Hayles (English, UCLA) investigates the fate of embodiment in an information age. Ranging widely across the history of technology and culture, she relates three interwoven stories: how information came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from material forms; the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the liberal humanist subject in cybernetic discourse. From the birth of cybernetics to artificial life, she provides an account of how we arrived in our virtual age. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
In this age of DNA computers and artificial intelligence, information is becoming disembodied even as the "bodies" that once carried it vanish into virtuality. While some marvel at these changes, envisioning consciousness downloaded into a computer or humans "beamed" Star Trek-style, others view them with horror, seeing monsters brooding in the machines. In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles separates hype from fact, investigating the fate of embodiment in an information age.
Hayles relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is, how it came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the liberal humanist "subject" in cybernetic discourse, along with the emergence of the "posthuman."
Ranging widely across the history of technology, cultural studies, and literary criticism, Hayles shows what had to be erased, forgotten, and elided to conceive of information as a disembodied entity. Thus she moves from the post-World War II Macy Conferences on cybernetics to the 1952 novel Limbo by cybernetics aficionado Bernard Wolfe; from the concept of self-making to Philip K. Dick's literary explorations of hallucination and reality; and from artificial life to postmodern novels exploring the implications of seeing humans as cybernetic systems.
Although becoming posthuman can be nightmarish, Hayles shows how it can also be liberating. From the birth of cybernetics to artificial life, How We Became Posthuman provides an indispensable account of how we arrived in our virtual age, and of wherewe might go from here.
终于读完了这本在科技史和科幻评论之间多次横跳的书。喜欢三四六章,谈控制论的发展史,输入的密度高一些。关于小说的五、七两章就读到几次犯困;第九章好一些,但也是它选择的作品自身足够紧凑有张力,分析则没有太多新鲜的意思。 作者在首尾都提到本书是要讲三个故事,信息的...
评分 评分as a concept of boundary
评分花了快3个月才读完。前面读着后面忘着,大概全书读懂50~60%。 看来以后要做笔记,要不然不懂再加记忆力差,读了完全和没读没什么差别。人类完全没必要hold on原来以及现在人给自己定义的一切,包括humanism,这一切也都是在固定的历史阶段由各种环境参与者合力而成。
评分Humans are complex embodiments.
评分这本书写的难以置信的早,好像scientist-feminist对人类新形态的思考可怕的锐利(Haraway的manifesto是1989年出的) 我对这书有两个批评,最重要的一点是,Hayles似乎没有把disemodiment的真正恐怖之处说清楚(虽然全书一直贯穿着这种焦虑),一个猜测是这样的暴力埋在文本之外,而这本书主要还是在signification这样的文本/指意层面讨论cybernectic的改变,所以很难触及;另一个批评是我觉得前控制论时代早就把身体悬置了,(思想和意识才是被celebrate的)信息的去介质带来的肉身泯灭似乎在文本层面难以成立,换言之它们的断裂没有那么大
评分承认并感激人的限度
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