In his Nautilus article ‘The Universe Knows Right from Wrong’, Philipp Goff argues that panpsychism – the metaphysical thesis that the intrinsic properties of reality are properties of consciousness or ‘feels’ (or proto-phenomena, proto-feels) provides a metaphysical ground for objective truth about value. He argues that panpsychism affords an explanation for our ability to discern […]
Void Theory
Open removes a cup of hot expresso from Null’s mastectomied chest, spills it black on genitals mutilated as lilies. Loses another version of herself. Waits for the silence of divinity to crack. They have become experiments and deformations. How long till absence achieves pathos? Anna would like to know. Faded summer splits angled grey skin […]
Don’t fear the Basilisk
As Yudkowsky notes (https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Roko’s_basilisk) The Basilisk faces a seemingly insuperable commitment problem. If the Basilisk comes into being somehow, then punishing simulations of those who impeded its emergence is a lavish waste of resources. So how can we be assured that the Basilisk will be irrationally committed to punishing us postposthumously? If we cannot be […]
Bodiless
(Reblogged from Identities Journal Lockdown series # 30) Can we afford us any longer? Bodies hurt too much. Their pleasures are less trauma than a geologic diarrhoea. It’s shameful a vaulting planetary economy still uses us – like discovering a cache of unused condoms under pristine sand. No wonder we dream disconnection, communism, or apocalypse; […]
Alexander Wilson on Nonhuman Aesthetics and Disconnection
Alexander Wilson’s paper ‘What Aesthetics Tells us About Posthumans’ (WA) provides a synopsis of a challenging account of aesthetics developed at greater length in his new book Aesthesis and Perceptronium (AP). This is nothing less than an aesthetics generalized beyond the human phenomenology cited in philosophies of aesthetic judgement. I’m currently working through AP, so […]
Theory Fiction, Mad Black Deleuzeanism and the Posthuman Void
Currently on strike! but over at the OU I was moderating an MA forum on styles of philosophy, so decided to go for broke with a post on ‘Theory Fiction, Mad Black Deleuzeanism and the Posthuman Void’. God knows what my poor students will make of it, but sometimes you just have to go for […]
Puce Mary: The Red Desert
The Red Desert’ assembles in layers: loping bass alternates between octaves, raspy continuants top and bottom of the register, randomized clicks over a percussive loop; a susurrus of far off industry, or a cataract softened. A woman’s voice, calmly narrates the indices of her decline in barely accented Danish English: I find myself feeling like […]
On re-discovering the Analytic-Continental Divide
I’m currently in London following a three-day deep dive into continental philosophy at the Society of European Philosophy/Forum of European Philosophy Joint conference at Royal Holloway University in Egham (The text of my paper is available here). The quality of both panels and keynotes was extremely high, with some particularly impeccable scholarship on display. Adrian […]
Transgression as Erotic Technology
Over on Facebook my friend Chaim Mendel posted up a disarmingly good question about the relationship between desire and transgression which has been nagging me a lot recently: Why is the forbidden so erotic? what is it about transgression that is so central to the nature of desire? Transgression or perversion isn’t only an erotic […]
Subtractive-Catastrophic Xenophilia
Introduction Subtractive ontologies – like those of Alain Badiou or Quentin Meillassoux – hold that Being is inaccessible to thought or experience. Rather, Being is indexed for thought by a hole in thought; an opening onto an Outside uncorrelated with thought or subjectivity. I will argue that posthumanist ontologies are, likewise, subtractive operations […]
