After reading the first chapter of NK Hayles Posthuman I was
honestly left confused and not sure what I read. Although to answer the question how does Macy
Conferences on Cybernetics view human beings, I would say Macy views human
beings as slowly becoming robotic and sees our minds as just storages of
information that can be transferred to computers or other technology. Macy talks about how our bodies can be
converted to machines. Kind of crazy if
you ask me, because how is that even humanly possible. I would say Hayles defines humanism as an
evolving process where our nature as humans is constantly changing and
technology is beginning to be a huge part of our lives. I see humanism as what makes us difference
than any other organism or thing on the planet such as our ability to talk or
think. Hayles defines posthuman as a
post humanist denying their human identity or computer perfecting someone
else’s identity. Post humanism is kind
of like technology or robots taking over our world, but they actually think
they’re one of us kind of like artificial intelligence. Humanism is more defined on what makes you
human, what is special about you as to post humanism goes a step farther on
what is the next dominant force on top besides humans. As far as me being post human would be my
phone controlling my everyday life, for example, it tells me when to wake,
feeding my knowledge and keeps me connected to our peers. While reading chapter one a came upon the
quote, “If my nightmare is a culture
inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather
than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that….
Recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that
understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one
on which we depend for our continued survival.” NK Hayles I think is saying
post humanism has both the ability to be destruction or a success. We can either be transferred into machines
and have our bodies be used as an accessory or we improve how we live as humans
instead of constantly focusing on creating artificial intelligence that could
wipe us out.
Yeah, I agree with you this reading was difficult to comprehend and for most of the chapter I had to go back and re-read some paragraphs to try and understand what Hayles was saying. I like the way you interpreted Hayles meaning of humanism although, I didn't get that from the reading at the time. I think that post humanism is the way you defined it, and I had a similar definition to yours. I can relate to how you're posthuman because I do exactly the same thing. I feel like there is not much face-to-face contact anymore and it is all through our gadgets now.
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