Posthumanism

Traditional Humanism

• Emphasizes the power of individual human mind.

• Privileges “rational” thought over embodied emotion.

• Values individual autonomy / agency• Draws strong binary distinctions between

humans/technologies and humans/animals.• Positions white male as the archetypal

“human”

“Consciousness” and Humanism

“I think, therefore I am” –Descartes

The Rise of the Cyborg

“Electronic media is

an extension of the

central nervous

system.” (McLuhan)

“A cyborg is a

cybernetic

organism, a hybrid of

machine and

organism, a creature of

social reality as well as

a creature of

fiction.” (Haraway)

Posthumanism

• The body is a technological prosthesis (we are always already machines)

• “Consciousness” and “embodiment” are not necessary for intelligent action / thought.

• Increasing automation and internetworking challenges the notion of individual agency.

Living in a Posthuman Age

• Humans come to understand our bodies and our identities through digital / computer-based metaphors.

• People attribute conventionally human emotions and motivations to technological tools (anthropomorphism)

• How we imagine our technological future influences how we think and act in the present.

20th century artificial intelligence

• Attempts to create computers that can think like humans.

• Emphasizes disembodied “rational” thought.

Turing Test

Can you distinguish between a (typed)

conversation with a computer vs. a

human?

Changing Theories of Mind

• Embodied Cognition (emphasis on the role of bodily movement and emotion in complex thought)

• Distributed Cognition (emphasis on how intelligent action is collectively accomplished by assemblages/groups of humans and machines)

21st Century Artificial Intelligence

• Attempts to develop machines that sense, think, feel, and act like humans.

Key Posthumanist Questions

• How does this text represent the relationship between humans and technologies?

• How does this text imagine future and thus influence the present?

• What does this text argue about how technologies are transforming our understanding of our identities, our bodies, and our social relationships?