CRDM 701

Week 12 - Karla

Hi everyone.  I have chosen a few points from the readings to raise in this post, making some connections to my research on text-based e-therapy and how its dependence upon disembodiment has positive implications.  Part of my entry is not completely cohesive with the rest, but as I was reading that part of the assignment I had a personal connection to it (through my 101 class) and wanted to mention it.  So, here goes, and happy last blog entry to everyone!

Toward the beginning of his chapter "Machines, Animals, and Aliens:  Horizons of Incommunicability" Peters writes, "Communication suggests contact without touch.  To talk on a telephone is to identify an acoustic effigy of the person with an embodied presence.  In 'communication' the bodies of the communicants no longer hold the incontrovertible tokens of individuality or personality.  Our faces, actions, voices, thoughts, and transactions have all migrated into media that can disseminate the indicia of our personhood without our permission.  Communication has become disembodied" (228).  I was interested in Peters' reference to "without our permission" and the various possible ways to read that claim.  Do we think of disembodied communication as "without our permission" only because it enables a way to penetrate bodies without physical contact with those bodies?  Or, do we conceive of it in this way because given the increased and increasing use of communication media other than face-to-face, there seems to be little choice whether we participate in disembodied communication?  Is it in part because we realize that nonverbal cues enable us to express ourselves in certain ways that we cannot necessarily replicate without the face-to-face interaction, so that there is some sense of a loss of control over communication when we have to rely predominantly or only on communication lacking those visual cues?  In terms of text-based Internet therapy, a central concern is the lack of nonverbal cues and the implications the absence of such signals has on the development of the counselor-client relationship.  How can the communicants truly communicate in an effectively therapeutic way when they only have written messages to use to express thoughts and feelings?  When discussing Turing later in the chapter, Peters comments, "The presence of the speaker's body is no guarantee that genuine interiority is being tapped" (236).  I think this statement raises an important point about the privileging of face-to-face communication and the belief that physical presence ensures an authentic exchange between the minds/souls.  Embodied communication (including face-to-face therapy) does not automatically equate to such a connection to "genuine interiority."

Referring to Hans Moravec, Hayles mentions in her prologue the idea of the "postbiological" future in which "the expectation that the corporeal emdodiment that has always functioned to define the limits of the human will in the future become optional, as humans find ways to upload their consciousness into computers and leave their bodies behind" (2).  *I can imagine how Dawn responds to this idea.  I wonder about the possibility of the "postbiological" future in terms of how realistic it is to completely separate the consciousness from the body.  Even though chatting online allows disembodied communication and people clearly are willing to accept this, there is still a desire for the body, whether by asking questions about it (age?  sex?  hair color?  etc.) or requesting pictures.  Not having a picture available almost seems a faux pas, as though you are a novice to computer-mediated communication if you lack the resources to provide physical "proof" of your body.  I have never used online dating, but I have friends who have, and they often either passed over the profiles that lacked pictures or else requested those pictures almost immediately after initating contact.  In terms of e-therapy, often patients who have never been face-to-face with a counselor (for various reasons) are willing to try online therapy, and after doing so, sometimes pursue more embodied forms of therapy, including telephone, videoconferencing, and face-to-face, demonstrating both a desire for and greater comfort with physical presence in sessions.

Although not really related to what I have been discussing so far, I liked the point Hayles makes in Chapter 1 regarding how electronic literature is understood.  She discusses the "tendency to apply to electronic literature the same reading strategies one uses for print, while underappreciating or perhaps simply not recognizing the new strategies available to electronic literature:  animation, rollovers, screen design, navigation strategies, and so on.  Whereas Aarseth faces forward and reads print literature through a matrix developed in the context of computer games, McGann faces backward and reads electronic literature through a matrix developed in the context of print literature" (38).  I have not read the McGann piece she refers to, but I have read some of his work, so I am a bit surprised to learn about his "[facing] backward."  Hayles' claim reminds me of the discussion I had with my English 101 students on Monday about analyzing and evaluating online sources, particularly how relying upon established print-based critieria is not adequate or advised.  My students seemed to understand why it is problematic to use print-based strategies, but also a bit uncertain how to proceed, which, I think is reasonable.  I agree that looking backward by placing electronic literature in a print context is problematic, but, particularly with regard to teaching, I wonder if/when we will develop an established way of reviewing electronic literature?  Shifts in the electronic appear to occur at a more rapid rate than those in print, so how do we confront this challenge?

Near the end of her second chapter, Hayles writes, "These dynamics make unmistakably clear that computers are no longer merely tools (if they ever were) but are complex systems that increasingly produce the conditions, ideologies, assumptions, and practices that help to constitute what we call reality" (60).  The idea that computers help shape what we understand as "reality" seems almost strange given discussions of the actual versus virtual, but at the same time, not really strange at all.  We have come to rely on computers for so much of our daily interactions and activities that to view them as just "tools" seems irresponsible.  As we have incorporated computers more and more into our lives to the point that they "help to constitute" our reality, how have we changed our understanding of what is real and what is not? 

In "Traumas of Code" Hayles states, "The modification highlights a principal difference between humans and intelligent machines: humans have conscious self-awareness, and intelligent machines do not. Along with the capacity to feel emotions, self-awareness remains a distinctively biological characteristic. Nevertheless, contemporary computers perform cognitions of immense power, complexity, and sophistication" (5).  Hayles' comments reminded me of the discussion in CRD 702 yesterday about the anthropomorphism of computers and whether or not computers can trust.  I cannot say that I think computers can trust, though the conversation was interesting.  I think the understanding of emotions and self-awareness as "biological characteristic[s]" is important to take note of, particularly in light of the anthropomorphism of computers/machines.  If technological advances were to enable a robot to feel emotions and to demonstrate self-awareness, would we still make the biological distinction?  Understanding that those are biological processes, even if they are attained by something unnatural, would we simply say that the machine is mimicking what it means to have emotions and self-awareness because it has been programmed to have those abilities?  Hayles writes in "Mood Swings," "In particular, humans seek meaning while computers execute commands" (27).  Whereas humans use emotions and self-awareness to help make sense of the world around them, would robots with similar capacities for feelings and self-awareness do or need to do the same, or merely use them to determine what actions to take next?

Posted at 10:13AM Nov 14, 2007 by kmlyles in General  |  Comments[0]