Cybernetics, a theory that both Hayles and Turner touch on, can be defined in many different ways, but as I understand it, in cybernetics, a system’s changes affect its behavior. If we think of society as a system that runs on technological information and innovation as well as culture, then it can be seen as cybernetic. As breakthroughs are made in technologies that allow information to travel readily from one source to another, the system must change to accommodate the cultural and social implications that accompany this change. An example of this is the growing availability of the internet. Knowledge has begun to change due to the ability of a person to quickly access information in the thousands by using a simple search engine like Google. Thus, it can be said that the changes in the world directly affect developments in knowledge, technology, and society, but at the same time recreate the world by moving it in a new direction of development. Turner acknowledges this when he says that, “Networked forms of commerce, and the integration of information technologies into them, quickly began to seem like stages in a natural, rather than a socio-technical, progression. Suddenly mankind ha[s] entered a new stage of evolution: the scientists of the artificial-life movement, wrote [Kevin] Kelly, ha[ve] already shown that ‘evolution is not a biological process. It is a technological, mathematical, informational, and biological process rolled into one’” (203). Humanity is constantly evolving, and as Hayles points out, this is how we are becoming posthuman—individuals change with the system as well. A posthuman understands the world from multiple perspectives, and is willing to change perspectives. Hayles uses a sort-of Darwinian interpretation of how humans can become or are posthuman in this sense, when she says that, “Organisms respond to their environment in ways determined by their internal self-organization. Their one and only goal is continually to produce and reproduce the organization that defines them as systems. Hence, they are not only self-organizing but are also autopoietic, or self-making” (10). Therefore, not only can we adapt to a changing society by changing ourselves, we can change society so it will adapt to our changing knowledge and culture.
I think that you've got the theorized changes suggested by cybernetics absolutely spot-on. Changing information environments will lead (or ought to lead, according to cybernetic theory) to changes in the elements of the relevant system. Changes to the information in a modern social system will causes changes in those elements (us) that make them up. This means a redefinition of how we think about ourselves (multiple rather than singular) and also our relations to others in that system. One question that the quote from Hayles at the end of the post provokes: is the only goal of the social organism to continually produce and re-produce itself? If so, then what happens to older notions like justice, freedom, equality, etc? Are these simply contingent goals, important only insofar as they aid in the reproduction of the social body?
ReplyDeleteI found your post extremely helpful in my own reading of Hayles and Turner, especially the part where you linked evolution, not only to technological innovation but also to the never ending changes in sociology. We seem to agree that adapting to technology rather than fighting against it is the way to go, but I am curious to know what your response would be to the argument that totally committing to the digital age will undo our civilizations?
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