Collapse Vol. V: The Copernican Imperative

February 2009
Editor: Damian Veal
Associate Editors: Robin Mackay, Ray Brassier
Paperback 115x175mm, 587pp. Limited edition of 1000 numbered copies
ISBN 978-0-9553087-4-1

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About this Volume

Ever since Nicolaus Copernicus unmoored the Earth from its anchorage at the centre of the Universe and set it hurtling around the Sun, science has progressively uncovered the lineaments of an objective reality to which human experience stands as only the most superficial and attenuated of abstractions.

Collapse V brings together some of the most intellectually-challenging contemporary work devoted to exploring the philosophical implications of this ever-widening gulf between the real and the intuitable from a variety of overlapping and complementary standpoints.

With articles by groundbreaking philosophers and scientists, in-depth interviews with prominent thinkers, and new work from contemporary artists, Collapse V addresses the issues of the 'deanthropomorphisation' of reality initiated by the Copernican Revolution, and the enduring chasm between the spontaneous image of reality bequeathed to us by evolution and that revealed by the sciences in the wake of Copernicus.

Contents

DAMIAN VEAL
Editorial Introduction [PDF]
CARLO ROVELLI
Anaximander's Legacy
JULIAN BARBOUR
The View from Nowhen (Interview)
CONRAD SHAWCROSS AND ROBIN MACKAY
Shadows of Copernicanism
JAMES LADYMAN
Who's Afraid of Scientism? (Interview)
THOMAS METZINGER
Enlightenment 2.0 (Interview)
NIGEL COOKE
Thinker Dejecta
JACK COHEN AND IAN STEWART
Alien Science (Interview)
MILAN CIRKOVIC
Sailing the Archipelago
NICK BOSTROM
Where are They?
KEITH TYSON
Random Sampler from a Blocktime Animation
MARTIN SCHÖNFELD
The Phoenix of Nature
IMMANUEL KANT
On Creation in the Total Extent of its Infinity in Space and Time
IAIN HAMILTON GRANT
Prospects for Post-Copernican Dogmatism
GABRIEL CATREN
A Throw of the Quantum Dice
ALBERTO GUALANDI
Errancies of the Human
PAUL HUMPHREYS
Thinking Outside the Brain

Related Links

Carlo Rovelli
Julian Barbour
James Ladyman
Thomas Metzinger
Ian Stewart
Milan Cirkovic
Future of Humanity Institute (Nick Bostrom)
Keith Tyson
Martin Schönfeld