Mathification

Since the mid twentieth century, digital computers have increasingly defined everyday life. Digital devices operate using discrete elements, combining and changing the elements using logic and mathematics. Often small, sometimes imperceptible, these discrete elements may be found in the innumerable pixels illuminating digital images. They may be found in the genetic codes of all biological creatures. And, if one is to believe the so-called Digital Philosophers, discretization may also be found in the most fundamental elements of nature. This essay is an investigation into the mathematical economies of existence, particularly through the digital and the analog. My focus is on the work of Alain Badiou, a philosopher who has closely intertwined mathematics with questions of existence. But what is the relationship between digitality and philosophy? And is Badiou ultimately a philosopher of the digital?