Since 2020, I’ve been studying the philosophy of religion at the University of Helsinki. I wrote my BA thesis on Spinoza, and now I’m working on my master’s thesis on something I like to call, in a playful manner, “echosophy.”
The process began with a question: why does adding reverb to sounds make them seem somehow more serious, and sometimes almost religious? This question led to a swarm of others that I’ve been exploring while writing my thesis. I’ll also try to share some of these questions and possible answers here on my website.
Echosophy is partly inspired by Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy of listening, espacement, and resonance. However, my focus is on observing the spatial and temporal resonances that create not only the sensations of echo and reverb, but also the experience of existing in the world. Echosophy observes being in time and space through listening.
Existence is neither silent nor isolated. It unfolds in space and time much like sound does. To listen is to attend to and observe this unfolding in real time (and real space, of course). In echosophy, listening is both a method of gaining knowledge and a metaphor that can be applied to many ways of observing.
But why focus on echoes instead of reality itself? Because the human mind is itself an echo of reality. By developing an understanding of the world as an echo, we can observe the world and our minds simultaneously.
Echosophy seems to emphasize a philosophy rooted in the present moment. It is a dynamic philosophy, fully entangled with the location and time of the observer and their capacity for resonance and internal amplification of resonances.
Echosophy is also a philosophy that understands all sensations as echoes, or temporally shifted instances of the same wave. It does not make a strict separation between the external and internal worlds — the mind exists in the world (as an echo) in much the same way as any other aspect of this singular reality.
In the future, echosophy could be explored in relation to various philosophical traditions, such as Spinoza’s monism, Vedic traditions that see the world as illusion, or Donald D. Hoffman’s interface theory of perception. Echosophy may also inspire creative exploration in the sonic arts (including music) or any art form that treats time and space as raw materials for experience.
The starting point for most of my creative and intellectual endeavors is sound. Following that sound has taken me to many places, and now the resonances of that sound shake my core and foundations. By focusing my attention on sound and listening, I’ve shifted my own perception. I’m curious to discover where this path — of listening to echoes and attending to the resonances of the world — will lead.