PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Figures:
- Katherine Hayles
- Norbert Wiener
- Douglas Hofstadter
THE POSTHUMAN [Katherine Hayles]:
- not always philosophical, often bio-technical (cybernetics)
- Hayles combines literary theory, feminism, physics and chemistry into posthumanism
- cybernetics, as a study of man-technology relations expresses many modern problems; cybernetics as a study of the cyborg
- it is neoliberal/reactionary, harming the understanding of the human condition
- she will use fiction to present a better understanding of man-machine/man-technology
- Karen Barad, Donna Haraway: also work with literature, feminism and the sciences/physics
- they requestion the man-animal-cyborg distinction
- man/machine distinction was already examined (critiqued) by D&G
- man/animal, man/woman, man/native, man/machine → MAN is always in the dominant position, as a non-plural consistency ‘default’/‘neutral’ subject
- the man-technology/man-machine (as a parallel to the man-animal divide) took off in the 20th century, but was present in Aristotle too
- ARISTOTLE: technique-nature divide, if we understand a carpenter’s TECHNIQUE in building a house we can comprehend how nature world, etc. → so nature arranges MATTER into FORM
The Posthuman in Popular Discourses:
- BIOCONSERVATIVES: technology as a threat to our advancement, Fukuyama demonizes technology and biology, because they ‘destroy’ humanity’s essence
- TECHNOPROGRESSIVES: technology-worship, essentially
- Hayles finds both factions uncritical about technology
- for her its not a question of becoming or not becoming machine, but realizing we already have become man-the-machine, “How did we BECOME posthuman?” instead of “Should we?”
- The technological catastrophy is behind us, we just need to cope with it
- For her both factions are reactionary, but technoprogressives are worse, due to their uncritical engagement with the technological crisis
Cybernetics & Mind-Body divide:
[Cybernetics: mix of AI, cognitive science, robotics, information theory, bio-coding, etc. → main goal is to create a sufficiently human machine]
- Analysis of Hans Moravec’s Robot: a human mind is transplanted into a computer (a technoprogressive narrative). Her conclusion is that minute complexities and becomings are lost, what is left is pure binaries between one and zero representing all mental states
- For her its a shock to think that people in cybernetics could be so uncritical of the mind/body divide
- she then investigates the history of cybernetics, finding a belief that the mind could be seperated from the body with no meaningful changes to it
- this is a project poisoned by liberal & neoliberal humanism
- we are unique minds inside a universal, interchangable body (again, her criticism of the default ‘man’)
- neoliberalism essentially supposes that all bodies are equal, a farcical idea, that essentializes the mind to a clump of digially-compatable (non-physical) data
- Neoliberalism: the construction of a universal, rational subject → the consumerist archetype. If we suppose irrationality or overpowering market structures, then neoliberal humanism stops to function
- IMPORTANCE OF CORPOREALITY: our mental states are heavily influenced by material reality (politics, economics, history, spaces…)
- all information and thought is essentially embedded
HAYLES’S POSTHUMANISM:
- we are already posthuman, the question is what kind of posthuman we will be
- POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM: neoliberal idea of rational ownership over possessions (matter-domination), the body is merely a supplement to the rational mind
- but perhaps posthumanism can fix this
[think of uncritical posthumanism where one’s body is not a grounding of the mind in a Spinozian fashion, but an accessory to toss around, decorate, play with, like in that horrid Cyberpunk 2077 character creator screen…] - posthumanism should be used to enhance our corporeal engagement with the world, making it more sophisticated, ensuring our body is capable of more
Macy Conferences [1941-1960]:
- a series of conferences central for the field of cybernetics
- brought together different fields (biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, psychology)
- of course, sponsored by a billionaire entrepreneur
- centered on machines capable of replicating the human mind
3 Waves of Cybernetics:
1. 1945-60: homeostasis
2. 1960-80: reflexivity
3. 1980-99 [Hayles’ present]: AI & emergent systems
Wave 1: Homeostasis (45-60)
[homeostatis: an organism’s capacity to preserve itself even in a dynamic/chaothic field]
- foundations:
- John von Neumann: computers consist in only ON/OFF states
- Claude Shannon: computer framework
- McCulloch & Pitts: neurological interpretation of how brains process information
- all 3 combined propose a theory of the human brain based on computing of information
- Norbert Wiener: theory of animals, humans, machines as information-processing systems
- this is the birth of cybernetics
- this is a break with the mind/body dualist system of Descartes: now information is the foundation for body/mind, yet mental information is still information without embodiment
- Wiener: all information systems are characterized by homeostasis (they’re autonomous, much like the self-same Enlightenment subject)
- feedback loops: the self-regulatory circulation of information
- homestasis is important because it grounds cybernetics to the Enlightenment subject (Hayles’ critique of neoliberalism)
- Wiener’s interpretation of cybernetics becomes the dominant one, trumping ones where embodiment is more important
Wave 2: Reflexivity (60-80)
- wave 1 presupposed an objective, scientific approach where the observer was beyond the system being analyzed
- Wave 2 critiques this, supposing that a feedback loop can loop in the observer as well, as a feedback loop requires external triggers to cause the looping
- now, with reflexivity in mind, the feedback begins being examined as a reaction to an outside environment, the subject of cybernetics (the machine) is not a purely self-same entity
- AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEMS: systems that make themselves in reaction with their milieu, or, environment
- external feedback is necessary for the system to evolve/change
- REFLEXIVITY: dismantles wave 1’s subject-object dichotomy
- object becomes part of subject, or, the object is self-subjectifying
- DESTRUCTION OF INDEPENDENT SUBJECT, NOW THERE’S A GREATER FUSION BETWEEN SUBJECT & OBJECT
- Godel, Escher, Bach (by Douglas Hofstadter): infinite regresses through the faults of tradition logic, incapable of representing dialectical relationships between a system building itself, and describing the process of building itself at the same time
- (anti-Kant) a priori conditions of knowledge are built up by the things for which they serve as groundings
- like a legal system being built by the people subjected to the system
- consequences of infinite regress: no purely objective elements, WE ONLY SEE THE WORLD OUR SYSTEMATIC ORGANIZATION ALLOWS US TO UNDERSTAND, every observer is transformed by that which they observe
Wave 3: Emergence (80-99)
- evolving the capacity for the evolution of code [DEEP LEARNING]
- a system that creates the rules for its own functioning (reflexivity & autopoieticism)
- Wiener is overcome, but view of code/information as higher than matter isnt
- this is the birth of AI essentially
THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND CYBERNETICS:
[uneccesary addition to an already complete whole]
- Suppliment Logic: marks of objects are seen as supplemental. The idea is that there’s an essential core with extra bits added one (rather than a complete whole)
- information ⇒ necessary core; materiality ⇒ accidental feature
- thus, information is not matter-dependent
DERRIDA ON ROUSSEAUL:
[Grammatology: study of written signs]
- in the history of philosophy, starting with Plato, writing has been seen as less ‘pure’ than thinking. Thinking > Speech > Writing (writing being the shadow of thinking’s shadow)
- Rousseau holds this view (speech/thinking is natural, etc.)
- Metaphysics as a whole is logocentric/phonocentric, favouring thinking/speech
- The supplement of thinking is speech under this framework (an exteriority attatched to an interiority)
[under this framework INFORMATION CAN FLOAT IN A NONPHYSICAL UNSPACE] - However for Derrida writing constitutes a discourse’s outside, which is necessary for the defining of the discourse’s inside
- THUS A SUPPLIMENT IS NOT ACCIDENTAL, BUT IMPORTANT FOR DEFINING THE ‘CORE’
- interiority can emerge only ALONGSIDE its outside, not before it
CYBERNETICS’ EPISTEMOLOGY:
- data as a core, body as unimportant outside
- like the neoliberal subject
- cybernetic tradition is platonic, using abstract ideals to represent a complex reality
- but reality CANNOT be reconstructed from the abstract elements meant to compose it
CYBERNETICS & FICTION:
- circulation of cybernetic philosophy into the mass-discourse
- mutual relationship between science and fiction (cf. Stanislav Lev)
- i.e. narratives circulate within the sciences (similar-ish to de Castro)
- thus posthumanism can provide a NEW narrative of EMBODIED COGNITION AND EMBODIED IDENTITY
- new information theory, no neoliberalism, embodiment
- a revolution ⇒ information becomes seen as material, or material grounded. Thus a kind of purification could be possible, extracting information from physical matter
Embodiment as posthuman collectivity: we are all made up of many individuals/agents (Deleuzian packs & multiplicities)
- spiritual or immaterial identity is now understood through the actions of the body [THEY BECOME ACCORDING TO VARIOUS ENGAGEMENTS]