I agree with and endorse your big claim. We need, each one of us in our own fashion, repetitive, disciplined, foundational, physical practice that solicits the ingress of other subjectmatters for the arising of new, more life loving creativity. Boundary work. This takes will: agency.
These issues should be discussed more in public, not just in academic papers, so thank you for that. While I share the concern about where this is going, there are things I strongly disagree with – and I apologize in advance for the length of this comment. I think we are giving up too soon on the human, the organism with clear boundaries; not because I find it difficult to part with the human as such (in fact, I think that is the problem, but I cannot go into that here), but because that is what we are in the end. The danger of abandoning the human as an autonomous subject with the will to influence the course of his or her life is an unbounded nihilism, levelling distinctions and confusing everything into a formless and practically meaningless mass. Perhaps I come from such a different intellectual tradition that just cannot see how to retain the will to change anything while holding to a view that there is no rational, autonomous subject anywhere, only an aggregation of material forces that determine how things will eventually turn out. Technology undoubtedly affects us and allows us to do things that would otherwise be impossible, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that new technologies subsume our subjectivity and will. Regardless of technology's power over us, we still come into this world with a certain set of innate capacities and/or conditions that have remained virtually unchanged for millennia (I bet Plato would still be talking circles around 99.9 percent of us). As for what the human is, we can never fully define human nature, but there is a human condition that we all share as humans at the most basic level of existence (we can of course disagree about what this condition entails, but we cannot deny its existence altogether, because without such a condition we could not relate to each other, let alone understand each other). As for technology and the human condition, I agree that technology extends us and vice versa but it does not share our condition. There have to be certain ontopistemological boundaries which, at the risk of sounding like a reactionary (which I probably am), have not disappeared anywhere, at least not yet. If you can forget your 'new limb' (e.g. smartphone) at home and still function as a person, as this specific you, it's not really part of you. We 'couple' with technology, but that does not make it part of us, strictly speaking. The human being remains an autopoietic entity that exists first and foremost for itself. All technologies, on the other hand, as far as I know, are by definition allopoietic, i.e. they do not exist for themselves but for some other purpose, usually defined by humans. So I would argue that we are not really cyborgs, at least most of us are not, in the original sense of the term coined by Clynes and Kline in 1960. That is, we are not self-regulating human-machine organizational complexes that function "without the benefit of consciousness". Once the smartphone, or any other technology, is integrated directly into the brain and functions without the benefit of consciousness, and provides us with capacities not found in 'organic' humans, or enhances our capacities beyond the range possible for organic humans, things start to get weird... or rather, we are no longer dealing with the human but with some other kind of organization, whose condition, depending on the nature and degree of enhancement, of course, may become existentially unrelatable, in the sense of a kind of fundamental ’disconnect’. The problem, of course, is that we won't know what it means to be that 'other' until we have upgraded ourselves, and by then it will be too late to turn back.
Very well written and insightful article, I currently interested in music and mindfulness expanding consciousness. By expanding consciousness, I mean that old patterns can be replaced with new ones.
A very thought & feeling provoking read. Thank you.
I’ve delved into autopoiesis, including the autopoietic paradox I think you touch on. Now to look up other poetic processes. With a mathematics hat on, I agree boundaries are important; and one needed to be clear if the structure had an “open” or “closed” boundary.
Thank you. I think I get it and agree: unity Vs oneness. I'm interested in the metaphysics so will stay tuned to your work and that you allude to. I once was a student of the A series Vs the B series rabbit hole, but have only recently done the due diligence of connecting it with Parmenides Vs Heraclitus. My sense, if I may engage critically, is that there's a tendency in the leading 'open access' work to just sit inside a Heraclitean picture, whereas given a dominant Parmenidean metaphysical view a bridge is called for: how to be both Parmenidean and Heraclitean, how to synthesise and more, these two big pictures....
This sings with relevance and its own aim.
I agree with and endorse your big claim. We need, each one of us in our own fashion, repetitive, disciplined, foundational, physical practice that solicits the ingress of other subjectmatters for the arising of new, more life loving creativity. Boundary work. This takes will: agency.
One of the best blog posts I've read in a long time. Please continue writing on these themes.
Thank you Richard
These issues should be discussed more in public, not just in academic papers, so thank you for that. While I share the concern about where this is going, there are things I strongly disagree with – and I apologize in advance for the length of this comment. I think we are giving up too soon on the human, the organism with clear boundaries; not because I find it difficult to part with the human as such (in fact, I think that is the problem, but I cannot go into that here), but because that is what we are in the end. The danger of abandoning the human as an autonomous subject with the will to influence the course of his or her life is an unbounded nihilism, levelling distinctions and confusing everything into a formless and practically meaningless mass. Perhaps I come from such a different intellectual tradition that just cannot see how to retain the will to change anything while holding to a view that there is no rational, autonomous subject anywhere, only an aggregation of material forces that determine how things will eventually turn out. Technology undoubtedly affects us and allows us to do things that would otherwise be impossible, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that new technologies subsume our subjectivity and will. Regardless of technology's power over us, we still come into this world with a certain set of innate capacities and/or conditions that have remained virtually unchanged for millennia (I bet Plato would still be talking circles around 99.9 percent of us). As for what the human is, we can never fully define human nature, but there is a human condition that we all share as humans at the most basic level of existence (we can of course disagree about what this condition entails, but we cannot deny its existence altogether, because without such a condition we could not relate to each other, let alone understand each other). As for technology and the human condition, I agree that technology extends us and vice versa but it does not share our condition. There have to be certain ontopistemological boundaries which, at the risk of sounding like a reactionary (which I probably am), have not disappeared anywhere, at least not yet. If you can forget your 'new limb' (e.g. smartphone) at home and still function as a person, as this specific you, it's not really part of you. We 'couple' with technology, but that does not make it part of us, strictly speaking. The human being remains an autopoietic entity that exists first and foremost for itself. All technologies, on the other hand, as far as I know, are by definition allopoietic, i.e. they do not exist for themselves but for some other purpose, usually defined by humans. So I would argue that we are not really cyborgs, at least most of us are not, in the original sense of the term coined by Clynes and Kline in 1960. That is, we are not self-regulating human-machine organizational complexes that function "without the benefit of consciousness". Once the smartphone, or any other technology, is integrated directly into the brain and functions without the benefit of consciousness, and provides us with capacities not found in 'organic' humans, or enhances our capacities beyond the range possible for organic humans, things start to get weird... or rather, we are no longer dealing with the human but with some other kind of organization, whose condition, depending on the nature and degree of enhancement, of course, may become existentially unrelatable, in the sense of a kind of fundamental ’disconnect’. The problem, of course, is that we won't know what it means to be that 'other' until we have upgraded ourselves, and by then it will be too late to turn back.
Very well written and insightful article, I currently interested in music and mindfulness expanding consciousness. By expanding consciousness, I mean that old patterns can be replaced with new ones.
Incredible essay, thank you!
A very thought & feeling provoking read. Thank you.
I’ve delved into autopoiesis, including the autopoietic paradox I think you touch on. Now to look up other poetic processes. With a mathematics hat on, I agree boundaries are important; and one needed to be clear if the structure had an “open” or “closed” boundary.
Thank you. I think I get it and agree: unity Vs oneness. I'm interested in the metaphysics so will stay tuned to your work and that you allude to. I once was a student of the A series Vs the B series rabbit hole, but have only recently done the due diligence of connecting it with Parmenides Vs Heraclitus. My sense, if I may engage critically, is that there's a tendency in the leading 'open access' work to just sit inside a Heraclitean picture, whereas given a dominant Parmenidean metaphysical view a bridge is called for: how to be both Parmenidean and Heraclitean, how to synthesise and more, these two big pictures....