Hayles, N. Katherine. “Conclusion: What Does it Mean to be Posthuman?” How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
In this conclusion to her book, Hayles addresses how the notion of becoming posthuman often arouses terror but also excites. She hopes to address the causes of these ambivalent feelings and give us a more positive outlook on the question of what it means to be posthuman. The prefix of post- implies that humanism is ending. However Hayles says a lot of the fear associated with posthumanism comes from the idea that humans are coming to an end; that we will be “displaced as the dominant form of life on the planet by intelligent machines” and that are only options are to give up or become machines ourselves. She notes that this fear can only be accurate if we view what it means to be human in a rather specific way; namely, we do not accept the changes that are happening or will happen to our day to day existence as humans. This view of what it means to be human is stagnant to a degree, and she argues that this is not appropriate as humans are subject to evolution. Not only our physical selves but also our social, cultural, political, and emotional selves are not stagnant at all – we are constantly evolving on multiple levels. Similarly, these multiple levels of possible change influence each other, for example, the technological and cultural innovation of increasingly popular mobile devices has led not only to a change in just how important our thumbs are but also to social innovations such as twitter which likely would not have existed practically without the popularity of mobile devices. And if we think about some of the revolutions aided by the advent of these mobile aimed social networking technologies we begin to see a cascade of new abilities and opportunities that arises out of something that can seem rather simple, such as the expansion and evolution of mobile phones, but in fact becomes immensely wide-reaching in influence. She also points to the power of history in having influenced our lives, which is rather mind blowing to think about when we consider the immense statistical improbability regarding each of our individual existences.
Having convincingly discredited the notion of what it means to be human as being justified in being perceived to be stagnant, she turns to possible futures for us humans and therefore possible interpretations of what it means to be posthuman. Some options she notes are a symbiotic relationship between humans and machines or a more one sided take over by machines. She notes that both of these possibilities are already occurring to some extent, in the case of symbiosis in our everyday lives and the more invasive reliance on electronic devices such as pacemakers or other life saving medical technologies. Similarly machines have taken over in a lot of ways, as in factory assembly lines. She notes that here the fear is not as strong; it is more a fear of change than a fear of obliteration. From this more neutral point she goes on to discuss what is exciting about the idea of being posthuman. Again she maintains that the idea of what it means to be human cannot be stagnant and that what this means for posthumanism is not the end of humanity but the revision of the conception of humanity. She points to some functions of computers which we actually enjoy; one particular example she uses is a program that learns from your actions how to prioritize your email inbox for you. However this raises another objection by those who she characterizes as being fearful of posthumanism. Part of what scares us about the increasing invasion of machines into our lives is the idea of losing control, but Hayles counters we never had any control in the first place. She again mentions how we as humans have been reliant on, and will continue to be, evolution which encompasses multiple levels of our existence – social, biological, environmental, cultural, technological, and so on. No single aspect controls the other; they are all influenced by the other aspects.
One particularly vivid argument she uses to convince us of this is in response to the fear that arises out of us perceiving that cognition and decision-making capabilities should be reserved for human minds. She notes a reinterpretation of Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment that aimed to discredit the idea that machines can think. The reinterpretation of the Chinese Room under complexity theory and Hayles’ general outlook is that the Chinese Room is a distributed cognitive system, and that we participate in these systems on a regular basis. Our cognitive abilities are magnified past our individual ability by the addition of technology, when it connects us with other minds but also when it connects us with relevant data and/or technologies. Similarly, decision-making is distributed along these systems as well. The availability of certain technologies, our reliance on them, and our use of them, all greatly influence our decision making and have for thousands of years. This does not take away from what it means to be human, she argues, but instead; “to conceptualize the human in these terms is not to imperil human survival but is precisely to enhance it, for the more we understand the flexible, adaptive structures that coordinate our environments and the metaphors that we ourselves are, the better we can fashion images of ourselves that accurately reflect the complex interplays that ultimately make the world one system” (290). Basically, the only fear we have of posthumanism is unfounded as it is based on a flawed notion of what it means to be human. In fact, we have always been posthuman.
One main criticism I have of the notion of posthumanism under Hayles interpretation is that she wants a nonlinear, constantly evolving notion of posthumanism but frames it within a linear evolution. While I understand her goal of dissolving dualities and that evolution can be both linear and dispersed, it does make the idea of posthumanism a little more difficult to understand and she does not address this problem directly. It seems it would be more appropriate to rename posthumanism to not imply linearity but then again I don’t think anybody said that words had to reflect their actual meaning, it simply seems favourable. It seems somewhat problematic to say that we have always been post-human but are coming from a standpoint where we do not recognize ourselves as posthuman. The prefix of post implies a linearity that is hard for me to get over. However I do see how this could be a clever ploy on her part to imply the dissolution of our notions of linearity and time within the term itself, I still find it makes her interpretation slightly less approachable.
What do you think about this ambiguity in Hayles’ notion of posthumanism? Intentional play on words or overlooked ambiguity?
Can you think of some examples of distributed cognitive systems outside of those on the internet?
An extensive suggested reading list relating to a wide variety of implications of posthumanism
http://www.carywolfe.com/post.html
An easy to digest interpretation of posthumanistic themes in the storyline of the video game Dead Space which includes a mention of the dual reliance on and avoidance of technologies seen in complex systems.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/136789-the-cybernetic-conundrum-posthumanism-and-dead-space/
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