CRD701: History and Theory of Communication Technology

Hayles' (1999) concern is with examining the concept of virtuality--which she defines as "...the cultural perception that material objects are interpenetrated by information patterns" (1999, p. 69)--and how it relates to the information/material duality, the mind/body dichotomy, and literary theory and performance.  She emphasizes that while many theorists privilege information over physical matter when considering virtuality (looking at, for instance, discussions of the genes and body, as well as the Shannon-Weaver model of communication), she feels it is important to emphasize the ways material still interacts with the virtual.  She gives examples of this occurring with the virtual representations of books in programs like Myst.  She also discusses how engagement with the computer through virtual writing and other activities lead to a new virtual subject.

While I was admittedly lost in Hayles discussions of postmodernism, her reference to the chicken/egg argument from molecular biology gave me a good foudation for understanding her argument.  She points out an issue here that I think translates into the mind/body debate: the information that researchers privilege resides in a physical entity, and the physical world further influences the information.  Genes, in essence, do not just exist in a vacuum; an individual's genes are part of a physical strand, the double-helix in the cell's nucleus.  Plus, physical forces impact what commands genes give to the cell and the body. Genes express themselves differently based on chemical flux within the cell, which an infinite number of outside factors can influence.  Physical deformations in the gene also influence their expression, Down's syndrome being one result we are familiar with.

A lot of this discussion is relevant for understanding what the mind/consciousness is and how it relates to the body.  Most psychologists would confer that the mind and body are interlinked, some even believing the body is most important point of study for analyzing the mind.  All "information" comes to our attention through by interacting with our physical system.  Information processed throughout the nervous system in brain occurs by the dictates of these imperfect, "leaky" biological entities.  They are the context, the material, which impacts what the information is.  For all practical purposes, I have never thought of mind and body as separate entities.  The mind/body always seemed to be a construction for talking about our behavior.  As Hayles notes when discussing the construction of the information/materiality split, "Whatever 'nature' may be, it is a holistic interactive environment, not a reenactment of the constructed bifurcations that humans impose in order to understand it better." (1999, p. 69).

Hobart and Schiffman (1988) note how rules of logic and efficient programming work to convey information in the digital age, detailing how Shannon, Turing, and Newman influenced the principles of computer technology, such as circuitry logic, binary code, and the organizational system of the computer, respectively.  This information in completely logic based and programs conveying this "empty" information are designed for maximum efficiency.  What I find interesting here is their claim that designers are more concerned with the logic behind their system than the power of the hardware at their disposal.  They do not refute Hayles suggestion that material and information are inseparable entities: progammers are still at the mercy of hardware limitations.  They emphasize that programmers work to operate within the material at their disposal. 

Hayles also suggests we are becoming cyborgs: "we experience, through the integration
of our bodily perceptions and motions with computer architectures and
topologies, a changed sense of subjectivity" (1999, p. 91). Weiner, a pioneer in cybernetics, embraces our possible merging with the technology we use but emphasizes we should be cautious by the end of his "Men, Machines, and the World About" (1954).  He warns that technology can enhance human existence, but we must pursue technological advancement as an end in itself, for their could be dire consequences (he does not detail what these consequences could be, though nuclear war is one obvious possibility). 

He does seem to have significant faith in our ability to "trust" technology, even arguing that machines will be more reliable for handling emergency situations.  He explains that the machine will be programmed in advance to take care of such a situation and will act without hesitation, while a person's reaction time will certainly be slower.  He assumes that we could anticipate any possible emergency ahead of time when programming machines, a bold claim to me.  A situation outside of the detection of the machine's homeostatic operations could arise.  Hence, we need Homer Simpson in Sector 7-G, even if he's not very busy most of the time .

Lupton elaborates on the concept of trust in reference to our reliance, for better or worse, on computers (1995).  She discusses how we put our lives more and more in the hands of a technology that most of us do not understand, not knowing what to do when these technologies are suddenly unavailable.  Clearly, these with trust relate to more than just computers, as other theorists we've encountered (Simmels, for instance) have expressed ambivalent feelings about our reliance on new technologies and what can happen if they cease to function.  She argues that our "symbiotic" relationship with computers is different from our relationship with previous technologies. 

I found her rhetorical analysis of discussions related to computers interesting, especially the disease and "computer dork" metaphors.  Of particular note for me her point that the utopian cyborg fantasy fails does not account for the normal human activities a cyborg would have to perform: he/she would have to still to eat, sleep, and deal with the physical consequences of sitting at the screen all day.  This is certainly true, but is it will be possible in the future to completely live in a virtual world?  Could technology perform all of these basic human operations for us?  Science fiction works such as the Matrix already explore this possibility.  In the meantime, World of Warcraft players will have to see sunlight every now and then.