1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996248066803316

Autore

Hayles N. Katherine <1943->

Titolo

How we became posthuman [[electronic resource] ] : virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics / / N. Katherine Hayles

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, Ill., : University of Chicago Press, 1999

ISBN

1-282-53876-4

9780226321394 (electronic book)

0-226-32139-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (366 p.)

Disciplina

003/.5

303.4834

Soggetti

Artificial intelligence

Cybernetics

Computer science

Virtual reality

Virtual reality in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Acknowledgments; Prologue; 1. Toward Embodied Virtuality; 2. Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers; 3. Contesting for the Body of Information: The Macy Conferences on Cybernetics; 4. Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Wiener and Cybernetic Anxiety; 5. From Hyphen to Splice: Cybernetic Syntax in Limbo; 6. The Second Wave of Cybernetics: From Reflexivity to Self-Organization; 7. Turning Reality Inside Out and Right Side Out: Boundary Work in the Mid-Sixties Novels of Philip K. Dick; 8. The Materiality of Informatics; 9. Narratives of Artificial Life

10. The Semiotics of Virtuality: Mapping the Posthuman11. Conclusion: What Does It Mean to be Posthuman?; Notes; Index

Sommario/riassunto

In this age of DNA computers and artificial intelligence, information is becoming disembodied even as the ""bodies"" that once carried it vanish into virtuality. While some marvel at these changes, envisioning consciousness downloaded into a computer or humans ""beamed"" Star Trek-style, others view them with horror, seeing monsters brooding in



the machines. In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles separates hype from fact, investigating the fate of embodiment in an information age.Hayles relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is