Strange Attractor Roundtable Ep 3: The Philosophy of Cool

Alex Ebert

with Alexander Bard, Alex Ebert, Thomas Hamelryck, and Andrew Sweeny

After listening to Alex Ebert’s fantastic presentation ‘Dead Cool’ at the Stoa we thought we would invite Alex— who like Alexander Bard, is a pop star turned philosopher—for a discussion on ‘The Philosophy of Cool’. What is cool in the age of attentionalism? What is fake cool and what is real cool? How is cool related to Réne Girard’s theories of mimetic desire. Originally part of the Sweeny vs Bard podcast, we thought it exemplified a lively round table and should be part of the Strange Attractor series. After all ‘cool’ is a strange attractor and mysterious enough to merit a serious conversation.

One of the coolest (in the sense of ‘most awesome’) conversations so far. Part 2 coming soon.

Guests

Alex Ebert is an erstwhile multiplatinum songwriter and Golden Globe-winning film composer now taking up philosophy in New Orleans.   He is currently finishing his first book, Dead Cool, an analysis of sociodynamics and status anxiety in the age of Cool.   

Alexander Bard: Alexander Bard is a Swedish author, lecturer, artist, songwriter, music producer, TV personality, philosopher and political activist, and one of the founders of the Syntheist movement along with his co-author Jan Söderqvist. His books include “The Futurica Trilogy”, “Digital Libido” & “Syntheism”.

Thomas Hamelryck is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Bioinformatics Centre at the University of Copenhagen Biocenter. His academic research interests revolve around Machine learning, Bayesian statistics, Protein Structure Prediction, Probabilistic Programming, Deep Learning. He is also an enthusiast of Réne Girard, and denies all rumours that he was once the keyboard player for Depeche Mode.

Andrew Sweeny: Andrew Sweeny is a writer, editor, blogger, Youtuber, published poet, podcaster, musician, and teacher. He has worked as a touring musician and put out several albums, published a book of poetry, and animated two popular podcasts and a philosophical blog on Medium and now on Parallax. He Lectures at Sciences Po, in Paris, France.

About the Strange Attractor Series

In the last couple of years, we have witnessed the emergence of different meta-models, theories, and future visions which try to go beyond the worldview of postmodernism: a strange attractor that seems to run on new and exciting algorithms. But what—if anything—do all of these models and movements have in common? Is there a shared deep-structure that is expressing itself, not only in new and more complex ways of thinking and cognition, but also in geopolitics, science, industry, religion, ecology, sexuality, parenting, culture, technology, architecture, the arts—and in every other area of contemporary life. Is there a strange attractor that emerges after postmodernity? What are its shape and characteristics? What new and exciting vistas and opportunities do these new vistas open up for us? Can they contribute to solving the existential problems of the current meta-crisis? What are the moral and ethical injunctions that we could infer from the present emergence of these meta-tribes.

In this Roundtable-series - hosted by PARALLAX - we invite a multitude of ‘post-postmodern’ pioneer—thinkers, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, educators, economists, and artists—to have an interdisciplinary discussion about the essence of Post-Postmodernity – given there is such a thing. More precisely, this podcast-series is an experiment which seeks to find out whether these movements and models after Postmodernity have something in common. Can these movements leave their respective bubbles and contribute something essential to the development of the world we live in? That is our primary question.