Session 3: Identity I: Theorising Humanity
Chair: Christopher Macallister

The Influences of Technology: Understanding how Technology Contributes to Who We Are Online
Marcus Leaning
Luton University, UK

This paper seeks to propose a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of interpersonal communication using new media and of the electronic presentation of self by drawing upon the philosophy and social study of technology and computer mediated communication.

Within the broad field of computer mediated communication much has been written about the extent to which interpersonal communication enabled by the Internet and other forms of new media technology leads to the formation of ‘new spaces’ in which participants can interact free from the influence of external forms of power. Several authors have argued that such is the radical nature of the new spaces that participants are afforded the opportunity to experiment with, and even challenge hegemonic systems of identity formation.

This paper proposes a contrary or at least qualifying argument to this claim. While in much previous work Internet technology is regarded as a neutral, passive yet enabling conduit through which communication may take place here a critical stance is taken towards technology. In this paper Internet technology is understood in the ‘critical substantivist’ terms of authors such as Feenberg, Latour and Chandler. Technology is regarded as something that far from being ‘neutral’, it is in fact a value-laden cultural artifact. Further in using the technology to communicate the user may be influenced in their presentation of self by the technology.

Accordingly the ‘new spaces’ afforded by Internet technology are not ‘free’ of influence. While perhaps free of the bluntest form of overt influence, power is exerted at the most fundamental of levels, the very ability to enter and communicate in the new arenas themselves.

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From DNA to TCP: Humanity and Evolution in Cyberspace
Robin L. Zebrowski

Philosophers long believed in the notion of a disembodied mind, in which our thoughts and conscious inner dialogue could exist independent of the bodies to which they appear to be attached. However, the last few decades have seen a philosophical uprising in which the importance of bodies to intelligence and evolution has been recognized and emphasized. This has a tremendous impact on the field of Artificial Intelligence, where the implications are still trickling in.
While many researchers are now accepting the hypothesis that bodies are, in fact, necessary for intelligence to arise, the focus has not yet shifted much to the role that the environment will play on what sorts of intelligence do arise. Specifically, what if cyberspace qualifies as the type of environment suited to produce intelligence? Additionally, how are our notions of personal identity and the nature of humanity affected by cyberspace, as an environment that we can only enter virtually, while other organisms (autonomous agents) can interact with fully.
This paper argues that cyberspace does qualify as a rich enough environment to produce intelligence (although it does not make the much stronger claim that this intelligence has already arisen), and it roughly outlines the path in which cyber-evolution is occurring and may potentially occur in the future. It also discusses what it means to be human in cyberspace, since our bodies seem to make us uniquely what we are, and in cyberspace we necessarily must leave them behind. It also raises the question (which goes necessarily goes unanswered) about which intelligence (human or machine) will emerge dominant in cyberspace. The implications are far-reaching for many fields, including AI, biology, philosophy, and human life itself.

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The Power of Illusion: Virtual Realities and Dystopian Science Fiction
Svante Loven
Uppsala University, Sweden

In recent years, the theme of the artificial reality has been recurrent in popular cinema (The Matrix, The Truman Show, The Cell, etc.). This trend reflects a growing popular awareness of how information technologies obfuscate traditional boundaries between reality, representation, and simulation. In my present research, I draw a cultural background to these films, and, by extension, to our present so-called age of information by examining the theme of the counterfeit reality in twentieth century science fiction and dystopian fiction.
In a number of influential works, e.g. Brave new world or Fahrenheit 451, we find a humanist championing of corporeality and unmediated experience, and the assumption that the visual media and information technologies threaten those very values and, ultimately, the moral fabric of society. This position in turn reflects a Protestant suspicion of visual representation and artificiality in general.
From the 50’s and onwards, however, with the arrival of the computer and various “cyborg” technologies such as Virtual Reality, this Puritianically informed humanism has been partly superseded in science fiction by a post- or transhumanist sensibility, which draws on gnosticist and hermeticist notions of the self-divinisation of man. While sf has thus been partly responsible for the diffusion of an idealistically informed “infotopianism” in the cultural consciousness, a careful examination of relevant texts (e.g. Neuromancer) reveals that the humanist heritage is still present, and that the gnosticist structures are mobilised for a critique of late capitalism, rather than for a celebration of the alleged emancipatory potential of the posthumanist technologies.

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