Cultural Endowment as Collective Improvisation: subjectivity and digital infinity

TL;DR

This paper proposes a philosophical theory linking digital infinity and subjectivity, emphasizing blackness as a form of poetic computation that challenges traditional identity and racial categorization systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theory of subjectivity as poetic computation, addressing issues in identity theory and racialized systems through the concept of digital infinity.

Findings

Subjectivity as an operation producing infinite meaningful expressions.

Blackness characterized as a form of poetic computation.

Formalization of blackness within a framework challenging racial categorization.

Abstract

Philosophically, a repertoire of signifying practices as constitutive of a cultural endowment was said to be ambiguous or unworthy of pursuit. Currently, a unique capacity of the mind is considered to be its ability to produce a digital infinity. The infinity produced, here an operation expressing subjectivity, follows a simple principle according to which a limited set of means, here functions, are utilized to produce an infinite range of potentially meaningful expressions. It is from this concept that I propose a theory of subjectivity and the endowment from which it expresses a self in the world(s) it participates. In particular, I make a case for the subjectivity of blackness. I treat subjectivity as an operation in order to address problems with Identity theory, Afro-Pessimism, and to formalize an analysis of blackness despite the onto-epistemological commitments of racialized systems of categorization. In sum, subjectivity will be characterized as poetic computation.