I was very happy to find that Hayles’ work about her view of the posthuman did some connecting to Descartes’ idea of body versus mind dualism, as I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about until I read Hayles. Although what Hayles desires of the posthuman is the complete opposite of Cartesian Dualism, her interpretation of the posthuman helped me to understand what Descartes was suggesting in his Discourse on Method. Hayles writes in Toward Embodied Virtuality, “If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival” (Hayles 5). What she means is that she does not want the idea of Cartesian Dualism to invade posthuman theory and belief to the point where the separation of mind and body ultimately renders the body unimportant when compared to the mind, the thing that does all of the important work of a “human”. Hayles is advocating in the favor of a posthuman philosophy that recognizes the advantages of progress through technology, with the recognition that human bodies are human because they have a guaranteed expiration date and that they rely on the world of plants, animals, bugs, and bacteria that surround them. In this way, Hayles is also suggesting something of a solely organismal quality, when compared to a machine or AI: the guarantee that one day, all living things do die. This is what could set us apart from cyborgs, AI, and computers, the fact that we will cease to breathe and think one day, while an AI could theoretically continue for an undefined amount of time. I think it is this that stood out the most to me, as when we discussed on the first day of class what it was that made humans human, I did not feel as though I had an exclusive answer. Now, pulling from Hayles and Descartes, I have a partial answer to the question. Organisms (biologically defined living things) are organismal because they depend on their environment for survival, whether it be through nourishment, shelter, or entertainment. AI, once created, do not need food, water, clothing, or any other device that humans and other organisms use to live on a day-to-day basis. This is what ultimately sets us (the humans, the plants, the animals) apart from those machines and AI that we are currently creating. And because of this relationship between us and our environments, I agree with Hayles in saying that our fascination and reliance on technology should not ultimately displace the importance of nature and other living creatures in our considerations. -A.E.

I found it really interesting how Haraway presented and talked about “the cyborg” as mostly a theory to be applied to other situations, instead of focusing on the material existence of cyborgs in the world. While she did discuss the existence of cyborgs in the world at the time she wrote the Manifesto (1985), she mainly applied the cyborg concept to the world around her, talking about “women of color” as the cyborg, and discussing how “the cyborg” subverts “persistent dualisms of western tradition” (Haraway 59). As it appears, to her, the cyborg is not the half-human, half-machine being that the science fiction genre makes it out to be; it is instead an existing form of humanity, defined by the melding between different states of being and the living in the space between those traditional binaries in the Western Sphere. And Davies addresses this idea of “cyborg existence” between established dichotomies too in “Encounters with the Posthuman”, when she says that “it is as though humans know that our boundaries are porous”, and that people become afraid of anything that tries to cross the boundaries they have established along with the society that told them to establish them in the first place. Personally, I had reservations against the skull implanting of Harbisson’s eyebot as well, but now I recognize that all the reasons I give for being uncomfortable with the concept of integrating a machine into a human being are flawed in that I am judging the person based on a definition of “human” that I have, while not considering the fact that others with certain lack of human senses/body parts/functions also can have machines integrated into their operation to restore those functions that they lack. -A.E.

Excited to be here, this class seems like it will be extremely thought-provoking (in the kind of existential way that will keep me up all night). I just wanted to make this first post so that there would be something to see before the first blog post is due!

-A.E.