Alle Publikationen
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2015
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(2015): DATA DRIVEN NARCISSISM: HOW WILL 'Big Data' FEED BACK ON US. In: Journal of Consciousness Studies (22.9/10), S. 215-228
Abstract: How do 'big data' affect us as psychological beings? In this paper I argue that the user-specific contents spawned by analyses of massive data sets obtained by transaction data and online marketing software agents of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. must tend to reinforce the respective user's 'self-image'. As long as this man-machine feedback loop is not interrupted by purposeful manipulation, it will thus lead to a general behaviour schematization enabling a yet more precise consumer prediction and so forth. The final result may be a population that is maximally predictable while at the same time each individual of that population may feel maximally singular. Is such a social end state heaven — or is it hell?
2014
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(2014): The Machine That Therefore I Am. In: Philosophy & Rhetoric 47 (4). DOI: 10.5325/philrhet.47.4.0494
Abstract: This article follows Jacques Derrida, who follows the animal-machine. In his lecture The Animal That Therefore I Am, Derrida could easily have swapped “the animal” for “the machine” . In fact, throughout his readings of René Descartes, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Lacan, and Emmanuel Levinas, the machine emerges right alongside the animal. In defining the limits of the human, these thinkers present the animal and the machine together in order to elevate the human. Unlike the human, who responds, the animal-machine merely reacts. The animal-machine may approximate certain human actions, but it can never, according to Descartes, in Derrida’s words, “respond to our questions” and will always suffer from a “lack ..
2013
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(2013): Cyborgs and the future of the human spirit. In: Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe (53.4), S. 546-557
Abstract: This article reports on the influence of an important project of our time, the creation of thinking machines or cyborgs, on the essence of human spirituality. The popular work of Kurzweil was used as a starting point. Kurzweil believes that the cyborgs or man-machine hybrids will not only be a simulation of human cognition but also of consciousness and spirituality. In fact, they will be more than a simulation; they will enhance and alter consciousness and spirituality in a radical, unfathomable way. The basis of Kurzweil's argument is his law of accelerating returns, which predicts such a progress in technology that, if an algorithm for the working of the brain can be formulated, it will be possible to develop software emulating the conscious brain. In this way, current limitations experienced by human beings, including mortality, will be overcome. This assumption was investigated from an anthropological view using Janicaud's concepts. The cyborg is seen as an illustration of people's innate desire to overcome the human condition. Humanity is characterised by a constant struggle to find a balance between the superhuman and the inhuman as the extreme states of human spirituality. This also characterises human liberty humans are free to choose. Given this characterisation of humanity, the nature of the cyborg as superhuman is then considered. Different possibilities are sketched: the superhuman who will exercise the pure will to power (awakening the inhuman) or a person with a complete naive freedom. The future is not easy to predict. Janicaud considers the view of the cyborg as superhuman to be a myth. The real danger facing humanity is the inhuman. The growth and progress of technology do not guarantee moral progress. Currently, technology seems to create a sharp divide between a privileged few and the rest. The two world wars in the previous century illustrated ways in which technology could be used to commit cold-blooded barbaric acts on a mass scale. In addition, biotechnology and other technological innovations could give rise to new forms of violence which can effectively be spread by new media. The inhuman is a place from where it is difficult to return. The challenge of our time is to carry the responsibility of our freedom in such a way that we can defend ourselves against our inhumanity; but in a manner that would enable us also to open up to the radical creativity and strangeness of superhumans lying dormant in us. It is clear that now, more than ever before, human spirituality needs to be as alive and rich as possible to rise to the challenge. However, the belief in technology as utopia enslaves the human spirit. We forget that we are the creators of technology and fabricate excuses for moral and intellectual abdications. Furthermore, the assumption that cognition can be mechanised or formalised leads to the disembodiment of intelligence and thought. Humans are placed outside of the world to which they belong. We become estranged from ourselves and each other. The human spirit seems to be wounded by the prevailing metaphors of disembodiment and mechanisation accompanying technological dominance. This article contributes to the call for the struggle for the re-enchantment of the human spirit. It is imperative that thinkers and innovators - leaders - create new metaphors to provide richer descriptions of humanity. Social sciences, having studied the human condition for centuries, might contribute valuable ideas. Technology can be used in this struggle, but only if human beings understand their own paradoxical nature as well as that of technology. The fortified spirit is one that accepts its mortality and fragility but takes responsibility for its freedom. In this way, meaning is re-introduced in the lives of human beings.
Keywords: Artificial intelligence, cyborg, Cyborgs, human condition, human spirit, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, man-machine, mechanisation, Mensch und Maschine, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Ontologische Differenzierungen: Tier, Mensch, Maschine, post-humanism, Posthumanismus, re-enchantment of the spirit, Reflexionen über MTR, superhuman, technology, the inhuman 2005
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(2005): The ABC's of BBN. From Acoustics to Behavioral Sciences to Computers. In: IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 27 (2), S. 15-29. DOI: 10.1109/MAHC.2005.32
Abstract: The discipline of psychology, and specifically the concept of man-machine integration, served to organize computer research and development at BBN, beginning in the 1950s.
2003
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(2003): Perception mixture and metaphor. In: Zeitschrift für Semiotik (25), S. 241-262
Abstract: Widespread metaphors such as "he exploded" project physical categories to emotional phenomena. The traditional two-domain model of metaphor postulates that in such cases the source domain enables the understanding of the target domain. The authors prove that this model is sufficient to explain culturally entrenched metaphors, but fails to cope with more creative cases. They propose a more sophisticated multi-space model of conceptual projection which contains the blend as an additional domain. The power of this model is demonstrated by several analyses, e.g., of the "Grim Reaper', the "Birth Stork", the desktop metaphor of man-machine interaction as well as the decapitated speaker in Dante's Inferno.
Keywords: blend (Wortkreuzung), Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, Linguistik, man-machine, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Metapher, Metaphern, Modell der Metapher, multi-space model, Multi-space model of conceptual projection, Reflexionen über MTR, Semiotik, technische Metaphern, Two-domain model of metaphor 2002
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(2002): Love-Hate for Man-Machine Metaphors in Soviet Physiology. From Pavlov to “Physiological Cybernetics”. In: Science in Context 15 (02), S. 339-374. DOI: 10.1017/S0269889702000479
Abstract: This article reinterprets the debate between orthodox followers of the Pavlovian reflex theory and Soviet "cybernetic physiologists" in the 1950s and 60s as a clash of opposing man-machine metaphors. While both sides accused each other of "mechanistic," reductionist methodology, they did not see anything "mechanistic" about their own central metaphors: the telephone switchboard metaphor for nervous activity (the Pavlovians), and the analogies between the human body and a servomechanism and between the human brain and a computer (the cyberneticians). I argue that the scientific utility of machine analogies was closely intertwined with their philosophical and political meanings and that new interpretations of these metaphors emerged as a result of political conflicts and a realignment of forces within the scientific community and in society at large. I suggest that the constant travel of man-machine analogies back and forth between physiology and technology has blurred the traditional categories of the "mechanistic" and the "organic" in Soviet neurophysiology, as perhaps in the history of physiology in general.
Keywords: American Cybernetics, Cold War, cybernetic physiologists, History and Philosophy of Science, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, machine analogy, man-machine, mechanistic vs. organic, mechanistisches Weltbild, Mechanizismus, Mensch und Maschine, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Metapher, metaphor, Ontologische Differenzierungen: Tier, Mensch, Maschine, Pavlov, Reflexionen über MTR, technische Metaphern 1996
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(1996): Machine man and other writings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University PressKeywords: Aufsatzsammlung, Disziplin, Französischer Materialismus, Grundlegendes und umfassende Theorien, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, LaMettrie, man-machine, Mensch und Maschine, Mensch/Maschine (Maschinetheorie des Lebens), Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Ontologische Differenzierungen: Tier, Mensch, Maschine, Philosophie, Philosophische Anthropologie, Reflexionen über MTR, Technikphilosophie
1988
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(1988): The Man-Machine Dialog from the Viewpoint of Ethics. In: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie (36.9), S. 797-806
1984
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(1984): Man, machines and language. In: Impact of Science on Society (2-3), S. 217-220
Abstract: [-]
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(1984): Innovative Advance in the man-machine relationship. In: Impact of Science on Society (34.4), S. 399-401
1973
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(1973): This Cybernetic World of Men, Machines and Earth Systems. In: Technology and Culture 14 (2). DOI: 10.2307/3102426
Abstract: Professional interests in systems and cybernetics now encompass a wide range of disciplines and activities, including some that appear to be only distantly related to each other. This gives the field a multidisciplinary character that is like a breath of fresh air in a world that is too specialized for its own good. As proposed by its founder, Norbert Wiener, cybernetics is the science of control and of information, whether applied to the living world or to the inanimate machine . It has come to represent a quite general search for relationships among phenomena. Some people distinguish the term cybernetics from what is called general systems theory, but all too often the distinctions seem to be more superficial than real. Most publications on cybernetics that followed Professor Wiener’s beautiful exposition have tended to emphasize highly specialized aspects of the field. The present volume is designed to present a broader view of the subject, to be read by laymen as well as by professionals, since there is no need to hide the common sense and beauty of the subject behind equations. My hope is that readers will find the treatment understandable and sufficiently exciting to encourage the use of the “cybernetic approach,” whatever that may turn out to be, for their own way of life and thought.
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