Philosophy 101 Unit 1

Below the jump is the final. Post questions you have in this thread, I’ll be doing a review session sometime after we get back.
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Wow! Okay so writing this post is partially to help me work through my thoughts. I’m having a really hard time understanding what the hell she’s trying to say because she makes soo many allusions to things I have no knowledge of. Here goes….

I believe that she is trying to say that women need to “get on” top of the whole cyborg and technology culture because this avenue is still open for change. From a linguist perspective, our language is very gendered. So much of our social interactions are gendered and thus limiting to women. Often times, these same limitations are posed towards minorities as well. “Liberation rests on the construction of the consciousness, the imaginative apprehension, of oppression, and so of possibility” (139). By making a sizable indent in cyber culture, feminists can define the cyborg. By actively constructing the cyborg identity, Haraway believes women can create a realm that isn’t limiting. “The cyborg is a matter of fiction and lived experience that changes what counts as women’s experience in the late twentieth century” (139). The cyborg will impact the women’s movement because it has no gender. Currently, until the notion that we are all cyborgs is widely accepted, this field is still open terrain. By constructing the reality of cyborgs, one can affect change on “social and bodily realit{ties}” (139). 

Just as Gehlen believed, Haraway claims our society has a “tradition of reproduction of the self from the reflections of the other” (140).  Whereas Gehlen claims that humans manipulate and use nature to suit our needs, Haraway insists that “Nature and culture are reworked; the one can no longer be the resource for appropriation or incorporation by the other” (140).

I believe that Haraway brings up a very interesting point about our own origin stories. They are very gendered in that our interactions with our mothers or even our own experiences in a gendered role impacts how we relate to our surroundings. She mentions the “oedipal calendar,” {yes I had to look it up} for those of you who don’t know what that means it refers to the oedipus complex, a complex of emotions aroused in a young child by an unconscious sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex. The uniqueness of the cyborg is that it doesn’t have an origin story that entails this (the oedipus complex) or any other gendered origins. Because of that, we {I believe she refers to women in the feminist movement} have the wonderful opportunity to affect change. 

There is this notion that online, boundaries of race, class, and gender are erased. I believe that Haraway agrees with this notion but insists that this concept be monopolized by feminists? Clarify anyone?

I believe that Haraway cites the importance of recognizing consequences of ones actions and the necessity of being aware of our inability or at least our track record of our lack to identify the consequences of our actions. She states, “The home, workplace, market, public arena, the body itself–all can be dispersed and interfaced in nearly infinite, polymorphous ways, with large consequences for women and others—consequences that themselves are very different for different people and which make potent oppositional international movements difficult to imagine and essential for survival” (144). 

A later quote that supports my earlier claim that Haraway insists that women must construct the cyborg, “The cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self. This is the self feminists must code” (144). Since there is no real, firm, or established notion about cyborgs, women must “code” or create this image to their benefit. Since the cyborg is very much considered to be a human or at least we identify with them, women need to have a say in constructing this image. 

Haraway spends some time discussing the negative impact technology has had on women. The “homework economy” refers to a “restructuring of work that broadly has the same characteristics formerly ascribed to female jobs, jobs literally done only by women” (146). Many types of jobs are being feminized in that they are essentially being made extremely vulnerable. Technologies of sorts have replaced many men in the workplace, and there is ever more pressure on women to generate income for the family unit as well as keep up with the “home” front. 

Another point that Haraway touches on is this notion of “identity tourism.” I don’t think she uses this term, but it was brought up in an article I read for my GWS class. She does say, “These are the technologies that promise ultimate mobility and perfect exchange–and incidentally enable tourism, that perfect practice of mobility and exchange, to emerge as one of the world’s largest single industries” (147). The internet allows us to reinvent ourselves and take on other identities (opposing genders, reside in a different class, identify with a different demographic than our own). Technology enables this easy tourism because there are no consequences. People believe that they “understand” what it is like to be some other identity because they have played with their online identity. However, they can’t truly understand, because they don’t have a true, lived experience.

Donna Haraway, a philosopher and biologist, is a socialist feminist with unique viewpoints concerning several societal problems.  Cyborgs, however, were her focus in her Cyborg Manifesto.  Enjoying “blasphemy” and employing irony as a political and rhetorical method, she attempts to create a new political idea that is faithful to both feminism and materialism; she decides to use a cyborg as her metaphor.  She defines a cyborg in four ways:

1) “Cybernetic organism”

Cybernetics is defined as the study of communication and automatic control systems in both machines and living things.  A cybernetic organism, therefore, must be one that functions through a communication and control network.

2) “Hybrid of machine and organism”

Her “hybrid of machine and organism” contains organic and inorganic materials.  This provides some problems for the conventional definition of biological life - the cyborg parts would not increase in size, do not consume energy in the sam way, require no homeostasis, and do not respond to stimuli.  Defining life in unequivocal terms is still challenging for any scientist, and the argument could easily be made that as long as the system still exhibits all requirements as a whole, the cyborg is still alive.

3) “Creature of lived social reality”

The cyborg is a creature of the present, and It exists now.

4) “Creature of fiction”

The cyborg is a creature of the future, and will continue to advance.

These four definitions, for Haraway, exist simultaneously; they are codeterminate.  Philosophically, Haraway sees no difference between “fiction” and “lived social reality” because they constantly define and refine one another.  Feminists, she says, use the idea of “women’s experience” as both political fiction and crucial fact.  The cyborg, then, changes the methods for acquisition of experience and the definition thereof.  Her conception of a cyborg differs from that of other socialists and feminists in that she does not buy into the dualism - mind / body, organic / inorganic, idealism / materialism - that they see.  She regards their perception of dualism as entirely meritless.

Perception of cyborgs, Haraway says, is largely a “border war” - people might believe that cyborgs are confined to science-fiction, but she cites modern manufacturing and medicine as fields in which cyborgs are employed and created.  The cyborg, she says “gives us our politics” - we are already cyborgs according to her view.  Military history is important to this idea, as she regards transformation into a cyborg as a sort of termination of our attempts to increasingly dominate our environments.  Our combination of organics and inorganics places humans in the middle of the scale, between the absolute organic nature of animals and the mechanical, inorganic essence of a machine.  These, too, are borders.  The return to nature, she says, is impossible - pollution and medical experimentation cause ethical problems that pull us too far from that extreme.  Baboon heart transplants, for example, pose ethical dilemmas for animal rights activists as much they do for human purists.  The second boundary, that between humans and machines, is approached through our refinement of autonomy.  Haraway states that modern machines “make ambiguous the difference between the natural and the artificial” - “our machines,” she says, “are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.  She cites the universal presence of microprocessors in modern technology as an example of how “small is not so much beautiful as pre-eminently dangerous.”  The cruise missile and microchip are two different examples of technology that plague us; the former represents technology’s destructive potential, and the second implies a sort of “invisible illness” - we constantly consume and interact with technology despite our unawareness that much of it exists.  These “border crossings” are significant for socialism and feminism in that they are essential to convince modern socialist feminists that negotiating in a technological world is an undertaking worth improving upon.  The poorest women - those who would benefit from her socialist ideas most - are those who suffer the greatest from scientific progress.  Home-workers are underpaid, sweatshop workers are exploited, and medical trial guinea pigs undergo potentially harmful tests.

To attempt to summarize: Haraway wants socialist feminists to actively engage technological economies.  The political struggle is not a complete adoption or an outright rejection of technology and its culture, but the capacity to understand both extremities.  Each position, she says, “reveals both dominations and possibilities unimaginable from the other vantage point.”  The cyborg, to Haraway, is a monstrous and illegitimate myth of feminism.

Okay, this was part one.  I might have been a little redundant at times, but this text is monstrously dense.  Perhaps I’ll do part two later.

I would like to make a proposal that I somewhat made in class today, which was along the lines of what Brad said (actually, I interrupted him… sorry, Brad). It was in regards to the need of face-to-face relationships and wasn’t taken very seriously or much into consideration, so maybe I was completely wrong, but I can’t see why. Here goes:

The reason people won’t break up over text message is because relationships are built off of face-to-face contact. That’s the way our brains have adapted, so that’s the way relationships are handled, so if your relationship is started and structured off of that personal communication, then it would only be right for it to end that way as well. However, if your relationship was started and structured over text, then it would be completely fine to end it over text, because your brain has adapted towards that kind of communication so it’d be permissible to act that way throughout your entire relationship (beginning to end). In that instance, a face-to-face breakup would be more deficient than a text, and text more deficient than a face-to-face in a relationship built off of personal contact, so there is neutrality here (like Clark might suggest). If this doesn’t work for you, then let me illustrate what I am trying to say…

Imagine a kid that is raised without any human contact, but the way he communicates with people is through text and some sort of webcam. You would probably deny that as a child he will not experience the same emotions as someone who does have personal contact in their life, but I would disagree. Children are always affected by what they see off of TV (Sesame Street makes them laugh. Frosty the Snowman made me cry- the part where he died really hit home), so if that is the case, then why wouldn’t this hypothetical kid feel similar emotions that are brought by what he sees or reads from the webcam or text? This happens all his life until he dies, and he has completely adapted to this way of communication. The only reason I would see as to why he would want to seek personal contact would be out of curiosity and none other, because human contact is only “essential” because that is the way our brains have adapted. Also, technology has only recently allowed us to begin adapting to impersonal communication, and look where it’s gotten us thus far- Myspace/Facebook/Textmessage addicts. My girlfriend’s 12-year-old sister insists upon texting her friend that is literally 10 feet away from her, because the technology has become available, and although it is somewhat ridiculous, she is embracing that way of communication, much like a large portion of the upcoming generation, so try telling them how “essential” human contact is to communication. Hopefully, I didn’t miss anything, but if there’s any questions or disagreements, then feel free to comment.

Kelly-Text Message Breakup

I don’t know how this is going to turn out.  Honestly, I’m having a hard time focusing on technology and all this business.  I keep thinking about death, and consequently, about life.  A friend of mine died on Tuesday.  Rather than your sympathy, I’d appreciate your opinions and comments.  This isn’t a post that I’m pulling out of my ass, it’s real thoughts that have been running around my head that now I’m trying to apply to class.

There is something lacking when we dive into technology and let it take over, but technology shouldn’t be the only one to get a bad name.  Any obsession with work, a particular person, or even alcohol, anything can dominate, and balance seems to be the most important aspect of life.  When we become so attached to our phones, iPods, laptops that we’ve tipped the scales, then we have a problem.  If you sever your ties to reality by putting on headphones (snip), focusing on a text message (snip), what do you have left?  You’re not looking at the street that you’re walking down, you’re not listening to the wind or having a meaningful chat with a buddy.  Even if you agree with Clark and believe that technology allows some extent of embodiment, I just don’t think it’s as good as “real” experiences.

Someone once told me that the most they could ask of my life is that I exaust myself.  That everyday I go to bed completely and utterly used up and fall asleep instantly because I have done so much that day, I have lived it to the fullest.  Technology can hamper that when it becomes like other obsessions.  YES you can use technology for GOOD things like keeping in touch with far away friends, I know, but what percentage of our time do we use facebook for that?  How many hours do I, do we, lose each day to “surfing” the net or “creeping” on each other’s pages, looking at photos you’ve seen five times.  Clearly technology is getting in my way of exausting myself, of living my life to the fullest.
When I’m done with this life and I look back on it, which experiences will be the most important to me?  I doubt it will be that really sweet wall post my friend left me.  Technological encounters produce more temporary memories for me, and I seek to use that as evidence for Dryfus, that technology is inherently lacking because of this embodiment issue.  I had a really excellent conversation tonight over dinner with three guys I’ve known for about two months now, about death.  It changed a lot between us as we discussed religion, doubts, and other personal things that our surface friendship had never really delved into before, and it changed a lot about our relationship.  It changed our comfort level, the amount of trust between us all, the way I view our friendship.  We could just have easily exchanged identical words over the internet, but I doubt the experience would have been the same or equally lasting.

It’s like this.  Do you know how I found out that she died?  My friend sent me a facebook message.  How VASTLY inappropriate is that?  It probably explains why I’ve been okay, too — the experience of learning the news of her death was so disembodied that it seemed unreal.  I don’t think I’ll really believe it until I see her for myself at her funeral on Saturday.  Sharing that experience and discussing her life and her impact on mine while surrounded by friends and family will be far more impactful on me than having identical conversations with the same people via email and facebook.  When I called the friend that sent me the news via facebook and talked to her, I felt a little more connected, the extent of “embodiment” was greater, but it still wasn’t there.  But she wasn’t here and that old saying of “I’m here for you” felt quite a bit different.  I’m glad to have had my friend to talk to on the phone, I’ll take any piece of comfort and connection that I can, but it will be very different when I’m with them and we can hug each other’s skin bags.

I have a lot of respect for Clark in how he critically examines the human mind from his background of neuroscience, but I wonder what kind of interpersonal relationships he’s had.  I feel like there must have been something lacking there, for him to use that term, skin bags.  My body may only be a vessel for my mind to experience the world through, but it think it deserves a lot more respect than that.  Human beings are naturally social creatures, and which technology can help us to facilitate that, consider the price.  My relationship with my coach who died had nothing to do with technology.  It was about dance, leadership, commitment, team work.  It was a series of personal conversations, and more importantly lessons learned through action and experience, real pats on the back, real hugs.  Not ‘pokes’.

Okay now I’m getting off topic so let’s call it quits.  Hopefully this was philosophical enough for everyone, let me know what you think.

You are just a system of tools. Different tools have different functions. Different functions require different tools or sets of tools. No functions require all tools.

When you interact with a person face to face, everyone would agree that you are both embodied. You are embodied because you are both using tools in the presence of another, and your tool use effects a change in the environment and in the functioning of the other person. Much of the personal feeling of face to face interactions stems from the immediate feedback loop; the toolset applied to direct face to face interaction consists almost entirely of nearly instantly interpretable functions. Of course, nothing is truly instantaneous! The time it takes light waves to tell us the story of our companion’s actions is negligible to us, but still existent. The story is the same for the vibrations in the air that carry their voice. Would you claim that a person is not embodied through their tool uses, body language and verbal communication?

The rapidity of input and the change thereof lends a different feel to this form of interaction, but obviously we can find examples of less than instant responses. What if you were across a room from somebody, and then you closed your eyes in order to cut off visual feedback, at which point they tossed you a ball? The result of the function they performed is you being struck by the ball; unless they happen to be a major league pitcher, it most likely took a noticeable amount of time for the result of their tool use to be realized, even though the tool use previously concluded. Is it reasonable to say that this person on the other side of the room is not embodied through this tool use? Certainly not! It’s the same as the previous action, but the time required for realization of the effect is greater, and the effect is carried by the medium of a ball instead of photons and sound waves. Does being a mere few feet across the room rend the embodiment from a person’s tool use? By this logic, no.

Kat mentioned that in person, we have far more tools at our disposal to interact with one another. Seeing the embodiment of all of these tool uses in other people, it’s easy to see that they exist and are embodied. But even face to face, nobody utilizes all of their tools for communication simultaneously. This debunks the notion that to be embodied, a person must be using all of their tools at once. But if embodiment does not require all tools, can you set a threshold for number of tools being used that endows embodiment? I say no, and if anyone claims a number as this threshold, I am sure it won’t take much thought to find an example of a clearly embodied person using fewer tools.

It makes sense that if a person is making no use of any tools, they are not embodied anywhere. If the requirements, in terms of tool use, are that a person is embodied for using a certain number of tools between 0 and the number of tools they possess, exclusive, you simply cannot define that threshold.

If we have determined that to be embodied you must be using tools, but cannot give a threshold to required number of tools used, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that any use of a tool necessarily implies embodiment.

I do not recall whether Clarke addresses this, but I was thinking about it.  I like to think about what some might call ‘utopias’ and devise ideology and mechanisms, and all the stuff that would make it work on paper.

Here’s a thought (I think it is original, and it crosses quite a few threads):

Clarke sees human as a collection of tools, right? That is to say, each one of us is nothing more than the collection and application of tools biological, synthetic, or otherwise.  Expanding this in both directions arrives at an interesting result (backfeeds into a thought I’d had before discussing Clark): every ‘tool’ is made of ‘tools’ below it–some of them are physically present, but some of them were only used in making the final result.  For instance, if not for the wrench and torch which tighten the bolts and weld the joints, and the bolts themselves, the structure would not exist.  The wrench is just as much a part of the structures it builds as the bolts it tightened.

Expanding in the other direction, if we are a collection of tools, what keeps us from taking a look at us (or maybe the ‘executor’ or ‘organizing’ tool within for a given task–I am not calling this a privelidged user, merely a collector/organizer) and considering ourselves at any given moment as a single tool.  If we consider this the case, then does that not mean we could all be part of a greater ‘tool’ or device?

If this is the case, why don’t we just throw it all together in a soup, considering all we’ve talked about in class–AI, technology, extended self, etc.–and see just what we might be capable of?  I’m thinking, imagine each person as a component, a switch, within a greater computer–it’s already like this.  Every person is unique and different, but so is every neutron, but all neutrons behave in roughly the same way when seen from the macro scale.  This is what science does for us–it let’s us see the bigger picture, instead of just a mashup of first-hand experiences.

Consider the qualities which are usually assigned to people.  A person could be a mother, brother, father, son, sister, black, white, African, Irish, Arab, scientist, aestheticist, Christian, vegetarian, activist of any form, etc. etc.  The plethora of descriptors which apply to people will apply in combination, as any one person falls into so many different ‘categories’.  Some may call it stereo-typing, but when a trend fits effectively, and real thought is used to categorize, a ’society’ turns into little more than a computer.  This machine is quite nearly a discrete state machine from the largest scale, and this machine had to be self-programmed throughout our existence, however the ‘classes’ which exist–not just economic classes, but societal, career, political, etc. etc.–have become so segmented and discrete (even if we try to draw blurry boundaries) ‘priveledged users’ have come into existence.  These priveledged users hold the concentrated power of will of a class or populous as a whole.  Examples include representatives in government, corporate heads, large religious institutions, media (which falls under corporate and a hybrid between corporate and government).

What I propose is an effort to increase self awareness–even if you disagree with the initial premise–to program the machine ourselves.  Let’s see just what we are capable of, as a people, united in intellectual capability.  If we build machines evidently capable of similar mental activity, let them join us.  In short, let’s try infinite recursion with the most powerful, emotional, loving, respectable, yet dispicable, but oh so wonderful machine in the universe (so far as we know).

For anyone who didn’t watch the Frontline Documentary: Spying on the Homefront, I recommend you do. I just want to talk about what some of this means to us, and the questions it raises, in hopes of generating discussion about how many libterties we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of safety and comfort, and what needs to be done both legally and otherwise to accomodate the power of the internet.

The documentary uses interviews with people involved with the government, communication companies, and lawyers to draw a clear picture of what the government does to obtain information on the entire population to help fight terrorism. John Yoo, a deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department, describes the problem by saying, “the difficulty in this war is that the enemy is non-nation so what they do is they disguise themselves as civilians, and they place their communications through normal channels. The hard thing for our side is to identify where in the stream of civilian, innocent communications Al Qaeda members are disguising their messages to one another, trying to intercept those and find out what they mean.” Basically, many citizens are under the impression that the NSA (National Security Agency) pinpoints potential terrorists and then digs deeper to find information to prevent attacks. However, the government actually processes information on hundreds of thousands of citizens to first find out what people are doing and then determines whether or not an individual is suspicious.  With the logo of an all seeing eye and the motto, “the key to finding terrorism is informaton,” a data-mining program called Total Information Awareness (TIA) (which is a branch of DARPA, which we talked about in class) strives to collect as much information as possible to narrow down potential terrorists.

The question we have to ask ourselves is, is data-mining unconstitutional? The fourth ammendment protects us against unreasonable search and seizure, but the government asked for the information without a warrant or even probable cause. The issue is legally quetsionable, because the communication companies surrendered the information without a fight, but the government arguably has too much power when it can monitor the actions of hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens.

Also, according to the Privacy Act of 1974, the government cannot keep records of citizens and must allow them to see these records. However, much of the wording is hazy, because there are exemptions for “law enforcement purposes” (whatever that means). Congress stopped funding for TIA, but many of the programs were simply renamed and spread out to other departments.

So, how should we, as citizens, respond to this invasion of privacy? Is it worth the sacrifice for increased security? Do the laws need to change to accommodate new technology? If so, how?

We all know YouTube is great and wonderful. My post will be focusing on an hour-long video I recently watched (on YouTube of course). It is titled “An anthropological introduction to YouTube.” I highly recommend checking it out—it will probably show you a different, interesting perspective on the site.

The creator of this video, Michael Wesch, is a professor at Kansas State University. Wesch made one video, “Web 2.0” that became extremely popular, it’s less than five minutes, and it’s fun to watch. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

He teaches anthropology (the study of cultures/societies/development stuff like that). He has a class that focuses specially on YouTube, and it’s community. He worked with his students to prepare this 55-minute presentation (An anthropological introduction to YouTube), which he presented at the Library of Congress on June 23^rd of 2008. 

Here is an awesome statistic about the site. In 1948 ABC became the 3^rd large network to start broadcasting. That was 60 years ago. Imagine these network have broadcasting 24/7 for every day of the year. That would be 3 (networks) x 60 (years) x 365 (days) x 24 (hours/day) = 1,576,800. This is over 1.5 million hours of programming! But… YouTube produced more than that in the past 6 months. Crazy. YouTube gets around 9232 hours uploaded per day. Most of these hours are in the form of 3-minute videos. You’re probably thinking this isn’t original work—but in reality 88% of the videos are new and original content (better than the networks do. A large percentage of the videos are meant for about a hundred or less people to view.

That whole above paragraph is basically directly taken from the first few minutes of the video that you all should check out. Wesch then goes into what kinds of videos are on youtube, like the Numa dance and other things like that. Then there are 5% of the videos that are personal vlogs addressed to the youtube community. He discusses a possible reason is the loss of community over time. Which is the way our world is headed. We now are in massive disconnected communities, suburbia. We are now much more individualistic and isolating (for example, televisions are isolating). So we find new ways, like cell phones. We now have a networked individualism (more person to person, not place to place). Then he talks about cultural inversion. The more individual we become, the more we long for community. The more independent we are, the more we want relationships, etc. This is where a youtube community comes in. To study the community the class participated in, making vlogs themselves.

After this Wesch talks about the webcam: everybody is watching where nobody is. This is basically about how you are talking to this webcam, and you have no idea who will see it. Everyone, no one, and even yourself could see it sometime in the future. This leads to a re-cognition and new form of self-awareness. This video does a great job of explaining this, so if I’m confusing you, go look at it about 25 minutes in. Generally when people are making these vlogs, there are in very self-reflexive kind of mood. There is also the idea that the watchers of these videos are anonymous. Here is a quote about the subject from some from time magazine, “Some of the comments on YouTube make you week for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.”

With this physical distance, anonymity, and rare and ephemeral dialogue we get the freedom to experience humanity without fear or anxiety. You can stare at people, and see them for who they are, without feeling socially awkward for gazing directly at someone’s face for a long time. You don’t make someone uncomfortable by just looking at him or her.

He also discusses youtube stars, striving for views and popularity, youtube dramas (lonelygirl15—big controversy and outrage over her when people found out she wasn’t a real person, but rather a made up identity), and other awesome things.

It’s a sweet video. check it out. “An anthropological introduction to YouTube”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU

All credit on this post goes to Wesch and his class.

I think it would be kind of fun to share how many videos we’ve watching on youtube. Not everyone can do this, but those of us that have an account that you automatically log into, it should tell you how many videos you’ve watched on youtube. I’m a bit of an addict—I’ve watched around 3,614 videos.

The whole idea that the Internet has no hierarchy or authority is very true.  Printed materials tend to have fewer flaws than material posted on the Internet, but they can still have minor problems or even be blatantly wrong.  It is easier to get away with publishing incorrect material on the Internet than it is to publish incorrect printed material because it costs a significant amount of money to go through the process of turning information into printed material.  On the other hand, if I have a small amount of money and know a bit about website coding I can easily post a website full of wrong information.  That being said, both mediums can both be full of wrong information from sources that we think are credible.  Its strange how credibility works.  We tend to trust material that is put out by people who come from big name institutions, but even then the content can be blatantly wrong.  A music and art critic for the Chicago Tribune is a perfect example of this.  (I won’t give out his name online, but feel free to ask me in person if you really want to know).  This critic has no business talking about art and music and often times is BLATENTLY wrong.  I worked several times with a  “professional” (professional meaning this person supports themselves by playing music) Chicago musician back in the beginning of the year. This person was awful and it was obvious that no time and work went into the music.  About a month after one of these horrible gigs I saw an article in the Chicago Tribute singing this horrible musician’s praises.  After this happened this critic lost all credibility with me, but interestingly enough I’d read his articles before and took what he had to say seriously.  A lot of the public’s opinions are greatly influenced by the media (primarily content on the internet).  Whenever we want to get an opinion on a movie, computer, book, C.D., etc… we go the various websites that give ratings.  This is a shame because things such as book and C.D. reviews are often very subjective.  Instead of checking the ratings of some “grey” opinion website we should learn to formulate our own opinions without the influence of the “experts”. 

       Okay, so here we go. Clark says that we are embodied on the internet because we have control in places we otherwise wouldn’t. Then in class today we got off more on a moral tangent of when it’s appropriate to break up over IM, phone, or face to face. To this argument I’d say face to face. You could always write a little note fold it up really small, then ask your best friend to deliver it to you soon to be ex. But I think this would be a little too 5th grade. Granted though, it would get the job done. If you were to text your significant other the words “I don’t love you anymore.” They on first instinct probably call. Now this message/call it’s self according to Dreyfus doesn’t hold any merit because we aren’t embodied in the information being sent. But if we aren’t embodied how come it makes a change in the relationship status of you and the person you were previously with. Now maybe yeah it would be totally lame to break up someone over text messaging, but it doesn’t make it any less effective. I think the argument in class was more on morals than it was on the actual argument that Daniel put up for debate. If Dreyfus is right then in no way shape or form should there be any effect from the text/call that was placed. Since we aren’t embodied in this exchange, how could we possibly make a decision of this magnitude?  In class I believe people were not looking at the argument the right way. Clark doesn’t say are we entirely completely 100% embodied on the internet. He just says embodied. Which implies that the smallest amount of embodiment that we have gives a resounding “yes” to his question. Luke made Clark’s point several times during class stating that there is some embodiment through instant messaging and texting. And I was going to say something but Calli wouldn’t stop talking (sorry my computer got hacked there, that last sentence wasn’t me). Therefore if these words have no connection to me I should be able to go off on some rant about the people I don’t like and why, without any repercussion from them. Here is where I place the argument of a bomb threat, if someone was to write in a give a bomb threat then does that message embody them, or once again is it just a string of words that they throw together with no apparent effect on society. My guess would be whether you man, woman, child, black, white, blue, or green, if you wrote that message and sent it to the White House, they’re going to take it literally. They aren’t going to be like “Oh he/she/it didn’t mean it, it was over e-mail.” I’m willing to bet the money in my checking right now (which isn’t much) that the secret service, or homeland security, or who ever would jump on that threat and take care of it right away. The argument in class was to case to case basis. If in any way you can dispute the fact that we can have effects in different places through the internet then be my guest, and therefore if we have an effect on an area we are embodied in the action it took to cause that effect, maybe not the effect itself but definitely the action. That’s why even the slightest bit of embodiment solidifies Clarks claim that we are embodied on the internet. There are just to many ways to attack Dreyfus’ argument, that is unless you just say “no you’re wrong.” which some people apparently think is valid. There you go kids, eat it up.

To start off, God is a woman. Actually God really has no gender, or rather exhibits qualities of both genders, if such a being really exists, which is debatable. I just used God in the title to catch your eye and get you to read this. But if we were to draw a picture of God, it would definitely be in the form of a woman, what with creation and all, not a man, as God is so often portrayed on paper. Why do you think Mother Nature is female?

Anyway, the point of this particular post is to discuss technology’s role as it is tied to Mother Nature – specifically, evolution. Evolution serves as a natural filter of the lesser DNA of the species; it remains the reason we are here today, as we are. A mother feels an immediate and permanent emotional attachment to her baby directly after birth, an emotion which causes her to protect her baby’s survival at all costs, even if it means her own life – and she feels this because those mothers that didn’t never passed on their DNA. Survival of the fittest. Upon direct physical threat, the body kicks into a split-second decision fight or flight and then acts upon it, because those that either chose the wrong decision or took too long to act upon it didn’t survive. Again: survival of the fittest. Our spines are straight because we can run faster like that when chased, and those with more crooked spines were weeded out a long time ago, thanks to evolution. Emotionally, it might be hard to lose fellow members of the tribe, but they could do nothing to save the person with a crooked spine, and so the species moved on.

Today that is not so. With technology, we can save those members of the species with crooked spines, or malfunctioning sugar regulators, or almost any type of physical ailment. We have, effectively, surpassed the Great Almighty System of Evolution, which has never been done in the history of any species on Earth. The question remains, though: is this truly an accomplishment? By altering evolution, how have we benefitted our species? This question doesn’t have a simple answer, because one side discusses the survival of the race as a whole, but how can you look a mother in the eye and say ‘technology hinders us and should be abolished’ when her son now lives, albeit in a wheelchair, whereas otherwise he would have died? Human attachment, an emotion procured by evolution itself, is now serving to hurt our race; we can’t bear to let our friends or family go, and now with the power to stop death, of course we will.

It’s true that many in wheelchairs or other enabling forms of technology can’t and/or won’t ever reproduce, thus nullifying the problem and allowing more to enjoy the pleasures of life. It’s also true that not everyone in wheelchairs, etc. had that condition since birth, but rather procured it from an adverse event in their life. Yet those who have these conditions from birth and still have the ability to reproduce may only further species need for dependence on technology for survival; if not now, then in the future. It’s possible we might truly become hybrids of cyborgs and humans, thus bypassing the old system of evolution and making our own method. This would indeed be truly characteristic of the technology fostering this synthetic method.

So.  I’m writing this research paper for my speech com class.  It’s on AI.  And I just remembered this cool concept while I was thinking about my paper and I wanted to bring it up again, since I felt like it didn’t really recieve enough attention when it was mentioned once in class.  It also makes a good case for AI, and I just wanted to explore the idea a bit in writing.  There’s probably some name for it, but like the topic says, I don’t remember.  It’s basically the idea of treating something as the best possible source of information for what is happening within itself.  When we talk to people, we generally assume that they are the best source for what they feel, right?  If I ask a person standing in a separate room how the temperature is there, I can assume that they would know how it feels to them, better than I could (I don’t have access to their nervous system).  But what about lunatics?  They can’t always be treated that way.  A lunatic might think he is perpetually on fire, when he clearly is not.  In this case, we stop treating that person as the best source for info about themselves.  I feel that at this point, we start to dehumanize these people, their statements will lose sway because we might not buy it.  This is because we stop treating them as if they have minds.  Anyways, let’s try to apply this to computers.  So computers “know” when there are internal errors occuring.  The usual frustrating error message comes up (especially if you’re using Windows).  In this case, we believe computers almost 100% of the time.  We often assume that the computer knows what it’s saying about itself.  Therefore, we see this as being the best possible source of info about itself, and thus having a mind.  I understand that this might seem like a jump in logic; how does knowing what’s happening within yourself indefinitely constitute that you have a “mind” anyway?  Is awareness a mind?  Or is it more?  Merely being aware doesn’t imply free-will, intentionality, abstract thoughts, and other things that we associate with our minds.  In fact, now that I’ve typed all these thoughts out, I feel like I’m actually leaning towards the side that says this does not constitute AI.  I’m interested to hear about what everyone else has got to say.

Stumbleupon.com is the best website ever to exist. For everyone who takes it upon themselves to do random ass internet searches, Stumbleupon.com makes this the easiest process known to man. Stumbleupon is a free website where content is entirely user submitted. Before you get started, you fill out what interests you, with things like sports, news, entertainment, ect., with each having additional sub categories like hockey, politics, and movies. The thing that makes Stumbleupon so cool is the Stumble button. This is where the database of content, merely hyperlinks to other websites, kicks into effect. Using tags for the user content, Stumbleupon randomly scans through its database, and provides something you would like based entirely on personal interest. The stumble feature can also be filtered to only include various stumbles from a certain website, like BBC.com or MSNBC.com. In addition to the stumble feature, any user can add something to the Stumbleupon database, and you can also add friends onto Stumbleupon and send them certain links to websites that you have found through Stumbleupon, and all this comes on a toolbar on your internet browser.

The reason why I call this into question is because through reading the first chapter of “On the Internet,” I found a quote that seems to embody the philosophy of websites like Stumbleupon and Digg. Dreyfus writes:

Websurfers embrace proliferating information as a contribution to a new form of life in which surprise and wonder are more important meaning and usefulness. This approach appeals especially to those who like the idea of rejecting hierarchy and authority and who don’t have to worry about the problem of finding relevant information. So postmodern theorists and artists embrace hyperlinks as a way of freeing us from organizing our databases and deciding for us what is relevant to what.”

For the record, I do not use Stumbleupon, but I am looking into joining, which is why this passage caught me so off guard. Dreyfus basically sums up the reason why something like Stumbleupon even exists. It seems as though Dreyfus simply fears a world where the internet has such a presence, that life has no real meaning due to a lack of commitment, a lost grip on reality, and an inability to acquire skills and recognize relevance. I don’t see how Stumbleupon or any other comparable site (Digg.com, and in some cases Facebook or Myspace) could result in such an e-driven world that the world is fundamentally changed for the worse. I mean as I write this post, I am engaging in this new era of education which Dreyfus does not see as ideal. Dreyfus was overly critical of something that hasn’t taken into fruition, but has some roots, as online homework becomes a more integral part of the modern classroom. In the seven years since the book’s publishing, social networking sites have become a critical part of human interaction. I probably spend an hour to an hour and a half on Facebook just about every day. I usually spend some time chatting with people and maybe drop a few wall posts to my friends back in Texas, and maybe some people here at the U of I. So if anything, I have stayed connected to some people though Facebook, as opposed to Dreyfus’s vision of the secluded individual that requires no real human interaction.

As I was thinking of what to write my post on I decided that I would write it on what has influenced my opinions.  Then I recall Dan’s lecture concerning the net neutrality issue as well as the telecommunications industry.  According to Wikipedia net neutrality is defined as:  a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, on the modes of communication allowed, which does not restrict content, sites or platforms, and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.  This definition basically states that all content on the internet should be regarded as equal.  Your YouTube video is read by the servers the same as an important e-mail from work.  The current way that this is done is being challenged by telecommunications companies because they feel that they are being “robbed” and that we (being the general public) is placing “unnecessary wear on their tubes”.

Personally I have to take a bold stance against the telecommunication companies.  They are trying to manipulate the policies on the internet to allow them to charge premiums for their services.  This system is upsetting to me as Dan continued to explain how other foreign countries, including South Korea and Japan have much faster and way more public of internet.  In South Korea one is even able to access the internet on the subway.  Telecom companies want to make the false claim that the internet belongs solely to them, while in fact it is more of a public good because it was created with our taxpayer money.

Net neutrality is still a large issue that is widely debated today.  In fact, as I opened up Mozilla Firefox to write this post, a new update had been added to my RSS feed on my yahoo homepage.  The post said that Obama has appointed a pair of net neutrality advocates and MMOG (massive multiplayer online game) fans to head his FCC transition team.  To quote the news source of the Escapist where I saw this information, “The pair are described by GigaOM as “seasoned Net Neutrality advocates,” and Werbach is also a World of Warcraft player.” It’s definitely too early to predict how having these unique type of gamer experience could have on policies recommended by Werbach and Crawford, but the fact that they have the actual experience to draw upon shows a significant change from previous administrations.  Videogames are the “new normal,” so it’s good to see that Obama is surrounding himself with people in relevant positions who have the background.  Lastly there is one random fact that I wanted to bring up is that Obama himself admits that the last videogame he played was Pong.  Hopefully by placing these knowledgeable people in his administration, Obama will be able to maintain net neutrality and maybe even help advance our internet access to that of the advanced countries like South Korea and Japan.

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Please post a comment by Tuesday’s class for participation credit for this week.

Prompts and Questions:

• “Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.” - Ben Franklin. Is Franklin right?
• Dreyfus is attempting to combat the inflated hype surrounding the Internet. In what ways has the Internet been hyped? Does it live up to the hype, or does it fall flat?
• Dreyfus makes a big deal out of the failure of search. What similarities do you see between his arguments and Searle’s arguments against strong AI? Is search really a failure? If not, what does this imply about artificial intelligence?
• Dreyfus thinks the body is the source of meaning, relevance, and significance. Why are Dreyfus’ arguments for this view? What implications does this hold for our engagement with the Internet? Is Dreyfus right to be skeptical of the Internet?
• Dreyfus thinks that distance learning is necessarily deficient. Are his criticisms reasonable? If you have had any experience with distance learning, do his criticisms ring true?
• Dreyfus focuses much of his criticisms at the very notion of ‘telepresence’. He says “Whatever hugs do for people, I’m quite sure telehugs won’t do it.” Are interpersonal relationships over the Internet necessarily deficient? What might Clark say in response?
• Dreyfus thinks that the Internet is symptomatic of the nihilism of the contemporary age, and he sides with Kierkegaard in seeing this nihilism reflected in the press, the media, and the way people behave on the Internet. Is the modern age really nihilistic? If so, is this nihilism a product of the technology or does it reflect something deeper about contemporary culture, or perhaps about human nature?
• Does the internet represent an overload of information? Is this dangerous to our democracy, or to our individual freedoms? Is this something we are prepared to handle, or does the technology move too quickly for us to keep up?
• In the conclusion of the book, Dreyfus distinguishes his criticisms of the Internet from Plato’s criticisms of written language. What is Plato’s view, and why does Dreyfus think his criticisms are different?
• Should the network be neutral? Do the telecommunications companies responsible for building the infrastructure of the network have a legitimate claim to those pipes? Should the internet be a public utility like water and electricity, or is it a luxury item that is rightfully under the control of private interests?

Also, for those interested in the security issues we discussed in class, I strongly recommend watching the Frontline documentary Spying on the Home Front (which you can stream online). It is extremely well done, and goes in depth to both sides of the argument. 

Also, check the following resources on the NSA Wiretapping scandal:

NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls (USA Today, who originally broke the story)
NSA Warrantless Surveillance Controversy [Wikipedia]
AT&T Whistle blower’s Evidence [Wired]
Discussion of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) [Wikipedia]

Net Neutrality:

Vint Cerf (Father of the Internet and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google) on Net Neutrality.
Net Neutrality is about freedom of speech
Lessig on the Law

So I don’t know about you guys, but upon completion of On the Internet, I’m rather convinced by many of his arguments. I think it’s interesting that he cites various people that were convinced that differing forms of technology would replace the chalkboard and textbooks in the classroom. We still have chalkboards and textbooks for many of our classes. I believe what he says about the fact that the technological classroom can’t (for the time being) replace the experience of being seated in a lecture. In order to truly learn something, beyond the plug and chug degree, we need to have hands on access to the material. In addition, there are times during a lecture that a question arises. Since we are seated in class, we can ask the question when it is relevant and on the tip of our tongues. Asking questions post lecture/via e-mail just doesn’t fulfill that same need. Without a doubt, technology enhances the learning experience, but cannot replace it all together. You all are familiar with smartboards and even simple projectors or lazer pointers. Even microphones help with a sizable lecture. I never considered the perspective that Dreyfus takes in explaining the importance of a classroom setting. Everything lies in the risk. This element motivates the students as well as the teacher. This also ensures that the teacher will adapt per the mood of the classroom to ensure that a majority of the students are engaged. Such adaptability is not possible with an online class. This same risk comes into play with general interactions online. A level of trust is necessary in any type of relationship. Online, there is no way to gain a sense of trust. Sometimes, this is even hard to establish face to face. I agree with Dreyfus that communication involves much more than just verbal language. Gestures, intonations, expressions, and especially body language reports much more than mere words can tell. Spending a few days in a closed environment with a business associate is a good way to determine their integrity. Though, sometimes even with this people fail to distinguish whether or not they can really trust someone.

On page 21, Dreyfus claims that it’s important to acknowledge the importance of our bodies in making sense of the world. He cites that “our form of life is organized by and for beings embodied like us….that move forward more easily than backwards; that get tired…” I believe that this is a faulty argument against AI robots of sorts. I know that he’s harping on the notion that we can’t rely on machines to do the work that only humans have an understanding of, but what if we could program machines to accurately catalog and database everything on the internet per relevance? Isn’t it a good thing that robots don’t get tired? that they don’t act like humans in terms of our deficiencies?

What do you guys think about Dreyfus? Are you moderately convinced?

So I missed the Gehlen lecture(s). I have a ton of questions. Instead of meeting up with Daniel and talking to him individually, I figured I’d give y’all a chance to prove your stuff.

All of my questions will be directly from the text, as in I’ll be quoting each segment that confuses me (just a heads up). This is going to be rather nitpicky…but bear with me. I may bring up lines that don’t matter that much, but I just want to be sure.

Page 88

At the bottom of this page is a little portion to explain further the notion of us being “constitutionally embryonic through and through” based on a previous work by Gehlen. In the blurb at the bottom it states, “on evidence from comparative embryology…the human gestation period is too short (by several months) to bring the human fetus to the same level of maturity at birth as for the fetus of closely related species.” What is he trying to say here? Is this arguing that in order to correct our frailness/vulnerability upon birth, a few more months in the womb would be a solution? What other species is he talking about? This is the first time I’ve really noticed or translated what a philosopher said as suggesting that we are inferior to other animals from a biological perspective. It’s possible that he’s not even referring to our vulnerability though he does say we are “Poorly equipped as he is with sensory apparatus, naturally defenseless, naked….possessing only inadequate instincts, man is a being whose existence necessarily depends upon action.” I’m not really sure how these two concepts are connected (at least in how I’m translating the text).

Page 89

“It {I believe this pronoun refers to technique} truly mirrors man–like man himself it is clever, it represents something intrinsically improbable, it bears a complex, twisted relationship to nature.” I don’t really understand what is meant by a twisted relationship to nature. Is this what Dan kept talking about in terms of the mirror concept?

Page 91

“The tendency, which characterizes the progress of technique…is ultimately rooted in a mysterious law pertaining to the realm of the mind….Nonorganic nature is more knowable than organic nature.” Why is this? Is this because we “created” or rather “manipulated the creation of” inorganic substances? We still don’t know the consequences of the inorganic, and I thought that was one thing Gehlen was harping at earlier in the article.

Page 92

I don’t get the quote by Bergson. I understand the first part, but not the actual quoted material. As in I get this segment: “intellect can only be judged in relation to action, and its primary aim is the production of artifacts”

This is what I don’t get: “‘Therefore…we may expect to find that whatever is fluid in the real will escape (the intellect) in part. Our intelligence, as it leaves the hands of nature, has for its chief object the unorganized solid.’”

Page 94

What is meant by saying that “the natural sciences attained the modern configuration, that is, they become analytical-experimental” ? I think I’m missing this point because my knowledge of history is somewhat lacking. Is it just that now beliefs were open to be tested in scientific manners and questioned in the same sense rather than relying on religion, or rather, Gehlen’s notion of magic, to explain everything?

At the bottom, there is mention of the third factor that allowed for astonishing accomplishments of the modern era. What were the first two? I seem to have missed them in my hyper attention to the article. (I guess you could call that inattention) :OP

Page 95

Can someone elaborate on this point and explain how/what is meant by it?

“The notion that technique constitutes ‘applied science’ is obsolete and old-fashioned: today the three establishments–industry, technique, and natural science–presuppose one another.” How do they presuppose one another? Is this just a quick way to say that they completely overlap and rely on another?

Page 96

What is meant by “the capitalist mode of production” ? Is this suggesting that progress only occurs when it is financed? Is this a criticism?

Just two lines down, Gehlen makes a claim that seems very blanketed statement. I’m not sure where the foundation for this claim is, though I might just be missing the point entirely or doubting what I think it means.

“One cannot expect such historically unique and radical processes to remain without influence upon the consciousness of the men involved in them.”

Is this in relation to the claims made by either Clark or Dreyfus about the replacement that occurs because of technology with human relations to one another? As in, the whole notion that your in multiple places at once because of technology?

Page 97

What is meant by “technique proper” in this section?

“It is easy to see that this definition {an attempt to bring about changes to the advantage of men, by diverting things from their own path and toward our own service} can encompass both magic and technique proper, thus both supernatural and natural magic.”

Page 98

“This primary human interest in the regularity of the processes of nature deserves emphasis: It betrays a semi-instinctual need for stability in the environment” I feel like the word “betrays” is the opposite from what is meant in this article. If anything, what we are missing is that the only stability we can count on in life but especially in nature is instability.

As you all know, I get rather annoyed when philosophers speak of G-d or some type of G-d like figure. I feel that is the impact of their society (or their time) affecting their brilliant work. I may be mistaken about this next portion, but it seems like he’s referring to G-d getting involved or that humans have G-dlike abilities. If it is the latter, then he’s betraying his argument about magic unless I’m completely misunderstanding his point.

“Also, the magical forces with which the world is filled are neither arbitrary nor spontaneous;one can set them into motion by means of the appropriate, precisely repeated formulas, after which they operate under their own impulse, necessarily and automatically.”

Isn’t this what people believed once upon a time, or I guess you can argue that religious fanatics still believe in this? Hence the rain dances and other acts? Who is this one he speaks of? Anyone? That defies his argument per my understanding.

Page 99

What is meant by this phrase?

“The fascination with automatisms is a prerational, transpractical impulse, which previously, for millennia, found expression in magic..” Is this suggesting that before we were able to rationally explain certain things, we found answers in magic?

Can someone explain the “dumb process of nature?”

I’ll stop there, perhaps some answers to these questions will help me understand the rest that I’m questioning

Thanks All!

            Distance learning.  It feels more and more like a philosophy class when one must clarify the terminology involved in any question.  What is learning?  If we’re going to deconstruct what we know to be “education,” into a distant, media-based forum, then the definition and purpose of learning must be observed.

Online or correspondence courses sound great if their purpose is to learn a skill or specific, factually-based information. Learning something practical to put to use in the “real world” is a possibility with distance learning.  To a lesser extent, one could achieve the same goal by reading a book.  Maybe it’s easier to learn a skill (typing, gardening, simple algebra, locksmithing, etc.) with a teacher to help, but it’s not impossible to do it on one’s own.  Even learning the principles and details of certain subjects (history, grammar, languages) is possible without the traditional classroom atmosphere.  But can analysis happen?  Can one synthesize information in a vacuum, even if that vacuum contains all the world’s knowledge at one’s fingertips?  If education were all about vocation, then we wouldn’t bother with classes grounded in the liberal arts.  Distance learning can only accomplish specifics, it has no precedence over the realm of holistics.  It cannot make well-rounded students, much less well-rounded human beings.

It makes sense to have some sort of hybrid blend in teaching styles.  Just because we have the technology doesn’t mean it’s the best option in every situation.  But there’s also no reason for us to go Luddite and return to one-room schoolhouses and individual chalk boards.  Obviously what we talk about in class is all theory, but to talk about the internet like it’s the be-all and end-all of our lives is absurd.  We should work to separate ourselves from its all-encompassing nature.  Just because it’s big and just because it’s there (everywhere, that is) doesn’t mean it should dictate our lives.

I realize the argument goes down a slippery slope, but if being with other people doesn’t matter in the context of school and learning, then where does it matter?  Friendships can occur over the internet, dating as well.  What about family? Long distance family?  We don’t technically need companionship to ensure human survival, since we have sperm banks, right?  And if people are already looking into simulating sex, then we don’t need to be with others for pleasure, either.  But all these possibilities for us, as “cyborgs,” don’t take into account all the psychological studies about companionship.  Babies who aren’t touched don’t develop as fast or as wholly as babies who are touched.  What about the monkey who chose the surrogate mother made of cloth instead of the surrogate mother made of wire, even though the latter was dispensing milk?  While Dreyfus may make some claims that can’t be verified, Clark seems to ignore a lot of the facts that make us human.  He sees only the parts of humanity that can prove his theory.  The fact of the matter is that humans do need companionship, and no matter how much we utilize outside tools, no matter how much everything can be considered a tool, no one can survive without other people.