How We Became Posthuman by N. Katherine Hayles, University of Chicago
Press, 拢14.50/$18, ISBN 0226321460
AS PHILOSOPHER Mary Midgley has noted, the fantasies of 鈥渢he scientific
imagination鈥� are markers of deep psychological currents circulating in our
society鈥攔eflecting not only what we see as possible, but, perhaps more
tellingly, what many see as 鈥渄esirable鈥�. In How We Became Posthuman, N.
Katherine Hayles examines the fantasies emerging from the matrix of cybernetics,
artificial intelligence and the fledgling technologies of cyberspace. In
particular, Hayles explores the cybernetic desire to 鈥渇ree鈥� information from the
ballast of materiality鈥攚hich reaches its apotheosis in the current fantasy
of achieving immortality by uploading ourselves into cyberspace.
At a time when fallout from the 鈥渟cience wars鈥� continues to cast a pall over
the American intellectual landscape, Hayles is a rare and welcome voice. She is
a literary theorist at the University of California at Los Angeles who also
holds an advanced degree in chemistry. Bridging the chasm between C. P. Snow鈥檚
鈥渢wo cultures鈥� with effortless grace, she has been for the past decade a leading
writer on the interplay between science and literature.
Advertisement
Now, she turns her attention to the rich flux between the
cybernetic/informatic sciences and the wider cultural milieu. It is a flux that
she shows is reconfiguring not only our imaginations but our very notions of
what it means to be human. But the 鈥減osthumans鈥� of her title refer not just to
the fantastical and virtual bodies envisioned by science fiction writers and
techno-extremists such as the Extropians, who believe human intelligence and
technology will allow life to expand indefinitely. Hayles also asserts that even
without prosthetic enhancements we are all becoming posthuman, because the very
idea of the liberal humanist 鈥渟ubject鈥� is being profoundly challenged by new
technologies.
The basis of this scrupulously researched work is a history of the cybernetic
and informatic sciences, and the evolution of the concept of 鈥渋nformation鈥� as
something ontologically separate from any material substrate. Hayles traces the
development of this vision through three distinct stages, beginning with the
famous Macy conferences of the 1940s and 1950s (with participants such as Claude
Shannon and Norbert Weiner), through the ideas of Humberto Maturana and
Francisco Varela about 鈥渁utopoietic鈥� self-organising systems, and on to more
recent conceptions of virtual (or purely informatic) 鈥渃reatures鈥�, 鈥渁gents鈥� and
human beings.
Once information had been 鈥渄isembodied鈥� and 鈥渄econtextualised鈥� (a move which,
Hayles shows, did not happen without resistance), the stage was set for a
radical re-evaluation of both humans and machines. On the one hand, a path was
laid for the development of artificial intelligences, or human-like computers;
on the other, humans could now be seen as computers in biological form. At the
heart of both visions鈥攚hich Hayles explores in literary texts as well as
scientific theories鈥攊s the belief that pure information (independent of
any material form) is the key to selfhood, both human and machine. It is just
these ideas of disembodied selfhood and dematerialised information that Hayles
wishes to challenge, and which she ultimately refutes.