Some responses to the Alien Phenomenology reading group
Following the discussion of chapter 1, Darius Kazemi has posted discussion notes for chapters 2 and 3 of Alien Phenomenology—Ontography and Metaphorism, respectively. I thought I’d make a few comments on the topics discussed there. Time Time is discussed as a particularly mind-bending topic in OOO. AP doesn’t offer a theory of time; the conversation chez Darius is about meanwhile… read more
From the Italian news and an online reading group
Today yields two humbling approaches to Alien Phenomenology. First, an article by Evan Selinger in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, L’anima delle cose (“the soul of things”). It’s in Italian, but I’m sure you can figure out how to read it somehow. Corriere della Sera is a very old and respected Italian daily, so it’s particularly nice to see… read more
A comment on Alien Phenomenology
I was recently shown this comment by Daniel Joseph from a discussion of chapter 1 of Alien Phenomenology. The thing that Ian is doing here is positing that philosophy can be practiced for the pure joy of things, as a way into the thing for it the thing itself. It is the application of the theory of OOO to OOO.… read more
A response to Cameron Kunzelman
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not exactly sure what blogging means to me these days. But whether by accident or design, I’ve been avoiding some of the back-and-forth debate that both helps and hinders the work of philosophy online these days. That said, this is one of those back-and-forth response posts, this on answering some of the… read more
...might be more interesting than my human ones
Yesterday I participated in a panel on the life and work of Alan Turing, for whom 2012 marks a centennial. As you’d probably expect, the discussion included conversation about artificial intelligence, what counts as “intelligence,” and when AI is “good enough.” The Turing Test, of course, is famous for reframing “thinking machines” as imitating machines. The machines must have been… read more
In the New Scientist "Big Ideas" column
Are everyday objects, such as apple pies or microchips, aliens? It depends how you think about what it’s like to be a thing. This essay appeared in the
It's not the same as writing books
Back when his book The Textual Life of Airports was published in December, Christopher Schaberg reported what most authors do: seeing his book for the first time. “What a weird feeling,” Chris wrote. “It resembles an object from outer space. Vaguely recognizable, yet totally alien at the same time.” This is the experience of most authors. We say we “write… read more
Originally published as an opinion piece at Gamasutra In Greek mythology, Bellerophon is the hero who tamed the Pegasus. He used the winged horse as a mount to defeat the Chimaera, a monster with the heads of a lion, goat, and snake that breathed fire and devoured villagers. Bellerophon’s many heroic deeds were widely praised, and his subjects adored him.… read more
Seeking updates for the SR blog aggregator
As many of you know, for some time I’ve been operating an aggregator for blogs related to speculative realism. You can view post previews on this site, and there’s also an RSS feed in case anybody is still using RSS readers 😉 It’s about time I revised and updated the list of included blogs. The system gets a bit bogged… read more
Responses to Parikka
Jussi Parikka, author of Insect Media among numerous other books, recently posed a series of questions about object-oriented ontology. Levi Bryant has already responded, as has Paul Caplan, and I like both of their responses. I thought I’d offer my own here, so here goes. (The block quotes are Jussi’s questions.) Is not the talk of “object” something that summons… read more