Materialism, Turing, and Math

Paul Cockshott (University of Glasgow)

The School of Materialist Research is proud to present the first of its (free) promotional lectures, which will last through May and June. Our first lecture, which will take place on May 21, 2021 at 18:30 CET, and is part of a cluster called “Materialism and Mathematics” is by Paul Cockshott, entitled “Turing and Math.” It presents classical mathematics - both geometric and algorithmic in terms of Turing's analysis. It also shows how Turing's approach altered how we think about reasoning, and how his work on cryptography took off from his work on proof procedures and in turn led to the computer revolution.

Paul Cockshott trained in Economics and Computer Science. He worked as a hardware designer for ICL and Memex Ltd, later becoming an academic at the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow. His research work in computing has included data persistence, data compression, video coding, special purpose hardware processors, 3D television, parallelising compilers and the physical foundations of computability. His published work in economics has covered value theory, models of profitability and economic planning. He retired in 2017 and is now an honorary researcher at the University of Glasgow. His main books are: Towards a New Socialism, Classical Econophysics, Computation and its Limits and How the World Works. Translated editions of his work have been published in half a dozen languages.

The School of Materialist Research (SMR) is an informal graduate and post-doc level program that offers seminars and workshops that address the materialisms running through contemporary science, philosophy, art, mathematics, design, architecture, and politics. SMR is an international platform, founded by the Center for Philosophical Technologies at Arizona State University, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, Skopje and Department for Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics at TU Wien that functions as a global online school combining education, research, and mentorship to advance academic study at the intersection the Social Sciences and Humanities and the STEM sciences. Two more institutions from Europe are expected to join the platform in the upcoming months. The Spring and Summer Sessions are offered for free and open to the public serving as promotional events that illustrate the programmatic commitment and style of work offered by the School for Materialist Research. Some of the confirmed speakers in the Spring/Summer series of seminars include: Paul Cockshott, Greg Michaelson, Ray Brassier, Anne-Françoise Schmid, John Ó Maoilearca, Guiseppe Longo, Agon Hamza, Adam Nocek, Katerina Kolozova, Vera Buhlman, Iris van der Tuin and many many more.