The Posthuman Condition

Consciousness beyond the Brain

Robert Pepperell

200 pages, parution le 05/05/2003

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Résumé

"Where humanists saw themselves ..' distinct beings in an antagonistic relationship with their surroundings, posthuman regard their own being as embodied in an extended technological world. " Synthetic creativity, organic computers, genetic modification, intelligent machines - such ideas are deeply challenging to many of our traditional assumptions about human uniqueness and superiority. But, ironically, it is our very capacity for technological invention that has secured us so dominant a position in the world which may lead ultimately to (as some have put it) The End of Man'. If we are really capable of creating entities that exceed our own skills and intellect then the consequences for humanity are almost inconceivable. Nevertheless, we must now face up to the possibility that attributes like intelligence and consciousness may be synthesized in non-human entities - perhaps within our lifetime. Would such entities have human-like emotions; would they have a sense of their own being?

The Posthuman Condition argues that such questions are difficult to tackle given the concepts of human existence that we have inherited from humanism, many of which can no longer be sustained. New theories about nature and the operation of the universe arising from sophisticated computer modelling are starting to demonstrate the profound interconnections between all things in reality where previously we had seen only separations. This has implications for traditional views of the human condition, consciousness, the way we look at art, and for some of the oldest problems in philosophy. First published in the 1990s, this important text has been completely revised by the author with this addition of new sections and illustrations.

Contents

Introduction
Consciousness, humans and complexity
Science, knowledge and energy
Order and disorder, continuity and discontinuity
Being, language and thought
Art, aesthetics and creativity
Automating creativity
Synthetic beings
What is posthumanism?
Appendices
Bibliography

L'auteur - Robert Pepperell

Robert Pepperell is an artist, writer and musician. A former student at UWCN, he took a postgraduate course at the Slade School of Art and went on work with a number of influential multimedia collaborations including Hex, Coldcut and Hexstatic.

As well as producing experimental computer art and computer games he has published several interactive CD-Roms and exhibited numerous digital installations including at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, the ICA, London and the Barbican Gallery, London and the Millennium Dome, London.

His first book, The Post-Human Condition, was published in 1995 and is shortly to be revised for a third edition. His second book, The Postdigital Membrane is a collaboration with Michael Punt was published recently. He has spoken and lectured widely on art, philosophy and new technology and is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Wales College, Newport.

Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Intellect Books
Auteur(s)	Robert Pepperell
Parution	05/05/2003
Nb. de pages	200
Format	18 x 23,5
Couverture	Relié
Poids	615g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9781841500485
ISBN13	978-1-84150-048-5