Collapse Volume I: Numerical Materialism

Collapse Volume I: Numerical Materialism (Reissued Edition) Robin Mackay (Ed.) December 2012Urbanomic Associate Editors: Ray Brassier, Michael Carr Paperback 107x175mm, 288pp ISBN 978-0-9553087-5-8 Collapse I is an unprecedented collection of work by leading practitioners in diverse fields of enquiry. Conceived as a meticulously compiled and compendious miscellany, a grimoire or instruction manual without referent, as a delirious carnival of sobriety, Collapse operates its war against good sense not through romantic flight but through the formal insanity secreted in the depths of the rational ("the rational is not reasonable"). Collapse aims to force unforeseen conjunctions, singular correspondences, and unnatural cross-fertilisations; to diagram abstract regions as yet unnamed. The first volume of Collapse investigates the nature and philosophical uses of number through interviews with philosophers scientists and mathematicians, essays on the mathematics of intensity, terrorism, the occult and information theory, and graphical works of multiplicity.   Contents ROBIN MACKAY - Editorial Introduction ALAIN BADIOU - Philosophy, Sciences, Mathematics (Interview) GREGORY CHAITIN - Epistemology as Information Theory REZA NEGARESTANI - The Militarization of Peace MATTHEW WATKINS - Prime Evolution (Interview) "INCOGNITUM" - Introduction to ABJAD NICK BOSTROM - Existential Risk (Interview) THOMAS DUZER - On the Mathematics of Intensity KEITH TILFORD - Crowds NICK LAND - Qabbala 101 Notes on Contributors