Cyberphilosophy III

Being Online

Max Senges4th Nov. 2008

• What means Being online?• Different forms of Being• Body and soul• Definition: Being online• Conclusions

Agenda

Disclaimer: These are pretty rough thoughts meant to trigger and inform starting points for our discourse.

She could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her…

What is it, dearest boy? .

"I want you to come and see me."

Vashti watched his face in the blue plate.

"But I can see you!" she exclaimed. "What more do you want?"

"I want to see you not through the Machine," said Kuno. "I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine."

I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come.

The imponderable bloom, declared by a discredited philosophy to be the actual essence of intercourse, was rightly ignored by the Machine

THE MACHINE STOPSby E.M. Forster (1909)

"I am, You are, We are information" Camille de Toledo - Coming of Age at the End of History

‘... how an entity becomes, constitutes what thatactual entity is; so that the two descriptions of anactual entity are not independent. Its “being” isconstituted by its ‘becoming’. This is the principleof process.’ (Whitehead, 1929, p. 28,)

Process / Becoming

In contrast to the rhythm of biological time characteristic of most of human existence, and to clock time characterizing the industrial age, timeless time is defined by the use of new information/communication technologies in a relentless effort to annihilate time. On the one hand, time is compressed (as in split second global financial transactions, or in the attempt to fight 訴nstant wars�), and on the other hand, time is de-sequenced, including past, present, and future occurring in a random sequence (as in the electronic hypertext or in the blurring of life-cycle patterns, both in work and parenting).

Castells 2000

Timeless Time

Body I am, and soul’ – thus speaks the child ... But the awakened and knowing say: body I am entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body.

Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty ruler, an unknown sage - whose name is self. In your body he dwells; he is your body.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spoke Zarathustra

When we are engaged in such activities, our bodies seem irrelevant and our minds seem to be present whereever our interest takes us.

(Dreyfus, On the Internet)

If there is a body / mind dichotomy - do we experience the world only indirectly? (Descartes)

Does that lead us to James and Dewey‘s question whether our relation to the world is that of a ‚disembodied detached spectator‘ or embodied involved agent?

wrong question?

Will, agency, autopoisis, life, transcendence????

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

http://squidbootsoapbox.blogspot.com

Being (Reality)

Cyberspace Networked imagination

being (Existence)

Internet Clicks & keystrokes

• Not a discussion whether our body is essential. (Descartes thought not to highly of his body ;-))•--> but an exploration of our extended Being = presence online

• In fact IMHO there is only one mental body (soul) but it can be rather decentralized

--> so rather than becoming post-human I think we are developing a ‚phantastic‘ humanistic world where our Being online creates a shared global experience and playground for memetic evolution

Conclusion

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