PS. I'm a Robot

I found Hayles' text to be engaging, confusing, inspiring, frustrating, and difficult: the flickering signifier of my own flickering ability to understand embodiment, liberal humanism, and Phillip Dick. In How We Became Posthuman, Hayles takes us through a truncated history of cybernetics, including both scientific and literary texts, to contest that there can be a separation between information and material; she aims to fight against virtuality (see quote below). For her, it is important to specifically describe the history of how and why that disconnect occurred, including the three waves of development in the field: "The first, from 1945 to 1960, took homeostasis as a central concept; the second, going roughly from 1960 to 1980, revolved around reflexivity; and the third, stretching from 1980 to the present, highlights virtuality" (7). The Macy conferences, part of the earliest period, were marked by wanting to see machine function as man (functionally similar but without removing liberal humanism) and maintain scientific objectivity by placing the observer outside the system. Reflexivity (see definition below) was discussed and then discarded uncomfortably by all but a few thinkers. Conversely, the second wave focused on the observer and the concept of autopoiesis, or "self-making" that required "that systems are informationally closed" (10), thus making information and the system indistinguishable and bringing the observer into the system. The last wave looked at the capacity to evolve and redefined living and the connection between the material and information, thus putting us in the mindset to think about what being post-human means/could mean. I thought the chart was fairly useful for understanding some of the distinctions between these movements (page 16), though I still get stuck in all the theory/definitions beneath it.

Early on we are introduced to reflexivity, a concept threaded throughout the text. Hayles states, "Reflexivity is the movement whereby that which has been used to generate a system is made, through a changed perspective, to become part of the system it generates" (8). Hayles uses the example of hands drawing a picture being sketched as part of the picture. Reflexivity is important because it separates us from the notion of objectivity. The part about Catherine Bateson stood out as an important example that made it clear to me that the observer is part of the system. I like that Hayles describes both how this functions in Bateson's text and Bateson's awareness of her subjectivity. It reminds me of the discussion we had this week in English 360 about extrinsic proofs and the troubling emphasis on simply presenting "pure data." This was complicated by two separate lists of the best movies of 2010, signaling the importance of context and interpretation.

I also really enjoyed Hayles views of literature and science and the importance of the interrelation between them. For example she says, "As the chapters on the scientific developments will show, culture circulates through science no less than science circulates through culture, The heart that keeps this circulatory system flowing is narrative..." (21). These quotes/connections are what made me really excited to read this book in the first place. I wonder how much scientists would agree with this emphasis on narrative though. It also makes me think more about the inclusion of the observer in the system (seems to be a theme I'm stuck on), and I wonder if scientists are moving toward this acknowledgement in their texts or not. It also makes me think about the audience for this book. I found a reviewer that talked about how, because of this connection, some part of the text will always be alienating, and I'm curious to see if our class thought that was true or not. I do think that she may have benefited from scientific discourse a bit in its adherence to plain language, because sometimes I feel like her language is purposefully crafted to make me struggle. In that regard, do some texts have "natural bodies?" (45). What would that be? Does hers? Also, why have I never heard of autopoietic theory? It seems like this whole contention over the emphasis on DNA never actually made it to the biologists, or we chose to ignore it.

Another definition that is important is what Hayles is arguing against is virtuality. She states:

"Technical artifacts help to make an information theoretic view a part of everyday life....information is increasingly perceived as interpenetrating material forms. Especially for users who may not know the material processes involved, the impression is created that pattern is predominant over presence. From here it is a small step to perceiving information as more mobile, more important, more essential than material forms. When this impression becomes part of your cultural mindset, you have entered the condition of virtuality" (19).

It is easy to see how the privileging of information came about, and I appreciated Hayles discussion of pattern and randomness instead of presence/absence. What I understand is that in a general sense the formation of patterns overall from the random is part of what makes us post-human, but I'm not sure I've got that quite right. I feel like I need to understand more about related theories before I feel entirely comfortable with this text, and it has me thinking about the information she does provide (lots about the narratives of the stories she chooses, so much so that I feel it almost overwhelms her argument at times) and what she doesn't (assumed familiarity with those famous dudes).

I also found the parallels between Hayles assertion that "the computer molds the human even as the human builds the computer" (47) and her claim that "the body produces culture at the same time that culture produces the body" (200) interesting, especially because she is all about considering context and everything involved in the system. However, does this draw us back to the we shape the tools and then the tools shape us argument? Is anyone disagreeing with this?