Looking at a Laundry Room: Object-Oriented Ontology for Beginners

The Basic Idea

Imagine you’re looking at this AI-created basement laundry room photo. There’s a washing machine, a mop, concrete walls, a window – and there’s you, looking at it all.

Now, here’s the weird idea: according to this philosophy called Object-Oriented Ontology, you’re not actually more important or “real” than that washing machine. You’re both just “objects” in the world, and you both have your own private, hidden depths that nobody else can fully access.

Think about it – you can see the washing machine’s outside, but you have no idea what’s really going on inside its circuits and mechanisms. Similarly, that washing machine (if it could somehow “experience” things) would never truly know what it’s like to be you, with your thoughts and feelings.

The Strange Part About You

But here’s the really strange part: even you don’t fully know yourself. While you’re consciously thinking “oh, this is a moody photo of a laundry room,” your brain is doing millions of other things you’re not aware of – processing light, triggering memories, making your pupils adjust. Your conscious experience of looking at the photo is just the tiny tip of the iceberg of what’s actually happening in the object that is “you.”

Everything as Equals

So this photo shows a bunch of objects – washing machine, walls, light, basket, and you the viewer – all existing together as equals, each with their own hidden depths and their own agendas that don’t really connect with each other in any deep way. Nothing is the “star” of the show, not even human consciousness.