Theory on Demand #59
Paritance: A Philosophical Investigation Behind Cognition and Simulation
By Henry Warwick
This work advances the idea of Paritance—the acceptance of parity—as a fundamental operation of human cognition and culture. Warwick argues that the capacity to recognize a copy, model, or simulation as ontologically sufficient to its referent underlies cultural practices, such as simply hearing a recording as music up to the plausibility of artificial intelligence. Far from being a merely technical phenomenon, this acceptance reveals deep continuities between modern technologies of reproduction and premodern metaphysical and occult practices.
Through a critical and sometimes deeply personal genealogy spanning medieval necromancy, ritual evocation, and demonology, the book demonstrates how contemporary uses of computers recapitulate occult logics of animation, invocation, and resurrection. In this framing, AI appears less as an unprecedented rupture than as an uncanny rearticulation of an ancient aspiration: the conjuration and “resurrection” of a dead god in machinic digital form.
Grounded in both philosophical analysis and experiential insight derived from Zen training and decades of musical practice, Paritance situates cognition and simulation within a transhistorical discussion on thought, representation, and creativity. It accesses a wide variety of disciplines including philosophy of mind, media theory, occult studies, and critical technology studies, offering an original account of the hidden logics that structure contemporary human invention.
Henry Warwick is an Associate Professor in the RTA School of Media at Toronto Metropolitan University where he teaches media theory and sound synthesis. His research often focuses on media infrastructures, information politics, and the cultural history of electronic sound. He is the author of The Radical Tactics of the Offline Library (INC, 2014). Alongside his scholarship, he has released more than twenty albums of ambient and avant-garde electronic music, maintaining a practice that bridges theory and sound.
Edited by: Tripta Chandola
Cover Design: Katja van Stiphout
Design and EPUB development: Klaudia Orczykowska
Published by the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2025
ISBN: 978-90-83520-98-8
Contact:
Institute of Network Cultures
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA)
Email: info@networkcultures.org
Web: www.networkcultures.org
Order a copy or download this publication for free at: www.networkcultures.org/publications
This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommerical ShareAlike 4.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit www.creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-sa/4.0./
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