Reddit mentions of Philosophy and Simulation: The Emergence of Synthetic Reason

If you like Deleuze, you should look at some of the work by Manuel Delanda if you haven't already. He's doing explicitly Deleuzian philosophy, but a lot of what he does is much more comprehensible and rigorous (in my opinion). "Events Producing Events", Philosophy and Simulation: A New Emergence of Synthetic Reason, and "A New Ontology for the Social Sciences" may be of particular interest.

I'm partial to materialism ala Spinoza, Deleuze, and interpreted through De Landa. It seems to an approach to metaphysics minus any mystical or spiritual baggage (not that those are bad, but I think that when describing the basis of reality we should try to be as plain and literal as possible. Mystical and spiritual experiences certainly have their place in a materialist philosophy). The sort of materialist metaphysics which De Landa outlines seems to be incredibly reasonable and compatible with our knowledge of physics and mathematics. I would do a horrible job explaining it so I'll just provide a link to a book which explains it pretty well: http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Simulation-Emergence-Synthetic-Reason/dp/1441170286/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Here are a ton of lectures of him explaining Deleuze's metaphysics and materialism in general: http://www.egs.edu/faculty/manuel-de-landa/videos/

I should also mention that this is vital materialsim which views every object as having agency and rejects any ontological divide between humans (or organisms in general) and general matter like a rock or something. The difference is one of degree not one of kind. It takes this continuity seriously which problematizes the subject-object dichotomy

On the topic of the history vital materialism and its relation to political theory check this out: http://www.amazon.com/Vibrant-Matter-Political-Ecology-Franklin/dp/0822346338/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1