Subject: Late nots about 'Desire and the war of technology'
From: Barak Refaeli (brefaeli@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Mar 20 2000 - 09:21:56 CST
Hello every one
Here are some late remarks on 'The war of desire and
technology':
I really like the way Stone dealt with the concept of
self-identity in the 'virtual era'.
Here are some thoughts -
- Self as a body -
1. Could Hawking's speech device, be treated as part
of Hawking's identity, or as Stone put it "a serious
part of Hawking extends into the box in his lap." In
other words, adding prosthesis to the human body
distort the dichotomy 'subject/object', because it is
hard to say where the self (body) stops, and the
object's world starts. In the context of artificial
adding to the human body, Stone's insight (which
derived from McLuhan) 'computers were prosthetic an
extension (of human brain?)' blurs even more the
distinction between self and reality.
2. In the western culture the human face functioned as
an icon of the self - thus picture of the face is a
basic requirement in most identity cards. Stone
suggests that 'relationship between sense of self and
the body' are changing because 'social interaction in
the physical facticity is changing.' Not long ago,
questions about the color of the hair or the eyes were
part of identity questionnaires. In our days these
questions are no longer relevant - for some people the
answer for the question: 'what is the color of your
hair?' is 'in which day of the week'.
Self
- Public self
There is a duality in each person - at the same time
that we see and shape the world with our own eyes, we
are being seen and interpreted by other people. To a
large extent our reflection (from society) determines
our identity - or as stone puts it - 'Your
institutionally maintained speaks you'. One's
appearance, his social and ethnic groups and so on
considered as part of her identity. (Woody Allen takes
the concept of 'public self' into absurd in "Zelig" -
a person that change his identity and physicality
according to the social group that surrounds him.) The
virtual world destroys most of the physical
conventions. For example most of the time one does not
see the person with whom she talks. Stone shows many
advantages to the cyberspace in which people have no
bodies. First it is much easier to create an imaginary
persona (like in Sanford/Julie case). One can be male
in one context and female in another -
multi-personality will become a necessity. The margins
of the social groups would be more fluid, and as a
result some 'conversational barriers' will disappear.
Unlike the physical world - the environment (which
determines the 'public self') is selectable.
Self as experience
Virtual world is changing not only the content but
also the structure of experience, and thus, 'producing
deep changes in consciousness'. One of the radical
changes is the disappearance of the body. The equation
body/identity leads to one of the basic assumptions
about the self - "that there is one primary persona -
true identity, which is attached to a single physical
body." Stone suggests that the complex virtual
identities are interventions into the 'one-self'
belief.
Another implication of the 'physical self' is that
"The physical body apprehends information as physical"
(and since we perceive 'physical information the self
is categorized as physical). How information and the
concept self would be apprehended when most of the
information will be virtual?
Another thing that Stone suggests is: "Social rules do
not necessarily map across the interface between
physical and virtual"…"Body. Meet, Place and even
Space means something quite different in the
cyberspace then in our accustomed understanding." In
the 'old-world' space, time, and identity were bound
to one environment that a person lived in. This
environment led to a static structure of the self -
which based on constant belief and constant truth. The
electronic media distort the linkage between time and
space - since one can 'be' simultaneously in several
places. The amount of information that the media feed
us "evokes multiplicity as an integral part of social
identity."
Among the theories of self as experience -
Connectionism emphasizes the linkage between one piece
of information to another. New types of linkages
between pieces of information are a necessary result
of the amount of information that we consume by the
media (especially TV). For example -we can easily
switch from a commercial for a toothbrush to a
criminal allegation of the president with the remote
control. In other words everything can fit with
everything. The cyberspace is even more interesting
for the Connectionism theory, because it utilizes
interaction. 'Interaction is a mutual and simultaneous
activity on the part of both participants,' thus there
is 'a limit how much of the shape of the interaction
can be anticipated'. In other words interaction leads
to structure that cannot be anticipated, and therefore
to new connections between pieces of information.
Well… the stories that Stone tells show that some
conventions about the concept of self are already
outdated. Since new technology speeds everything,
people have to adjust themselves, and the concept of
self becomes more dynamic, and it will be even more
dynamic in the future. Would we know who we are when
we will see our reflection in the mirror? (Did we ever
know?)
Barak Refaeli
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