Technology: Embodiment,
The Self, and Everyday Life
At issue here: Mind-Body
Dualism, Consciousness, and Interaction within the world
Some ideas from Larry Hickman's
"Technology as a Human Affair," pages 119-159
Embodiment
Traditional Philosophy:
Little regard for the body. Descartes- Body as a machine, guided by the soul/consciousness:
"I think therefore I am."
Many social sciences- Behavioralism
in psychology, strands of Functionalism and other forms of positivism in sociology-
view the body and/or the individual as a machine or "empty vessel."
Exceptions: American Pragmatism,
Existentialism/Phenomenology, and some Marxism.
Don Ihde:
"Technology and Human Self-Conception"
"Some form of human
action precedes or grounds conception,..."
Being/Doing precedes
thinking: "I am therefore I think."
Descartes conception
bifurcated Western images of existence, shifted analysis to an independent,
autonomous "self"
Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology
(Hegel -and by extension Marx- presents another version of phenomenology and
dialectics):
Every self is in some
world, so it is senseless to speak of self and world as separate and distinct.
Self and world are both
experienced as phenomena- therefore (at least) equal.
Perhaps the world is
primary: It is only in and through my participation in the world, (the world
I share with others) that I can come to be aware of and understand myself.
Consciousness is intentional, relative (reflexive), and interactive.
Technology forms
the basis of human interaction with the world (natural and human).
Technology as technic,
method and "activity-form" is an extension of our intentional
interaction in the world.
As technology embodies
our intentional interaction with in the world, it reflexively constitutes
our understanding of ourselves as active agents in the world
As we extend ourselves
through technological developments, we extend our "Selves"??
Ihde calls this relationship-
"Projective-Reflective."
Three Examples:
Hunting and Gathering
Societies- low level technology, daily life constituted by basic tasks
of hunting and gathering. Knowledge of self and world determined by
this interactivity, which also inform the method of transmitting knowledge-
ceremonial rituals. "Likeness/similarity" characterize the
relationship between the human being and the world. "We are the
world."
Agricultural
societies: higher level of technological interaction with the world,
control. Natural cycles and rhythms- growth, decay, death. No longer
a notion of similarity, but one of correlation, repetition, traditional
thinking, change from the established order is threatening. "We
are part of the world." (It's a natural fact!)
Industrial societies:
High level of technological interaction, machines dominate the natural
environment (or at least try to). Technological systems: impersonal,
machine-like relations, rationality, even the human body is characterized
as a machine. Objectification, reification, alienation. "We make
the world"
Ihde suggests that all
three forms are related and at certain levels equivalent: Interaction within
the world precedes knowledge of self and the world, and "Self" is
constituted as part of the world.
Progress does not equal
improved self-knowledge, but just a different mode of understanding our relationship
with the world.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty:
The Phenomenology of Perception
We experience ourselves
through several "bodies"- and fundamentally we have the body "as
anchorage in the world"
Habits: not the products
of applying "rule" to situations to order experience, but the "grasping
of the motor significance" of our actions. Practice in "motor space"
The technologies around
us become extensions of our bodies, we learn to use them, not "rationally"
but through 'the give and take of practice.' "Thinking" seems to
destroy the "bodily" connection.
Traditional metaphors
of self (and society): Stable, relatively rigid (role structure)
Today: Fluid and "subject
to change."
Health: ability to
adapt
Emily Martin: "Flexible
Bodies" The new virtues of change. "Flexibility practicums"
Virtual Communities:
Playing and shaping multiple selves- similarities to real life (RL): blended
and extended families and multiple households.
"Selves" as
'evocative objects'- constructed through encounters, playing 'at' them awakens
us to their multiplicity.
Gergen's "The saturated
self"-- modern communication allows us to 'colonize each others brains'=>
Social saturation: continuous construction and reconstruction; negotiation.
Positive aspects of identity
as multiplicity?? The WELL
Multiplicity and Coherence?
Source of "grounding?"
The web and constructing
a "Home." Identity through linkages and associations.
Postmodernism and the
self: Variety and multiplicity fused into identity. Playing with our selves
vs. The fragmentation of our 'selves'
Point to develop: If we
understand ourselves and others through our interaction within the world, if
technology is the embodiment of self , then in an age of technologically mediated
(computer) communication, virtual communities, and technological "ways
of life"-- what do we become?
Minds and Computation
Computers as a medium
for discovering personal identity (Turkle, 1984)
Computers as the center
of social communities- real and virtual
Mind and Machine- Descartes
"dualism"-- free choice. People as machines-- determinism
Early this century, psychological
study emphasized-Behavioralism vs. Symbols, Meanings, and Rules. This doesn't
seem to provide an adequate understanding of the complexities of human cognition
Computer as metaphor-
AI
Computers
and Minds- both symbol processing systems. Both encode, store and retrieve
information.
Hierarchal Model
Serial Model (one
thing at a time)
Parallel Model (multiple
processes simultaneously). "Connectionist" models
Computational Theory
of the Mind: Physical symbol processing system. (Minds and computers- binary
representations; program (rule) driven)
Physicalist theory: states
of mind are really states of the brain. Mind is a physical entity. (Or vice
versus??)
Still, although there
are physical (neural) events associated with sensation and feeling they do
not appear to be one and the same. "Redness" does not exist in the
"circuitry."
"Emergence"
(similar problems to dualism)
Back to computational
theory: Mind is physical, but mental events can not be reduced to physical
events. The medium of the process is physical, the result, the products are
not, necessarily.
Still, computational
theory has problems with emotions, feelings; Meaning and Skill (behavior that
doesn't follow rules)
SAM and "scripts"-
data structures that describe 'typical' situations
PAM and non-scripted
stories- goals, plans, inferences
Still, these programs
do not have the "capacity for linquistic creativity or productivity,"
knowledge of the extensive taken-for-granted norms and ambigguity of human
communication
Why the "extraness"
of consciousness- feeling and emotion
Pandemonium: "How
do data become a part of consciousness?"
Is "consciousness
a "nonphysical" property of the universe...., accompanying certain
configurations of information, such as brains."? (reference to Chalmers,
"The Conscious Mind")
Multiplicity: numbers
of things, liberating, yet confusing. (60 models of can openers) Need
for filtering system. Extremes of non-choice and "hyper-choice."
Material Abundance:
yet distribution and the illusion of choice?
