1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910818192303321

Autore

Gottlieb Baruch <1966->

Titolo

Digital materialism : origins, philosophies, prospects / / Baruch Gottlieb

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Bingley, England : , : Emerald Publishing, , 2018

©2018

ISBN

1-78743-961-5

1-78743-668-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (210 pages) : illustrations

Collana

Digital activism and society: politics, economy and culture in network communication

Disciplina

303.483

Soggetti

Language Arts & Disciplines, Communication Studies

Communication studies

Technology - Social aspects

Digital media

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Sommario/riassunto

Digital materiality (digimat) proposes a set of basic principles for how we understand the world through digital processes.  Digital instruments may seem forbiddingly complex but they are based on simple mechanical principles which operate today on the subatomic scale, which creates challenges for conventional human epistemology. This short book sets out a methodical materialist understanding of digital technologies, where they come from, how they work, and what they do. This analysis starts from the classical materialism of the Greek physicist-philosophers, engages with the humanist and historical materialism of the flourishing of Enlightenment arts and sciences, and extrapolates from post-humanist new materialism informed by quantum physics. There can be no future without a present and that present is always, persistently material. Readers of this book must grapple with the mattering of digital material, especially the awe-inspiring epistemological schism between the infinitesimal, lightspeed reality of digital data and conventional, empirical human



epistemologies which provide the vocabularies and cultural metaphors we must have recourse to in the attempt to discuss, communicate and decypher these phenomena. The obsolescent figure of anthropos (human being) will provide a central foil and subject for this challenge to understand our digital tools and their seemingly irrepressible reproduction. The future of humanity is at stake!