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Category Archives: Computer Science

One of my favourite Turing quips

24-Oct-11

From ‘Can Digital Computers Think?’ “One does not need to be able to understand how these orders lead to the machine’s subsequent behaviour, any more than one needs to understand the mechanism of germination when one puts a seed in the ground. The plant comes up whether one understands or not. If we give the [...]

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Hey Badiou, why no computation?

09-Oct-11

I’ve been reading a bit more Badiou of late. Not sure why – I guess I’m trying to discover more philosophical clout with regards to integrating the formalist equivalence of computation-mathematical theorems (Turing, Church) with ontology and computational aesthetics more generally. I’m not going in deep, just lightly skimming the surface of what’s been written, [...]

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Paul Caplan on David Berry’s The Philosophy of Software

05-Sep-11

His brief thoughts HERE. Well worth a look. Here are his final thoughts concerning the lack of object oriented-ness in Berry’s new book. “Berry’s philosophy is certainly object-centred but it is not object-oriented in the sense in which I am seeking to use Harman’s quadruple object. For Berry objects do not exceed their relations. They [...]

Also filed in academia, Art, Graham Harman, Object Oriented Ontology | | Comments (4) »

On the horror of organised chaos – response to Thacker

03-Jul-11

As part of their ‘Request for Comments’ feature, Network Politics asked me to write a response to one of the position papers posted on their site. I chose Eugene Thacker’s interesting, provocative paper. You can read his paper, and my response HERE (plus Tony D Sampson’s first response as well).

Also filed in academia, Speculative Realism | | Comments (0) »

Sandcastles and sand piles: Levi on Entropy

10-Apr-11

HERE’S an illuminating post by Levi on Entropy, OOO, societies and systems. “Entropy, rather, is a measure of the order present in a system. A high entropy system is a system in which there is equal probability that an element will be located anywhere in the system. Such a system is characterized by having a high degree [...]

Also filed in academia, algorithm, Levi Bryant, Object Oriented Ontology, Philosophy, Politics, Speculative Realism, Work-Blog | | Comments (0) »

Paul Caplan on OOO and jpeg protocols

08-Apr-11

HERE is a great post from Paul Caplan on jpegs, software protocols and OOO objects. I’ve had a quick glance through it (as I’m about to go out for the night), and I’m not sure I can disagree with any of his sound words. We’re on the same panel for the platform politics event in May, [...]

Also filed in Aarhus, academia, algorithm, Art, Digital Art, Graham Harman, Object Oriented Ontology, Philosophy, Quentin Meillassoux, Speculative Realism | | Comments (2) »

A position on Determinacy and OOO

26-Mar-11

I’ve mentioned determinacy a couple of times on this blog, especially in reference to computation, Cellular Automata and OOO. I think its worth explicating a couple of points in relation to determinacy. Indeed, from my own perspective its clear to see that the issue of transformation and topology will iron out some key differences, certaintly [...]

Also filed in algorithm, Graham Harman, Object Oriented Ontology | | Comments (6) »

History of Shit: Dominque Laporte

22-Mar-11

I’ve finished my second read through History of Shit by the French psychoanalyst Dominque Laporte. Geoff put me onto this for our collaborative paper. It’s a blast, and although I don’t totally agree with it all – there are some important points from this bizarre piece of work. Originally published in 1978, the book is a [...]

Also filed in academia, Art, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis | | Comments (3) »

The problems with ‘real patterns’:

16-Mar-11

Jeffrey Bell has posted some fantastic thoughts on Ladyman and Ross’ Everything Must Go regarding their support for the structural realism of patterns. He’s reminded me to post just a couple of points related to my interest in Wolfram’s New Kind of Science, and the study of Cellular Automaton (CA): basically I can potentially see [...]

Also filed in academia, algorithm, Object Oriented Ontology, Philosophy, Speculative Realism | | Comments (3) »

Some Rule 30 implications

13-Mar-11

Riffing on Tim’s post, and my earlier one on Wolfram, lets consider some implications of Wolfram’s principles of computational irreducibility and computational equivalence. (Because that’s what we do on Sundays) 1.) Reality is a continuous plethora of discrete executant algorithms. 2.) Executant algorithms are equivalently complex; there is no distinction between brain systems and weather [...]

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