“…The post-human body is diffracted into multiple post-humanities, multiple realities, and multiple pasts, thereby changing the humanist into a range of possibilities that are also non-human. The virtual can release the constraint placed on embodiment and challenge humanist ideology, allowing the post-human body ‘to roam free and join with other beings, animate and inanimate’ (Seaman, 2007: 248). Figure 4.Making fun of anthropocentric perceptions.…”
Section: Towards a Post-humanist Framework In Roman Heritage: Not Feementioning
In this article I explore different ways archaeologists can contribute to and learn from theorizing the digital world beyond the traditional functionalistic means of applying computational methods. I argue that current digital technologies can be a very constructive tool to create non-human experience and awareness. I pursue this argument by presenting ideas from a work-in-progress project experimenting with the post-human and the virtual, and by exploring significant otherness in Roman religion and the dark spots in human perception, through the analysis of an absent temple in Rome. Applying post-human philosophies and an expanded concept of virtuality beyond the digital makes it possible to change our approach to object/human/divine relations in Roman cults and how we present Roman heritage towards a post-humanist framework. Through this, digital archaeology can become one of the ways of re-examining and reinventing our ideas of the human, the past and the digital.
“…The post-human body is diffracted into multiple post-humanities, multiple realities, and multiple pasts, thereby changing the humanist into a range of possibilities that are also non-human. The virtual can release the constraint placed on embodiment and challenge humanist ideology, allowing the post-human body ‘to roam free and join with other beings, animate and inanimate’ (Seaman, 2007: 248). Figure 4.Making fun of anthropocentric perceptions.…”
Section: Towards a Post-humanist Framework In Roman Heritage: Not Feementioning
In this article I explore different ways archaeologists can contribute to and learn from theorizing the digital world beyond the traditional functionalistic means of applying computational methods. I argue that current digital technologies can be a very constructive tool to create non-human experience and awareness. I pursue this argument by presenting ideas from a work-in-progress project experimenting with the post-human and the virtual, and by exploring significant otherness in Roman religion and the dark spots in human perception, through the analysis of an absent temple in Rome. Applying post-human philosophies and an expanded concept of virtuality beyond the digital makes it possible to change our approach to object/human/divine relations in Roman cults and how we present Roman heritage towards a post-humanist framework. Through this, digital archaeology can become one of the ways of re-examining and reinventing our ideas of the human, the past and the digital.
“…These complementary perspectives, together with the adaptive possibilities thought possible through neuromodulation, has prompted a re-envisioning of the human being as a novel creation, the post-human (Bostrum, 2005). Theoretical features of this re-envisioning, in fact, have prompted considerable scholarly discourse that has drawn from evolutionary observations, philosophy of science, and social theory, among many others, and which, collectively, has been designated posthumanist theory (Onishi, 2011;Seaman, 2007). Conclusions from its interpretive analysis propose a revised and, it is tacitly assumed, advanced anthropology that is less static and capable of heightened adaptation to rapid techno evolution.…”
In affective neuroscience, constructivist models are acutely influenced by the modern technological evolution, which underwrites an ongoing epistemological substitution of techne for episteme. Evidenced symptomatically in the influence of artificial intelligence (AI), affective artefacts, these models inform an ontological incursion of techne seen to coincide with posthumanist aspirations and anthropology. It is from the perspective of this neuroscientific techne that posthumanism views the human being as increasingly ill adapted to the modern technological civilization, which, conversely, is understood to require a technical governance of the sort envisioned through AI. Among the projects thought necessary for implementing this framework is a recasting of the human emotional spectrum. Revealed through its techne recasting, however, are explanatory commitments to a metaphysic of extrinsic and contiguous causes, where malleability is ontologically constitutive. Aligned with posthumanist assertions malleability is invoked to argue for a rapid advance of the human form, normatively driven by enlightenment ideals. The ontological claim, however, dispenses with the stability of an a priori, intersubjective and interrelational metaphysical form that undergirds the emotions, leading to the collapse of a definitional anthropos. This paper will argue that techne models of the emotions selectively endorse philosophy of science commitments, thereby introducing a normative inversion that deconstructs the notion of anthropology pursued in posthumanist aspirations.
“…Human bodies and engineered machines, as Myra J. Seaman argues, are not so different, for "we conceive of... our brain as a computer hard drive, our memories as a series of snapshots, our minds as processors of encounters and observations that can be reprogrammed" [9] (p. 248). Biopolitical boundaries of the individual body are challenged and reimagined as an assemblage of information, further utilizing "the reconceptions of machine and organism as coded texts through which we engage in the play of writing and reading the world" to create machines that can reason, learn, and act intelligently [1] (p. 153).…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Braidotti articulates what she characterizes as "the posthuman challenge", transcending the binary opposition between humanism and anti-humanism to "trac[e] a different discursive framework, looking more affirmatively towards new alternatives" [10] (p. 37). As Myra Seaman states, "[p]osthumanism rejects the assumed universalism and exceptional being of Enlightenment humanism and in its place substitutes mutation, variation, and becoming" [9] (p. 247). The transcendence of humanist boundaries is particularly relevant in discussing artificial intelligence's impact on social development, which calls for a combination of technological theory and posthumanist thought in "an assemblage that includes no-human agents" [11] (p. 82).…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…With an emphasis on the unique role of science fiction in shaping contemporary technoscapes, an intersection between posthumanism and literary studies came to center on a "serious and intensified form of interdisciplinary[it]y between human, social, natural, cognitive and bio-or life sciences" [12] (p. 20). Seaman explains the core debate between the posthuman and the fundamentals of human identity as an "opportunity to investigate those qualities supposedly associated exclusively with the human" [9] (p. 250). Examining the posthuman becoming reveals an inherent desire "to find a human identity that remains constant within a flexible and mutating body, and a key feature that tends to endure, in such scenarios, is emotion, especially as a conduit for significant encounters with and incorporation into the world" (p. 250).…”
The focus of posthuman thought centers on a shift in the humanistic paradigm; focusing on a state of existence that lies beyond being “human”, including bioengineering, artificial intelligence, and synthetic embodiment. Inspired by continuous breakthroughs in the research and creation of artificial intelligence, science fiction has moved beyond the realm of portraying artificial intelligence that is capable of conscious thought to speculate upon a future creation of machines that feel, and initiate feeling in return. The influence of posthuman discourse is prevalent in science fiction film narratives and demonstrates a heavy emphasis on the deconstruction of humanity’s belief in our unique emotional capabilities. This paper draws upon Alex Garland’s 2015 original film and screenplay Ex Machina as textual reference to explore posthuman prospects in AI by envisioning possibilities where emotional capacity no longer separates humans and machines. In a world where artificial intelligence could be given artificial life, how is affect addressed, and redressed? This paper argues the importance of affective embodiment and material experiences in AI that shape the future of posthuman becoming.
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