I am not saying that the body does not provide a “context” for acting on and responding to the signals. But would argue that this can be felt remotely and potentially by robotic systems.

I do think we are equipped with a brain that allows us to creatively “project” our identity into another frame of mind. This is something I am exploring in my EDEDC final assignment. You can take a peek at http://atate.org/ai/pi/

It does, however, get me thinking about objectivity. To what extent can we really perceive beyond the cultural knowledge and sensory receptors available to us? I wonder, can we really think *as* a non-human, not just *about* a non-human? Furthermore, is the project of posthumanism about achieving an objective viewpoint, an anti-human perspective on thought, being or knowledge?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJonPMa4Lic

See Donna Haraway’s Companion Species Manifesto
http://www.spurse.org/wiki/images/1/14/Haraway,_Companion_Species_Manifesto.pdf

and compare to LIREC Future Robot Companions Project
http://lirec.eu/project

But let me push one step further… as I did not buy Katherine Hayles “argument” (I would call it a simple “assertion”) and I thought she was offhand in her remarks on “how… was it possible for someone of Moravec’s obvious intelligence to believe…”. I did not see a rationale for her dismissal of other thinking that seemed to go beyond her own asserted viewpoint.

I would have preferred to see some argumentation from her on how the “context” of a “body” provides some defining characteristics for how knowledge is used when so embodied. That could have been interesting with respect to education in both face-to-face and distance learning forms.

By discussing an embodied context for knowledge she might have been able to argue what is it about a (human or animal) body that means it can uniquely carry something that another device cannot? If the “information” is “stored” somewhere whether its in mushy grey matter or a computer, or in transit between communication devices… does the information still exist?

I agree with you on Frozen Planet. Stunning photography… the narwhals images were really fantastic… but David Attenborough’s narration this time is not the best.

Loved the octopus article. I like work which doesn’t assume species superiority but which at the same time doesn’t resort to cheesy anthropomorphism (cf the Frozen Planet). That later just seems to me another form of anthropocentrism.

Anyway, lots of thoughts from a short post – thanks!

Thanks for pulling out and distinguishing between the individual focussed cyborg reading of posthumanism and the community oriented interconnected web of human and non human as intertwinned and codependent reading of posthumanism. I have only just begun wading my way through the posthuman readings and found a new term today that perhaps encompasses the later – the cognisphere.

Thanks also Jeremy for revealing that there is yet another reading of posthumanism – I now have some hooks on which to hang my wanderings through the literature

The ‘cyborg/transhuman’ strand, in which we might include Haraway’s cyborg manifesto, but in which we could certainly include the work of Nick Bostrum and Andy Miah. I would definitely agree with some of the comments here that the transhuman use of the term ‘posthuman’ can be very human-centric, emphasising technology use and prosthetics in particular.

However, there is also a strand which could be called ‘critical posthumanism’, in which we might include the Edwards reading, and also the work of Neil Badmington. This area deals primarily with a philosophical approach, such as the deconstruction of ‘humanism’ – the rethinking of traits such as rationality, autonomy and essentialism. In this sense, critical posthumanism is certainly attempting to rethink human-centricism, but is also not really about technology at all. Critical posthumanism is more about rethinking subjectivity by looking again at the ways in which humanistic ideals still permeate much of our ‘common sense’ thinking.

Thirdly, we might define ‘Animal Studies’ as another area of posthumanism. Pedersen’s paper might be categorised here, but certainly Cary Wolfe has done a lot of work in this area, and he is behind the posthumanities series. Donna Haraway’s later work on Companion Species might also be included. This ‘field’ is precisely about rethinking human-centricism and subjectivity in relation to the environment, and non-human animals. Again, this posthumanism is not really about technology use per se, but technology might be included in the ‘non-human’.

Some suggested readings if of interest:

Badmington, N. (2000). Posthumanism (Basingstoke, Palgrave)

Badmington, N. (2004). Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within. (Abingdon,
Routledge).

Bostrom, N. (2005). A History of Transhumanist Thought. Journal of Evolution and
Technology. 14 (1).

Haraway, D. (2003) The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and
Significant Otherness. (Chicago, Prickly Paradigm Press).

Miah, A. (2007). Posthumanism: A Critical History. In Medical Enhancements &
Posthumanity Gordijn, B. & Chadwick, R. (Eds.) (New York: Routledge)

Wolfe, C. (2010a). What is Posthumanism? (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Press).

Wolfe, C. (2010b). Posthumanities. Retrieved: 15 July 2011.
http://www.carywolfe.com/post_about.html

-David

One of the readings tries to make posthuman be a relationship between humans and the environment. I was thinking about many native societies which have a much better symbiosis between themselves and their environment than we have.

I wonder if the bronze age people might have thought of themselves as posthuman compared to the stone ages folks

I’ve read a few papers relating to your #ededc course and found them very interesting. I’m not sure I buy into the ‘post-human’ term however, as in almost all of the real-world cases relate strongly to human goals and incentives.

At the core, ultimately all technology is designed to aid humans at some point along the chain. Whether it is helping the visually impaired tell the time, or enabling people to schedule their diaries better, or to act as a companion – to me it appears to be very human-centric.

D

I have a very strong recollection of visiting an elderly relative in a care home long after she had lost her sight. But she coped very well in a nice area in the Lake District and I am sure had many memories of her earlier time in that very lovely area.

But what struck me as we spoke and had a cup of tea with her was when her talking clock spoke out the hours of the time. She perked up and clearly related to this device.

I have thought of that a number of times since, especially related to discussions of companion robots for the elderly.

But now I think about it I see my our aunty and her speaking clock as one of my first experiences of posthumanism.

I found this a really interesting read. You have helped make some of the readings more clear. I had reached the same conclusion re the Internet but then had doubts, until now. So succinct, “The Internet becomes an extension of their capabilities.”

I like the sound of your future world; having a companion, the ability to remember and being able to keep in touch. What a nice place to live.

and compare to LIREC Future Robot Companions Project
http://lirec.eu/project

See http://atate.org/mscel/ethno/res/yahoo-group-message-grab.txt

I added a composite image of the “GA Craft Index” we maintain in GA-MMA… its easily found, being the top hit on relevant key words in Google, and openly accessible. Each thumbnail whe clicked brings up an image contrtibuted as openly accessible for every model. These are all hosted together so the craft index continues to work even as personal web sites comes and go. You can see some of the models via teh craft index itself at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~bat/GA/ga-craft.html

Your inclusion of the personal story established just how much of a community this is. To lose a friend induces real emotions and the fact that you tried to hard to contact him further emphasises the “realness” of this group.

I wonder if the role of image in these works would enhance the effect. When I was reading yours, I wanted to see the models and I felt the same when reading about Buffy et al. The hyper links were good but we don’t always read in a connected environment. Thanks for sharing this.

I really like your combination of quantitative analysis and personal experience as well. I’m certainly drawn to the idea of individual stories about connecting with people (within communities), particularly over time, and yours seemed very potent indeed. As always Austin, thought provoking stuff, thanks!

More difficult to say why 2005 had almost no traffic… evidence for a negative is much more tricky without speculation eh?

I added some notes on this on the study web site.

I can see you had good ethical reasons for not making the private content public, but I’d have loved to have seen a bit of qualitative data on this – some examples of exchanges and a sense of how this community ‘writes’ itself into existence!

I also wasn’t sure how, by the end of this, you’d answer your question about group responses to newbie and expert questions – or what that might tell us about how the group builds boundaries between outsiders and insiders?

Anyway, I have many more questions stimulated by this, which is a good thing – it’s a rich glimpse into a strange new world for me!

I have had two recent experiences of this which are uncannily realistic…

a) I designed a replica of Thrust SSC, the first land speed record car to go Supersonic on Black Rock Desert in Nevada. I found that it JUST went at Mach 1.02 or so and then had a tendency to fly! On the real thing, sensibly, the driver Andy Green callled off going faster when he just got over Mach 1.

b) On Sony’s GranTurismo 5, they have just released an indoor carting track and typical carts that you would use when you go to one of these tracks. I had a go on the rreal racing kart circuit with other software related folks from across Scotland a few months back. It was fun. But I could not believe how realistically the simuAed GT5 kart handled and how it slipped and sounded just like on the real track.

Similations for emergeny responders are used all the time.. and some involve medical triage exercises. The screams and visual signs of injury and trauma can be scarily realistic and are very disturbing.

The Avatar Identity area gets more wierd every time I go in. I was trying to create an outer star field edge and tried to place a large skydome over the whole region. But it had the effect of knocking all the avatars all over and into the water… it was quite a sight with avatars and partially rezzed cloud avatars being pushed about… Wierd. I had to rescue them again and push them up back to the surface. I don’t like to think (even of clones) of my avatars as being underwater with no scuba gear.

I’ve been dipping into some Baudrillard recently, and there seems to be something here about a kind of technological cleansing of biological reproduction, an economy of sexuality, and perhaps the desire for a form of autogenesis. The idea of cloning seems to be permeated with the desire to master the (genetic) codes of the body, and escape the oedipal complex. Your art*i*fact is certainly making me think about the kind of transhuman/posthuman narratives that formulate the human in terms of genetic codes, and forewarn of the mastery over life that future technology will command.

More soberly however, the proliferation of copies seems to reflect the sense of unease discussed in Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies; the desire for authenticity in a domain abounding with artifice.

http://atate.org/ai/ai/img/Avatar-Identity.jpg

Just fascinated by the idea of cloned avatars and chatbot to chatbot converations! Thanks for opening up a whole new world

Liked the nod to the Beatles…its such a great, and very apt lyric when thinking about SL!

I’ve tried a couple of times to get in to open vue and look at the artefact there but haven’t managed it. I’m trying to use my current SL browser, but can’t work out where I should be pointing my avatar once I’m in?

OpenSim currrently supports NPC and clones avatars as NPCs. Second Life plans to include facilities along these lines too, but they are not yet available. See, e.g.,

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/CEO-Rodvik-Humble-Shares-What-s-New-in-Second-Life/ba-p/1143239
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/10/virtual-life-npc-features-coming-to-second-life.html

For intrepid travelllers, or those who already have an OpenSim avatar on pretty much any Hypergrid setup, details of how to set up to visit the Central region on the Openvue grid are at the bottom of http://atate.org/ai/ai/

We have big plans for avatar clones and NPCs to act as meeting room and operations centre assistants, and in PhD work perhaps a classroom assistant. But we try to make clear they are not “us” live. People sometimes wonder and ask if a person is really responding.

To see more details go to http://atate.org/ai/ai/ where the full artifact is and where there are clickable links to the underlying details that are melded into the artifact.

I’m only able to look at the images as I’m having a little trouble with Internet access at the moment and feel I’m missing not being able to hear the music. I can see how the music would connects the images – such a good choice. The clones confuse me but maybe they represent the ‘confusion’ that can be felt in unfamiliar places. The virtual world seems to be a place you feel comfortable in. People are multi-faceted and your avatars help characterise this aspect.

The surreal other worlds scene is composited from a strangely coloured Pensacola Beach (I am a visiting scientist at a research lab in Pensacola) with influence from the film of Carl Segan’s “Contact”, with its palm trees, set on a far off planet or moon in an alternate universe fare off in time and space. This is mixed with a scene and colours as if we are on the edge of a liquid methane lake on Titan with Saturn and its rings, and a nearby moon hanging in the sky. Our names and some cultural artifacts are on the Huygens lander that now sits near such a lake on Titan.

Then there are cloned avatars of Ai and Be emerging, some appearing as the “ghostly cloud” non-rezzed avatar form in Second Life, some resolved, some never resolving – leavign an uneasy feeling. I experimented with avatar looks and clothes that I have used over the last 5 or 6 years for Ai and Be… using only those that I have returned to as “comfortable“. This part of the artifact is quite dynamic and the live artifact on the Central region on the Openvue virtual world grid might contain different appearances and avatars, and you can even add your own clone if you visit. Hence the visual artifact contains a sample of images of Ai and Be too.

Elements of the Beatles lyrics from the opening line of “I am the Walrus” – “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together” – link the elements together… suggested by a Wordle tag cloud of the themes in the visual artifact along with these lyrics.

Finally I set up Ai and Be to be in their “user offline” forms where they are equipped with a MyCyberTwin chat bot capability… and I seeded the discussion to get them talking and left them to it… watching as they chatted, and commented about how I had not informed them of the opinions they should hold. I sit and weatch them chat between themselves… is that “me” talkling or “he” or “she” or “us“. I speculate as to how well they reflect what I woud say.

I use the spelling “artifact” rather than “artefact” as I frequently correspond across a UK and US community and that is a preferred cross cultural spelling. See http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-art1.htm

In case you would like to see a single image reflecting the artifact… similar to what I was originally aiming towards.. its in the “Visual Elements” section near the bottom of http://atate.org/ai/ai/ and its direct URL is: http://atate.org/ai/ai/img/2011-10-09-Avatar-Identity-3.jpg

I am exploring issues of familiarity, avatar relationships to their creator, personality, gender, strange scenes, unfamiliar and exciting other worlds.