Scribe Notes on Hayles

Jan 13: Katherine Hayles

"Beam me up, Scotty"

-What does it mean to be "posthuman"?  
Maria: Is the term "posthuman" not a problem, or at least an ironic term?  Can you have life after human?  
Schaberg: Hayles separates the term "Homo Sapiens" from "human" in the sense that one should be able to understand posthuman life. (Location: 397-411, ~69%)
Schaberg: Hayles explains at the end of the book that the book's title should be taken both ironically and seriously.
         Amelie and Schwartz: Can we embody posthuman life (biological subscript) if we are not human? 
Bell: For example, a computer: is it possible for the computer to embody a human thought process?  We always prefer something: as humans, we enjoy the embodiment of stories in book (paperback or hardcover) form in preference to the iPad, etc. 
           ***Schaberg: ESSENTIALLY, ideology defines the embodiment.***
         Terra: Hayles explains that not only is embodiment accidental but so is our thought process.  
Animals who think?  Humans "think" that we think so that we, as such, define ourselves as HUMAN; animals "think" as well, but we ultimately consider ourselves superior.  But by defining as such, does that mean that animals are also human? 
Bell: Being posthuman decentralizes everything. 
          Schaberg: The idea of posthuman has always existed because the concept of "human" is always altering, shifting, changing into something else. 
           Can you be born posthuman? 
           Terra: The posthuman view configures human being so that it can be seamlessly configured.  Location 277: "ground of being" (look down below)^
           *******Schwartz: Posthuman, at it's foundation, is the feedback loop.
Hayles: "In the posthuman there are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot teleology and human goals" (Location: 270 ~38%)

-Is body the ground of being?
          Amelie: Or rather memories?  Memories are the illusion of continuity.  They always create who you are now.  But bodies disintegrate and change.  
          Location 240: whatever is on the disk is contained.
                 Hayles talks about how you can be posthuman without biologically being a Homo Sapien...but then, doesn't that mean everyone can be posthuman...so animals? Etc. 
                     Bell: Military men, for example, are dressed in uniform.  So when that happens, you have stripes, etc., that make you something other than you are.  If so, when you take the uniform off, are you still what you are when you have the uniform on? 
          Schaberg: Posthuman is embodied in the mind and not in the body, according to Hayles.  Some things (ex. Anorexia, cougars) make the body a fashion accessory.  

-And as a side note, something that I found very interesting from Hayles: "If 'human essence is freedom from the wills of others,' the posthuman is 'post' not because it is necessarily unfree but because there is no a priority way to identify a self-will that can be clearly distinguished from an other-will" (Location: 234-247 ~41%)