as being identical, which allow him to make the logical leap to describe anything that can be described with quantifiable properties as being "mind", and this is how he goes on to flesh out his [[quantum woo]] rendition of metaphysical idealism.<ref> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsvqBCZUu_0 </ref> Morgue is under the mistaken belief that quantum mechanics is somehow incompatible with our conventional understanding of standard matter in physics and chemistry when in reality all quantum mechanics does is explain conventional matter albeit under the pretext that all matter and energy is reducible to the behaviour of fundamental particles which do not behave in ways we intuitively understand at the classical level. The "weirdness" or non-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics has attracted many a charleton and woo peddler (most infamous of whom being [[Deepak Chopra]]) but more often than not these belief systems are based in a flawed understanding of quantum physics.

Morgue makes this claim to incompatibility in the interpretation that quantum mechanics is non-local, and thus distance is an illusion.<ref> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsvqBCZUu_0</ref> The {{wpl|Principle of locality|Principle of Locality}} only implies that objects can only be affected by things in their immediate environment, and for one object in one area of space to affect another object in another area of space there needs to be some sort of medium between the two objects that can make that interaction happen. It seems in some ways that quantum mechanics more specifically quantum entanglement or "spooky action at a distance" has elements of non-locality, but that does not mean that distance is an illusion and that all of reality is some collective hive-mind dream as Morgue claims

=== Ontological Mathematics===

Hyperianism bases itself around Morgue's preferred realm of pseudoscience called Ontological Mathematics, which maintains that material reality is a myth and that reality is ultimately the "domain of pure mind" which is claimed to be based on a "mathematical deductive certainty".<ref name=ontomath/> Ontological mathematics is described as the "rational core" of Hyperianism.<ref name=ontomath/> As talked about before the rejection of materialism in Ontological Mathematics comes from this idea that reality is actually made of "living mathematical frequency patterns"  all because when you look at something like colour for example it is reducible to the frequency and wavelength of electromagnetic waves.<ref> https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=24&v=s5531W81t9U&feature=emb_logo </ref> The interesting thing about this belief system is that it's not entirely wrong, its account of colour for example is actually scientifically accurate as well as it's an account of the pitch with sound, and according to some interpretations of quantum field theory, all fundamental particles are reducible to the oscillations within a series of omnipresent and interacting fields.<ref> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-field-theory/#WhatQFT</ref><ref> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNVQfWC_evg </ref> Knowing that you may be swayed a little into thinking there is some truth to this hyperianism business. 

But that being said there is no particular reason within actual scientific discourse to necessarily ascribe these oscillations as having minds or the patterns of which as being "living"  (especially if biology has anything to say about it). The jump from understanding reality to be made up of oscillations in quantum fields to "my body doesn't exist and is, therefore, an illusion" is quite the exercise in bad logic.  Again, Quantum Mechanics isn't incompatible with the existence of matter, it actively explains and describes matter. Electrons having properties of both waves and particles does not mean matter does not exist, but Morgue inexplicably claims that it does mean that matter is a spook.<ref> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsvqBCZUu_0 </ref> Atoms are made up of fundamental and composite particles that are described and accounted for in Quantum theory,  especially when describing the strong and weak nuclear forces and the behaviour of electrons.[[Quote mining]] Neils Bohr and Max Plank out of context doesn't help the case that insists otherwise. 

Hyperianists will describe the body as being an illusory means in which frequency patterns are converted into sense experience (doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think of the primary function of organs such as the liver, or the kidneys which are separate systems from sensory detection and perceptual processing, but I guess if you insist your kidney's don't exist that isn't a particularly relevant objection).<ref> https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=24&v=s5531W81t9U&feature=emb_logo </ref> The conclusion from all this is that we are not material bodies but somehow are all eternal minds existing within some non-local singularity. 

If this belief system was actually based on deductive mathematical certainty as is claimed that would be demonstrable through the use of a mathematical proof, or at the very least the axiomatic statements which imply the conclusions of ontological mathematics should be able to be demonstrated as tautologous via predicate calculus. If someone could provide such a proof it would be such a monumental academic and philosophical feat, it would be quite the wonder why hardly anyone is aware of such a proof.

===The Soul Equation===
Rejecting a mystical conception and by extension, a purely material neuroscientific understanding of the mind, Morgue insists that the soul (in the sense of the classical philosophical usage which is interchangeable with the mind) is a "mathematical" entity.<ref name=soul>https://www.hyperianism.com/thesoulequation/ </ref> This soul lives in avatars that share the same dream; the avatar perishes while the soul incarnates. The reason given for this is because “energy can’t be destroyed,” which is what he considers the soul to be.<ref>https://youtu.be/hgi8-POvVQI</ref> According to Morgue, our minds are governed by what is referred to as the Soul Equation, which is quite literally just Euler's Formula.<ref name=soul/><ref>https://www.britannica.com/science/Eulers-formula</ref>

Being not quite [[numerology]] but similar in many ways Morgue argues that the Euler formula gives an account of the mind because the mind in his view is in actuality Sine and Cosine waves in a special set of harmonizing frequencies that produce a perfect circle in their relationship as they move along their trajectory.<ref name=soul/> The mind is apparently made up of an infinite number of sine and cosine waves all following a particular trajectory. The infinite number of waves make up the mind, and all minds are made up of these waves which then interact with one another to form reality via Fourier transformations. At the very least this is how Morgue sees the world but the explanatory power is completely lost. As a theory of reality, it seemingly has no obvious predictive power nor is it particularly obvious why someone should from an epistemological perspective prefer this account of reality over a materialistic one. No doubt it is also completely untestable on its own. Inference to the best explanation does not seem to favour this account of the mind. 

Morgue would argue it is because QM debunks materialism, but as already established there is no actual reason to believe that. Quantum mechanics just implies matter can be a little weird when you get to the smallest bits, not that matter does not exist.

==Anti-Science==
Morgue describes science as irrational and dogmatic, believing it to be opposed to rationalism and mathematics.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trHVU9QeGB0</ref> He immediately starts spouting nonsense in the video, by saying “Science's explanations about your existence and purpose are absurd as those of mainstream religions,” proving that Morgue doesn’t know what science even is to begin with. Science is not supposed to give meaning to ones life or the reason behind their existence; science only explains the testable and provable mechanisms that run the universe.

He argues that science ultimately bases itself on faith in sensory experience, mostly because Morgue can't tell the difference between the empiricism espoused by science and the philosophical empiricism championed by philosophers like David Hume and John Locke from the enlightenment. Science is very blatantly more complicated than that and the empiricism aspect of science is only in reference to evidence that is directly observable and/or data that can be directly measured and replicated. Science studies and postulates the existence of things that we can't directly sense or observe nearly every day, and works under the pretense of rationalistic presuppositional propositions of casualty, and methodological naturalism. Science is not strictly inductive and describing it as such as if deductive reasoning plays no role, illustrates a lack of understanding of how reasoning from theoretical principles (such as from the atomic theory of chemistry) works. Science embraces skepticism of our sense experience (especially from what we understand about the functioning of sense organs and the perceptual mechanisms of the brain) but you wouldn't know that if you were to base your views on science entirely on what Morgue says.  

Now to give Morgue some credit he isn't necessarily arguing something as strong as Science never uses mathematics and reason, but he still bases his belief in hyperianism in this false dichotomy that hyperianism prioritizes deduction and mathematics, while science prioritizes empiricism and sense-data, which is still arguably a massive oversimplification of what the scientific method(s) is about.  But what Morgue is doing here is obvious, he is simply trying to demonize science as illogical and without reason, [[poisoning the well]] for any scientific objections to his work and ideology. 

Regardless Morgue at the end of the day still has argued that science is an irrational religion, which can't be interpreted as anything but a character attack on the scientific enterprise. In his attempt to discredit science he goes through the ole gambit of cliches such as "[[Science doesn't know everything]]" and "[[Science was wrong before]]".  Quite the original thinker we have here.

==See also==
*[[Simulated reality]]
*[[Solipsism]]

==External links==
*[http://skepticsboot.blogspot.com/2017/06/meet-morgue-proving-some-people-will.html Meet Morgue: Proving Some People Will Swallow Anything]
*[https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nosacredcows/2018/08/former-members-speak-out-against-internet-cult-led-by-ex-reality-tv-star-morgue/ Former Members Speak Out Against Internet Cult Led by Ex-Reality TV Star Morgue]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Quantum woo]]

Categories: Quantum woo