It nevertheless seems unrealistic to me that things could develop to the point of Asakura/Nagato battles or hidden dimensions without Kyon noticing something’s not right with the world, but well… it’s all dirty sci-fi anyways, it’s not like it’s too realistic the other way I guess ;)

I’ll include this hypothesis, if it’s all right with you, but since I’m not too sure if I’m getting this right, it’d be good if you could write a short description in a paragraph or two and list the things you consider to be primary proofs for this hypothesis. I’ll link it to this page for more details.

p.s. “We were unable to authenticate your OpenID”. Cleared cookies, no changes.

A youkai can readily determine whether he is a youkai or not, this starts as soon as he tries to communicate his experiences, and finds that it may glaringly mismatch what people see. That is how youkai know they’re different at all, actually, this is why they are commonly unhappy with their lot. A youkai may assume that everyone shares this world perception, people have ways of convincing him of the contrary.

Physics, however, is a more complex matter. Ordinary physics states that at given conditions X, Y must happen inevitably. The problem is that given conditions X are often laboratory conditions which don’t really exist in a real world. For example, one youkai claimed to be able to originate a cellphone call in a basement where the tower signal normally can’t reach. Normally. What probably happened is that the peculiarities of radio signal propagation, which, at cellphone frequencies, may depend on a myriad unknown factors, from weather to the way a crane at the building site a kilometer away was turned at the time, flashed the signal in for long enough to make the call — it doesn’t need that much conductive surface to reflect from. To an outside observer, an objective event (cellphone call) that is normally considered impossible, has happened. To a youkai, he willed that call into happening without knowing how. To an unreachable objective observer, it’s a complex coincidence with a probability that is very hard to calculate, and would a rigorous experiment be arranged, a youkai wouldn’t be able to replicate the effect.

While that objective observer does not really exist, mentally this position is reachable, even though it takes more time and effort to prove it’s truth than can be reasonably spared in all cases where youkai are involved.

Similarly, to Kyon it does not matter at all. To his mind, aliens and time travelers and espers exist, and this is how he sees that ‘real world’. Should, however, he manage to set up a rigorously controlled experiment where he would attempt to acquire positive, presentable proof of such, sufficiently strong to overturn a determined skeptic, he would fail, because what objectively happens is not what he thinks does — it just behaves exactly as what he thinks it is would, with discrepancies low enough to be ignored. Being, apparently, a kind of a youkai himself, however, he does not see the need to doubt and does not doubt — life is just as possible and practical for him as if what he sees really are aliens, espers and time travelers.

Evidence we could possibly check for compliance with this theory is impossible in a narrative retelling of the events until Kyon actively doubts and starts offering alternative explanations to the events, more in agreement with the general consensus, which he is reluctant to do. If we were to be present at the scene ourselves, we would not have problems finding such evidence, but Kyon and company would disregard it readily.

P.S. Relogin the OpenID? It started killing cookies for some reason.

Still, I accept this explanation. I’d say it’s too much of a coincidence having all of the people around Kyon randomly saying something that can be interpreted in a way that complies with the Kyon’s world perception, but well, let’s say it’s possible.

But the thing that’s unclear to me still remains unclear: what’s the point of having this youkai hypothesis in a world where we can’t check what’s “real”?

I mean, “the explanation” or “the theory” is something what connects the known facts together, allowing us to predict to the certain extent what will happen next. This is exactly how do we check the hypothesis: we predict what will happen next, then wait for it to happen and if it’s like in our prediction, then the theory have been proved true - for a moment. If the evidence contradicts the theory, then the theory needs to be adjusted or even replaced altogether to include new evidences.

The concept of youkais works well in theory, but look at it from the point of view of the observer. By definition, youkai is somebody, whose perception of the world is significantly different from the perception of the majority of people.

It’s all good and clear while we’re talking about subjective things such as being good or bad, beautiful or ugly. The youkai himself could easily check on the other people’s tastes or opinions and decide “OK, I’m the minority so I’m youkai”.

But once we enter the realm of physical matters, it’s not that easy anymore. How can youkai determine if he’s youkai or not? He can’t, because in his youkai world his world perception is the one which everybody shares. From his youkai point of view he’s not youkai, but rather a normal human; instead, he considers some other people youkais - maybe those, who have the most incompatible world perception for him.

So, for every youkai he’s the normal one, and the youkai ones are his most incompatible neighbours. Like this, we can’t really define who’s youkai and who’s not, because being youkai is already subjective thing. That in turn is because the perception of the majority’s world views is subjective by itself.

You’ll say there are objective world and objective youkais, and this seems like a reasonable statement until we realize there are no objective things in this world. Why is that?

Well, take Kyon, for example. Let’s say he’s youkai, and the “real world” does not contain any of the aliens et cetera phenomena. Now, what does this matter to Kyon? His senses tell him there are aliens, his mind is acting like there are aliens, he’s experiencing everything like there were aliens, so how comes this is not the “real world”? How could we know if this is the real world or just the distorted perception of some other world? What’s the difference between these two cases?

In other words, which evidence could we possibly check for compliance with our theory?

To an outside observer, this incident with Taniguchi would be simply Taniguchi mishearing the name while he was thinking about something else completely and answering not that “Haruhi is here right behind you” but something he felt at the moment was the right answer to a question he actually heard. This is a highly simplistic explanation, naturally, in practice, youkai can cause a much more complex mess just by not acting according to normal social assumptions.

The key point here is that there is some ‘real world’, something physical that actually happens, but multiple ‘observable worlds’ that assign meaning and attributes to these events, and result in different conclusions by the participants.

Like, assume that you see a chessboard with chess pieces on it. Their positions are objective, both players see both black and white pieces. But they can’t stop each other from making moves however they see fit, and play according to a set of chess rules in their heads. If both players are human, they are, essentially, both playing chess, and their ability to win is determined by how well they plan their further actions, limited by the moves allowed in chess.

Youkai, on the other hand, see the exact same board, but with extra off-map squares, have invisible pieces in their heads that move according to some other kind of rules, or even simply play checkers instead with those same pieces, against those same human players who still think about the board as if their opponent is also playing chess.

But then that means that world view inside of the Kyon’s head lives it’s own life and does not relate to the “real” world anymore. Two things matter: this “inside world” is different, first, and consistent, second. This means no action from the inside or the outside can possibly bring this imaginary world down, leaving Kyon to deal with the “real” one. It’s always there.

But in this case what’s the point of having that “real world” abstraction? We, looking at the story through Kyon’s eyes, can only define “real” world as the world we see around us; in Kyon’s case it’s the “altered” world with aliens et cetera. One can suggest the concept of some other “real” or “unaltered” world behind the curtains of altered one, but since there are no methods of proving or deflating this hypothesis, it’s the same as with the idea that our whole world is running on a simulation computer in some “outside” world - be it true or not, this means nothing to us.