So I got back from the Liverpool ‘Thinking the Absolute’ conference yesterday. It was very well organised, and well done to Steven, Patrice and Katherine for all the hard work. I’ve had to catch up on a ridiculous amount of work as a result  - but as I tend to do, I’ve discrete-ised my thoughts on the conference into eleven points. If you want a more systematic summary than my pithy hackneyed effort, Paul Reid-Bowen has one HERE (really nice guy and he delivered a great paper too on OOO and pantheism). Very kindly, he also listed my paper as one of his personal favourites.

1. Echoing Paul’s comments, the quality of research coming from independent scholars is self-evidently fantastic. It doesn’t take a genius to predict that as the UK university system will remain precarious, more and more independent researchers will be created, and thus vent their frustration and creativity into other diverse methods. Good. Lets start building the systems so their output will be heard.
2. I wonder how far I can get away with not being a philosopher and yet writing copious amounts of philosophy.
3. Finally met Levi. Very nice guy as you’d expect, very warm hearted. 3 of the OOOer’s down – Ian Bogost left to meet.
4. Relating to the last point, Charlie Gere has now shown his true colours by delivering a paper of blistering theology – would love to know how he starts integrating that into digital culture studies.
5. Apparently (well accordingly to Daniel Sacilotto), I ‘look a bit like’ Quentin Meillassoux, to the point where Paul Ennis wants to recreate the cover of Harman’s book with me and some other geezer who ‘looks a bit like’ a ghostly Iain Hamilton Grant. I’m game though.
6. The most memorable image of the entire conference, was Ray Brassier walking into the conference room before his keynote, carrying a Virgin Megastore plastic bag. I mean, virgin megastores had all but shut down about 6 years ago (for some reason I did ask him this, but apparently they still have a Virgin Megastore in Beirut). Also Brassier himself was a charming guy and an astounding speaker – you know, just upsettingly impressive.
7. I think my paper was well received. People seemed to understand my arguments too, which makes it all worthwhile. Email me if you wanted a copy of the paper (I’m not posting it on the blog for a particular reason, more on that as it surfaces).
8. I need to read more Luhmann – (thanks Francis Halsall…..)
9. As I suspected, meeting people in real life, face-to-face from the blogosphere/twittersphere is far better than the mediation of social networks. Anthony Paul Smith, Liam Jones, Nicola Masciandaro, Marika Rose, etc., really nice, smart astute people and a pleasure to know and work with in the future.
10. I hate the National Express. In fact, I hate the National Express even more when it’s muggy weather.
11. Laruelle was the biggest surprise for me. Watching him speak was like watching a long-lost grandparent; very calm, very smooth, a very very likeable guy – generous too. Also the translated text that accompanied his plenary (spoken in French) was, for me at least, a lot easier to understand than other stuff I’ve read. According to Joshua Ramey, there may even be similarities to my paper and Laruelle’s vectorisation of mathematics, so something to research there.