HOW WE BECAME POSTHUMAN
HOW W E BECAME
POSTHUMAN
Virtual Bodies in
Cybernetics, Literature,
and Informatics
N. KATHERINE HAYLES
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago er London
N. KATHERINE HAYLES is professor ofEnglish atthe UniversityofCalifornia, Los
Angeles. She holds degrees in both chemistry and English. She is the author of The
Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the Twentieth Century
(1984) and Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorderin Contemporary Literature and Science
(1990) and is the editor ofChaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and
Science (1991), the last published bythe UniversityofChicago Press.
The UniversityofChicago Press, Chicago 60637
The UniversityofChicago Press, Ltd., London
© 1999 byThe UniversityofChicago
All rights reserved. Published 1999
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 3 4 5
ISBN (cloth): 0-226-32145-2
ISBN (paper): 0-226-32146-0
LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hayles, N. Katherine.
Howwe became posthuman :virtual bodies in cybernetics,
literature, and informatics / N. Katherine Hayles.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 0-226-32145-2 (cloth: alk. paper). - ISBN: 0-226-32146-0
(pbk. :alk. paper)
l. Artificial intelligence. 2. Cybernetics. 3. Computer science.
4. Virtual reality. 5. Virtual reality in literature. I. Title.
Q335.H394 1999
003'.5---dc21 98-36459
CIP
SThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements ofthe
American National Standard for the Information Sciences-Permanence ofPaperfor
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
For Nicholas
one ojthe !corld:I' great technology archivists
(J Ild milch more besides
Acknowledgments / ix
Prologue / xi
1. Toward Embodied Virtuality / 1
2. Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers / 25
Contents
3. Contesting for the BodyofInformation: The Macy Conferences
on Cybernetics / 50
4. Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled: Norbert Wiener
and Cybernetic Anxiety / 84
5. From Hyphen to Splice: Cybernetic Syntax in Limho / 113
6. The Second Wave ofCybernetics: From Reflexivity
to Self-Organization / 131
7. Turning Reality Inside Out and Right Side Out: BoundaryWork in
the Mid-Sixties Novels ofPhilip K. Dick / 160
8. The MaterialityofInformatics / 192
9. Narratives ofArtificial Life / 222
10. The Semiotics ofVirtuality: Mapping the Posthuman / 247
11. Conclusion: What Does It Mean to Be Posthuman? / 283
Notes / 293
Index /325
Acknowledgments
The notion of distributed cognition, central to the posthuman as it is defined
in this book, makes acknowledging intellectual and practical contributions
to this project an inevitability as well as a pleasure. The arguments
have benefited from conversations and correspondence with many friends
and colleagues, among them Evelyn Fox Keller, Felicity Nussbaum, Rob
Latham, Adalaide Morris, Brooks Landon, Peter Galison, Timothy Lenoir,
Sandra Harding, Sharon Traweek, and Marjorie Luesebrink. Mark Poster
and an anonymous reader for the UniversityofChicago Press gave valuable
suggestions for revisions and rethinking parts of the argument. Tom Ray,
Rodney Brooks, and Mark Tilden graciously spoke with me about their artificiallife
projects, and Stefan Helmreich shared with me an early version
of his book on artificial life. Many of my students gave valuable feedback
and criticism of early versions of my ideas, including Carol Wald, Jim
Berkley, Kevin Fisher, Evan Nisonson, Mark Sander, Linda Whitford, and
Jill Galvin.
I am also very grateful for the institutional support I have received, including
a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a fellowship from
the Stanford Humanities Center, a Presidential Research Fellowship from
the University ofCalifornia, support from the Council on Research at the
UniversityofCaliforniaat Los Angeles, and a leave ofabsence and research
support from the University ofIowa. I could not have completed this projectwithout
this generous support.
lowe a debt ofgratitude as well to Routledge Press for allOwing me to
reprint "Narratives of Artificial Life," from FutureNatural: Nature, Science,
Culture, edited by George Robertson, Melinda Mash, Lisa Tickner,
John Bird, Barry Curtis, and Tim Putnam, pp. 145-46, © 1996 (appearing
in revised form as chapter9); and"Designs on the Body: Cybernetics, Nor-
ix
x I Acknowledgments
bert Wiener, and the Play of Metaphor," from History ofthe Human Sciences
3 (1990): 212-28 (appearingin revised from as aportionofchapter4).
Johns Hopkins University Press has graciously allowed me to reprint three
articles appearing in Configurations: AJournal ofLiterature, Science, and
Technology-"The Materiality of Informatics," Configurations 1 (1993):
147-70 (appearing in revised form as a portion of chapter 8); "Boundary
Disputes: Homeostasis, Reflexivity, and the Foundations ofCybernetics,"
ibid. 3 (1994): 441-67 (appearing in revised form as part ofchapter 3); and
"The Posthuman Body: Inscription and Incorporation in Galatea 2.2 and
Snow Crash," ibid. 5 (1997): 241-66 (appearingas partofchapter 10). MIT
Press has given permission to reprint ''Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers,"
from October 66 (Fall 1993): 69-91 (appearing in slightly revised
form as chapter 2). The University of North Carolina Press has given permission
to reprint aportion of"Voices OutofBodies, Bodies OutofVoices,"
from Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies, edited
by Adalaide Morris, pp. 74-78, 86-96, © 1997 byThe University of North
Carolina Press (appearing in revised form as a part ofchapter 8). TheJournal
ofthe Fantastic in the Arts has given permission to reprint "Schizoid
Android: Cybernetics and the Mid-60s Novels of Dick," JFIA 8 (1997):
419-42 (appearing in slightly revised form as chapter 6).
Finally, my greatest debt is to my family, who have listened patiently to
my ideas over the years, and to my husband, Nick Gessler, from whom I
have learned more than I can say.
Prologue
You are alone in the room, except for two computer terminals flickering in
the dim light. You use the terminals to communicate with two entities in another
room, whom you cannot see. Relying solelyon their responses to your
questions, you must decide which is the man, which the woman. Or, in another
version of the famous "imitation game" proposed by Alan Turing in
his classic 1950 paper "Computer Machinery and Intelligence," you use
the responses to decide which is the human, which the machine. 1 One of
the entities wants to help you guess correctly. His/herlits best strategy,
Turing suggested, may be to answer your questions truthfully. The other
entity wants to mislead you. He/she/it will try to reproduce through the
words that appear on your terminal the characteristics of the other entity.
Yourjob is to pose questions that can distinguish verbal performance from
embodied reality. Ifyou cannot tell the intelligent machine from the intelligent
human, your failure proves, Turing argued, that machines can think.
Here, at the inaugural moment ofthe computer age, the erasure ofembodiment
is performed so that "intelligence" becomes a property of the
formal manipulation of symbols rather than enaction in the human lifeworld.
The Turingtestwas to set the agenda for artificial intelligence for the
next three decades. In the push to achieve machines that can think, researchers
performed again and again the erasure of embodiment at the
heart of the Turing test. All that mattered was the formal generation and
manipulation of informational patterns. Aiding this process was a definition
ofinformation, formalized by Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener,
that conceptualized information as an entity distinct from the substrates
carryingit. From this formulation, itwas a small step to thinkofinformation
as a kind ofbodiless fluid that could flow between different substrates withoutloss
ofmeaning orform. Writing nearlyfour decades afterTuring, Hans
xi
xii I Prologue
Moravec proposed that human identityis essentiallyan informational pattern
rather than an embodied enaction. The proposition can be demonstrated,
he suggested, by downloading human consciousness into a
computer, and he imagined a scenario designed to show that this was in
principle possible. The Moravec test, in may call it that, is the logical successorto
the Turingtest. Whereas the Turingtestwas designed to showthat
machines can perform the thinking previously considered to be an exclusive
capacity of the human mind, the Moravec test was designed to show
that machines can become the repository of human consciousness-that
machines can, for all practical purposes, become human beings. You are
the cyborg, and the cyborg is you.
In the progression from Turing to Moravec, the part of the Turing test
that historicallyhas been foregrounded is the distinction between thinking
human and thinking machine. Often forgotten is the first example Turing
offeredofdistinguishingbetween a man and awoman. Ifyour failure to distinguish
correctly between human and machine proves that machines can
think, what does it prove ifyou fail to distinguish woman from man? Why
does gender appear in this primal scene of humans meeting their evolutionary
successors, intelligent machines?What do genderedbodies have to
do with the erasure of embodiment and the subsequent merging of machine
and human intelligence in the figure ofthe cyborg?
In his thoughtful and perceptive intellectual biography of Turing,
Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing's predilection was always to deal with
the world as if it were a formal puzzle.2 To a remarkable extent, Hodges
says, Turing was blind to the distinction between saying and dOing. Turing
fundamentally did not understand that "questions involving sex, society,
politicsorsecrets would demonstrate howwhatitwas possiblefor people to
say might be limited not by puzzle-solving intelligence but by the restrictions
on what might be done" (pp. 423-24). In a fine inSight, Hodges suggests
that"the discrete state machine, communicatingbyteleprinteralone,
was like an ideal for [Turing's] own life, in which he would be left alone in a
room ofhis own, to dealwith the outside world solelyby rational argument.
Itwas the embodimentofaperfectJ. S. Millliberal, concentratinguponthe
free will and free speech ofthe individual" (p. 425). Turing's later embroilment
with the police and court system over the question ofhis homosexualityplayed
out, in a different key, the assumptions embodiedin the Turing
test. His conviction and the court-ordered hormone treatments for his homosexuality
tragically demonstrated the importance ofdoing over saying
in the coercive order ofa homophobiC societywith the power to enforce its
will upon the bodies ofits citizens.
Prologue I xiii
The perceptiveness of Hodges's biography notwithstanding, he gives a
strange interpretation of Turing's inclusion of gender in the imitation
game. Gender, according to Hodges, "was in fact a red herring, and one of
the few passages ofthe paper that was not expressed with perfect lucidity.
The whole point ofthis game was that a successful imitation ofa woman's
responses by a man would not prove anything. Gender depended on facts
which were not reducible to sequences ofsymbols" (p. 415). In the paper
itself, however, nowhere does Turing suggest that gender is meant as a
counterexample; instead, he makes the two cases rhetoricallyparallel, indicating
through symmetry, if nothing else, that the gender and the human/machine
examples are meant to prove the same thing. Is this simply
bad writing, as Hodges argues, an inability to express an intended opposition
between the construction ofgender and the construction ofthought?
Or, on the contrary, does the writing express aparallelism too explosive and
subversive for Hodges to acknowledge?
Ifso, now we have two mysteries instead of one. Why does Turing include
gender, and why does Hodges want to read this inclusion as indicating
that, so far as gender is concerned, verbal performance cannot be
equated with embodied reality? One way to frame these mysteries is to see
them as attempts to transgress and reinforce the boundaries ofthe subject,
respectively. By including gender, Turing implied that renegotiating the
boundary between human and machine would involve more than transforming
the question of"whocan think" into "what can think." Itwould also
necessarily bring into question other characteristics of the liberal subject,
for it made the crucial move of distinguishing between the enacted
body, present in the flesh on one side ofthe computer screen, and the represented
body, produced through the verbal and semiotic markers constituting
it in an electronic environment. This construction necessarily makes
the subject into a cyborg, for the enacted and represented bodies are
brought into conjunction through the technology that connects them. If
you distinguish correctlywhich is the man andwhich the woman, you in effect
reunite the enacted and the represented bodies into a Single gender
identity. The very existence ofthe test, however, implies that you may also
make the wrong choice. Thus the test functions to create the possibilityofa
disjunction between the enacted and the represented bodies, regardless
which choice you make. What the Turing test "proves" is that the overlay
between the enacted and the represented bodies is no longer a natural inevitability
but a contingent production, mediated by a technology that has
become so entwined with the production of identity that it can no longer
meaningfully be separated from the human subject. To pose the question
xiv / Prologue
of"what can think" inevitably also changes, in a reverse feedback loop, the
terms of"who can think."
On this view, Hodges's reading of the gender test as nonsignifying with
respect to identity can be seen as an attempt to safeguard the boundaries of
the subject from precisely this kind oftransformation, to insist that the existence
ofthinking machines will not necessarily affect what being human
means. That Hodges's readingis amisreadingindicates he is willingtopractice
violence upon the text to wrench meaning away from the direction towardwhich
the Turing test points, backto safergroundwhere embodiment
secures the univocality ofgender. I think he is wrong about embodiment's
securing the univocality of gender and wrong about its securing human
identity, but right about the importance ofputting embodiment back into
the picture. What embodiment secures is not the distinction between male
and female orbetween humans who can think and machines which cannot.
Rather, embodiment makes clear that thought is a much broader cognitive
function depending for its specificities on the embodied form enacting it.
This realization, with all its exfoliatingimplications, is so broad in its effects
and so deep in its consequences that it is transforming the liberal subject,
regarded as the model of the human since the Enlightenment, into the
posthuman.
Think of the Turing test as a magic trick. Like all good magic tricks, the
test relies on gettingyou to accept at an earlystage assumptions thatwill determine
how you interpret what you see later. The important intervention
comes not when you try to determine which is the man, the woman, or the
machine. Rather, the importantintervention comes much earlier, when the
test puts you into a cybernetic circuit that splices yourwill, desire, and perception
into a distributed cognitive system inwhich represented bodies are
joined with enacted bodies through mutating and flexible machine interfaces.
As you gaze at the flickering signifiers scrolling down the computer
screens, no matter what identifications you assign to the embodied entities
that you cannot see, you have already become posthuman.
........C b ..0.. p. f. e.r...O.o.e
TOWARD EMBODIED VIRTUALITY
We needfirst to understand that the humanform-including human desire and all its
external representations-may be changing radically, and thus must be re-visioned. We
need to understand thatfive hundred years ofhumanism may be coming to an end as
humanism transforms itselfinto something that we must helplessly call post-humanism.
Ihab Hassan, "Prometheus as Perfonner: Towards a Posthumanist Culture?"
This book began with a roboticist's dream that struck me as a nightmare. I
was reading Hans Moravec's Mind Children: The Future ofRobot and Human
Intelligence, enjoying the ingenious variety ofhis robots, when I happened
upon the passage where he argues it will soon be possible to
download human consciousness into a computer.l To illustrate, he invents
a fantasy scenario in which a robot surgeon purees the human brain in a
kind ofcranialliposuction, readingthe informationin each molecularlayer
as it is stripped away and transferring the information into a computer. At
the endofthe operation, the cranialcavityis empty, and the patient, nowinhabiting
the metallic body ofthe computer, wakens to find his consciousness
exactlythe same as it was before.
How, I asked myself, was it possible for someone of Moravec's obvious
intelligence to believe that mind could be separated from body? Even assuming
such a separation was possible, how could anyone think that consciousness
in an entirely different medium would remain unchanged, as if
it had no connection with embodiment? Shocked into awareness, I began
noticing he was far from alone. As early as the 1950s, Norbert Wiener proposeditwas
theoreticallypossible to telegraph a human being, asuggestion
underlaid by the same assumptions informing Moravec's scenario.2 The
producers of Star Trek operate from similar premises when they imagine
that the body can be dematerialized into an informational pattern and rematerialized,
without change, at a remote location. Noris the ideaconfined
towhat Beth Loffreda has called "pulp science."3 Much ofthe discourse on
molecular biology treats information as the essential code the body expresses,
a practice that has certain affinities with Moravec's ideas.4 In fact,
adefiningcharacteristicofthe presentculturalmomentis the beliefthat information
can circulate unchanged among different material substrates. It
2 I Chapter One
is not for nothing that "Beam me up, Scotty," has become a cultural icon for
the global informational society.
Followingthis thread, I was led into a maze ofdevelopments that turned
into a six-year odysseyofresearching archives in the history ofcybernetics,
interviewing scientists in computational biology and artificial life, reading
cultural and literary texts concerned with information technologies, visiting
laboratories engaged in research on virtual reality, and grappling with
technical articles in cybernetics, information theory, autopoiesis, computersimulation,
and cognitive science. Slowlythis unruly mass ofmaterial
began taking shape as three interrelated stories. The first centers on how
information lost its body, that is, howitcame to be conceptualized as an entityseparate
from the materialforms inwhich itis thoughtto be embedded.
The second story concerns how the cyborg was created as a technological
artifact and cultural icon in the years follOwing World War II. The third,
deeply implicatedwith the first two, is the unfolding story ofhow a historicallyspecific
construction calledthe human isgiving way to adifferentconstruction
calledthe posthuman.
Interrelations between the three stories are extensive. Central to the
construction ofthe cyborg are informational pathways connecting the organic
body to its prosthetic extensions. This presumes a conception ofinformation
as a (disembodied) entity that can flow between carbon-based
organic components and silicon-based electronic components to make
protein and silicon operate as a Single system. When information loses its
body, equatinghumans and computers is especiallyeasy, for the materiality
inwhich the thinking mind is instantiated appears incidentalto its essential
nature. Moreover, the idea of the feedback loop implies that the boundaries
ofthe autonomous subject are up for grabs, since feedback loops can
flow not onlywithin the subject but also between the subject and the environment.
From Norbert Wiener on, the flow ofinformation through feedback
loops has been associated with the deconstruction of the liberal
humanist subject, the version of the "human" with which I will be concerned.
Although the "posthuman" differs in its articulations, a common
theme is the union ofthe human with the intelligent machine.
What is the posthuman? Think ofit as a point ofview characterized by
the follOwing assumptions. (I do not mean this list to be exclusive or definitive.
Rather, it names elements found at a variety ofsites. It is meant to be
suggestive rather than prescriptive.)5 First, the posthuman view privileges
informational pattern over material instantiation, so that embodiment in a
biological substrate is seen as an accident of history rather than an inevitabilityoflife.
Second, the posthumanviewconsiders consciousness, re-
Toward Embodied Virtuality I 3
garded as the seat of human identity in the Western tradition long before
Descartes thoughthewas a mind thinking, as an epiphenomenon, as an evolutionary
upstart trying to claim that it is the whole show when in actuality
itis onlya minorsideshow. Third, the posthumanviewthinks ofthe bodyas
the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate, so that extending or replacingthe
bodywith otherprostheses becomes a continuation ofaprocess
that began before we were born. Fourth, and most important, by these and
other means, the posthuman view configures human being so that it can be
seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines. In the posthuman, there
are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between bodilyexistence
and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism,
robot teleology and human goals.
To elucidate the Significant shift in underlying assumptions about subjectivitysignaled
bythe posthuman, we can recall one ofthe definitive texts
characterizing the liberal humanist subject: C. B. Macpherson's analysis of
possessive individualism. "Its possessive quality is found in its conception
of the individual as essentially the proprietor ofhis own person or capacities,
owing nothing to societyfor them. ... The human essence isfreedom
from the wills ofothers, and freedom is a function ofpossession."6 The italicized
phrases mark convenient points ofdeparture for measuring the distance
between the human and the posthuman. "Owing nothing to society"
comes from arguments Hobbes and Locke constructed about humans in a
"state ofnature" before market relations arose. Because ownership ofoneself
is thought to predate market relations and owe nothing to them, it
forms a foundation upon which those relations can be built, as when one
sells one's labor for wages. As Macpherson points out, however, this imagined
"state ofnature" is a retrospective creation ofa marketsociety. The liberal
selfis produced by market relations and does not in fact predate them.
This paradox (as Macphersoncalls it) is resolved in the posthuman bydoing
away with the "natural" self. The posthuman subject is an amalgam, a
collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity
whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction.
Consider the six-million-dollar man, a paradigmatic citizen ofthe posthuman
regime. As his name implies, the parts of the self are indeed owned,
but they are owned precisely because they were purchased, not because
ownership is a natural condition preexistingmarket relations. Similarly, the
presumption that there is an agency, desire, orwill belonging to the selfand
clearly distinguished from the "wills of others" is undercut in the posthuman,
for the posthuman's collective heterogeneous quality implies a distributed
cognition located in disparate parts that may be in only tenuous
4 / Chapter One
communication with one another. We have only to recall Robocop's memory
flashes that interfere with his programmed directives to understand
how the distributed cognition of the posthuman complicates individual
agency. If"human essence is freedom from the wills ofothers," the posthuman
is "post" not because it is necessarily unfree but because there is no a
priori way to identify a self-will that can be clearly distingUished from an
other-will. Although these examples foreground the cybernetic aspect of
the posthuman, it is important to recognize that the construction of the
posthuman does not require the subject to be a literal cyborg. Whether or
not interventions have been made on the body, new models ofsubjectivity
emerging from such fields as cognitive science and artificial life imply that
even a biologically unaltered Homo sapiens counts as posthuman. The defining
characteristics involve the construction ofsubjectivity, not the presence
ofnonbiological components.
What to make ofthis shift from the human to the posthuman, which both
evokes terror and excites pleasure? The liberal humanist subject has, of
course, been cogently criticized from a number ofperspectives. Feminist
theorists have pointed out that it has historically been constructed as a
white European male, presuming a universality that has worked to suppress
and disenfranchise women's voices; postcolonial theorists have taken
issue not only with the universality ofthe (white male) liberal subject but
also with the very idea ofa unified, consistent identity, fOCUSing instead on
hybridity; and postmodern theorists such as Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari have linked it with capitalism, arguing for the liberatory potential
of a dispersed subjectivity distributed among diverse desiring machines
they call "body without organs."7 Although the deconstruction of the liberal
humanist subject in cybernetiCS has some affinities with these perspectives,
it proceeded primarily along lines that sought to understand human
being as a set ofinformational processes. Because information had lost its
body, this construction implied that embodiment is not essential to human
being. Embodiment has been systematically downplayed or erased in the
cyberneticconstruction ofthe posthuman in ways that have not occurredin
other critiques of the liberal humanist subject, espeCially in feminist and
postcolonial theories.
Indeed, one could argue that the erasure of embodiment is a feature
common to both the liberal humanist subject and the cybernetic posthuman.
Identified with the rational mind, the liberal subject possessed a body
but was not usually represented as being a body. Only because the body is
not identified with the selfis it possible to claim for the liberal subject its
notorious universality, a claim that depends on erasing markers of bodily
Toward Embodied Virtuality / 5
difference, including sex, race, and ethnicity.8 Gillian Brown, in her influential
studyofthe relation between humanism and anorexia, shows that the
anoretic's struggle to "decrement" the body is possible precisely because
the body is understood as an object for control and mastery rather than as
an intrinsic part ofthe self. Quoting an anoretic's remark-"You make out
ofyour bodyyourvery own kingdom where you are the tyrant, the absolute
dictator"- Brown states, "Anorexia is thus a fight for self-control, a flight
from the slavery food threatens; self-sustaining self-possession independent
ofbodily desires is the anoretic's crucial goal."g In taking the self-possession
implied by liberal humanism to the extreme, the anoretic creates a
physical image that, in its skeletal emaciation, serves as material testimony
that the locus ofthe liberal humanist subject lies in the mind, not the body.
Although in many ways the posthuman deconstructs the liberal humanist
subject, it thus shares with its predecessor an emphaSiS on cognition rather
than embodiment. William Gibson makes the point vividly in Neuromancer
when the narrator characterizes the posthuman body as "data
made flesh."lOTo the extent that the posthuman constructs embodiment as
the instantiation ofthought/information, it continues the liberal tradition
rather than disrupts it.
In tracing these continuities and discontinuities between a"natural" self
and a cybernetic posthuman, I am not trying to recuperate the liberal subject.
Although I think that serious consideration needs to be given to how
certain characteristics associatedwith the liberal subject, especiallyagency
and choice, can be articulated within a posthuman context, I do not mourn
the passing of a concept so deeply entwined with projects of domination
and oppression. Rather, I view the present moment as a critical juncture
when interventions might be made to keep disembodiment from being
rewritten, once again, into prevailing concepts ofsubjectivity. I see the deconstruction
ofthe liberal humanist subject as an opportunity to put back
into the picture the flesh that continues to be erased in contemporary discussions
about cybernetic subjects. Hence my focus on how information
lost its body, for this story is central to creating what Arthur Kroker has
called the "flesh-eating 90s."11 If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by
posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the
ground ofbeing, my dream is aversion ofthe posthuman that embraces the
possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies
of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes
and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands
human life is embeddedin a material world ofgreat complexity, one
on which we depend for our continued survival.
6 / Chapter One
Perhaps it will now be clear that I mean my title, How We Became
Posthuman, to connote multiple ironies, which do not prevent it from also
being taken seriously. Taken straight, this title points to models ofsubjectivity
sufficiently different from the liberal subject that if one assigns the
term "human" to this subject, it makes sense to call the successor "posthuman."
Some of the historical processes leading to this transformation are
documented here, and in this sense the book makes good on its title. Yet my
argumentwill repeatedlydemonstrate that these changes were never complete
transformations or sharp breaks; without exception, they reinscribed
traditional ideas and assumptions even as they articulated something new.
The changes announced by the title thus mean something more complex
than "Thatwas then, this is now." Rather, "human" and "posthuman" coexist
in shifting configurations that vary with historically specific contexts.
Given these complexities, the past tense in the title-"became"-is intended
both to offer the reader the pleasurable shock ofa double take and
to reference ironicallyapocalyptic visions such as Moravec's prediction ofa
"postbiological" future for the human race.
Amplifying the ambiguities ofthe past tense are the ambiguities of the
plural. In one sense, "we" refers to the readers ofthis book-readers who,
by becoming aware ofthese new models ofsubjectivity (if they are not already
familiar with them), may begin thinking oftheir actions in ways that
have more in common with the posthuman than the human. Speaking for
myself, I now find myselfsaying things like, "Well, my sleep agent wants to
rest, but my food agent says I should go to the store." Each person who
thinks this way begins to envision herselfor himselfas a posthuman collectivity,
an "I" transformed into the "we" ofautonomous agents operating together
to make a self. The infectious power of this way of thinking gives
"we" a performative dimension. People become posthuman because they
think they are posthuman. In another sense "we," like "became," is meant
ironically, positioning itselfin opposition to the techno-ecstasies found in
various magazines, such as Mondo 2000, which customarily speak of the
transformation into the posthuman as ifit were a universal human condition
when in fact it affects only a small fraction ofthe world's populationa
pOint to which I will return.
Thelarger trajectoryofmynarrative arcs from the initial moments when
cybernetics was formulated as a discipline, through a period ofreformulation
known as "second-order cybernetics," to contemporary debates
swirling around an emerging discipline known as "artificial life." Although
the progressionis chronolOgical, this bookis not meant to be ahistoryofcybernetics.
Many figures not discussed here played important roles in that
Toward Embodied Virtuality / 7
history, and I have not attempted to detail their contributions. Rather, my
selection oftheories and researchers has been dictated by a desire to show
the complex interplays between embodiedforms ofsubjectivity and arguments
for disembodiment throughout the cybernetic tradition. In broad
outline, these interplays occurred in three distinct waves ofdevelopment.
The first, from 1945 to 1960, tookhomeostasis as acentral concept; the second,
going roughly from 1960 to 1980, revolved around reflexivity; and the
third, stretchingfrom 1980to the present, highlights virtuality. Let me turn
now to a briefsketch ofthese three periods.
During the foundational era of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, John
von Neumann, Claude Shannon, Warren McCulloch, and dozens ofother
distinguished researchers met at annual conferences sponsored by the
JOSiah MacyFoundationto formulate the centralconcepts that, in theirhigh
expectations, would coalesce into a theory of communication and control
applying equally to animals, humans, and machines. Retrospectively called
the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics, these meetings, held from 1943 to
1954, were instrumental in forging a new paradigm.12 To succeed, they
needed a theory of information (Shannon's bailiwick), a model of neural
functioning that showed how neurons worked as information-processing
systems (McCulloch's lifework), computers that processed binarycode and
that could conceivably reproduce themselves, thus reinforcing the analogy
with biolOgical systems (von Neumann's specialty), and a visionary who
could articulate the larger implications of the cybernetic paradigm and
make clearits cosmic significance (Wiener's contribution). The result ofthis
breathtakingenterprisewas nothingless than anewwayoflookingathuman
beings. Henceforth, humans were to be seen primarily as information-processing
entities who are essentially similarto intelligent machines.
The revolutionary implications of this paradigm notwithstanding,
Wiener did not intend to dismantle the liberal humanist subject. He was
less interested in seeing humans as machines than he was in fashioning human
and machine alike in the image ofan autonomous, self-directed individual.
In aligning cybernetiCS with liberal humanism, he was following a
strain ofthoughtthat, since the Enlightenment, had argued thathuman beings
could be trusted with freedom because they and the social structures
they devised operated as self-regulating mechanisms.13 For Wiener, cyberneticswas
a means to extendliberalhumanism, not subvertit. The point
was less to show that man was a machine than to demonstrate that a machine
could function like a man.
Yet the cybernetic perspective had a certain inexorable lOgiC that, especially
when fed by wartime hysteria, also worked to undermine the very lib-
8 / Chapter One
eral subjectivity that Wiener wanted to preserve. These tensions were kept
under control during the Macy period partly through a strong emphasis on
homeostasis. 14 Traditionally, homeostasis had been understood as the ability
oflivingorganisms to maintain steadystates when they are buffeted byfickle
environments. When the temperature soars, sweat pours out ofthe human
bodyso that its internal temperature can remain relativelystable. Duringthe
Macy period, the idea of homeostasis was extended to machines. Like animals,
machines can maintain homeostasis using feedback loops. Feedback
loops had longbeen exploited to increase the stabilityofmechanical systems,
reaching a high level ofdevelopment during the mid-to-Iate nineteenth century
with the growing sophistication ofsteam engines and their accompanying
control devices, such as governors. It was not until the 1930s and 1940s,
however, that the feedback loop was explicitlytheorized as a flow ofinformation.
Cybernetics was born when nineteenth-century control theory joined
with the nascent theory ofinformation.IS Coined from the Creek word for
"steersman," cybernetics signaled that three powerful actors-information,
control, and communication-were now operatingjointly to bring about an
unprecedented synthesis ofthe organic and the mechanical.
Although the informational feedback loop was initially linked with
homeostasis, it quickly led to the more threatening and subversive idea of
reflexivity. Afewyears ago I co-taught, with aphilosopherand a phYSiCist, a
course on reflexivity. As we discussed reflexivity in the writings ofAristotle,
Fichte, Kierkegaard, Codel, Turing, Borges, and Calvino, aided by the insightful
analyses ofRoger Penrose and Douglas Hofstader, I was struck not
only by the concept's extraordinarily rich history but also byits tendency to
mutate, so that virtually any formulation is sure to leave out some relevant
instances. Instructed by the experience, I offer the follOwing tentative definition,
which I hope will prove adequate for our purposes here. Reflexivity
is the rrwvement whereby that which has been used to generate a system is
made, through a changed perspective, to become part ofthe system it generates.
When Kurt Codel invented a method ofcoding that allowed statements
of number theory also to function as statements about number
theory, he entangled that which generates the system with the system.
When M. C. Escherdrewtwo hands drawing each other, he took thatwhich
is presumed to generate the picture-the sketching hand-and made it
part ofthe picture it draws. When Jorge Luis Borges in "The Circular Ruins"
imagines a narratorwho creates a student through his dreaming onlyto
discover that he himselfis being dreamed by another, the system generating
a reality is shown to be part ofthe reality it makes. As these examples illustrate,
reflexivityhas subversive effects because itconfuses and entangles
Toward Embodied Virtuality / 9
the boundaries we impose on the world in order to make sense of that
world. Reflexivity tends notoriously toward infinite regress. The dreamer
creates the student, but the dreamer in tum is dreamed by another, who in
his tum is dreamed by someone else, and so on to infinity.
This definition ofreflexivityhas much in commonwith some ofthe most
influential and provocative recent work in critical theory, cultural studies,
and the social studies ofscience. Typically, these works make the reflexive
move ofshowing that an attribute previously considered to have emerged
from a set of preexisting conditions is in fact used to generate the conditions.
In Nancy Armstrong's Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History
of the Novel, for example, bourgeOiS femininity is shown to be
constructed through the domestic fictions that represent it as already in
place.16 In Michael Warner's The Letters ofthe RepubliC: Publication and
the Public Spherein Eighteenth-Century America, the founding document
ofthe United States, the Constitution, is shown to produce the very people
whose existence it presupposes.17 In Bruno Latour's Science in Action:
How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society, scientific experiments
are shown to produce the nature whose existence they predicate as
their condition of possibility.18 It is only a slight exaggeration to say that
contemporary critical theory is produced by the reflexivity that it also produces
(an observation that is, ofcourse, also reflexive).
Reflexivity entered cybernetics primarily through discussions about the
observer. Byand large, first-wave cybernetics followed traditional scientific
protocols in considering observers to be outside the system they
observe. Yet cybernetics also had implications that subverted this premise.
The objectivist view sees information flOwing from the system to the observers,
but feedback can also loop through the observers, drawing them in
to become part of the system being observed. Although participants remarked
on this aspect of the cybernetic paradigm throughout the Macy
transcripts, they lacked a single word to describe it. To my knowledge, the
word"reflexivity" does not appear in the transcripts. This meant theyhad no
handlewithwhich to grasp thisslipperyconcept, noSignifierthatwouldhelp
to constitute as well as to describe the changed perspective that reflexivity
entails. Discussions ofthe idea remained diffuse. Most participants did not
go beyond remarkingon the shiftingboundaries between observer and system
that cybernetics puts into play. With some exceptions, deeper formulations
ofthe problem failed to coalesce during the Macydiscussions.
The most notable exception turned out to hurt more than it helped.
Lawrence Kubie, a hard-line Freudian psychoanalyst, introduced a reflexive
perspectivewhen he argued that every utterance is doubly encoded,
10 / Chapter One
actingboth as a statement about the outside world and as a mirror reflecting
the speaker's psyche. Ifreflexivity was already a subversive concept, this interpretation
made it doubly so, for it threatened to dissolve the premise of
scientific objectivity shared by the physical scientists in the Macy group.
Their reactions to Kubie's presentations show them shying away from reflexivity,
preferring to shift the conversationonto more comfortable ground.
Nevertheless, the idea hung in the air, and a few key thinkers-especially
Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Heinz von Foerster-resolved to
pursue it after the Macy Conferences ran out ofsteam.
The second wave ofcybernetics grew out ofattempts to incorporate reflexivity
into the cybernetic paradigm at a fundamental level. The key issue
was how systems are constituted as such, and the key problem was how to
redefine homeostatic systems so that the observer can be taken into
account. The second wave was initiated by, among others, Heinz von
Foerster, the Austrian emigre who became coeditor of the Macy transcripts.
This phase can be dated from 1960, when von Foerster wrote the
first ofthe essays that were later collected in his influential book Observing
Systems. 19 As von Foerster's punning title recognizes, the observer ofsystems
can himselfbe constituted as a system to be observed. Von Foerster
called the models he presented in these essays "second-order cybernetics"
because they extended cybernetic principles to the cyberneticians themselves.
The second wave reached its mature phase with the publication of
Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela's Autopoiesis and Cognition:
The Realization ofthe Living.20 Building on Maturana's work on reflexivity
in sensory processing and Varela's on the dynamics ofautonomous biological
systems, the two authors expanded the reflexive tum into a fully articulated
epistemology that sees the world as a set of informationally closed
systems. Organisms respond to their environment in ways determined by
their internal self-organization. Their one and only goal is continually to
produce and reproduce the organization that defines them as systems.
Hence, they not only are self-organizing but also are autopoietic, or selfmaking.
Through Maturana and Varela's work and that ofother influential
theorists such as German SOCiologist Niklas Luhmann,21 cybernetics by
1980 had spun offfrom the idea of reflexive feedback loops a theory ofautopoiesis
with sweeping epistemological implications.
In a sense, autopoiesis turns the cybernetic paradigm inside out. Its central
premise-that systems are informationally closed-radically alters
the idea of the informational feedback loop, for the loop no longer functions
to connect a system to its environment. In the autopoietic view, no
information crosses the boundary separating the system from its environ-
Toward Embodied Virtuality / /I
ment. We do not see a world "out there" that exists apart from us. Rather,
we see only what our systemic organization allows us to see. The environment
merely triggers changes determined by the system's own structural
properties. Thus the center of interest for autopoiesis shifts from the cybernetics
of the observed system to the cybernetics of the observer. Autopoiesis
also changes the explanation of what circulates through the
system to make it work as a system. The emphasis now is on the mutually
constitutive interactions between the components ofa system rather than
on message, signal, or information. Indeed, one could say either that information
does not exist in this paradigm or that it has sunk so deeply into the
system as to become indistinguishable from the organizational properties
defining the system as such.
The third wave swelled into existence when self-organization began to
be understood not merely as the (re)production of internal organization
but as the springboard to emergence. In the rapidly emerging field ofartificiallife,
computerprograms are designed to allow"creatures" (thatis, discrete
packets ofcomputer codes) to evolve spontaneouslyin directions the
programmer may not have anticipated. The intent is to evolve the capacity
to evolve. Some researchers have argued that such self-evolving programs
are not merely models oflife but are themselves alive. What assumptions
make this claim plausible? Ifone sees the universe as composed essentially
ofinformation, it makes sense that these "creatures" are lifeforms because
theyhave the form oflife, that is, an informationalcode. As a result, the theoretical
bases used to categorize all life undergo a significant shift. As we
shall see inchapters 9 and 10,when these theories are applied to humanbeings,
Honw sapiens are so transfigured in conception andpurpose that they
can appropriatelybe called posthuman.
The emergence ofthe posthuman as an informational-material entity is
paralleled and reinforced by a corresponding reinterpretation of the deep
structures of the phYSical world. Some theorists, notably Edward Fredkin
and Stephen Wolfram, claim that reality is a program run on a cosmic computer.22
In this view, a universal informational code underlies the structure
ofmatter, energy, spacetime-indeed, ofeverything that exists. The code is
instantiated in cellular automata, elementary units that can occupy two
states: onoroff. Although thejuryis stillouton the cellular automatamodel,
it mayindeed prove to be a robustwayto understand reality. Even now, a research
team headed by Fredkin is working on shOwing how quantum mechanics
can be derived from an underlying cellular automata model.
What happens to the embodied lifeworld of humans in this paradigm?
In itself, the cellular automata model is not necessarily incompatible with
12 / Chapter One
recognizing that humans are embodied beings, for embodiment can flow
from cellular automata as easily as from atoms. No one suggests that because
atoms are mostly empty space, we can shuck the electron shells and
do away with occupying space altogether. Yet the cultural contexts and
technological histories in which cellular automata theories are embedded
encourage acomparable fantasy-that becausewe are essentiallyinformation,
we can do awaywith the body. Central to this argument is a conceptualization
that sees information and materiality as distinct entities. This
separation allows the construction of a hierarchy in which information is
given the dominant position and materiality runs a distant second. As
though we had learned nothing from Derrida about supplementarity, embodiment
continues to be discussed as ifitwere a supplementto be purged
from the dominant term of information, an accident of evolution we are
now in a position to correct.
It is this materiality/information separation that I want to contest-not
the cellular automata model, information theory, or a host of related theories
in themselves. Mystrategyis to complicate the leap from embodied realityto
abstract information bypointing to moments when the assumptions
involved in this move were contested by other researchers in the field and
so became especiallyvisible. The point ofhighlighting such moments is to
make clear how much had to be erased to arrive at such abstractions as bodiless
information. Abstraction is of course an essential component in all
theOrizing, for no theory can account for the infinite multiplicity ofour interactions
with the real. But when we make moves that erase the world's
multiplicity, we risklosingSightofthe variegatedleaves, fractal branchings,
and particular bark textures that make up the forest. In the pages that follow,
I will identifY two moves in particular that played important roles in
constructing the information/materialityhierarchy. Irreverently, I think of
them as the Platonic backhand and forehand.
The Platonic backhand works by inferring from the world's noisy multiplicity
a Simplified abstraction. So far so good: this is what theOrizing should
do. The problem comes when the move circles around to constitute the abstraction
as the originary form from which the world's multiplicity derives.
Thencomplexityappears as a"fuzzingup" ofan essentialrealityratherthan as
a manifestationofthe world's holistic nature. Whereas the platonic backhand
has a historydatingbackto the Greeks, the Platonic forehand is more recent.
To reach fullydevelopedform, it requiredthe assistance ofpowerfulcomputers.
This move starts from simplifiedabstractions and, using simulation techniques
such as genetic algorithms, evolves a multiplicity sufficientlycomplex
that itcan be seen as aworld ofits own. The two moves thus make theirplayin
Toward Embodied Virtuality / 13
opposite directions. The backhand goes from noisy multiplicity to reductive
simplicity, whereas the forehand swings from simplicity to mulilicity. They
share a common ideology-privileging the abstract as the Real and downplaying
the importance of material instantiation. When they work together,
theylaythe groundwork for a newvariationon an ancient game, in which disembodied
information becomes the ultimate Platonic Form. Ifwe can capture
the Form of ones and zeros in a nonbiological medium-say, on a
computerdisk-why dowe need the body's superfluous flesh?
Whether the enabling assumptions for this conception of information
occur in information theory, cybernetics, or popular science books such as
Mind Children, their appeal is clear. Informationviewed as pattern and not
tied to aparticularinstantiationis information free to travel across time and
space. Hackers are not the onlyones who believe that information wants to
be free. The great dream and promise ofinformation is that it can be free
from the material constraints that govern the mortalworld. Marvin Minsky
precisely expressed this dream when, in a recent lecture, he suggested it
will soon be possible to extract human memories from the brain and import
them, intact and unchanged, to computer disks.23 The clear implication is
that ifwe can become the information we have constructed, we can achieve
effective immortality.
In the face ofsuch apowerful dream, it can be a shock to remember that
for information to exist, it must always be instantiated in a medium,
whether that medium is the page from the Bell Laboratories Journal on
which Shannon's equations are printed, the computer-generated topolOgical
maps used by the Human Genome Project, or the cathode ray tube on
which virtual worlds are imaged. The point is not only that abstracting information
from a material base is an imaginary act but also, and more fundamentally,
that conceiving of information as a thing separate from the
medium instantiating it is a prior imaginary act that constructs a holistic
phenomenon as an information/matter duality.24
The chapters that follow will show what had to be elided, suppressed,
and forgotten to make information lose its body. This bookis a "rememory"
in the sense of Toni Morrison's Beloved: putting back together parts that
have lost touch with one another and reaching out toward a complexitytoo
unruly to fit into disembodied ones and zeros.
Seriation, Skeuomorphs, and Conceptual Constellations
The foregOing leads to a strategic definition of"virtuality." Virtuality is the
cultural perception that material objects are interpenetrated by informa-
14 I Chapter One
tion patterns. The definition plays offthe duality at the heart ofthe condition
ofvirtuality-materiality on the one hand, information on the other.
Normally virtuality is associated with computer simulations that put the
bodyinto a feedback loop with acomputer-generated image. Forexample,
invirtual Ping-Pong, one swings apaddle wired into acomputer, which calculates
from the paddle's momentum and positionwhere the ballwould go.
Insteadofhittinga real ball, the player makes the appropriate motions with
the paddle and watches the image ofthe ball on a computer monitor. Thus
the game takes placepartlyin real life (RL) andpartlyinvirtual reality (VR).
Virtual reality technologies are fascinating because they make visually immediate
the perception that a world of information exists parallel to the
"real" world, the former intersecting the latter at many points and in many
ways. Hence the definition's strategic quality, strategic because it seeks to
connect virtual technologies with the sense, pervasive in the late twentieth
century, that all material objects are interpenetrated by flows of information,
from DNA code to the global reach ofthe World Wide Web.
Seeing the world as an interplay between informational patterns and
material objects is a histOrically specific construction that emerged in the
wake ofWorldWar II.25 By 1948, the distinction had coalesced suffiCiently
for Wiener to articulate it as a criterion that any adequate theory ofmateriality
would be forced to meet. "Information is information, not matter or
energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at thepresent
day."26 Wiener knew as well as anyone else that to succeed, this conception
of information required artifacts that could embody it and make it real.
When I sayvirtualityis a cultural perception, I do not mean that it is merely
a psychological phenomenon. Itis instantiatedin an arrayofpowerful technologies.
The perception ofvirtuality facilitates the development ofvirtual
technolOgies, and the technologies reinforce the perception.
The feedback loops that run between technologies and perceptions, artifacts
and ideas, have importantimplications for how historical change occurs.
The development ofcybernetics followed neithera Kuhnian model of
incommensurable paradigms nor a Foucauldian model ofsharp epistemic
breaks.27 In the history of cybernetics, ideas were rarely made up out of
whole cloth. Rather, theywere fabricated in a pattern ofoverlapping replication
and innovation, a pattern that I call "seriation" (a term appropriated
from archaeolOgical anthropology). A brief explanation may clarifY this
concept. Within archaeolOgical anthropology, changes in artifacts are customarily
mapped through seriation charts. One constructs a seriation chart
byparsing an artifact as a set ofattributes that change over time. Suppose a
researcher wants to construct a seriation chart for lamps. A key attribute is
Toward Embodied Virtuality I 15
the element that gives offlight. The first lamps, dating from thousands of
years ago, used wicks for this element. Later, with the discovery ofelectricity,
wicks gave way to filaments. The figures that customarily emerge from
this kind ofanalysis are shapedlike atiger's iris-narrowat the topwhen an
attribute first begins to be introduced, with abulge in the middle duringthe
heyday ofthe attribute, and tapered offat the bottom as the shift to a new
model is completed. On a seriation chart for lamps, a line drawn at 1890
would show the figure for wicks waxing large with the figure for filaments
intersectedat the narrowtip ofthe top end. Fiftyyears later, the wick figure
would be tapering off, and the filament figure would be widening into its
middle section. Consideredas a set, the figures depictingchanges in the attributes
ofan artifact reveal patterns ofoverlappinginnovation and replication.
Some attributes change from one model to the next, butothers remain
the same.
As figure 1 illustrates, the conceptual shifts that took place during the
developmentofcybernetics displaya seriatedpattern reminiscentofmaterial
changes in artifacts. Conceptual fields evolve similarly to material culture,
in part because concept and artifact engage each other in continuous
feedback loops. An artifact materially expresses the concept it embodies,
but the process of its construction is far from passive. A glitch has to be
fixed, amaterial exhibits unexpectedproperties, an emergentbehaviorsurfaces-any
ofthese challenges can give rise to anewconcept,which results
in another generation of artifact, which leads to the development of still
other concepts. The reasoning suggests that we should be able to trace the
development of a conceptual field by using a seriation chart analogous to
the seriation charts used for artifacts.
In the course ofthe MacyConferences, certain ideas came to be associated
with each other. Through a cumulative process that continued across
several years of discussions, these ideas were seen as mutually entailing
each other until, like love and marriage, they were viewed by the participants
as naturallygoingtogether. Such aconstellationis the conceptualentity
corresponding to an artifact, possessing an internal coherence that
defines it as an operational unit. Its formation marks the beginningofa period;
its disassembly and reconstruction Signal the transition to a different
period. Indeed, periods are recognizable as such largely because constellations
possess this coherence. Rarely is a constellation discarded wholesale.
Rather, some of the ideas composing it are discarded, others are
modified, and new ones are introduced. Like the attributes composing an
artifact, the ideas in a constellation change in a patchwork pattern ofold
and new.
Period
1945
Homeostasis
1960
Self-
Organization
1985
Virtuality
Player
Shannon
MacKay
McCnlloch
Pitts
Kubie
vonFoerster
vonFoerster
Maturana
Varela
Varela
Brooks
Moravec
Homeostasis
feedbackloop
informationas
signal/noise
circularcausality
instrumental
language
Constellations
ReflexivityVirtuality
FIGURE1Thethreewavesofcybernetics
Artifacts
electronicrat
homeostat
electrictortoise
frog'svisual
cortex
simulation
mobilerobot
Skeuomorphs
mall-ill-the-middle
homeostasis
self~orgallizatioll
Toward Embodied Virtuality / 17
Here I want to introduce another term from archaeological anthropology.
A skeuonwryh is a design feature that is no longer functional in itself
but that refers back to a feature that was functional at an earlier time. The
dashboard ofmy Toyota Camry, for example, is covered by vinyl molded to
simulate stitching. The simulated stitching alludes back to a fabric that was
in fact stitched, although the vinyl "stitching" is formed by an injection
mold. Skeuomorphs visibly testify to the social or psychological necessity
for innovation to be tempered by replication. Like anachronisms, their pejorative
first cousins, skeuomorphs are not unusual. On the contrary, they
are so deeply characteristic ofthe evolution ofconcepts and artifacts that it
takes a great deal of conscious effort to avoid them. At SIGGRAPH, the
annual computer trade showwhere dealers come to hawk theirwares, hard
and soft, there are almost as many skeuomorphs as morphs.
The complex psychological functions a skeuomorph performs can be
illustrated by an installation exhibited at SIGGRAPH '93. Called the
"Catholic Turing Test," the simulation invited the viewer to make a confession
by chOOSing selections from the video screen; it even had a bench on
which the viewer could kneel.28 On one level, the installation alluded to the
triumph ofscience over religion, for the role ofdivinely authorized interrogation
and absolution had been taken over by a machine algorithm. On another
level, the installation pointed to the intransigence of conditioned
behavior, for the machine's form and function were determined by its religious
predecessor. Like a Janus figure, the skeuomorph looks to past and
future, Simultaneously reinforcing and undermining both. It calls into a
playa psychodynamic that finds the new more acceptable when it recalls
the old that it is in the process ofdisplacing and finds the traditional more
comfortable when itis presentedin a context that reminds us we can escape
from it into the new.
In the history ofcybernetics, skeuomorphs acted as threshold devices,
smoothing the transition between one conceptual constellation and another.
Homeostasis, a foundational concept during the first wave, functioned
during the second wave as a skeuomotph. Although homeostasis
remained an important concept in biology, by about 1960 it had ceased to
be an initiating premise in cybernetics. Instead, it performed the work ofa
gesture or an allusion used to authenticate new elements in the emerging
constellation of reflexivity. At the same time, it also exerted an inertial pull
on the new elements, limiting how radically they could transform the con-
stellation.
A similar phenomenon appears in the transition from the second to the
third wave. Reflexivity, the key concept ofthe second wave, is displaced in
18 I Chapter One
the third wave by emergence. Like homeostasis, reRexivity does not altogether
disappear but lingers on as an allusion that authenticates new elements.
It performs a more complex role than mere nostalgia, however, for
it also leaves its imprint on the new constellation ofvirtuality. The complex
storyformed by these seriated changes is told in chapters 3, 6, and 9, which
discuss cybernetics, autopoiesis, and artificial life, respectively.
I have alreadysuggested that livingin acondition ofvirtualityimplies we
participate in the cultural perception that information and materiality are
conceptuallydistinct and that information is in some sense more essential,
more important, and more fundamental than materiality. The preamble to
"A MagnaCartafor the Knowledge Age," a document coauthored byAlvin
TofHer at the behest of Newt Gingrich, concisely sums up the matter by
proclaiming, "The central event of the 20th century is the overthrow of
matter."29 To see how this view began to acquire momentum, let us brieRy
Rash back to 1948 when Claude Shannon, a brilliant theorist working at
Bell Laboratories, defined a mathematical quantity he called information
and proved several important theorems concerning it.3o
Information Theory and Everyday Life
Shannon's theory defines information as a probability function with no dimensions,
no materiality, and no necessaryconnectionwith meaning. Itis a
pattern, not a presence. (Chapter 3 talks about the development ofinformation
theory in more detail, and the relevant equations can be found
there.) The theory makes a strong distinction between message and signal.
Lacan to the contrary, a message does not always arrive at its destination. In
information theoretic terms, no message is ever sent. What is sent is a signal.
Onlywhen the message is encodedin a Signal for transmission through
a medium-for example, when ink is printed on paper or when electrical
pulses are sent racing along telegraph wires-does it assume material
form. The very definition of "information," then, encodes the distinction
between materiality and information that was also becoming important in
molecular biologyduring this period.31
Whydid Shannon define information as apattern?The transcripts ofthe
Macy Conferences indicate that the choice was driven by the twin engines
ofreliable quantification and theoreticalgenerality. As we shall see inchapter
3, Shannon's formulation was not the onlyproposalon the table. Donald
MacKay, a British researcher, argued for an alternative definition that
linked information with change in a receiver's mindset and thus with
meaning.32 To be workable, MacKay's definition required that psychologi-
Toward Embodied Virtuality / 19
cal states be quantifiable and measurable-an accomplishment that only
now appears distantlypossiblewith suchimagingtechnologies as positronemission
tomography and that certainlywas not in reach in the immediate
post-World War II years. It is no mysterywhy Shannon's definition rather
than MacKay's became the industry standard.
Shannon's approach had other advantages that turned out to incur large
(and mounting) costs when his premise interactedwith certain predispositions
already at work within the culture. Abstracting information from a
material base meant that information could become free-floating, unaffected
by changes in context. The technical leverage this move gained was
considerable, for byformalizing information into a mathematical function,
Shannon was able to develop theorems, powerful in their generality, that
hold true regardless of the medium in which the information is instantiated.
Not everyone agreed this move was a good idea, however, despite its
theoretical power. As Carolyn Marvin notes, a decontextualized construction
of information has important ideological implications, including
an Anglo-American ethnocentrism that regards digital information as
more important than more context-bound analog information.33 Even in
Shannon's day, malcontents grumbled that divorcing information from
context and thus from meaning had made the theory so narrowly formalized
that it was not useful as a general theory ofcommunication. Shannon
himself frequently cautioned that the theory was meant to apply only to
certain technical situations, not to communication in generaP4 In other
circumstances, the theory might have become a dead end, a victim of its
own excessive formalization and decontextualization. But not in the
post-WorldWar II era. The time was ripe for theories that reified information
into a free-floating, decontextualized, quantifiable entity that could
serve as the masterkey unlocking secrets oflife and death.
Technical artifacts help to make an information theoretic view a part of
everyday life. From ATMs to the Internet, from the morphing programs
used in Terminator II to the sophisticated visualization programs used to
guide microsurgeries, information is increasingly perceived as interpenetrating
material forms. EspeCially for users who may not knowthe material
processes involved, the impression is created that pattern is predominant
over presence. From here it is a small step to perceiving information as
more mobile, more important, more essential than material forms. When
this impression becomes part ofyour cultural mindset, you have entered
the condition ofvirtuality.
U.S. culture at present is in a highly heterogeneous state regarding the
condition of virtuality. Some high-tech preserves (elite research centers
20 / Chapter One
such as Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and Bell Laboratories, most major
research universities, and hundreds ofcorporations) have so thoroughly
incorporated virtual technologies into their infrastructures that information
is as much as part ofthe researchers' mindscapes as is electric lighting
or synthetic plastics.35 The thirty million Americans who are plugged into
the Internet increasingly engage in virtual experiences enacting a division
between the material body that exits on one side ofthe screen and the computer
simulacra that seem to create a space inside the screen.36 Yet for millions
more, virtuality is not even a cloud on the horizon of their everyday
worlds. Within a global context, the experience ofvirtuality becomes more
exotic by several orders ofmagnitude. It is a useful corrective to remember
that 70 percent ofthe world's population has never made a telephone call.
Nevertheless, I think it is a mistake to underestimate the importance of
virtuality, for itwields an influence altogether disproportionate to the number
ofpeople immersed in it. It is no accident that the condition ofvirtuality
is most pervasive and advanced where the centers of power are most
concentrated. Theorists at the Pentagon, for example, see it as the theater
inwhich future wars will be fought. Theyargue that comingconflicts willbe
decided not so much by overwhelming force as by "neocortical warfare,"
waged through the techno-sciences ofinformation.37 Ifwe want to contest
what these technologies SignifY, we need histories that show the erasures
that went into creating the condition ofvirtuality, as well as visions arguing
for the importance ofembodiment. Once we understand the complex interplays
thatwent into creatingthe condition ofvirtuality, we candemystifY
our progress toward virtuality and see it as the result ofhistorically specific
negotiations rather than ofthe irresistible force oftechnological determinism.
At the same time, we can acquire resources with which to rethink the
assumptions underlying virtuality, and we can recover a sense ofthe virtual
that fully recognizes the importance ofthe embodied processes constituting
the lifeworld ofhuman beings.38 In the phrase "virtualbodies," I intend
to allude to the historical separation between information and materiality
and also to recall the embodied processes that resist this division.
Virtuality and Contemporary Literature
I have alreadysuggested that one way to think about the organization ofthis
book is chronologically, since it follows the three waves ofseriated changes
in cybernetics. In this organization of the textual body, each of the three
chronologicallyarranged divisions has an anchOring chapter discussing the
scientific theories: on the Macy Conferences (chapter 3); on autopoiesis
Toward Embodied Virtuality / 21
(chapter 6); and on artificial life (chapter9), respectively. Each section also
has a chapter showing specific applications of the theories: the work of
Norbert Wiener (chapter4); tape-recording technologies (chapter 8); and
human-computer interactions (chapter 10). Also included in each of the
three divisions are chapters on literary texts contemporaneous with the
development ofthe scientific theories and cybernetic technolOgies (chapters
5,7, and 10). I have selected literary texts that were clearly influenced
by the development ofcybernetics. Nevertheless, I want to resist the idea
that influence flows from science into literature. The cross-currents are
conSiderably more complex than a one-way model of influence would allow.
In the Neuromancer trilogy, for example, William Gibson's vision of
cyberspace had a considerable effect on the development ofthree-dimensionalvirtual
realityimaging software.39
A second way to think about the organization of How We Became
Posthuman is narratively. In this arrangement, the three divisions proceed
not so much through chronolOgical progression as through the narrative
strands about the (lost) body of information, the cyborg body, and the
posthuman body. Here the literarytexts playacentral role, for they display
the passagewaysthatenabled stories comingoutofnarrowlyfocused scientific
theories to circulate more widelythrough the bodypolitic. Manyofthe
scientists understood very well that their negotiations involved premises
broaderthan the formal scope oftheir theories strictlyallowed. Because of
the wedge that has been driven between science and values in U.S. culture,
their statements onthesewiderimplications necessarilyoccupiedthe position
ofad hoc pronouncements rather than "scientific" arguments. Shaped
bydifferent conventions, the literarytexts range across aspectrum ofissues
thatthe scientifictexts onlyfitfullyilluminate, includingthe ethicaland cultural
implications ofcybernetiC technologies:4o
Literary texts are not, ofcourse, merely passive conduits. They actively
shape what the technolOgies mean and what the scientific theories signify
in cultural contexts. They also embody assumptions similar to those that
permeated the scientific theories at critical points. These assumptions included
the idea that stability is a desirable social goal, that human beings
and human social organizations are self-organizing structures, and that
form is more essential than matter. The scientific theories used these assumptions
as enabling presuppositions that helped to gUide inquiry and
shape research agendas. As the chapters on the scientific developments
will show, culture circulates through science no less than science circulates
through culture. The heart that keeps this circulatory system flOwing is
narrative-narratives about culture, narratives within culture, narratives
22 / Chapter One
about science, narratives within science. In myaccount ofthe scientific developments,
I have sought to emphasize the role that narrative plays in
articulating the posthuman as a technical-cultural concept. For example,
chapter4, onWiener's scientificwork, is interlacedwith analyses ofthe narratives
he tells to resolve conflicts between cybernetics and liberal humanism,
and chapter 9, on artificial life, is organized by looking at this area of
research as anarrative field.
What does this emphasis on narrative have to do with virtual bodies?
FollOwingJean-Franc:;ois Lyotard, many theorists ofpostmodernity accept
that the postmodern condition implies an incredulity toward metanarrative.41
As we have seen, one way to construct virtuality is the way that
Moravec and Minsky do-as a metanarrative about the transformation of
the human into a disembodied posthuman. I think we should be skeptical
about this metanarrative. To contestit, I want to use the resources ofnarrative
itself, particularlyits resistance to various forms ofabstraction and disembodiment.
With its chronolOgical thrust, polymorphous digreSSions,
located actions, and personified agents, narrative is a more embodied form
ofdiscourse than is analyticallydriven systems theory. Byturning the technolOgical
determinism of bodiless information, the cyborg, and the posthuman
into narratives about the negotiations that took place between
particular people at particular times and places, I hope to replace a teleology
of disembodiment with historically contingent stories about contests
between competingfactions, contestswhose outcomeswere far from obvious.
Manyfactors affected the outcomes, from the needs ofemergingtechnologies
for reliable quantification to the personalities of the people
involved. Though overdetermined, the disembodimentofinformationwas
not inevitable, any more than it is inevitablewe continue to accept the idea
thatwe are essentially informational patterns.
In this regard, the literarytexts do more than explore the cultural implications
ofscientific theories and technolOgical artifacts. Embedding ideas
and artifacts in the situated specificities of narrative, the literary texts give
these ideas and artifacts a local habitation and a name through discursive
formulations whose effects are specific to that textual body. In explOring
these effects, I want to demonstrate, on multiple levels and in many ways,
that abstract pattern can neverfully capture the embodied actuality, unless
it is as prolix and noisy as the body itself. Shifting the emphaSiS from technolOgical
determinism to competing, contingent, embodied narratives
about the scientific developments is one way to liberate the resources of
narrative so that theyworkagainst the grain ofabstraction running through
the teleologyofdisembodiment. Anotherwayis to readliterarytexts along-
Toward Embodied Virtuality I 23
side scientific theories. In articulating the connections that run through
these two discursive realms, I want to entangle abstract form and material
particularity such that the reader will find it increaSingly difficult to maintain
the perception that they are separate and discrete entities. If, for cultural
and historical reasons, I cannot start from a holistic perspective, I
hope to mix things up enough so that the emphasis falls not on the separation
of matter and information but on their inextricably complex compoundings
and entwinings. For this project, the literary texts with their
fashionings ofembodied particularities are crucial.
The first literarytext I discuss indetail is BernardWolfe's Limbo.42 Written
in the 1950s, Limbo has become something ofan underground classic.
It imagines a postwar society in which an ideology, Immob, has developed;
the ideology equates aggression with the ability to move. "Pacifism equals
passivity," Immob slogans declare. True believersvolunteer to banishtheir
mobility (and presumably their aggreSSion) by having amputations, which
have come to be regarded as signifiers ofsocial powerand influence. These
amputees get bored with lying around, however, so a vigorous cyberneticS
industryhas grown up to replace their missinglimbs. As this briefsummary
suggests, Limbo is deeply influenced by cybernetiCS. But the technical
achievements ofcybernetics are not at the center ofthe text. Rather, they
serve as a springboard to explore a variety ofsocial, political, and psychological
issues, ranging from the perceived threat that women's active sexuality
poses for Immob men to global East-West tensions that explode into
another world war at the end ofthe text. Although it is unusually didactic,
Limbo does more than discuss cyberneticS; itengages afull range ofrhetorical
and narrative devices that work both with and against its explicit pronouncements.
The narratorseems onlypartiallyable to control his verbally
extravagant narrative. There are, I will argue, deep connections between
the narrator's struggle to maintain control of the narrative and the threat
to "natural" body boundaries posed bythe cybernetiCparadigm. Limbo interrogates
a dynamiC that also appears in Norbert Wiener's work-the intense
anxiety that erupts when the perceived boundaries of the body are
breached. In addition, itillustrates howthe bodyofthe text gets implicated
in the processes used to represent bodies within the text.
Several Philip K. Dick novels written from 1962 to 1966 (including
We Can Build You, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Dr. Bloodrooney,
and Ubik) provide another set oftexts through which the multiple
implications ofthe posthuman can be explored.43 Chronologicallyandthematically,
Dick's novels of simulation cross the scientific theory of autopoiesis.
Like Maturana, Varela, and other scientific researchers in the
24 I Chapter One
secondwave ofcybernetics, Dickis intenselyconcernedwith epistemological
questions and their relation to the cybernetic paradigm. The problem
ofwhere to locate the observer-inorout ofthe system beingobserved?is
conflated in his fiction with how to determine whether a creature is android
or human. For Dick, the android is deeply bound up with the gender
politics ofhis male protagonists' relations with female characters, who ambiguously
figure either as sympathetic, life-giving "dark-haired girls" or
emotionally cold, life-threatening schizoid women. Already fascinated
with epistemological questions that reveal how shakyour constructions of
reality can be, Dickis drawn to cybernetic themes because he understands
that cybernetics radically destabilizes the ontolOgical foundations ofwhat
counts as human. The genderpolitics he writes into his novels illustrate the
potent connections between cybernetics and contemporary understandings
ofrace, gender, and sexuality.
The chapter on contemporary speculative fictions constructs a semiotics
ofvirtualitybyshOwing how the central concepts ofinformation and materiality
can be mapped onto a multilayered semiotic square. The tutor texts for
this analYSis, which include Snow Crash, Blood Music, Galatea2.2, and Terminal
Games, indicate the range ofwhat counts as the posthuman in the age
ofvirtuality, from neural nets to hackers, biolOgically modified humans, and
entities who live only in computer simulations.44 In follOwing the construction
of the posthuman in these texts, I will argue that older ideas are reinscribedas
well as contested. As was the case for the scientificmodels, change
occurs in a seriatedpattern ofoverlappinginnovation and replication.
I hope that this book will demonstrate, once again, how crucial it is to
recognize interrelations between different kinds of cultural productions,
specifically literature and science. The stories I tell here-how information
lostits body, howthe cyborgwas created as a cultural icon and technolOgical
artifact, and how humans became posthumans-and the waves of
historical change I chart would not have the same resonance or breadth if
theyhadbeen pursued onlythrough literarytexts oronlythrough scientific
discourses. The scientific texts often reveal, as literature cannot, the foundational
assumptions that gave theoretical scope and artifactual efficacy to
a particularapproach. The literarytexts often reveal, as scientificwork cannot,
the complex cultural, social, and representational issues tied up with
conceptualshifts and technological innovations. From mypointofview, literature
and science as an area ofspecialization is more than a subset ofcultural
studies or a minor activity in a literature department. It is a way of
understanding ourselves as embodied creatures living within and through
embodied worlds and embodiedwords.
......C.h..Q.pre.L..Tw.o
VIRTUAL BODIES
AND FLICKERING SIGNIFIERS
We might regard patterning orpredictability as the very essence and raison d'etre of
communication . .. communication is the creation ofredundancy orpatteming.
Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology ofMind
The development ofinformation theoryin the wake ofWorld War II left as
its legacy a conundrum: even though information provides the basis for
much of contemporary U.S. society, it has been constructed never to be
present in itself. In information theoretic terms, as we saw in chapter 1,
information is conceptually distinct from the markers that embody it, for
example newsprint or electromagnetic waves. It is a pattern rather than a
presence, defined by the probability distribution of the coding elements
composing the message. If information is pattern, then noninformation
should be the absence ofpattern, that is, randomness. This commonsense
expectation ran into unexpected complications when certain developments
within information theory implied that information could be
equatedwith randomness as well as with pattern.1 Identifyinginformation
with both pattern and randomness proved to be a powerful paradox, leading
to the realization that in some instances, an infusion ofnoise into a system
can cause it to reorganize at a higher level ofcomplexity.2 Within such
a system, pattern and randomness are bound together in a complex dialecticthat
makes them notso muchopposites as complements orsupplements
to one another. Each helps to define the other; each contributes to the flow
ofinformation through the system.
Were this dialectical relation only an aspect ofthe formal theory, its impact
might well be limited to the problems of maximizing channel utility
and minimizing noise that concern electrical engineers. Through the development
of information technologies, however, the interplay between
pattern and randomness became a feature of everyday life. As Friedrich
Kittler has demonstrated in Discourse Networks 180011900, media come
into existence when technologies of inscription intervene between the
hand grippingthe penorthe mouthframing the sounds andthe production
25
26 I Chapter Two
ofthe texts. In a literal sense, technologies ofinscription are media when
they are perceived as mediating, inserting themselves into the chain oftextualproduction.
Kittleridentifies the innovative characteristics ofthe typewriter,
originally designed for the blind, not with speed but rather with
"spatially designated and discrete signs," along with a corresponding shift
from theword as HOwingimage to the word "as ageometricalfigure created
bythe spatial arrangements ofthe letterkeys" (here Kittler quotes Richard
Herbertz).3 The emphasis on spatially fixed and geometrically arranged
lettersis significant, fOritpoints to the physicalityofthe processes involved.
Typewriterkeys are directly proportionate to the script they produce. One
keystroke yields one letter, and striking the key harder produces a darker
letter. The system lends itselfto a signification model that links Signifier to
Signified in direct correspondence, for there is a one-to-one relation between
the key and the letter it produces. Moreover, the Signifier itself is
spatiallydiscrete, durablyinscribed, and Hat.
How does this experience change with electronic media? The relation
between striking akey andproducingtextwith a computeris verydifferent
from the relation achieved with a typewriter. Display brightness is unrelated
to keystroke pressure, and striking a Single key can effect massive
changes in the entire text. The computer restores and heightens the sense
ofword as image-an image drawn in a medium as Huid and changeable as
water.4 Interactingwith electronic images rather than with a materially resistant
text, I absorb through my fingers as well as my mind a model ofsignification
in which no simple one-to-one correspondence exists between
signifier and Signified. I know kinesthetically as well as conceptually that
the text can be manipulated inways thatwould be impossible ifit existed as
a material object rather than a visual display. As I work with the text-asHickering-image,
I instantiate within my body the habitual patterns of
movement that make pattern and randomness more real, more relevant,
and more powerful than presence and absence.
The technolOgies ofvirtual reality, with their potential for full-body mediation,
further illustrate the kind ofphenomena that foreground pattern
and randomness and make presence and absence seem irrelevant. Already
an industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars, virtual reality puts the
user's sensory system into a direct feedback loop with a computer.5 In one
version, the userwears a stereovisionhelmet and abodyglove with sensors
at joint positions. The user's movements are reproduced by a simulacrum,
called an avatar, on the computer screen. When the user turns his or her
head, the computer display changes in a corresponding fashion. At the
same time, audiophones create a three-dimensional sound field. Kines-
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier I 27
thetic sensations, such as G-Ioads for flight simulators, can be supplied
through more extensive and elaborate body coverings. The result is a multisensoryinteraction
that creates the illusion that the useris inside the computer.
From my experience with the virtual reality simulations at the
Human InterfaceTechnology Laboratoryand elsewhere, I can attest to the
disorienting, exhilarating effect ofthe feeling that subjectivity is dispersed
throughout the cybernetic circuit. In these systems, the user learns, kinestheticallyandproprioceptively,
that the relevantboundaries for interaction
are defined less bythe skin than bythe feedback loops connectingbody and
simulation in a technobio-integrated circuit.
Questions about presence and absence do not yield much leverage in
this situation, for the avatar both is and is not present, just as the user both
is and is not inside the screen. Instead, the focus shifts to questions about
pattern and randomness. What transformations govern the connections
between user and avatar? What parameters control the construction ofthe
screen world? What patterns can the user discover through interaction
with the system? Where do these patterns fade into randomness? What
stimuli cannot be encodedwithin the system and therefore exist only as extraneous
noise? When and how does this noise coalesce into pattern?
Working from a different theoretical framework, Allucquere Roseanne
Stone has proposed that one need not enter virtual reality to encounter
these questions, although VR brings them vividly into the foreground.
Merely communicating by email or participating in a text-based MUD
(multi-user dungeon) already problematizes thinking ofthe body as a selfevident
physicality.6 In the face ofsuch technologies, Stone proposes that
we think of subjectivity as a multiple warranted by the body rather than
contained within it. Sherry Turkle, in her faSCinating work on people who
spend serious time in MUDs, convincingly shows that virtual technologies,
in a riptide ofreverse influence, affect how real life is seen. "Reality is not
my best window," one ofher respondents remarks.7
In societies enmeshed within information networks, as the U.S. and
other first world societies are, these examples can be multiplied a thousandfold.
Money is increasingly experienced as informational patterns
stored in computer banks rather than as the presence of cash; surrogacy
and in vitro fertilization court cases offerexamples ofinformational genetic
patterns competing with physical presence for the right to determine the
"legitimate" parent; automated factories are controlled by programs that
constitute the physical realities ofwork assignments and production schedules
as flows ofinformation through the system;8criminals are tied to crime
scenes through DNA patterns rather than through eyewitness accounts
28 / Chapter Two
verifYing their presence; access to computer networks rather than physical
possession of data determines nine-tenths of computer law;9 sexual relationships
are pursued through the virtual spaces of computer networks
rather than through meetings at which the participants are physically present.10
The effect ofthese transformations is to create a highly heterogeneous
and fissured space in which discursive formations based on pattern
and randomness jostle and compete with formations based on presence
and absence. Given the long tradition ofdominance that presence and absence
have enjoyed in the Western tradition, the surprise is not that formations
based on them continue to exist but that these formations are being
displaced so rapidly across awide range ofcultural sites.
These examples, taken from studies ofinformation technologies, illustrate
concerns that are also appropriate for literary texts. Ifthe effects that
the shift toward pattern/randomness has on literature are not widely recognized,
perhaps it is because they are at once pervasive and elusive. A
book produced by typesetting may look very similar to one generated by a
computerized program, but the technological processes involved in this
transformation are not neutral. Different technologies oftext production
suggestdifferent models ofsignification; changes in signification are linked
with shifts in consumption; shifting patterns of consumption initiate new
experiences of embodiment; and embodied experience interacts with
codes ofrepresentation to generate new kinds oftextual worlds.11 In fact,
each category-production, signification, consumption, bodily experience,
and representation-is in constant feedback and feedforward loops
with the others.
As the emphasis shifts to pattern and randomness, characteristics of
print texts that used to be transparent (because theywere so pervasive) are
becomingvisible again through theirdifferences from digitaltextuality. We
lose the opportunity to understand the implications of these shifts if we
mistake the dominance of pattern/randomness for the disappearance of
the material world. In fact, it is precisely because material interfaces have
changed that pattern and randomness can be perceived as dominant over
presence and absence. The pattern/randomness dialectic does not erase
the material world; information in fact derives its efficacy from the material
infrastructures it appears to obscure. This illusion oferasure should be
the subject ofinquiry, not a presupposition that inquirytakes for granted.
To explore the importance ofthe medium's materiality, let us consider
the book. Like the human body, the bookis a form ofinformationtransmission
and storage, and like the human body, the book incorporates its encodings
ina durable material substrate. Once encodinginthe materialbase
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier / 29
has taken place, it cannoteasilybe changed. Print and proteins in this sense
have more in common with each other than with magnetic encodings,
which can be erased and rewritten simply by changing the polarities. (In
chapter 8 we shall have an opportunity to see how a book's self-representations
change when the bookis linked with magnetic encodings.) The printing
metaphors pervasive in the discourse of genetics are constituted
through and by this similarityofcorporeal encoding in books and bodies.
The entanglement ofsignal and materiality in bodies and books confers
on them a parallel doubleness. As we have seen, the human body is understood
in molecular biology simultaneously as an expression of genetic information
and as a physical structure. Similarly, the literary corpus is at
once a physical object and a space ofrepresentation, a body and a message.
Because theyhave bodies, books andhumans have something to lose ifthey
are regarded solely as informational patterns, namely the resistant materiality
that has traditionally marked the durable inscription ofbooks no less
than it has marked our experiences ofliving as embodied creatures. From
this affinity emerge complex feedback loops between contemporaryliterature,
the technologies that produce it, and the embodied readers who produce
and are produced by books and technologies. Changes in bodies as
they are represented within literary texts have deep connections with
changes in textual bodies as they are encoded within information media,
and both types of changes stand in complex relation to changes in the
construction ofhuman bodies as they interface with information technologies.
The term I use to deSignate this network of relations is informatics.
Following Donna Haraway, I take informatics to mean the technologies of
information as well as the biological, social, linguistic, and cultural changes
that initiate, accompany, and complicate their development. 12
I am now in a position to state the thesis of this chapter explicitly. The
contemporary pressure toward dematerialization, understood as an epistemic
shift toward pattern/randomness and away from presence/absence,
affects human and textual bodies on two levels at once, as a change in the
body (the material substrate) and as a change in the message (the codes of
representation). The connectivity between these changes is, as they say in
the computer industry, maSSively parallel and highly interdigitated. My
narrative will therefore weave back and forth between the represented
worlds of contemporary fictions, models of signification implicit in word
processing, embodied experience as it is constructed by interactions with
information technologies, and the technologies themselves.
The compoundingofSignalwith materialitysuggests that newtechnologies
will instantiate new models ofsignification. Information technologies
30 I Chapter Two
do more than change modes oftext production, storage, and dissemination.
They fundamentally alter the relation ofSignified to Signifier. Carrying the
instabilities implicit in Lacanian floating signifiers one step further, information
technologies create what I will calljlickering signifiers, characterized
by their tendency toward unexpected metamorphoses, attenuations,
and dispersions. Flickering signifiers signal an important shift in the plate
tectonics oflanguage. Much ofcontemporary fiction is directly influenced
by information technolOgies; cyberpunk, for example, takes informatics as
its central theme. Even narratives without this focus can hardly avoid the
rippling effects ofinformatics, however, for the changing modes ofsignification
affect the codes as well as the subjects ofrepresentation.
Signifying the Processes of Production
"Language is not a code," Lacan asserted, because he wanted to deny oneto-one
correspondence between the Signifier and the signified.13 In word
processing, however, language is a code. The relation between machine
and compilerlanguages is specifiedby acoding arrangement, as is the relation
ofthe compilerlanguage to the programmingcommands that the user
manipulates. Through these multiple transformations, some quantity is
conserved, but it is not the mechanical energyimplicit in a system oflevers
or the molecular energy ofa thermodynamical system. Rather it is the informational
structure that emerges from the interplay between pattern
and randomness. When a text presents itselfas a constantly refreshed image
rather than as a durable inscription, transformations can occur that
would be unthinkable if matter or energy, rather than informational patterns,
formed the primarybasis for the systemic exchanges. This textualfluidity,
which users learn in their bodies as they interact with the system,
implies that signifiers flicker rather than float.
To explain what I mean by flickering signifiers, I will briefly review
Lacan's notion offloating signifiers. Lacan, operating within a view oflanguage
that was primarily print-based rather than electronically mediated,
not surprisingly focused on presence and absence as the dialectic ofinterest.14
When he formulated the concept of floating signifiers, he drew on
Saussure's idea that signifiers are defined by networks of relational differences
between themselves rather than by their relation to signifieds. He
complicatedthis pictureby maintainingthatsignifieds do notexistin themselves,
exceptinsofaras they are producedbysignifiers. He imagined them
as an ungraspable flow floating beneath a network ofsignifiers, a network
that itself is constituted through continual slippages and displacements.
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier / 3/
Thus, for him, a doubly reinforced absence is at the core ofsignificationthe
absence ofsignifieds as things-in-themselves as well as the absence of
stable correspondences between signifiers. The catastrophe in psycholinguistic
development corresponding to this absence in signification is castration,
the moment when the (male) subject symbolically confronts the
realization that subjectivity, like language, is founded on absence.
How does this scenario change when floating signifiers give way to flickering
signifiers? Foregrounding pattern and randomness, information
technologies operate within a realm in which the signifier is opened to a
rich internal play ofdifference. In informatics, the signifier can no longer
be understood as a single marker, for example an ink mark on apage. Rather
it exists as a flexible chain of markers bound together by the arbitrary relations
specified by the relevant codes. As I write these words on my computer,
I see the lights on the video screen, butfor the computer, the relevant
signifiers are electronic polarities on disks. Intervening between what I see
and what the computer reads are the machine code that correlates alphanumeric
symbols with binary digits, the compiler language that correlates
these symbols with higher-level instmctions determining how the
symbols are to be manipulated, the processing program that mediates between
these instmctions and the commands I give the computer, and so
forth. A signifier on one level becomes a signified on the next-higher level.
PreCisely because the relation between signifier and signified at each of
these levels is arbitrary, it can be changed with a single global command. If
I am prodUCingink marks bymanipulating movable type, changingthe font
requires changing each line oftype. By contrast, if I am prodUCing flickeringsignifiers
on avideo screen, changing the font is as easyas giving the system
a single command. The longer the chain ofcodes, the more radical the
transformations that can be effected. Acting as linguistic transducers, the
coding chains impart astonishing power to even very small changes. Such
amplification is possible because the constant reproduced through multiple
coding layers is a pattern rather than a presence.
Where does randomness enter this picture? Within information theory,
information is identified with choices that reduce uncertainty, for example
when I choose which book, out ofeight on a reading list, my seminar will
read for the first week of class. To get this information to the students, I
need some way to transmit it. Information theory treats the communication
situation as a system in which a sender encodes a message and sends it
as a signal through a channel. At the other end is a receiver, who decodes
the Signal and reconstitutes the message. Suppose I write my students an
email. The computer encodes the message in binary digits and sends a sig-
32 I Chapter Two
nalcorrespondingto these digits to the server, which then reconstitutes the
message in a form the students can read. At many points along this route,
noise can intervene. The message maybe garbled bythe computer system,
so thatitarrives lookinglike""#e%1\ &s"'"." OrI mayhave gotten distracted
thinking about DeLillo halfWay through the message, so that although I
meant to assign Calvino for the first week, the message comes out, "Ifon a
winter's night a white noise." These examples indicate that for real-life
communication situations, pattern exists in dynamic tension with the random
intrusions ofnoise.
Uncertainty enters in another sense as well. Although information is
often defined as reducing uncertainty, it also depends on uncertainty. Suppose,
for example, Gravity's Rainbow is the only text on the reading list.
The probability that I would choose it is 1. If I send an email telling my
students that the text for this week is Gravity's Rainbow, they willleam
nothing they did not already know, and no information is communicated.
The most surprising information I could send them would be a string of
random letters. (Remember that information in the technical sense has
nothing to do with meaning; the fact that such a message would be meaningless
is thus paradoxically irrelevant to calculating the amount ofinformation
it contains.) These intuitions are confirmed by the mathematical
theory of information.15 For an individual message, the information
increases as the probability that the event will occur diminishes; the more
unlikely the event, the more information it conveys. Appropriately, this
quantity is usually called the "surprisal." Let's say that nine ofmy reading
assignments were on Gravity's Rainbow, and one was on Vineland. The
studentswouldgain moreinformation from a message tellingthem that the
assignment was Vineland than from a message stating that the assignment
was Gravity's Rainbow-the more probable event and hence the more expected.
Most ofthe time, however, electrical engineers are not interested
in individual messages but in all the messages that can be produced from a
given source. Thus they do not so much want to know the surprisal as the
average amount of information coming from a source. This average
reaches a maximum when it is equally likely that any symbol can appear in
any position-which is to say, when there is no pattern or when the message
is at the extreme ofrandomness. Thus Warren Weaver, in his interpretation
of Shannon's theory of information, suggested that information
should be understood as depending on both predictability and unpredictability,
pattern and randomness.16
What happens in the case ofmutation? Consider the example ofthe genetic
code. Mutation normallyoccurswhen some random event (forexample,
a burst of radiation or a coding error) disrupts an existing pattern and
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier / 33
something else is put in its place instead. Although mutation disrupts pattern,
it also presupposes a morphological standard against which it can be
measured and understood as a mutation. Ifthere were only randomness, as
with the random movements ofgas molecules, it would make no sense to
speak of mutation. We have seen that in electronic textuality, the possibilities
for mutation within the text are enhanced and heightened by long
coding chains. We can now understand mutation in more fundamental
terms. Mutation is crucial because it names the bifurcation point at which
the interplaybetween pattern and randomness causes the system to evolve
in anewdirection. It reveals the productivepotential ofrandomness that is
also recognizedwithininformationtheorywhen uncertaintyis seen as both
antagonistic and intrinsic to information.
We are now in a position to understand mutation as a decisive event in
the psycholinguistics of information. Mutation is the catastrophe in the
pattern/randomness dialectic analogous to castration in the presence/absence
dialectic. It marks a rupture ofpattern so extreme that the expectation
of continuous replication can no longer be sustained. But as with
castration, this onlyappears to be adisruption locatedat a specific moment.
The randomness to which mutation testifies is implicit in the very idea of
pattern, for onlyagainst the backgroundofnonpatterncan patternemerge.
Randomness is the contrastingterm thatallows patternto be understood as
such. The crisis named by mutation is as wide-ranging and pervasive in its
import within the pattern/randomness dialectic as castration is within the
tradition ofpresence/absence, for it is the visible mark that testifies to the
continuing interplay of the dialectic between pattern and randomness,
replication and variation, expectation and surprise.
Shifting the emphasis from presence/absence to pattern/randomness
suggests different choices for tutor texts. Rather than studying Freud's discussion
of"fort/da" (ashortpassagewhose replication in hundreds ofcommentaries
would no doubt astonish its creator), theorists interested in
pattern and randomness might point to David Cronenberg's film The Fly.
At a certain point, the protagonist's penis does falloff (quaintly, he puts itin
his medicine chest as a memento oftimes past), but the loss scarcely registers
in the larger mutation he is undergoing. The operative transition is not
from male to female-as-castrated-male but from human to something radically
other than human. Flickering signification brings together language
with a psychodynamics based on the symbolic moment when the human
confronts the posthuman.
As I indicated in chapter 1, I understand human and posthuman to be
histOrically specific constructions that emerge from different configurations
ofembodiment, technology, and culture. My reference point for the
34 I Chapter Two
human is the tradition ofliberal humanism; the posthuman appears when
computation rather than possessive individualism is taken as the ground of
being, a move that allows the posthuman to be seamlessly articulated with
intelligent machines. To see howtechnologyinteractswith these constructions,
consider the picture that nineteenth-century V.S. and British anthropologists
have drawn of"man" as a tool-user.17 V sing tools may shape
the body (some anthropolOgists made this argument), but the tool nevertheless
is envisioned as an object that is apart from the body, an object that
can be picked up and put down at will. When the claim that man's unique
nature was defined by tool use could not be sustained (because other animals
were shown also to use tools), the focus shifted during the earlytwentieth
century to man the tool-maker. Typical is Kenneth P. Oakley's 1949
Man the Tool-Maker, a magisterial work with the authOrity of the British
Museum behindit. Oakley, in charge ofthe Anthropological Section ofthe
museum's Natural History Division, wrote in his introduction, "Employment
oftools appears to be [man's] chiefbiological characteristic, for consideredfunctionallytheyare
detachable extensions ofthe forelimb."18 The
kind of tool he envisioned was mechanical rather than informational; it
goes with the hand, not on the head. Significantly, he imagined the tool to
be at once "detachable" and an "extension," separate from yet partaking of
the hand. Ifthe placement and the kind oftool mark Oakley's affinity with
the epoch ofthe human, the construction ofthe tool as a prosthesis points
forward to the posthuman.
Bythe 1960s, Marshall McLuhanwas speculatingabout the transformation
that media, understood as technological prostheses, were effectingon
human beings.19 He argued that humans react to stress in their environments
by withdrawing the locus of selfhood inward, in a numbing
withdrawal from the world he called (follOwing Hans Selye and Adolphe
Jonas) "autoamputation." This withdrawal in tum facilitates and requires
compensatingtechnological extensions that projectthe body-as-prosthesis
back out into the world. Whereas Oakley remains grounded in the human
and looks only distantly toward the posthuman, McLuhan clearly sees that
electronic media are capable ofbringing about a reconfiguration so extensive
as to change the nature of"man."
As we saw in chapter 1, similar shifts in orientation informed the Macy
Conference discussions taking place during the same period (1946-53).
Participants wavered between a vision of man as a homeostatic selfregulating
mechanism whose boundarieswere clearly delineated from the
environment20 and a more threatening, reflexive vision of a man spliced
into an informational circuit that could change him in unpredictable ways.
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier I 35
Bythe 1960s, the consensuswithin cybernetics had shifted dramatically toward
reflexivity. Bythe 1980s, the inertial pull ofhomeostasis as a constitutive
concept had largely given way to self-organization theories implying
that radical changes were possible within certain kinds of complex systems.21
In the contemporary period, the posthuman future ofhumanity is
increaSinglyevoked, ranging from Hans Moravec's argument for a"postbiological"
future in which intelligent machines become the dominant life
form on the planet, to the more sedate and in part already realizedprospect
ofa symbiotic union between human and intelligent machine, a union that
Howard Rheingold calls "intelligence augmentation."22 Although these visions
differ in the degree and kind ofinterfaces they imagine, they concur
that the posthuman implies not only a coupling with intelligent machines
but a coupling so intense and multifaceted that it is no longer possible to
distinguish meaningfully between the biological organism and the informational
circuits in which the organism is enmeshed. Accompanying this
change is a corresponding shift in how signification is understood and corporeally
experienced. In contrast to Lacanian psycholinguistics, derived
from the generative coupling oflinguistics and sexuality, flickering signification
is the progenyofthe fascinating and troubling coupling oflanguage
and machine.
Information Narratives and Bodies of Information
The shift from presence and absence to pattern and randomness is encoded
into every aspect ofcontemporary literature, from the physical object
that constitutes the text to such staples of literary interpretation as
character, plot, author, and reader. The development is by no means even;
some texts testify dramatically and explicitly to the shift, whereas others
manifest this shift only indirectly. I will call those texts in which the displacement
is most apparent infonnation narratives. Information narratives
show, in exaggerated form, changes that are more subtly present in
other texts as well. Whether in information narratives or contemporaryfiction
generally, the dynamiC ofdisplacement is crucial. One could focus on
pattern in any era, but the peculiarity of pattern in these texts is its interpenetration
with randomness and its implicit challenge to phYSicality.
Pattern tends to overwhelm presence, leading to a construction ofimmateriality
that depends not on spiritualityoreven consciousness butonlyon in-
formation.
ConsiderWilliam Gibson's Neuromancer (1984), the novel that-along
with the companion volumes Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive
36 I Chapter Two
(1988)-sparked the cyberpunk movement. The Neuromancer trilogy
gave a local habitation and a name to the disparate spaces ofcomputersimulations,
networks, and hypertext windows that, before Gibson's intervention,
hadbeen discussed as separatephenomena. Gibson's novels acted like
seed crystals thrown into a supersaturated solution; the time was ripe for
the technology known as cyberspace to precipitate into public consciousness.
In Neuromancer the narrator defines cyberspace as a "consensual illusion"
accessed when a user "jacks into" a computer. Here the writer's
imagination outstrips existing technologies, for Gibson imagines a direct
neural link between the brain and the computer through electrodes. Anotherversion
ofthis link is a socket, implanted behind the ear, that accepts
computer chips, allOwing direct neural access to computer memory. Network
users collaborate in creating the richly textured landscape ofcyberspace,
a "graphic representation ofdata abstracted from the banks ofevery
computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light
ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data.
Like citylights, receding."23 Existingin the nonmaterial space ofcomputer
simulation, cyberspace defines a regime of representation within which
pattern is the essential reality, presence an optical illusion.
Like the landscapes they negotiate, the subjectivities who operate
within cyberspace alsobecome patterns ratherthanphysicalentities. Case,
the computer cowboy who is the protagonist of Neuromancer, still has a
physicalpresence, although he regards his body as so much "meat" that exists
primarily to sustain his consciousness until the next time he can enter
cyberspace. Others have completed the transition that Case's values imply.
Dixie Flatline, a cowboy who encountered something in cyberspace that
flattened his EEG, ceased to exist as a physical bodyand lives now as a personality
construct within the computer, defined by the magnetic patterns
that store his identity.
The contrast between the body's limitations and cyberspace's power
highlights the advantages ofpattern over presence. As long as the pattern
endures, one has attained a kind ofimmortality-an implication that Hans
Moravec makes explicit in Mind Children. Such views are authorized by
cultural conditions that make physicality seem a better state to be from
than to inhabit. In aworld despOiled byoverdevelopment, overpopulation,
andtime-release environmentalpoisons, itis comfortingto thinkthatphysical
forms can recover their pristine purity by being reconstituted as informational
patterns in a multidimensional computer space. A cyberspace
body, like a cyberspace landscape, is immune to blight and corruption. It is
no accident that the vaguely apocalyptic landscapes of films such as Ter-
Virrual Bodies and Flickering Signifier I 37
minator, Blade Runner, and Hardware occur in narratives focusing on
cybernetic life-forms. The sense that the world is rapidly becoming uninhabitable
by human beings is part ofthe impetus for the displacement of
presence bypattern.
These connections lie close to the surface in Neuromancer. "Get just
wasted enough, find yourself in some desperate but strangely arbitrary
kind oftrouble, and it was possible to see Nlnsei as a field ofdata, the way
the matrix had once reminded him of proteins linking to distinguish cell
specialities. Then you could throw yourselfinto a highspeed drift and skid,
totally engaged but set apart from it all, and all around you the dance of
biz, information interacting, data made flesh in the mazes ofthe black market."24
The metaphOriC slippages between urban sprawl, computer matrix,
and biolOgical protein culminate in the final elliptical phrase, "data made
flesh." Information is the putative origin, physicality the derivative manifestation.
Body parts sold in black-market clinics, body neurochemistry
manipulated by synthetic drugs, body of the world overlaid by urban
sprawl-all testifY to the precariousness of phYSical existence. If flesh is
data incarnate, why not go back to the source and leave the perils ofphysi-
calitybehind?
The reasoning presupposes that subjectivity and computer programs
have a common arena in which to interact. HistOrically, that arenawas first
defined in cybernetiCS bythe creation ofa conceptual framework that constitutedhumans,
animals, and machines as information-processingdevices
receiving and transmitting Signals to effect goal-directed behavior.25
Gibson matches this technical achievement with two literary innovations
that allow subjectivity, with its connotations of consciousness and selfawareness,
to be articulated togetherwith abstract data. The first is a subtle
modificationin pointofview, abbreviatedin the text as "pov." More than an
acronym, pov is a substantive noun that constitutes the character's subjectivityby
serving as a positional marker substituting for his absent body.
In its usual Jamesian sense, point ofview presumes the fiction ofa person
who observes the action from a particular angle and tells what he sees.
In the prefaceto The Portraitofa Lady, James imagines a"house offiction"
with a "million windows" formed by "the need ofthe individual vision and
bythe pressure ofthe individualwill." At eachwindow"stands a figure with
a pair ofeyes, or at least with a field glass, which forms, again and again, for
observation, aunique instrument, insuringto the person makinguse ofitan
impression distinct from every other."26 ForJames, the observer is an embodied
creature, and the specificity ofhis or her location determines what
the observer can see when looking out on a scene that itself is phYSically
38 / Chapter Two
specific. When an omniscientviewpoint is used, the limitations ofthe narrator's
corporeality begin to fall away, but the suggestion of embodiment
lingers in the idea offocus, the "scene" created bythe eye's movement.
Even for James, vision is not unmediated technologically. Significantly,
he hovers between eye and field glass as the receptor constituting vision.
Cyberspace represents a quantum leap fOIWard into the technologicalconstruction
ofvision. Instead ofan embodied consciousness looking through
the window at a scene, consciousness moves through the screen to become
the pov, leaving behind the body as an unoccupied shell. In cyberspace,
point ofview does not emanate from the character; rather, the pov literally
is the character. If a pov is annihilated, the character disappears with it,
ceasingto existas a consciousness inandoutofcyberspace. The realistic fiction
ofa narratorwho observes but does not create is thus unmasked in cyberspace.
The effect is not primarily metafictional, however, but is in a
literal sense metaphysical, above and beyond phYSicality. The crucial difference
between the Jamesian point ofview and the cyberspace povis that
the former implies phYSical presence, whereas the latter does not.
Gibson's technique recalls Alain Robbe-Grillet's novels, which were
among the first information narratives to exploit the formal consequences
ofcombining subjectivitywith data. In Robbe-Grillet's work, however, the
effect of interfacing narrative voice with objective description was paradOxically
to heighten the narrator's subjectivity, for certain objects, like the
jalousiedwindows orthe centipedeinJealousy, are inventoriedwith obsessive
interest, indicatinga mindsetthat is anything butobjective. In Gibson,
the space in which subjectivity moves lacks this personalized stamp. Cyberspace
is the domain ofvirtual collectivity, constituted as the resultant of
millions ofvectors representing the diverse and often conflicting interests
of human and artificial intelligences linked together through computer
networks.27
To make this space work as a level playing field on which humans and
computers can meet on equal terms, Gibson introduces his secondinnovation.
Cyberspace is created by transforming a data matrix into a landscape
in which narratives can happen. In mathematics, "matrix" is a technical
term denoting data that have been arranged into an n-dimensional array.
Expressed in this form, data seem as far removed from the fascinations of
story as random-number tables are from the National Inquirer. Because
the array is already conceptualized in spatial terms, however, it is a small
step to imagining the matrix as a three-dimensional landscape. Narrative
becomes possible when this spatialityis given a temporal dimension by the
pov's movement through it. The povis located in space, butitexists in time.
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier / 39
Through the track it weaves, the desires, repressions, and obsessions of
subjectivitycan be expressed. The genius ofNeuromancerlies inits explicit
recognition that the categories Kant consideredfundamental to human experience-space
and time-can be used as a conjunction to join awareness
with data. Reduced to a point, the pov is abstracted into a purely
temporal entitywith no spatial extension; metaphorized into an interactive
space, the datascape is narrativized bythe pov's movement through it. Data
are thus humanized, and subjectivity is computerized, allowing them to
join in a symbiotic union whose result is narrative.
Such innovations carry the implications ofinformatics beyond the textual
surface into the signif)ingprocesses that constitute theme and character.
I suspectthat Gibson's novels have been soinfluential not onlybecause
they present a vision ofthe posthuman future that is already upon us-in
this they are no more prescient than many other science fiction novelsbut
also because they embodywithin their techniques the assumptions expressed
explicitlyin the themes ofthe novels. This kind ofmove is possible
when the cultural conditions authorizing the assumptions are pervasive
enough that the posthuman is experienced as an everyday, lived reality as
well as an intellectualproposition.
The shiftofemphasis from ownership to access is another manifestation
of the underlying transition from presence/absence to patternlrandomness.
In The Condition ofPostrrwdernity, David Harvey characterizes the
economic aspects ofthe shift to an informatted society as a transition from
a Fordist regime to a regime of flexible accumulation.28 As Harvey and
many others have pointed out, in late capitalism, durable goods yield pride
of place to information.29 A Significant difference between information
and durable goods is replicability. Information is not a conserved quantity.
If I give you information, you have it and I do too. With information, the
constraining factor separating the haves from the have-nots is not so much
possession as access. Presence precedes and makes possible the idea of
possession, for one can possess something only ifit already exists. By contrast,
access implies pattern recognition, whether the access is to a piece of
land (recognized as such through the boundary pattern defining that land
as different from adjoining parcels), confidential information (constituted
as confidential through the comparison ofits informational patterns with
less-secure documents), or a bank vault (associated with knOwing the correctpattern
oftumbler combinations). In general, access differs from possession
because the former tracks patterns rather than presences. When
someone breaks into a computer system, itis not a physicalpresence that is
detected but the informational traces that the entry has created.30
40 / Chapter Two
When the emphasis falls on access rather than ownership, the private/
publicdistinction thatwas so importantin the formation ofthe novel is radically
reconfigured. Whereas possession implies the existence of private
life basedon physical exclusion orinclusion, access implies the existence of
credentialing practices that use patterns rather than presences to distinguish
between those who do and those who do not have the right to enter.
Moreover, entering is itself constituted as access to data rather than as a
change in physical location. In Don DeLillo's White Noise (1985), for example,
the Gladneys' home, traditionally the private space offamily life, is
penetrated by noise and radiation of all wavelengths-microwave, radio,
television.31 The penetration signals that private spaces, and the private
thoughts theyengenderand figure, are less aconcernthan the interplaybetween
codes and the articulation ofindividual subjectivity with data. Jack
Gladney's death is prefigured for him as a pattern ofpulsing stars around a
computerized data display, a striking image of how his corporeality has
been penetratedbyinformational patterns that construct as well as predict
his mortality.
Although the Gladneyfamily stilloperates as asocialunit (albeitwith the
geographical dispersion endemic to postmodern life), their conversations
are punctuated by random bits ofinformation emanating from the radio
and Tv. The punctuation points toward a mutation in subjectivity that
comes from joining the focused attention of traditional novelistic consciousness
with the digitized randomness ofmiscellaneous bits. The mutation
reaches incarnation inWillie Mink, whose brain has become so addled
by a deSigner drug that his consciousness is finally indistinguishable from
the white noise that surrounds him. Through a route different from that
used by Gibson, DeLillo arrives at a similar destination: a vision ofsubjectivity
constituted through the interplay of pattern and randomness rather
than presence and absence.
The bodies oftexts are also implicated in these changes. The displacement
ofpresence by pattern thins the tissue oftextuality, making it a semipermeable
membrane that allows awareness ofthe textas an informational
pattern to infuse into the space ofrepresentation. When the fiction ofpresence
gives way to the recognition ofpattern, passages are opened between
the text-as-object and those representations within the text that are characteristic
of the condition of virtuality. Consider the play between text as
physical object and as information How in Italo Calvino's Ifon a winter's
night a traveler (1979). The text's awareness of its own phYSicality is
painfully apparent in the anxiety it manifests toward keeping the literary
corpus intact. Within the space of representation, texts are subjected to
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier / 41
birth defects, maimed and tom apart, lost and stolen. The text operates as if
it knows it has a physical body and fears that its body is in jeopardy from a
hostofthreats,from defective printingtechnologies and editors experiencing
middle-age brain fade to nefarious political plots. Most ofall, perhaps,
the text fears losingits bodyto information.
When "you," the reader, are foiled in your pursuit of its story by the
frailty ofthe text's physical corpus, the narrator imagines you hurling the
bookthrough a closedwindow, reducing the text's bodyto "photons, undulatory
vibrations, polarized spectra." Not content with this pulverization,
you throw itthrough the wall so thatthe text breaks up into"electrons, neutrons,
neutrinos, elementary particles more and more minute." Still
disgusted, in an act ofultimate dispersion, you send it through a computer
line, causing the textual body to be "reduced to electronic impulses, into
the flow of information." With the text "shaken by redundancies and
noises," you "let it be degraded into a Swirling entropy." Yet the very story
you seek can be envisioned as a pattern, for that night you sleep and "fight
with dreams as with formless and meaningless life, seeking a pattern, a
route that must surely be there, as when you begin to read a book and you
don'tyet know in which direction itwill carryyou."32
Once the text's phYSical body is interfaced with information technologies,
however, the patternthat is storystands injeopardyofbeingdisrupted
by the randomness implicit in information. The disruptive power of randomness
becomes manifestwhen you findyourselfentangledwith Lotaria,
a readerwho believes books are bestreadbyscanningthem into computers
and letting the machine analyze word-frequency patterns. Seduced by
Lotaria against your betterjudgment, you get tangled up with her andwith
rolls ofprintout covering the floor. The printouts contain part ofthe story
thatyou desperatelywant to finish, which Lotariahas enteredinto the computer.
Distracted by her multiple entanglements, Lotaria presses the
wrong key, and the rest ofthe storyis"erased in an instant demagnetization
ofthe circuits. The multicolored wires now grind out the dust ofdissolved
words: the the, of of of of, from from from from, that that that that, in
columns accordingto theirrespective frequency. The bookhas been crumbled,
dissolved, can no longerbe recomposed, like a sand dune blown away
bythe wind."33 Nowyou can never achieve satiation, never reach the point
ofsatisfiedcompletion that comeswith finishing abook. Youranxietyabout
reading interruptus is intensified by what might be called print interruptus,
aprintbook's fear that once it hasbeen digitized, the computerwillgarble
its body, breakingitapartand reassemblingitinto the nonstoryofa data
matrix rather than an entangled and entanglingnarrative.
42 I Chapter Two
This anxietyis transmitted to readers within the text, who keep pursuing
parts of textual bodies only to lose them, as well as to readers outside the
text, who must try to make sense ofthe radically discontinuous narrative.
Onlywhen the chapter titles are perceivedto form a sentence is the literary
corpus reconstituted as a unity. Significantly, the recuperation is syntactical
rather thanphysical. Itdoes not arise from orimplyan intact physical body.
Rather, it emerges from the patterns-metaphorical, grammatical, narrative,
thematic, and textual-that the parts together make. As the climactic
scene in the librarysuggests, the reconstituted corpus is a bodyofinformation,
emerging from the discourse community among whom information
circulates. The textual body may be dismembered or ground into digital
word dust, the narrative implies, but as long as there are readers who care
passionately about stories and want to pursue them, narrative itselfcan be
recuperated. Through such textualstrategies, Ifon a winter's night testifies
vividly to the impact ofinformation technologies on bodies ofbooks.
Human bodies are Similarlyaffected. The correspondence between human
and textual bodies can be seen as early as William Burroughs's Naked
Lunch, written in 1959, in the decade that sawthe institutionalization ofcybernetics
and the construction of the first large-scale electronic digital
computer.34 The narrative metamorphizes nearly as often as bodies within
it, suggesting byits cut-up method a textual corpus that is as artificial, heterogeneous,
and cybernetic as they are.35 Since the fissures that mark the
text always fall within the units that compose the textual body-within
chapters, paragraphs, sentences, and even words-it becomes increasinglyclear
that they do not function to delineate the textual corpus. Rather,
the bodyofthe textis producedpreciselybythese fissures, which are not so
much ruptures as productive dialectics that bring the narrative as a syntactic
and chronological sequence into being.
Bodies within the text follow the same logic. Under the pressure ofsex
and addiction, bodies explode or mutate, protoplasm is sucked out ofcocks
or nostrils, plots are hatched to take over the planet or nearest life-form.
Burroughs anticipates Fredric Jameson's claim that an information society
is the purest form ofcapitalism. When bodies are constituted as information,
they can be not onlysold but fundamentally reconstituted in response
to market pressures. Junk instantiates the dynamiCS of informatics and
makes clear the relation ofjunk-as-information to late capitalism. Junk is
the "idealproduct" because the "junk merchant does not sell his product to
the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve
and simplifY his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client."36
The junkie'S body is a harbinger ofthe postmodern mutant, for it demon-
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier I 43
strates how presence yields to assembly and disassembly patterns created
by the flow ofjunk-as-information through points ofamplification and re-
sistance.
The characteristics ofinformation narratives include, then, an emphasis
on mutation and transformation as a central thematic for bodies within the
text as well as for the bodies oftexts. Subjectivity, alreadyjoinedwith information
technologies through cybernetic circuits, is further integrated into
the circuit by novelistic techniques that combine it with data. Access vies
with possession as a structuring element, and data are narrativized to accommodate
their integration with subjectivity. In general, materiality and
immateriality are joined in a complex tension that is a source ofexultation
and strong anxiety.
Information technologies leave their mark on books in the realization
that sooner or later, the body ofprint will be interfaced with other media.
All but a handful ofbooks printed in the United States and Europe in 1998
will be digitized during some phase oftheir existence. Print texts such as If
on a winter's night a traveler bear the imprint ofthis digitalization in their
narratives, as if the text remembers the moment when it was nothing but
electronic polarities on a disk. At moments ofcrisis, the repressed memory
erupts onto the textual surface in the form ofan acute fear that randomness
will so interpenetrate its patterns that story will be lost and the textual corpuswill
be reducedto abodyofmeaningless data. These eruptions arevivid
testimony that even print texts cannot escape being affected by information
technologies.
To understand more about the effects ofinformatics on contemporary
fictions, let us tum nowto consider the relation between text and subjectiVity,
specificallyhow information narratives constitute both the voice speaking
the narrative and the reader.
Functionalities of Narrative
The very word narrator implies a voice speaking, and a speaking voice implies
a sense ofpresence. Jacques Derrida, announcingthe advent ofgrammatology,
focused on the gap that separates speaking from writing. Such a
change transforms the narrator from speaker to scribe or, more precisely,
someone who is absent from the scene but toward whom the inscriptions
point.37 Informatics pushes this transformation further. As writingyields to
flickering signifiers underwritten by binary digits, the narrator becomes
not so such a scribe as a cyborgauthorized to access the relevant codes. The
progression suggests that the dialectic between absence and presence
44 I Chapter Two
came clearlyinto focus with the advent ofdeconstruction because itwas alreadybeingdisplaced
as a cultural presupposition by randomness and pattern.
Presence and absence were forced into visibility, so to speak, because
they were already losing their constitutive power to form the ground for
discourse, becominginstead the subject ofdiscourse. In this sense, deconstruction
is the child of an information age, formulating its theories from
strata pushed upward bythe emerging substrata beneath.
To see how the function ofthe narrator changes as we progress deeper
into virtuality, consider the seduction scene from "I Was an Infinitely Hot
and DenseWhite Dot," one ofthe stories in Mark Leyner's My Cousin, My
Gastroenterologist. The narrator, "high on Sinutab" and driving "isotropically,"
so that anydestination is equallyprobable, finds himselfat a "squalid
little dive."
I don't know ... but there she is. I can'ttell ifshe's a human or afifth-generation
gynemOIphic android and I don't care. I crack open an ampoule of mating
pheromone and let it waft across the bar, as I sip my drink, a methyl isocyanate
on the rocks-methyl isocyanate is the substance which killed more than 2,000
people when it leaked in Bhopal, India, but thanks to my weight training, aerobic
workouts, and a low-fat fiber-rich diet, the stuffhas no effect on me. Sure
enough she strolls over and occupies the stool next to mine.... Mylips are now
one angstrom unit from her lips ... I begin to kiss her but she turns her head
away.... I can't kiss you, we're monozygotic replicants-we share 100% ofour
genetic material. My head spins. You are the beautiful day, I exclaim, your
breath is a zephyr of eucalyptus that does a pas de bourre across the Sea of
Galilee. Thanks, she says, but we can't go back to my house and make love because
monozygotic incest is forbidden by the elders. What if I said I could
change all that.... What ifI said that I had a miniature shotgun that blasts gene
fragments into the cells of living organisms, altering their genetic matrices so
that a monozygotic replicant would no longer be a monozygotic replicant and
she could then make love to a muscleman without transgressing the incest
taboo, I say, opening my shirt and exposing the device which I had stuck in the
waistbandofmyblackjeans. How'dyou getthatthing? she gasps, oglingits thick
fiber-reinforced plastiC barrel and the Uzi-Biotech logo embossed on the magazinewhich
heldtwo cartridges ofgelatedrecombinant DNA. I got itfor Christmas....
Doyou have anylastwords before I scramble yourchromosomes, I say,
taking aim. Yes, she says, you first.38
Much ofthewit in this passage comes from thejuxtapositionoffolkwisdom
and seduction cliches with high-tech language and ideas. The narrator sips
a chemical that killed thousands when it leaked into the environment, but
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier / 45
he is immune to damage because he eats a low-fat diet. The narrator leans
close to the woman-android to kiss her, but he has not yet made contact
when he is an angstrom away, considerably less than the diameter ofa hydrogen
atom. The characters cannot make love because they are barred by
incest taboos, being replicants from the same monozygote, which would
make them identical twins, but this does not seem to prevent them from being
opposite sexes. They are governed by kinship rules enforced by tribal
elders, but they have access to genetic technologies that intervene in and
disrupt evolutionary modes of descent. They think their problem can be
solved by an Uzi-Biotech weapon that will scramble their chromosomes,
but the narrator, at least, seems to expect their identities to survive intact.
Even within the confines of a short story no more than five pages long,
this encounter is not preceded or followed by events that relate directly to
it. Rather, the narrative leaps from scene to scene, all ofthem linked byonly
the most tenuous and arbitrary threads. The incongruities make the narrative
a kind oftextual android created through patterns ofassembly and disassembly.
There is no natural body to this text, any more than there are
natural bodies within the text. As the title intimates, identity merges with
typography ("I was a ... dot") and is further conflated with such high-tech
reconstructions as computer simulations of gravitational collapse ("I was
an infinitely hot and dense white dot"). Signifiers collapse like stellar bodies
into an explosive materiality that approaches the critical point of nova,
ready to blast outward into dissipating waves offlickering signification.
The explosive tensions between cultural codes that familiarize the action
and neologistic splices that dislocate traditional expectations do more
than structure the narrative. They also constitute the narrator, who exists
less as a speakingvoice endowedwith aplausible psychologythan as a series
offissures and dislocations that push toward a new kind ofsubjectivity. To
understand the nature of this subjectivity, let us imagine a trajectory that
arcs from storyteller to professional to some destination beyond. Walter
Benjamin's shared community of values and presence-the community
that he had in mindwhen he evoked the traditional storytellerwhosewords
are woven into the rhythms ofwork-echoes faintly in allusions to the Song
ofSongs and tribal elders.39 Overlaid on this is the professionalization that
Jean-Fran<;ois Lyotardwrote about in The Postrrwdem Condition, in which
the authOrity to tell the story is constituted by possessing the appropriate
credentials that qualify one as a member of a physically dispersed, electronically
bound professional community.4o This phase ofthe trajectory is
Signified in a number of ways. The narrator is driving "isotropically," indicating
that physical location is no longer necessary or relevant to the
46 / Chapter Two
production ofthe story. His authority derives not from his physical participation
in a communitybut from his possession ofa high-tech language that
includes pheromones, methyl isocyanate, and gelated recombinant DNA,
not to mention the Uzi-Biotech phallus. This authority too is displaced
even as it is created, for the incongruities reveal that the narrative and
therefore the narrator are radically unstable, about to mutate into a
scarcelyconceivable form, signified in the story by the high-tech, identitytransforming
orgasmic blast that never quite comes.
What is this form? Its physical manifestations vary, but the abilityto manipulate
complexcodes is a constant. The looming transformation, already
enacted through the language ofthe passage, is into a subjectivitywho derives
his authority from possessing the correct codes. Popular literature
and culture containcountless scenarios inwhich someone fools acomputer
into thinking that he or she is an "authorized" person because the person
possesses or stumbles upon the codes that the computerrecognizes as constitutingauthorization.
Usually these scenarios implythat the person exists
unchanged, taking on a spurious identitythat allows him or her to move unrecognizedwithin
an informational system. There is, however, anotherway
to readthese narratives. Constitutingidentitythrough authorizationcodes,
the person using the codes is changedinto another kind ofsubjectivity, precisely
one who exists and is recognized because oflmowing the codes. The
surface deception is underlaid by a deeper truth. We become the codes we
punch. The narrator is not a storyteller and not a professional authority, although
these functions lingerinthe narrative as anachronisticallusions and
wrenched referentiality. Rather, the narrator is a keyboarder, a hacker, a
manipulatorofcodes.41 Assuming that the textwas digitized at some phase
in its existence, in a literal sense he (it?) is these codes.
The construction ofthe narrator as a manipulatorofcodes obviouslyhas
important implications for the construction of the reader. The reader is
similarly constituted through a layered archaeology that moves from listenerto
reader to decoder. Drawingon acontextthat includedinformation
technologies, Roland Barthes in S/Z brilliantlydemonstrated the possibility
ofreading a text as a production ofdiverse codes.42 Information narratives
make that possibility an inevitability, for they often cannot be
understood, evenon aliterallevel, without referring to codes and the informatics
that produce and are produced bythese codes. Flickering Signification
extends the productive force of codes beyond the text to include the
signifyingprocesses bywhich the technologies produce texts, as well as the
interfaces that enmesh humans into integrated circuits. As the circuits
connecting technology, text, and human expand and intensifY, the point
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier / 1,7
where quantitative increments shade into qualitative transformation draws
closer.
Because codes can be sent over fiber optics essentially instantaneously,
there is no longera shared, stable context that helps to anchor meaning and
guide interpretation. Like reading, decoding takes place in a location arbitrarilyfar
removed in space and time from the source text. In contrast to the
fixity ofprint, decoding implies that there is no original text-no first editions,
no fair copies, no holographic manuscripts. There are only the flickering
signifiers, whose transient patterns evoke and embodywhat c. W. S.
Trow has called the context of no context, the suspicion that all contexts,
like all texts, are electronically mediated constructions.43 What binds the
decoder to the system is not the stability ofbeing a member ofan interpretive
community or the intense pleasure ofphysically possessing the book, a
pleasure that all bibliophiles know. Rather, it is the decoder's construction
as acyborg, the impression that his or herphysicalityis also data made flesh,
another flickering signifier in a chain of signification that extends through
manylevels, from the DNA that in-formats the decoder's bodyto the binary
code that is the computer's first language.
Against this dream or nightmare ofthe body as information, what alternatives
exist? We can see beyond this dream, I have argued, byattending to
the material interfaces and technologies that make disembodiment such a
powerful illusion. By adopting a double vision that looks simultaneously at
the power ofsimulation and at the materialities that produce it, we can better
understand the implications of articulating posthuman constructions
togetherwith embodied actualities. One wayto think about these materialities
is through functionality. "Functionality" is a term used by virtual reality
technologists to describe the communication modes that are active in a
computer-human interface. If the user wears a data glove, for example,
hand motions constitute one functionality. Ifthe computer can respond to
voice-activated commands, voice is another functionality. Ifthe computer
can sense body position, spatial location is yet another functionality. Functionalities
work in both directions; that is, they describe the computer's capabilities
and also indicate how the user's sensory-motor apparatus is being
trainedto accommodate the computer's responses. Workingwith aVR simulation,
the user learns to move his or her hand in stylized gestures that the
computer can accommodate. In the process, the neural configuration of
the user's brain experiences changes, some of which can be long-lasting.
The computer molds the human even as the human builds the computer.
When narrative functionalities change, a newkind ofreaderis produced
by the text. The material effects of flickering signification ripple outward
48 / Chapter Two
because readers are trained to read through different functionalities,
which can affect how they interpret any text, including texts written before
computers were invented. The impatience that some readers now feel with
print texts, for example, no doubt has aphysiological as well as apsychological
basis. They miss pushing the keys and seeing the cursor blinking at
them. Conversely, other readers (or perhaps the same readers in different
moods) go back to print with a renewed appreciation for its durability, its
sturdiness, and its ease of use. I began to appreciate certain qualities of
print only after I had experience with computers. When I open a book, it
almost always works, and it can maintain backward compatibility for hundreds
ofyears. I also appreciate that on some occasions-when I am revising
a piece ofwriting, for example-there isn't a cursor blinking at me, as if
demanding a response. With printI can take as longas I want, and the pages
never disappear or shut themselves down. As these examples illustrate,
changes in narrative functionalities are deeper than the structural or thematic
characteristics of a specific genre, for they shift the embodied responses
and expectations that different kinds oftextualities evoke. Arguing
from a different historical context, Friedrich Kittler made a similar point
when he wrote about medial ecology.44 When new media are introduced,
the changes transform the environment as a whole. This transformation
affects the niches that older media have carved for themselves, so they
change also, even if they are not directly involved with the new media.
Books will not remain unaffected by the emergence ofnew media.
Ifmy assessment-that the emphasis on information technologies foregrounds
pattern/randomness and pushes presence/absence into the background-is
correct, the implications extend beyond narrative into many
cultural arenas. As I indicated in chapter 1, one ofthe most serious ofthese
implications is a systematic devaluation ofmateriality and embodiment. I
find this trend ironic, for changes in material conditions and embodied experience
are preciselywhat give the shift its deep roots in everydayexperience.
Implicit in nearly everything I have written here is the assumption
that presence and pattern are opposites existing in antagonistic relation.
The more emphasis that falls on one, the less the other is noticed and valued.
Entirely different readings emerge when one entertains the possibility
that pattern and presence are mutually enhanCing and supportive. Paul
Virilio has observed that one cannot askwhether information technolOgies
should continue to be developed.45 Given market forces already at work, it
is virtually (if I may use the word) certain that we will increasingly live,
work, and play in environments that construct us as embodied virtualities.46
I believe that our best hope to intervene constructively in this de-
Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifier / 49
velopment is to put an interpretive spin on it-one that opens up the possibilities
of seeing pattern and presence as complementary rather than antagonistic.
Information, like humanity, cannot exist apart from the
embodiment that brings it into being as a material entity in the world; and
embodimentis always instantiated, local, and specific. Embodimentcanbe
destroyed, but it cannot be replicated. Once the specific form constituting
it is gone, no amount ofmassaging data will bling it back. This observation
is as true ofthe planetas itis ofan individuallife-form. As we rush to explore
the newvistas that cyberspace has made available for colonization, let us remember
the fragility ofa material world that cannot be replaced.
...........Ch..a..p.Le.r....T.h.r.e..e
CONTESTING FOR THE BODY
OF INFORMATION:
THE MACY CONFERENCES
ON CYBERNETICS
When and where did information get constructed as a disembodied
medium? Howwere researchers convincedthat humans and machines are
brothers under the skin? Although the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics
were notthe onlyforum grapplingwith these questions, theywere particularly
important because they acted as a crossroads for the traffic in cybernetic
models and artifacts. This chapter charts the arguments that made
information seem more important than materiality within this research
community. Broadly speaking, the arguments were deployed along three
fronts. The first was concerned with the construction ofinformation as a
theoretical entity; the second, with the construction of (human) neural
structures so that theywere seen as flows ofinformation; the third, with the
construction ofartifacts that translated information flows into observable
operations, thereby making the flows "real."
Yet at each of these fronts, there was also significant resistance to the
reification of information. Alternate models were proposed; important
qualifications were voiced; objections were raised to the disparity between
simple artifacts and the complex problems they addressed. Reification was
triumphant not because it had no opposition but because scientificallyand
culturally situated debates made it seem a better choice than the alternatives.
Recovering the complexities ofthese debates helps to demystifY the
assumption that information is more essential than matter or energy. Followedbackto
moments before it became ablackbox, this conclusion seems
less like an inevitability and more like the result ofnegotiations specific to
the circumstances ofthe U.S. techno-scientific culture during and immediately
follOwing World War II.
The Macy Conferences were unusual in that participants did not present
finished papers. Rather, speakers were invited to sketch out a few
50
Contesting for the Body of Information / 51
main ideas to initiate discussion. The discussions, rather than the presentations,
were the center ofinterest. Designed to be intellectual free-foralls,
the conferences were radically interdisciplinary. The transcripts
show that researchers from a wide variety of fields-neurophysiology,
electrical engineering, philosophy, semantics, literature, and psychology,
among others-struggled to understand one another and make connections
between others' ideas and their own areas of expertise. In the
process, a concept that may have begun as a model ofaparticular physical
system came to have broader significance, acting Simultaneously as
mechanism and metaphor.
The dynamics of the conferences facilitated this mixing. Researchers
might not have been able to identify in their own work the mechanism discussed
bya fellow participant, but they could understand it metaphorically
and then associate the metaphor with something applicable to their own
field. The process appears repeatedly throughout the transcripts. When
Claude Shannon used the word "information," for example, he employedit
as a technical term having to do with message probabilities. When Gregory
Bateson appropriated the same word to talk about initiation rituals, he interpreted
it metaphorically as a "difference that makes a difference" and
associated it with feedback loops between contesting social groups. As
mechanism and metaphor were compounded, concepts that began with
narrow definitions spread out into networks of broader Significance. Earlier
I called these networks "constellations," suggesting that during the
Macy period, the emphaSiS was on homeostasis. This chapter explores the
elements that came together to form the homeostasis constellation; it also
demonstrates the chain ofassociations that bound refleXivity together with
subjectivity during the Macy period, which fix many ofthe phYSical scientists
was enough to relegate reflexivity to the category of "nonscience"
rather than "science." Tracing the development ofreflexive epistemologies
after the Macy period ended, the chapter concludes by showing how reflexivitywas
modified so that it could count as prodUCing scientific knowledge
during the second wave ofcybernetics.
The Meaning(lessness) of Information
The triumph ofinformation over materiality was a major theme at the first
Macy Conference. John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener led the wayby
making clear that the important entity in the man-machine equation was
information, not energy. Although energy considerations are not entirely
absent (von Neumann discussed at length the problems involved in dissi-
52 I Chapter Three
pating the heat generated from vacuum tubes), the thermodynamics of
heatwasincidental. Centralwas howmuchinformationcouldflowthrough
the system and how quicklyit could move. Wiener, emphasizing the movement
from energy to information, made the point explicitly: "The fundamental
idea is the message . . . and the fundamental element of the
message is the decision."l Decisions are important not because they produce
material goods but because theyproduce information. Control information,
and power follows.
Butwhat counts as information?We sawin chapter 1that Claude Shannon
defined information as a probability function with no dimensions, no
materiality, and no necessary connection with meaning. Although a full
exposition ofinformation theory is beyond the scope ofthis book, the following
explanation, adapted from an account byWiener, will give an idea
ofthe underlying reasoning.2 Like Shannon, Wiener thought ofinformation
as representing a choice. More specifically, it represents a choice of
one message from among a range ofpossible messages. Suppose there are
thirty-two horses in a race, and we want to bet on Number 3. The bookie
suspects the police have tapped his telephone, so he has arranged for his
clients to use acode. He studiedcommunication theory (perhaps hewas in
one ofthe summer-school classes on communication theory that Wiener
taught at UCLA), and he knows that any message can be communicated
through a binary code. When we call up, his voice program asks if the
number falls in the range ofl to 16. !fit does, we punch the number "1"; if
not, the number "0." We use this same code when the voice program asks
ifthe number falls in the range of1 to 8, then the range of1 to 4, and next
the range of 1 to 2. Now the program knows that the number must be either
3 or 4, so it says, "lf3, press 1; if4, press 0," and a final tap communicates
the number. Using these binary divisions, we need five responses to
communicate our choice.
How does this simple decision process translate into information? First
let us generalize our result. Probabilitytheorystates that the numberofbinary
choices C necessary to uniquely identify an element from a setwith n
elements can be calculated as follows:
c = log2n
In our case,
C = log232 =5,
the five choices we made to convey our desired selection. (Hereafter, to
simplify the notation, consider all logarithms taken to base 2). Working
Contesting for the Body of Information / 53
from this formula, Wiener defined information I as the log ofthe number n
ofelements in the message set.
[= logn
This fonnula gives [ when the elements are equally likely. Usually this is not
the case; in English, for example, the letter"e" is far more likely to occur than
"z." Forthe more general situation, when the elementssl' S2' S3" .. sn are not
equallylikely, and p(s) is the probability that the elements will be chosen,
[(s) = log IIp(si) = -logp(sJ
This is the general formula for information communicated by a specific
event, in our case the call to the bookie. Because electrical engineers must
design circuits to handle a variety of messages, they are less interested in
specific events than they are in the average amount ofinformation from a
source, for example, the average of all the different messages that a client
might communicate about the horse race. This more complex case is represented
by the following formula:
[= -~p(s) [logp(s)J,
where p(s) is the probability that the message element Si will be selected
from a message set with n elements (~indicates the sum ofterms as i varies
from 1 ton).3
We are nowin a position to understand the deeper implications ofinformation
as it was theorized by Wiener and Shannon. Note that the theory is
formulated entirely without reference to what information means. Only
the probabilities of message elements enter into the equations. Why divorce
information from meaning? Shannon and Wiener wanted information
to have a stable value as it moved from one context to another. Ifit was
tied to meaning, itwouldpotentiallyhave to change values every time itwas
embedded in a new context, because context affects meaning. Suppose, for
example, you are in a windowless office and call to ask about the weather.
"It's raining," I say. On the other hand, ifwe are both standing on a street
comer, being drenched by a downpour, this same response would have a
very different meaning. In the first case, I am telling you something you
don't know; in the second, I am being ironic (or perhaps moronic). An information
concept that ties information to meaningwouldhave to yield two
different values for the two circumstances, even though the message ("It's
raining") is the same.
To cut through this Gordian knot, Shannon and Wiener defined information
so that it would be calculated as the same value regardless of the
54 / Chapter Three
contexts in which it was embedded, which is to say, they divorced it from
meaning. In context, this was an appropriate and sensible decision. Taken
outofcontext, the definition allowed information to be conceptualized as if
it were an entity that can How unchanged between different material substrates,
as when Moravec envisions the information contained in a brain
being downloaded into a computer. Ironically, this reification ofinformation
is enacted through the same kind ofdecontextualizing moves that the
theory uses to define information as such. The theory decontextualizes information;
Moravec decontextualizes the theory. Thus, a Simplification necessitated
by engineering considerations becomes an ideology in which a
reified concept ofinformation is treated as if it were fully commensurate
with the complexities ofhuman thought.4
Shannon himselfwas meticulously careful about how he applied information
theory, repeatedly stressing that information theory concerned
only the efficient transmission ofmessages through communication channels,
notwhat those messages mean. Although otherswere quickto impute
larger linguistic and social implications to the theory, he resisted these attempts.
Responding to a presentation by Alex Bavelas on group communication
at the eighth MacyConference, he cautionedthathe did not see "too
close a connection between the notion ofinformation as we use it in communication
engineering andwhat you are doing here ... the problem here
is not so much finding the best encoding ofsymbols ... but, rather, the determination
ofthe semantic question ofwhat to send and to whom to send
it."5 For Shannon, defining information as a probability function was a
strategic choice that enabled him to bracket semantics. He did not want to
get involvedin having to considerthe receiver's mindset as part ofthe communication
system. He felt so strongly on this point that he suggested
Bavelas distinguish between information in a channel and information in a
human mind by characterizing the latter through "subjective probabilities,"
although how these were to be defined and calculated was by no
means clear.
Not everyone agreed that it was a good idea to decontextualize information.
At the same time that Shannon and Wiener were forging what information
would mean in a U.S. context, Donald MacKay, a British
researcher, was trying to formulate an information theory that would take
meaninginto account. At the seventh conference, he presentedhis ideas to
the Macy group. The difference between his view and Shannon's can be
seen in the way he bridled at Shannon's suggestion about "subjective probabilities."
In the rhetoric ofthe Macy Conferences, "objective" was associated
with being scientific, whereas "subjective" was a code word implying
Contesting for the Body of Information I 55
that one had fallen into a morass of unquantifiable feelings that might be
magnificent but were certainly not science. MacKay's first move was to rescue
information that affected the receiver's mindset from the "subjective"
label. He proposed that both Shannon and Bavelas were concerned with
what he called "selective information," that is, information calculated by
considering the selection ofmessage elements from a set. But selective information
alone is not euough; also required is another kind ofinformation
that he called "structural." Structural information indicates how selective
information is to be understood; it is a message about how to interpret a
message-that is, it is a metacommunication.
To illustrate, say I launch into ajoke and it falls Bat. In that case, I may resort
to telling myinterlocutor, "That's ajoke."The informationcontentofthis
message, considered as selective information (measured in "metrons"), is
calculated with probability functions similar to those used in the ShannonWiener
theory. In addition, my metacomment also carries structural information
(measured in "logons"), for it indicates that the preceding message
has one kind of structure rather than another (a joke instead of a serious
statement). In another image MacKay liked to use, he envisioned selective
information as choosing among folders in a file drawer, whereas structural
information increased the number of drawers (jokes in one drawer, academic
treatises in another).
Since structural information indicates how a message should be interpreted,
semantics necessarily enters the picture. In sharp contrast to message
probabilities, which have no connection with meaning, structural
information was to be calculated through changes brought about in the receiver's
mind. "It's raining," heard by someone in awindowless office, would
yield a value for the structural information different from the value that it
would yield when heard by someone looking out a window at rain. To emphaSize
the correlation between structural information and changes in the
receiver's mind, MacKay offered an analogy: "It is as ifwe had discovered
how to talk quantitatively about size through discovering its effects on the
measuring apparatus."6 The analogy implies that representations created
bythe mind have adouble valence. Seen from one perspective, they contain
information aboutthe world ("It's raining"). From anotherperspective, they
are interactive phenomena that point back to the observer, for this information
is quantified by measuring changes in the "measuringinstrument," that
is, in the minditself. Andhowdoes one measure these changes?An observer
looks at the mind of the person who received the message, which is to say
that changes are made in the observer's mind, which in tum can also be observed
and measured by someone else. The progression tends toward the
56 I Chapter Three
infinite regress characteristic ofreflexivity. Arguing for a strongcorrelation
between the nature ofa representation and its effect, MacKay's model recognized
the mutual constitution ofform and content, message and receiver.
His model was fundamentally different from the Shannon-Wiener theory
because it triangulated between reflexivity, information, and meaning. In
the context of the Macy Conferences, his conclusion qualified as radical:
subjectivity, far from beinga morass to be avoided, is preciselywhat enables
information and meaning to be connected.
The problem was how to quantifY the model. To achieve quantification,
a mathematical modelwas neededfor the changes that a message triggered
in the receiver's mind. The staggering problems this presented no doubt
explain why MacKay's version of information theory was not widely accepted
among the electrical engineers who would be writing, reading, and
teaching the textbooks on information theory in the coming decades. Although
MacKay's work continued to be foundational for the British school
ofinformation theory, in the V nited States the Shannon-Wiener definition
ofinformation, not MacKay's, became the industrystandard.
Not everyone in the V nited States capitulated. As late as 1968, Nicolas S.
Tzannes, an information theorist working for the V.S. government, sent
Warren McCulloch a memorandum about his attempt to revise MacKay's
theory so that it would be more workable? He wanted to define information
so that its meaning varied with context, and he looked to Kotelly's context
algebra for awaytohandle these changes quantitatively. In the process,
he made an important observation. He pOinted out that whereas Shannon
and Wiener define information in terms ofwhat it is, MacKay defines it in
terms ofwhat it does. 8 The formulation emphasizes the reification that information
undergoes in the Shannon-Wiener theory. Stripped ofcontext,
it becomes a mathematical quantity weightless as sunshine, moving in a
rarefied realm ofpure probability, not tied down to bodies or material instantiations.
The price it pays for this universality is its divorce from representation.
When information is made representational, as in MacKay's
model, it is conceptualized as an action rather than a thing. Verblike, it becomes
a process that someone enacts, and thus it necessarily implies context
and embodiment. The price it pays for embodiment is difficulty of
quantification and loss ofuniversality.
In the choice between what information is and what it does, we can see
the rival constellations of homeostasis and reflexivity beginning to take
shape. Makinginformation athing allies itwith homeostasis, for so defined,
it can be transported into any medium and maintain a stable quantitative
value, reinforcing the stability that homeostasis implies. Making informa-
Contesting for the Body of Information / 57
tion an action links it with reflexivity, for then its effect on the receiver must
be taken into account, and measuring this effect sets up the potential for a
reflexive spiral through an infinite regress of observers. Homeostasis won
in the first wave largelybecause itwas more manageable quantitatively. Reflexivity
lost because specifYing and delimiting context quickly ballooned
into an unmanageable project. At every point, these outcomes are tied to
the historical contingencies of the situation--the definitions offered, the
models proposed, the techniques available, the allies and resources mobilized
by contending participants for their views. Conceptualizing information
as a disembodied entity was not an arbitrary decision, but neither was
it inevitable.
The tension between reified models and embodied complexities figures
importantly in the next episode of our story. If humans are informationprocessing
machines, then they must have biological equipment enabling
them to process binary code. The model constructing the human in these
terms was the McCulloch-Pitts neuron. The McCulloch-Pitts neuron was
the primary model through which cybernetics was seen as having"a setting
in the flesh," as Warren McCulloch put it. The problem was how to move
from this stripped-down neural model to such complex issues as universals
in thought, gestalts in perception, and representations of what a system
cannot represent. Here the slippage between mechanism and model becomes
important, for even among researchers dedicated to a hard-science
approach, such as McCulloch, the tendency was to use the model metaphOrically
to forge connections between relatively simple neural circuits
and the complexities ofembodied experience. In the process, the disembodied
logical form ofthe circuit was rhetorically transformed from being
an effect ofthe model to a cause ofthe model's efficacy. This move, familiar
to us as the Platonic backhand, made embodied reality into a blurred and
messyinstantiation ofthe clean abstractions oflogical forms. Unlike others
who make this move, however, McCulloch never relinquished his commitment
to embodiment. The tension between logical form and embodiment
in his work displays how the construction of a weightless information was
complicated when cybernetics moved into the intimate context of the
body's own neural functioning.
Neural Nets as Logical Operators
Warren McCulloch figured large in the MacyConferences. He chaired the
meetings and, according to all accounts, was a strong leader who exercised
considerable control over who was allowed to speak and who was not. He
58 I Chapter Three
had studied philosophy under F. S. C. Northrop and was familiar with
Rudolf Carnap's propositional lOgic. When he turned to neurophysiology,
hewas driven bytwo questions as much philosophical as scientific. "Whatis
a number, that a man may know it, and a man, that he may know a number?"9
He sought the answers in a model ofa neuron that he envisioned as
having two aspects-one physical, the other symboliC. The McCullochPitts
neuron, as it came to be called, was enormously influential. Although
it has nowbeen modified in significantways, for a generation ofresearchers
it provided the standard model of neural functioning. In its day, it represented
a triumph ofexperimentalwork and theoretical reasoning. As Steve
Heims points out, itwas not easyto extrapolate from amorphous pinktissue
on the laboratory table to the clean abstractions of the model.10 Before
complicatingourstorybylooking at the interplaybetweenlOgicalform and
complex embodiment, let us first consider the model on its own terms.
The McCulloch-Pitts neuron has inputs that can be either excitatory or
inhibitory. A threshold determines how much excitation is needed for it to
fire. Aneuron fires onlyifthe excitation ofits inputs exceeds the inhibition
by at least the amount ofthe threshold. Neurons are connected into nets.
Each net has aset ofinputs (Signals comingin to neurons in the net), an output
set (signals leading out from neurons in the net), and a set ofinternal
states (determined byinput, output, and Signals from neurons that operate
inside the net but are not connected to incoming or outgoing neurons).
McCulloch's central inSight was that neurons connected in this way are capableofsignifYinglogicalpropositions.
Forexample, ifneurons Aand Bare
connected to C and both are necessary for C to fire, this situation corresponds
to theproposition, "IfAand Bare both true, then C is true."Ifeither
Aor B can cause C to fire, the signified proposition is "IfAor Bis true, then
C is true." IfB is inhibitoryand C will fire on input from AonlyifB does not
fire, the signified proposition is "cis true onlyifAis true and B is not true."
This much McCulloch had formulated by 1941 when he metWalter Pitts, a
brilliant and eccentric seventeen-year-oldwhowas to become his most important
collaborator.11 Pitts worked out the mathematics proving several
important theorems about neural nets. In particular, he showed that a
neural net can calculate any number (that is, any proposition) that can be
calculated by a Turing machine.12 The proof was important because it
joined a model of human neural functioning with automata theory.
Demonstrating that the operations ofa McCulloch-Pitts neural net and a
Turing machine formally converge confirmed McCulloch's insight "that
brains do not secrete thought as the liversecretes bile but ... theycompute
thought the way electronic computers calculate numbers."13
Contesting for the Body of Information / 59
Although McCulloch knew as well as anyone that the McCulloch-Pitts
neuron was a simplified schematic ofan actual neuron's complexity, not to
mention the brain's complexity, he pushed toward connecting the operations
ofa neural net directly with human thought. In his view, when a neuron
receives an input related to a sensory stimulus, its firing is a direct
consequence of something that happened in the external world. When he
says a proposition calculated by a neural net is "true," he means that the
event to which the firing refers really happened. How did McCulloch account
for hallucinations and such phenomena as causalgia, an amputee's
burningsensation that refers to a limb no longerpresent? He proposed that
neural nets can set up reverberating loops that, once started, continue firing
even though no new Signals are incoming. To distinguish between firings
signifying an external event and those caused by past history, he called
the former "signals" and the latter "signs." ASignal "always implies its occasion,"
but a sign is an "enduring affair which has lost its essential temporal
reference."14 The multiple meanings that McCulloch and his colleagues
attached to reverberating loops indicate how quickly speculation leaped
from the simplified model to highlycomplex phenomena. Lawrence Kubie
linked reverberating loops with the repetitive and obsessive qualities of
neuroses; numerous Macy participants suggested that the loops could account
for gestalt perception; and McCulloch himself connected them not
only with phYSical sensations but also with universals in philosophical
thought. lo5
The gap between the relatively simple model and the complex phenomena
it was supposed to explain is the subject of an exchange of letters between
McCulloch and Hans-Lukas Teuber, a young psychologist who
joined the Macy group on the fourth meeting and later became a coeditor
of the published transcripts. Here, in correspondence with a junior colleague,
McCulloch lays bare the assumptions that make embodied reality
derivative from logical form. In a letter dated November 10,1947, Teuber
argues that similarity in outcome between different cybernetic systems
does not necessarily imply similarity in structure or process. "Your robot
may become capable of doing innumerable tricks the nervous system is
able to do; it is still unlikely that the nervous system uses the same methods
as the robot in arriving at what might look like identical results. Your models
remain models-unless some platonic demon mediate between the
investigators of organic structure and the diagram-making mathematicians."
Only the psychologist, he claims, can give the neurophysiologist information
on what "the most relevant aspects ofthe recipient structures [in
sensory function] might be."16 Cybernetic mechanisms do not signify un-
60 / Chapter Three
less they are connectedwith howperception actuallytakes place in human
observers.
In his response on December 10,1947, McCulloch explained his position.
"I look to mathematics, including symbolic logic, for a statement ofa
theory in terms so general that the creations ofGod and man must exemplifY
the processes prescribed by that theory. Just because the theory is so
general as to fit robot and man, it lacks the specificity required to indicate
mechanism in man to be the same as mechanism in robot." In this argument,
universality is achieved by bracketing or "black-bOxing" the specific
mechanisms. It emerges by erasing particularity and looking for general
forms. Rhetorically, however, McCulloch presents the theory as though it
preexisted specific mechanisms and thenwas laterimperfectlyinstantiated
in them. This backhanded swing invests the theory with a coercive power
that cannot be ignored, for it expresses "alawso general" that"everycircuit
built by God or man must exemplifyitin some form."17
In actuality, the theorem towhich McCulloch refers is provedonlyin relation
to the simplified model ofa McCulloch-Pitts neural net. Ittherefore
can have the coercive power he claims for it only ifthe assumptions made
for the model also hold for embodiedactuality, acongruence that canbe exact
onlyifthe model is as complexand noisy as realityitself. Buildingsuch a
model would, of course, defeat the purpose of model-making, as Lewis
Carroll (andlaterJorge Luis Borges) playfullypoints outwhen he imagines
a king's mad cartographer who is satisfied only when he creates a map that
covers the entire kingdom, reflecting its every detail in a scale of 1:1.18
Teuber points to a gap when he ironically asks ifsome "platonic demon" is
mediating between organic structure and abstract diagrams, a gap that has
not been closed despite McCulloch's backhand volley.
In a feminist critique of the history oflogic, Andrea Nye traces similar
Platonic backhands thatwere made to develop a logiC coercive in its lawlike
power.19 Nye points out that such moves are always made in specific political
and historical contexts in which they have important social implications-implications
that are masked by being presenting as preexisting
laws of nature.20 Like the logicians, McCulloch stripped away context to
expose (or create) a universal form. But unlike the lOgicians, McCulloch in
1947does notwantto leave embodied realitybehind. He is searchingfor an
"empirical epistemology," a way ofcombining embodied actualitywith the
force oflogicalpropositions. Teuber's objections hit anerve (orneuron) because
he insisted that the abstraction is not the actuality.
Dedicated to an empirical epistemology, McCulloch cannot rest content
with interpreting logical form as a universal command that embodied
Contesting for the Body of Information I 61
flesh must obey. A suture is needed to bind the flesh more tightly to the
model. The suture appears in his invocation ofmechanisms that had previously
been black-boxed in his appeal to universality. He recounts two instanceswhen
circuits he had sketchedoutforpattern-recognition in robots
were identified by colleagues as accurate representations ofthe auditory
and visual portions of the cortex-in humans. Now McCulloch-like a
knight that, moved from the diagonal to attack the queen, exposes the
queen to the bishop's attack as well-has caught Teuber in a two-pronged
attack. In the first approach, humans and robots are judged alike because
they obey the same universal law, whatever their mechanisms. In the second
approach, humans and robots are judged alike because they use the
same mechanisms. This double attack is also invoked, as we shall see in the
next chapter, by Norbert Wiener and his collaborators when a young upstart
philosopher took issue with their cybernetic manifesto. It tends to
appear when cybernetic arguments are challenged because it allows a defense
on two fronts Simultaneously. Ifmechanisms are black-boxed so that
only behavior counts, humans and robots look the same because they (can
be made to) behavethe same. Ifthe blackboxes are opened up (andviewed
from carefully controlled perspectives), the mechanisms inside the boxes
look the same, again demonstrating the equivalence.
How can the queen be saved? By recognizing that the abstractions here
are multilayered. When McCulloch goes down a level, away from what information
is toward what it does, he still ends up several layers away from
embodied complexity. Consider his claim that pattern-recognition circuits
in a robot mechanism and in a human cortex are the same. These circuits
are diagrams that have been abstractedfrom two different kinds ofembodiments,
neural tissue for the human and vacuum tubes or silicon chips for
the robot. Although there maybe alevel ofabstraction at which similarities
can be made to appear, there is also a level of specificity at which differences
create a Significant gap. It depends on how the perspective is constructed.
Controlling the context, particularly the movement from
instantiated specificityto abstraction, was crucial to constructing the pathways
through which the McCulloch-Pitts neuron was made to stand simultaneously
for a computer code and for human thought. Transforming the
body into a flow of binary code pulSing through neurons was an essential
step in seeing human being as an informational pattern. In context, this
transformation can be seen as a necessary Simplification that made an important
contribution to neurophysiology. Taken outofcontext, it is extrapolated
to the unwarranted conclusion that there is no essential difference
between thought and code.
62 / Chapter Three
I admire McCulloch because he made the audacious leap from amorphous
tissue to lOgical model; I admire him even more because he resisted
the leap. Although he emphasized the ability of his neurons to formulate
propositions, he never saw them as disembodied. He was aware that information
moves only through signals and that Signals have existence only if
they are embodied. "By definition, a Signal is a proposition embodied in a
physical process," he asserted in a speech, entitled "How Nervous Structures
Have Ideas," to the American Neurological Association in 1949.21 In
the contextofhiswritingas awhole, a commitmentto embodiment exists in
dynamic tensionwith an equallystrongproclivityto see embodimentas the
instantiation ofabstract propositions.
This tension can be seen in the manuscript version of 'What's in the
Brain That Ink May Character?" dated August 28, 1964. McCulloch recounts
about a recent trip to Ravello: "I was told that an automaton or a
nerve net, like me, was a mapping ofa free monoid onto a semigroup with
the possible addition ofidentity." The parenthetical "like me" points up the
incongruity between a highly abstract mathematical model involving
monoids and semigroups and the embodied creaturewho pens these lines.
"This is the same sort of nonsense one finds in the writings of those who
never understood [abstract form] as an embodiment," he continues. "It is
like mistakingaChomskylanguage for a real language. Youwillfind no such
categorical confusion in the original Pitts and McCulloch of 1943. There
the temporal propositional expressions are events occurring in time and
space in a phYSicallyreal net. The postulated neurons, for all their oversimplifications,
are still physical neurons as truly as the chemist's atoms are
physical atoms."22 Here, in the slippages between abstract propositions,
models ofneurons, and "physicallyreal" nets, we can see McCulloch trying
to keep three balls in the air at once. Although the neurons are only"postulated"
and are admittedly "oversimplifications," McCulloch fiercely wants
to insist they are still phYSical. Ifhe does not entirelysucceed in creatingan
"empirical epistemology," he nevertheless achieves no small feat in insisting
that none ofthe balls can be dropped without sacrificing the complexities
ofembodied thought.
The McCulloch-Pitts neuron is a liminal object, part abstraction and
part embodiedactuality, but other models were more firmly in the material
realm. Part ofwhat made cybernetics convincing to Macy participants and
others were the electromechanical devices that showed cybernetiC principles
in action. CybernetiCSwas powerful becauseitworked. Ifyou don'tbelieve,
watchWilliam GreyWalter's robot tortoise returning to its cagefor an
electrochemical nip when its batteries are running low, or see Wiener's
Contesting for the Bode; of Information / 63
Moth turning to follow the light and his Bedbug scuttling under a chair to
avoid it. These devices were simple mechanisms by contemporary standards.
Nevertheless, they served an important function because they acted
as material instantiations of the momentous conclusion that humans and
robots are siblings underthe skin. Particularlyimportantfor the Macy Conferences
were Shannon's electronic rat, a goal-seeking machine that modeleda
rat learninga maze, and Ross Ashby'S homeostat, a device that sought
to return to a steady state when disturbed. These artifacts functioned as exchangers
that brought man and machine into equivalence; they shaped the
kinds ofstories that participants would tell about the meaning ofthis equivalence.
In conjunction with the formal theories, they helped to construct
the human as cyborg.
The Rat and the Homeostat: Looping between Concept and Artifact
There are moments ofclarity when participants came close to explicitly articulating
the presuppositions informing the deep structure ofthe discussion.
At the seventh conference, John Stroud, ofthe U.S. Naval Electronic
Laboratory in San Diego, pOinted to the far-reaching implications of
Shannon's construction ofinformation through the binary distinction between
Signal and noise. "Mr. Shannon is perfectlyjustified in being as arbitrary
as he wishes," Stroud observed. "We who listen to him must always
keep in mind that he has done so. Nothing that comes out ofrigorous argument
will be uncontaminated by the particular set of decisions that were
made by him at the beginning, and it is rather dangerous at times to generalize.
Ifwe at any time relax ourawareness ofthe way in which we Originally
defined the signal, we thereby automatically call all ofthe remainder ofthe
received message the 'not' signal or noise."23 As Stroud realized, Shannon's
distinction between Signal and noise had a conservative bias that privileges
stasis over change. Noise interferes with the message's exact replication,
which is presumed to be the desired result. The structure ofthe theory implied
that change was deviation and that deviation should be corrected. By
contrast, MacKay's theory had as its generative distinction the difference in
the state ofthe receiver's mind before and after the message arrived. In his
model, information was not opposed to change; it was change.
Applied to goal-seeking behavior, the two theories pointed in different
directions. Privileging signal over noise, Shannon's theory implied that the
goal was a preexisting state toward which the mechanism would move by
making a series ofdistinctions between correct and incorrect choices. The
goalwas stable, andthe mechanism would achieve stabilitywhen it reached
64 / Chaprer Three
the goal. This construction easily led to the implication that the goal, formulated
in general and abstract terms, was less a specific site than stability
itself. Thusthe construction ofinformation as asignal/noise distinction and
the privilegingofhomeostasis produced andwere produced byeach other.
Bycontrast, MacKay's theoryimplied that the goalwas not a fixed pointbut
was a changing series ofvalues that varied with context. In his model, setting
a goal temporarily marked a state that itselfwould become enfolded
into a reflexive spiral of change. In the same way that signal/noise and
homeostasis went together, sodid reflexivityandinformation as asignifying
difference.
These correlations imply that before Shannon's electronic rat ever set
marker in maze, it was constituted through assumptions that affected how
it would be interpreted. Although Shannon called his device a maze-solving
machine, the Macy group quickly dubbed it a rat.24 The machine consisted
ofa five-by-five square grid, through which a sensing finger moved.
An electric jack that could be plugged into any ofthe twenty-five squares
marked the goal, and the machine's task was to move through the squares
by orderly search procedures until it reached the jack. The machine could
remember previous search patterns and either repeat them or not,
depending on whether they had been successful. Although Heinz von
Foerster, Margaret Mead, and Hans Teuber-in their introduction to the
eighth conference volume-highlighted the electronic rat's significance,
theyalso acknowledgedits limitations. 'We all know that we ought to study
the organism, and not the computers, ifwe wish to understand the organism.
Differences in levels oforganization may be more than quantitative."
They go on to argue, however, that "the computing robot provides us with
analogs that are helpful as far as they seem to hold, and no less helpful
whenever theybreak down. To find out in what ways a nervous system (or a
social group) differs from our man-made analogs requires experiment.
These experiments would not have been considered ifthe analog had not
been proposed."25
There is another way to understand this linkage. By suggesting certain
kinds of experiments, the analogs between intelligent machines and humans
construct the human in terms ofthe machine. Even when the experiment
fails, the basic terms of the comparison operate to constitute the
signifyingdifference. IfI sayachickenis not like atractor, I have characterized
the chicken in terms ofthe tractor, no less than when I assert that the
two are alike. In the same way, whether they are understood as like or unlike,
ranging human intelligence alongside an intelligent machine puts the
two into a relaysystem that constitutes the human as a special kind ofinfor-
Contesting for the Body of Information / 65
mation machine and the information machine as a special kind ofhuman.26
Although some characteristics ofthe analogy may be explicitly denied, the
basic linkages it embodies cannot be denied, for they are intrinsic to being
able to think the model. Presuppositions embodied in the electronic rat include
the idea that both humans and cybernetic machines are goal-seeking
mechanisms that learn, through corrective feedback, to reach a stable
state. Both are information processors that tend toward homeostasis when
they are functioning correctly.
Given these assumptions, it was perhaps predictable that refleXivity
should be constructed as neurosis in this model. Shannon, demonstrating
how his electronic rat could get caught in a reflexive loop that would keep
it Circling endlessly around, remarked, "It has established a vicious circle,
or a singing condition."27 "Singing condition" is a phrase that Warren
McCulloch and Warren Pitts had used, in an earlier presentation, to describe
neuroses modeled through cybernetic neural nets. Ifmachines are
like humans in having neuroses, humans are like machines in having neuroses
that can be modeled mechanically. Linking humans and machines in
a common circuit, the analogy constructs both ofthem as steady state systems
that become patholOgical when they fall into reflexivity. This kind of
mutually constitutive interaction belies the implication, inscribed in the
volume's introduction, that such analogs are neutral heuristic devices.
More accurately, they are relay systems that transport assumptions from
one arena to the next.28
The assumptions traveling across the relay system set up by homeostasis
are perhaps most visible in the discussion ofW. Ross Ashby'S homeostat.29
The homeostat was an electrical device constructed with transducers and
variable resistors. When it received an input changing its state, it searched
for the configuration ofvariables that would return it to its initial condition.
Ashby explained that the homeostat was meant to model an organism
which must keep essential variables within preset limits to survive. He emphaSized
that the cost of exceeding those limits is death. If homeostasis
equals safety ("Your life would be safe," Ashby responded when demonstrating
how the machine could return to homeostasis), departure from
homeostasis threatens death (p. 79). One ofhis examples concerns an engineer
sitting at the control panel of a ship. The engineer functions like a
homeostat, striving to keep the dials within certain limits to prevent catastrophe.
Human and machine are alike in needing stable interior environments.
The human keeps the ship'S interior stable, and this stability
preserves the homeostasis ofthe human's interior, in turn allOwing the human
to continue to ensure the ship'S homeostasis. Arguing that homeosta-
66 / Chapter Three
sis is a requirement "uniform among the inanimate and the animate,"
Ashby privileged it as a universally desirable state (p. 73).
The postwar context for the Macy Conferences played an important role
in formulating what counted as homeostasis. Given the cataclysm ofthe war,
itseemedself-evidentthat homeostasiswas meaningful onlyifitincludedthe
environment as part ofthe picture. Thus Ashby conceived ofthe homeostat
as a device that includedboth the organism andthe environment. "Ourquestion
is how the organism is going to struggle with its environment," he remarked,
"and if that question is to be treated adequately, we must assume
some speCific environment" (pp. 73-74). This specificity was expressed
through the homeostat's four units, which could be arranged in various configurations
to simulate organism-plus-environment. For example, one unit
couldbe designated"organism" and the remaining three the "environment";
in another arrangement, three ofthe units might be the "organism," with the
remaining one the "environment." Formulated in general terms, the problem
the homeostat addressed was this: given some function of the environment
E, can the organism find an inverse function £-1 such that the product
ofthe two will result in a steady state? When Ashby asked Macy participants
whether such a solution could be found for highly nonlinear systems, Julian
Bigelow correctly answered, "In general, no" (p. 75). Yet, as Walter Pitts observed,
the fact that an organism continues to live means that a solution does
exist. More preCisely, the problem was whether a solution could be articulated
within the mathematical conventions and technologies of representation
available to express it. These limits in tum were constituted through the
model's specificities that translated between the question in the abstract and
the particular question posed bythat experiment. Thus the emphasis shifted
from finding a solution to stating the problem.
This dynamic appears repeatedlythroughout the Macydiscussions. Participants
increasingly understood the ability to specifY exactly what was
wanted as the limiting factor for building machines that could perform human
functions. Von Neumann stated the thesis at the first conference, and
Walter Pitts restated it near the end of the meetings, at the ninth conference.
"At the very beginning ofthese meetings," Pitts recalled, "the question
was frequently under discussion ofwhether a machine could be built
which would do a particular thing, and, ofcourse, the answer, which everybody
has realized by now, is that as long as you definitely speCify what you
want the machine to do, you can, in principle, build a machine to do it"
(p. 107). After the conferences were over, McCulloch repeated this dynamic
in Embodiments ofMind. EchOing across two decades, the assertion
has important implications for language.
Contesting for the Body of Information I 67
Ifwhat is exactly stated can be done by a machine, the residue of the
uniquely human becomes coextensive with the linguistic qualities that interfere
with precise specification-ambiguity, metaphoric play, multiple
encoding, and allusive exchanges between one symbol system and another.
The uniqueness ofhuman behaviorthus becomes assimilated to the ineffability
of language, and the common ground that humans and machines
share is identifiedwith the univocalityofan instrumental language that has
banished ambiguity from its lexicon. Through such "chunking" processes,
the constellations ofhomeostasis andreflexivityassimilatedotherelements
into themselves. On the side of homeostasis was instrumental language,
whereas ambiguity, allusion, and metaphor stood with reflexivity.
By today's standards, Ashby's homeostat was a simple machine, but it
had encoded within it a complex network of assumptions. Paradoxically,
the model's simplicity facilitated the overlay ofassumptions onto the artifact,
for its very lack ofcomplicating detail meant that the model stood for
much more than it physically enacted. During discussion, Ashbyacknowledged
that the homeostat was a simple model and asserted that he "would
like to get on to the more difficult case ofthe clever animal that has a lot of
nervous system and is, nevertheless, trying to get itselfstable" (p. 97). The
slippage between the simplicity of the model and the complexity of the
phenomena did not go unremarked. J. Z. Young, from the Anatomy Department
at UniversityCollege, London, sharplyresponded: "Actuallythat
is experimentallyrather dangerous. You are all talking about the cortexand
you haveitverymuch in mind. Simpler systems have onlyalimited number
ofpossibilities" (p. 100). Yet the "simplersystems" helped to reinforce several
ideas: humans are mechanisms that respond to their environments by
trying to maintain homeostasis; the function ofscientific language is exact
speCification; the bottleneck for creating intelligent machines lies in formulating
problems exactly; and an information concept that privileges exactness
over meaning is therefore more suitable to model construction
than one that does not. Ashby's homeostat, Shannon's information theory,
and the electronic ratwere collaborators in constructingan interconnected
network ofassumptions about language, teleology, and human behavior.3o
These assumptions did not go uncontested. The concept that most
clearlybrought them into question was reflexivity. As we have seen, during
the Macy Conferences reflexivity was a nebulous cluster that was not expliCitly
named as such. To give the flavor of the discussions that both invoked
the possibility of reflexivity and failed to coalesce into coherent
theory about it, we can consider the image ofthe man-in-the-middle. The
image was given currency by World War II engineering technolOgies that
68 / ChapTer Three
aimed to improve human performance by splicing humans into feedback
loops with machines. The image takes center stage in the sixth conference
during John Stroud's analysis ofan operator sandwiched between a radartracking
device on one side and an antiaircraft gun on the other. The gun
operator, Stroud observed, is "surrounded on both sides by very precisely
known mechanisms and the question comes up, 'What kind ofa machine
have we put in the middle?'"31 The image as Stroud used it constructs the
man as an input/output device. Information comes in from the radar, travels
through the man, and goes out through the gun. The man is significantly
placed in the middle of the circuit, where his output and his input are already
spliced into an existing loop. Were he at the end, it might be necessary
to consider more complexfactors, such as how he was interactingwith
an open-endedand unpredictable environment. The focus in Stroud's presentation
was on how information is transformed as it moves through the
man-in-the-middle. As with the electronic rat and the homeostat, the emphaSiS
was on predictabilityand homeostatic stability.
Countering this view was Frank Fremont-Smith's insistence on the observer's
role in constructing the image ofthe man-in-the-middle. "Probably
man is never only between the two machines," he pOinted out.
"Certainlyhe is never onlyin betweentwo machines whenyou are studying
him because you are the other man who is making an input into the man.
You are studying and changing his relation to the machines byvirtue ofthe
fact that you are studying him." Fremont-Smith's introduction of the observerwas
addressed by Stroud in a revealing image that sought to convert
the observerinto a man-in-the-middle. "The human beingis the most marvelous
set of instruments," Stroud observed, "but like all portable instrument
sets the human observeris noisy and erratic in operation. However, if
these are all the instruments you have, you have to work with them until
somethingbettercomes along."32 In Stroud's remark, the man is converted
from an open-ended system into aportable instrument set. The instrument
may not be phYSically connected to two mechanistic terminals, the image
implied, but this lack oftight connection only makes the splice invisible. It
does not negate the suture that constructs the human as an informationprocessing
machine spliced into a closed circuit that ideally should be
homeostatic in its operation, however noisy it is in practice.
Fremont-Smith responded: "You cannot pOSSibly, Dr. Stroud, eliminate
the human being. Therefore what I am saying and trying to emphaSize is
that, with all their limitations, it might be pertinent for those scientific investigators
atthe generallevel, who find to theirhorrorthatwe have towork
with human beings, to make as much use as possible of the inSights avail-
Contesting for the Body of Information I 69
able as to what human beings are like and how they operate."33 As his
switch to formal address indicates, Fremont-Smith was upset at the recuperation
of his comment back into the ideology of objectivism. His comment
cuts to the heart of the objection against reflexivity. Just as with
MacKay's model of structural information, reflexivity opens the man-inthe-middle
to psychological complexity, so that he can no longer be constructed
as a black box functioning as an input/output device. The fear is
that under these conditions, reliable quantification becomes elusive or impossible
and science slips into subjectivity, which to manyconferees meant
that it was not real science at all. Confirming traditional ideas of how science
should be done in a postwar atmosphere that was already clouded by
the hysteria ofMcCarthyism, homeostasis implied a return to normalcy in
more than one sense.
The thrust ofFremont-Smith's observations was, ofcourse, to intimate
that psychological complexity was unavoidable. The responses of other
participants reveal that this implication was preCiselywhat theywere most
concerned to deny. They especially disliked reflexive considerations that
took the personal form ofsuggesting that their statements were not assertions
about the world but were revelations oftheir own internal states. The
primary spokesperson for this disconcerting possibility was Lawrence
Kubie, a psychoanalyst from the Yale University Psychiatric Clinic. In correspondence,
Kubie enraged other participants by interpreting their criticisms
of his theories as evidence of their subconscious resistances rather
than as matters for scientific debate. In his presentations he was more tactful,
but the reflexive thrust ofhis arguments remained clear. His presentations
occupy more space in the published transcripts than those of any
other participant, composing about one-sixth ofthe total. Although he met
with repeated skepticism among the physical scientists, he continued to
defend his position. At the center of his explanation was the multiply
encoded nature oflanguage, which operated at once as an instrument that
the speaker could use to communicate and as a reflexive mirror that revealed
more than the speaker knew. Like MacKay's theory ofinformation,
Kubie's psychoanalytic approach built reflexivity into the model. Also like
MacKay's theory, Kubie's argument met the greatest (conscious?) resistance
in the demand for reliable quantification.
Kubie's ideas will serve as a springboard for looking at the role that reflexivity
played in the Macy Conferences and in the lives of some participants
after the conferences ended, particularlythe lives ofMargaret Mead
and Gregory Bateson and their daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson. Contrasting
the MacyConferences with Catherine Bateson's account ofa simi-
70 / Chapter Three
lar conference held in 1968 will illustrate why the full implications of reflexivity
could scarcelyhave been admitted during the Macy period. Once
the observer is made a part ofthe picture, cracks in the frame radiate outward
until the perspectives that controlled context are fractured as irretrievably
as a safety-glass windshield hit by a large rock. The Macy
participantswere right to feel wary about reflexivity. Its potentialwas every
bit as explosive as they suspected.
Kubie's Last Stand
Lawrence Kubie had been trained as a neurophysiologist. He won McCulloch's
admiration for his 1930 paper suggesting that neuroses were caused
by reverberating loops similar to those McCulloch later modeled in neural
nets.34 In midcareer Kubie converted to psychoanalysis. Bythe time ofthe
MacyConferences, he was affiliated with the hard-line Freudianism ofthe
New York Psychoanalytic Institute. In his presentation at the sixth conference,
he laid out the fundamentals ofhis position. Neurotic processes are
dominated by unconscious motivations. As goal-seeking behavior, these
processes are ineffective because the unconscious pursues its goals in symbolic
form. A man wants to feel secure, and moneysymbolizes this security
for him. But when he acquires money, he still does not feel secure. He has
acquired the symbol but lacks what the symbol represents. With the gap
between desire and reality yawning as widely as ever, he may actually feel
more rather than less anxious as he approaches his putative goal.
Although McCulloch thought ofKubie as an experimentalist, from the
beginning of the conferences Kubie resisted the reductive approach that
was characteristic ofMcCulloch's work. At the first conference, Kubie expressed
uneasiness over reducing complex psychological phenomena to
mechanistic models equating humans and automata. At the sixth conference
he was still resisting. In "Neurotic Potential and Human Adaptation,"
he explainedwhyhe had not addressed feedback mechanisms: "Iwantedto
make clear the complexity and subtlety of the neurotic process as it is encountered
clinically. Without this we are constantly in danger ofoversimplifying
the problem so as to scale it down for mathematical treatment."35
Insteadofmechanistic models, his formulations emphasizedthe reflexivity
ofpsychological processes. At the seventh conference, in "The Relation of
Symbolic Function in Language Formation and in Neurosis," he insisted
on "the fact that the human organism has two symboliC functions and not
one. One is language. The other is neurosis." Moreover, the two functions
converge into the same utterance. Fremont-Smith drove the point home.
Contesting for the Body of Information / 7'
"What Dr. Kubie is really trying to say is that language is a double coding:
both a statement about the outside and a statement about the inside. It is
that doubleness which gives this conscious/unconscious quality to it."36
In this view, astatementintendedas an observationofthe externalworld
is pierced by reflections of the speaker's interior state, including neurotic
processes ofwhich the speaker is not conscious. Ifa scientist denies this is
the case, insisting that he or she speaks solely about external reality, these
objections themselves can be taken as evidence of unconscious motivations.
Forexperimentalists like McCulloch, concerned to give an objective
account of mental processes, psychoanalysis was the devil's plaything because
it collapsed the distance between speaker and language, turning
what should be scientific debate into a tar baby that clung to them the more
they tried to push it away.
The damage that this view of reflexive utterance could do to scientific
objectivitywas dramaticallylaid out by McCulloch in a 1953 address to the
Chicago LiteraryClub. Entitled"The Past ofa Delusion," the speech was a
fiery denunciation ofFreudian psychoanalysis.37 Ifall scientific utterance
is tingedwith subjectivity, McCulloch felt, then scientifictheory must inextricably
be tied to the foibles and frailties ofhumans as subjective beings.
To show the disastrous effects that this close coupling could have on science,
McCulloch took as his case study Freudian psychoanalysis, a theory
that in his view both promoted the idea ofclose coupling and itselfinsidiously
instantiated it. McCulloch ripped into Freud, suggesting that Freud
had turned to psychoanalysis because he had wanted to make more money
than he would have as a Jewish medical doctor. McCulloch recounted
Freud's sex life, intimating that Freud put sexuality at the heart ofhis theorybecause
he was sexuallyfrustrated himself. McCulloch denouncedpsychoanalysts
as charlatans who, motivated by greed, kept treating their
patients as long as those patients had money to pay. He sneered at the
empirical evidence used by Freud and other psychoanalysts. In his ironic
conclusion, McCulloch cautioned his audience not to tryto argue with psychoanalysts.
All they would get for their pains, he predicted, were psychoanalytic
interpretations of their objections as evidence of their own
unconscious hostilities.
Kubie learnedofthis speech from a colleaguewho had been in the audience.38
Although McCulloch went out ofhis way to exempt Kubie from his
general scornfor psychoanalysis (in a 1950letterto Fremont-Smith, he had
written, "Ofall the psychoanalysts I know, [Kubie] has the clearesthead for
theory"),39 the attack was too stinging not to draw a rejOinder. As pat as
McCulloch would have wished, Kubie interpreted the speech as a sign of
72 / Chapter Three
McCulloch's own psychological distress. Speaking to a colleague, Kubie
noted that McCulloch's "vitriole maybe due to an accumulation ofpersonal
frustrations of his own displaced onto analysis."4o Later, when he heard
about McCulloch's erratic behavior during a presentation at Yale, he wrote
to McCulloch's host, sending a copy ofthe letter to Fremont-Smith: "I am
distressed by this news about Warren ... in him the boundary between
sickness and health has always been narrow" (p. 137). Kubie even tried to
arrange for psychoanalysts in the Boston area to meet with McCulloch "on
a social pretext if necessary," with a view to getting him the "help" that
Kubie thought he needed (p. 138). As Steve Heims observes in his account
of these incidents, McCulloch would have been enraged had he known
about Kubie's attempts at intervention.
McCulloch's "The Past of a Delusion" is vivid evidence that FremontSmith's
attempts at reconciliation between psychoanalysts and physical scientists
did not succeed. Kubie was well aware of the experimentalists'
attitudes. After repeated attempts to win them over, he delivered his final
presentation at the ninth conference in what sounds like a state of controlled
rage. He likened the supposed "troublemaker" psychiatrist to "a
naturalist, reporting on the facts ofhuman nature as observed by him." By
contrast, he noted, the physical scientists ignore complex psychological
phenomena in favor of the Simplifications of an abstract model. "The experimentalist
and mathematician then after their explanation, whereupon,
the naturalist presents additional observations which confront the experimentalist
and the mathematician with an even more complex version of
natural phenomena." As the cycle continues, "these new complexities are
accepted with increasing reluctance and skepticism."41 In these remarks
Kubie presented his version ofhis presentations at the Macy Conferences.
He merely reported on the facts, whereas the others offered inadequate
mechanistic explanations for them. This characterization ignores, of
course, the Freudian framework he used to interpret his colleagues' behavior,
a framework at least as theory-laden in its observations as anything
McCulloch proposed.42
I think of this presentation, loaded with controlled anger as if in
point/counterpoint to McCulloch's extravagant display of anger in his
speech of the follOwing year, as Kubie's last stand. The resistance it describes
and inscribes went in both directions, from the psychoanalyst to the
experimentalist and from the experimentalist to psychoanalyst. For the experimentalists,
psychoanalYSiS strengthened the chain of association that
bound refleXivity together with subjectivity, for it added to the already
daunting problems ofquantification the unfalsifiable notion ofthe uncon-
Contesting for the Body of Information I 73
scious. It is no wonder that reHexivity came to seem, for many ofthe participants,
a dead end for legitimate scientific inquiry.
Even as one version ofreHexivity fizzled out, other versions were being
constructed in terms that made them more productive, in part because
theseversions avoided associatingreHexivitywith the unconscious. Temple
Burling, reading the published transcripts in 1954, wrote to McCulloch: "I
was surprised at the jamb that the group got into at this late date over the
question of'the unconscious.' It seems to me that is putting the cart before
the horse. It isn't unconscious neuro activity that is puzzling but conscious.
Consciousness is the great mystery."43 Burling's comments point to anotherwayinto
reHexivity, awaytaken byahandful ofparticipants, including
Heinz von Foerster, Margaret Mead, and Gregory Bateson. Though they
were not necessarily opposed to psychoanalytic interpretation, it was not
the focus of their attention. The scale on which they wanted to play their
tunes did not run up and down the conscious/unconscious keyboard.
Rather, theywanted to create models that would take into account the observer's
role in constructingthe system. The importantdichotomyfor them
was observer/system, and the important problems were how to locate the
observer inside the system and the system inside the observer.
Circling the Observer
In 1969, nearthe endofhis career, Fremont-Smithwrote (orrather, had his
secretary write) to participants of the various Macy Conferences that he
had organized over three decades, asking for their evaluation ofthe interdisciplinaryprograms
and the discussion formats. The inquirywas clearlya
career-clOSing move; he was looking for affirmation ofwhat he considered
his lifework. Some of the replies were disarmingly frank. Jimmie Savage
wrote abouthowitfeltto be ayoung man allowedto "hobnobwith such a diverse
group ofillustrious and brilliant people." He recalled that he had frequently
found himself thinking that the emperor had no clothes but
wondering ifhe couldtrusthis own feelings. He confessed, "Cyberneticsitselfseemed
to me to be mostly baloney."44 R. W. Gerard expressed similar
dissatisfactions, recalling being "intensely frustrated by the perpetual tangents
to tangents that developed during a meeting and the rare satisfaction
ofintellectual closure and completion ofany line ofthought or argument."
He added, "You may recall that this frustration was sufficient so that I did
not wish to attend later meetings."45 These responses are interesting
not only because they throw light on the conferences but also because
they talk frankly about feelings. "Affect ran high," Savage recalled. In the
74 / Chapter Three
transcripts, by contrast, emotions enter the discussion only as objects for
scientific modeling. Almost never are they articulated as something the
participants are experiencing. The contrast between the letters and the
transcripts illuminates the scientific ethos that ruled at the meetings. Emotions
were considered out ofbounds for several reasons, all ofwhich perhaps
came down to the same reason. The framework of scientific inquiry
had been constructed so as to ignore the observer.
Heinz von Foerster, in his letter to Fremont-Smith, saw the inclusion of
the observeras the centralissue ofcybernetics.46 He noted that at the beginning
ofthe century, with the advent ofrelativity theory and the Uncertainty
Principle, "a most enigmatic object was discovered which until then was
carefully excluded from all scientific discourse: the 'observer.' 'Who is he?'
was the question, indignantly asked bythose who subscribed to a sour grape
strategy, andseriouslyaskedbythosewhofelt thatanyscienceworthits name
must include the subject that makes the observations at the first place."
There were no precedents for this inclusion, he continued. "The whole
methodology of a science that includes the observer had to be developed
from scratch." He generously credited Fremont-Smith with the idea of
bringing together people rather than disciplines and thus placing relationships
at the center of the discussions (although the transcripts rarely acknowledge
these relationships). He also commented that Fremont-Smith
understoodthat includingthe observerwould have to be an interdisciplinary
task. In establishing the focus as "problems of communication," FremontSmithhoped
the Macygroup would see thatthe topic required an "intensive
andcomprehensive studyofman." Thus the scienceswere tobe unifiedbyan
overarching framework that could simultaneously explain "man" and the
peoplewho studied "man." Cyberneticswas to provide that framework.
In March 1976, two decades after the conferences hadended, Margaret
Mead and Gregory Bateson were sitting with Stewart Brand at Bateson's
kitchen table in a rare joint interview. Brand asked them about the Macy
Conferences. They agreed that including the observerwas one ofthe central
problems raised by the cybernetic paradigm. Reaching for a scrap of
paper, Bateson sketchedadiagram (which Brandincludedinthe published
interview) ofthe communication system as it was envisioned before cybernetics.
The drawing shows a black box with input, output, and feedback
loops within the box. The space labeled "Engineer" remains outside the
box. A second drawing represents Bateson's later understanding ofcybernetics.
Here the first black box, along with the names 'Wiener, Bateson,
Mead," is encapsulated within a larger box. In this drawing, the observers
are included within the system rather than looking at it from the out-
Contesting for the Body of Information / 75
side. The interview turned to a discussion of the dynamics that had prevailed
at the Macy Conferences. Mead commented, "Kubie was avery important
person at thatpoint." She added: "McCullochhad agrand design in
his mind. He got people into that conference, who he then kept from talking."
Bateson continued, "Yes, he had a design for howthe shape ofthe conversation
would run over five years-what had to be said before what else
could be said." When Brand asked what that design was, Bateson answered,
"Who knows?" But Mead thought it was "more or less what hap-
pened."47
Brand wanted to know why cybernetics had run out of steam. "What
happened?" he asked repeatedly. His sense ofthe situation is confirmed by
correspondence exchanged between the transcript editors-Heinz von
Foerster, Margaret Mead, and Hans Teuber-after the tenth conference
in 1953. Fremont-Smith and McCulloch wanted the transcripts published,
just as the transcripts for the previous four conferences had been published.
But Teuber disagreed, noting that the discussions were too
rambling and unfocused; if published, he said, they would be an embarrassment.
Although he was the junior member of the editorial board, he
stood his ground. He wrote to Fremont-Smith, sending a copy ofthe letter
to McCulloch, that ifthe others decided to publish over his objections, he
wanted his name removed from the list ofeditors.48 As the junior member,
he had the most to lose; the others already had established reputations.
McCulloch must have written a stiffnote in reply, for Teuber answered defenSively.
He insisted that the issue was not his reputation but the quality of
the transcripts. "From your note, it is obvious that I sound stuffY to you and
Walter. Do tell him that I wanted to get offthe list ofeditors, not because I
am worried about reputations, but Simplybecause I can't do enough for this
transcript to get it into any sort ofshape. The transactions ofthis last meeting
simply do not add to the earlier ones-they detract. Granted, there are
a few sparks, but there is not enough of the old fire. lowed it to you and
Frank Fremont-Smith to speak my mind on this matter."49 Mead worked
out a compromise. The three speakers would publish their talks as formal
papers, and McCulloch's summary ofall the conferences would be used as
an introduction. No one thought ofsuggesting more conferences or more
transcripts. It was the end ofan era.
But not the end of reflexivity. Although a reflexive view of cybernetics
failed to coalesce into a coherent theory during the Macy Conferences,
Bateson did not want to let the idea go. He determined to go ahead on his
own. He organized a conference in July 1968 to explore how the reflexive
implications ofcybernetics could provide the basis for a new epistemology,
76 I Chaprer Three
and he invited a group of scientists, social scientists, and humanists. Included
were Warren McCulloch and Gordon Pask, both central players
in cybernetics, along with Mary Catherine Bateson, known as Catherine
(to herfather as "Cap"), an anthropologist specializingin comparative reli-
gions.
Out of this week-long conference came Catherine's 1972 book, Our
awn Metaphor. 50 Heraccountofthis conference, insomeways areflection
ofthe MacyConferences, contrasts sharplywith the Macytranscripts. The
best explanation for this difference, I think, is epistemological. Catherine
assumes thatofcourse the observeraffects what is seen, so she takes care to
tell her readers about her state of mind and situation at the time. She recounts,
for example, finding out that she was pregnant in the months preceding
the conference; how awed she felt by the life that, whether she
consciously attended to it or not, continued to grow within her; and her
devastation when the baby was born prematurely, lived for an afternoon,
and died. Hergriefwas still fresh when she attended the conference, and it
naturallycolored, she feels, how she interpretedwhat she learned there.
The difference between her account and the Macy transcripts does not
lie in the fact that one is technical and the other anecdotal. It is obviously
importantto Catherine to understand, as clearlyas possible,whateach presenter
is saying, and she skillfully guides her reader through presentations
fully as complex, technical, and detailed as any in the Macy transcripts.
Rather, the difference lies in her attitude toward her material and her determination
to include as much ofthe context as she can. She takes care to
tell her readers not only what ideas were exchanged but also how the
people looked and her interpretation ofhow theywere feeling. In addition
to the words exchanged, she includes appearance, body language, and
emotional atmosphere. At the Macy Conferences, her mother, Margaret
Mead, had repeatedly cautioned that the transcripts were a purely verbal
record and therefore represented only a fraction of the communication
taking place. Mead wanted a much fuller record that would include "posture,
gesture, and intonation."51 Two decades later, Catherine fulfilled that
desire in her preciselycrafted descriptions.
Here is Catherine's account of Warren McCulloch: "Warren had
bright, fierce eyes and held his head dropped low between thin shoulders.
He had white hair and a white beard and curious blend ofglee and
grief, ofbelligerence and gentleness" (aaM, pp. 23-24). When he gave
a presentation, Catherine strained to follow his ideas and found it odd
that he was not more responsive to the needs and situations ofthose who
were listening. "More than anyone else present, Warren tended to use an
Contesting for the Body of Information / 77
uncompromisingly technical vocabulary, referring to scientists I knew
nothing of and calling on unfamiliar mathematics and neurophysiology.
As I listened I kept checking to see whether I was sorting out what each
example was about, what kind of thing he was trying to say in this interdisciplinary
context where not more than two or three people could
follow the substance of most of his examples" (OOM, p. 65). In her contextualized
account, McCulloch's fierce commitment to an "empirical
epistemology" carries with it an obvious price-a tendency toward decontextualization
that made him less than effective in communicating
with this audience.
Catherine Bateson included in her prologue Gregory Bateson's document
that set the agenda for the conference and laid out the problems it
would explore. The influence of cybernetics as it had evolved during the
MacyConferences is apparent throughout. Equally clear are Gregory's revisions,
critiques, and transformations ofthose concepts. He indicated that
he wanted participants to consider "three cybernetic or homeostatic systerns":
the individual, the society, and the larger global ecosystem in which
both are embedded. Although consciousness would be considered as "an
importantcomponentin the coupling ofthese systems" (OOM, p. 13), epistemologically
its role was limited. From an "enormously great plethora of
mental events," it chooses a few on which to focus (00M, p. 16). An important
factor guiding this choice, he hypothesized, is "purpose." Problems
arise when this purposeful selectionis taken as thewhole. "Ifconsciousness
has feedback upon the remainder of mind and ifconsciousness deals only
with a skewed sample ofthe events ofthe total mind, then there must exist
a systematic (i.e., non-random) difference between the conscious views of
selfand the world and the true nature ofselfand the world" (OOM, p. 16).
Thus the emphasis on "purpose" so central to the Macy Conferences became
here not an assumed orientation but a lens that consciousness wears
and that distorts what it sees. Specifically, this lens obscures "the cybernetic
nature ofselfand the world," an obfuscation that"tends to be imperceptible
to consciousness" (OOM, p.16).
Nowhere is the transformation that Gregory worked on the Macy Conferences
clearer than in what he considers the"cybernetic nature" ofworld
and self. For him, cybernetics is no longer the homeostatic model of the
Macy Conferences (although echoes ofthis language still linger). Rather, it
has become the reflexivity ofthe larger box that he would sketch a decade
later at his kitchen table. Equally striking is the changed significance of
separating a system from its surrounding context. For Bateson, decontextualization
is not a necessary scientific move but a systematic distortion.
78 / Chapter Three
The inclination ofthe conscious mind toward purpose makes it focus on an
arcofcausallyrelatedeventsleadingto aperceivedgoal. Obliteratedorforgotten
is the matrix in which these arcs are embedded. A truly cybernetic
approach, for Bateson, concentrates on the couplings that bind the parts
into interactive wholes.
The revisionist thrust of Gregory's view of cybernetics is apparent in a
letter he wrote to Catherine in June 1977, a year after his interview with
Stewart Brand. The letter begins with Gregory remarking on how rereading
Our Own Metaphor vividly brought the conference back to his mind.
Then Gregory lays out the gist of his new "cybernetic" epistemology. He
starts from the premise that we never know the world as such. We know
only what our sensory perceptions construct for us. In this sense, we know
nothing about the world. Butwe know something, andwhatwe know is the
end result of the internal processes we use to construct our inner world.
Thus we know ourselves as complex beings, including processes that
extend below consciousness and beyond ourselves out into the world,
through the inner world available to a consciousness that exists only because
ofthose processes. 'We are our epistemology" is Gregory's formulation.52
Catherine's phrasing is similar: "Each person is his own central
metaphor" (DDM, p. 285). In this view, the dualism between subject and
objectdisappears, for the object as athingin itselfcannotexist for us. There
is only the subjective, inner world. The world, as this "cybernetics" constructs
it, is a monism. Nevertheless, it is not solipSistic, for Gregory believes
that the microcosm ofthe inner world is functional within the larger
ecosystem only because it is an appropriate metaphor for the macrocosm.
In her concluding chapter, Catherine amplifies on this view by supposing
that we can understand the complexityofthe outerworldonlybecause our
codes for constructing the inner world are Similarly diverse and complex.
In this sense, we are ametaphornot onlyfor ourselvesbut alsofor the larger
system in which we are embedded. This leads her into a subtly nuanced
analysis of couplings between inner world and outer world, including the
inSight that becausetheworlds are coupled, theymustin the last analysis be
regarded as a Single system.
For Gregory, McCulloch represents a Moses-like figure who could lead
others to the brink ofthis new epistemology but was unable to enter into
it himself. "His last speech makes a special sort of sense if you read it as
spoken in that context," Gregory suggests.53 Catherine uses McCulloch's
speechto end heraccount ofthe conference, and the speechis worth quoting
in detail. "I am by nature a warrior, and wars don't make sense anymore,"
McCulloch begins (DDM, p. 311). The recognition rings true. I
Contesting for the Body of Information / 79
think ofthe statementin his summaryofthe :MacyConferences: "Ourmost
notable agreement is thatwe have learned to knowone another a bit better,
and to fight fair in ourshirt sleeves."54 For him, scientific debate was a form
ofagonistic conflict. He continues in his speech by recalling the nitty-gritty
details ofhis experimental work, its difficulties and funny moments. Then
his thoughts tum to human mortality. He is an old man; although he cannot
know it now, within a year he will die. Earlier in the conference, he
"snapped" (says Catherine): "I don't particularly like people. Never have.
Man to my mind is about the nastiest, most destructive ofall the animals. I
don't see any reason, ifhe can evolve machines that can have more fun than
he himself can, why they shouldn't take over, enslave us, quite happily.
They might have a lot more fun. Invent better games than we ever did"
(DDM, p. 226).
Now, at the penultimate moment ofthe conference, ofCatherine's book
that she will dedicate to him, and ofhis life, he confesses to mortal feelings.
"'The difficultyis thatwe, who are not single-cell organisms, cannot simply
divide andpass onourprograms. We have to couple andthere is behind this
a second requirement: Warren began to weep. We learn ... that there's a
utility in death because ... the world goes on changing and we can't keep
up with it. In have any disciples, you can saythis ofeveryone ofthem, they
think for themselves'" (DDM, p. 311).
IfGregory Bateson thought ofhimselfas McCulloch's disciple, the epitaph
that McCulloch wanted for himselfis certainly true in Bateson's case,
for he both learned from his mentor and went beyond him. Taking the cyberneticparadigm
ofMcCulloch's "empirical epistemology" and making it
into "our own metaphor," Bateson reintroduced the reflexive dimension
that McCulloch had fought so hard to exorcise when it was associated with
psychoanalysis. Yet Bateson's reinterpretation succeeded in articulating a
version ofreflexivitythat did not depend on apsychoanalytic entanglement
ofconscious and unconscious meanings in scientific statements. Moreover,
his epistemology gave an important role to objective constraints, for it insisted
that only those constructions that were compatible with realitywere
conducive to long-term survival. And survival was very much the name of
the game for Catherine and Gregory Bateson. The larger issues they
wanted their conference to address included the increasing degradation
of the environment. In looking for an epistemology that would proceed
from a sense of the world's complexity, they did not give up the idea that
some constructions are better than others.
Let me now anticipate connections between the path the Batesons followedand
those paths tracedin subsequentchapters. In breaking newcon-
80 / Chapter Three
ceptual ground, Gregory Bateson drew on a famous article on the frog's visual
cortex. The article had been coauthored by several people from
the Macy Conferences, including Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and
Jerome Lettvin; also listed as coauthorwas a newcomer who did not attend
the Macy Conferences, Humberto Maturana:55 In using this article to develop
"our own metaphor," Bateson went where no experimentalist could
easily follow, for he made speculative leaps that would take decades ofexperimentalwork
to confirm. He went into the innerworld and turned it inside
out, so to speak, so that the inner world became a metaphor for the
outer world. Maturana was to follow a similar yet different path. He went
into the innerworld and insisted that it can't be turned inside out, that it is a
metaphor for nothing other than its own creation ofitselfas a system. This
is the theory of autopoiesis, which we will discuss in chapter 6. Maturana
did not identifY with cybernetics as much as Bateson did, and he did not
generally use that term to describe his work. Nevertheless, his theory took
up certain problems that were left hanging after the Macy Conferences
ended. Like Bateson, Maturana found reflexivity more promising than
homeostasis. Also like Bateson, he both appropriated concepts from the
Macy context and changed them profoundly.
Janet Freud/Freed
Like Bateson, Mead, and Brand sitting at a kitchen table on that March
morning in 1976, I am sitting at my kitchen table in March 1996. I'm looking
at the pages on which their interview is published. I'm particularly intrigued
byaphotograph that Brandincluded, one evidentlygiven to him by
Mead or Bateson. It's a large picture, too large to include in one frame, so it
stretches across two pages. The caption identifies the setting as the 1952
MacyConference-the ninth, the conference with the last real Macy transcript,
for the tenthvolume (as noted above) was not a transcript butwas instead
formal papers. This was the conference of Kubie's last stand. The
photograph shows a large group ofmen and one woman- Margaret Mead
-sitting around cloth-covered tables pulled into a V-shape. A speaker
stands at the mouth of the V; the caption identifies him as Yehoshua BarHillel.
But wait. That must mean the date is incorrect, since Bar-Hillel
spoke at the tenth conference. He wasn't present at the ninth. So this photograph
must have been taken in 1953, at the conference in which the conversation
was so meandering and dilatory that it couldn't be published. I
wonder where the caption came from. I imagine Bateson digging out the
photograph and giving it to Brandwhile he and Mead clue Brand in on who
Contesting for the Body of Information / 81
waswho as Brandscribbles down the names, probablywhile theyare all still
sitting at the kitchen table.
Now I notice that Mead isn't the only woman in the picture. Another
woman sits with her back to the photographer, her arms extended, hands
reaching out to a machine I can't quite see. The caption identifies her as
"Janet Freud," but I know this can't be right either. She must be Janet
Freed, listed in the published transcripts as "assistant to the conference
program." I have seen her name in the typed transcripts of the editorial
meetings that followed the laterconferences, and I know more orless what
she did.
She was responsible for turning these men's (and a couple ofwomen's)
words into type. Shewas the one who listenedto the tape-recordings ofthe
earlyconferences and strained to catch inaudible strangewords. When she
sent McCulloch the typed transcript ofthe second Macy conference, she
plaintivelywrote that she knew there were "many, many blank spaces" but
that Dr. Fremont-Smith had ordered her and her staff to listen to the
recordings only twice and to type what they heard:56 Evidently, transcribing
the tape-recordings was taking too much staff time, and FremontSmith
did not want to waste his resources that way-his resources, her
time.
The quirk of memory or handwriting that made Brand call her "Janet
Freud" seems eerily appropriate, for this was the woman who, like Freud's
patients, had no voice in the transcripts, although the transcripts have a
voice that we can read only because ofher. She was the one who preSided
over the physical transformations of signifiers as they went from taperecording
to transcript to revised copy to galley to book. Others-the editors
Teuber, Mead, and von Foerster, the organizer Fremont-Smith, and
the chairman McCulloch-worried about content-but her focus was the
materialityofthe processes that make sounds intowords, marks into books.
She did the best she could, but the transcription took much time and she
had many other things to do. When she was told not to take time, the transcript
had more ellipses than words, and she felt bad. What to do? She suggested
to Fremont-Smith that he and McCulloch insist the speakers
deliver drafts of their talks ahead of time.57 Then she wouldn't have to
strain to listen to tape-recordings that were noisy beyond endurance bytoday's
standards. Shewouldn't have to guess at unfamiliarwords (the manuscripts
of the transcripts are peppered with misspellings). She learned
stenotypography (or perhaps arranged to hire someone else who knew it)
sothatthewords couldbetranscribeddirectlyinto the machine. This, combinedwith
the drafts ofthe presentations, allowed her to come up with rea-
82 / Chapter Three
sonable transcripts of both presentation and discussion without driving
herselfcrazy. At an editorial meeting, when others suggested that it was too
much work to pressure the speakers to get their drafts into the office ahead
of time, she spoke up. The drafts were essential. She defended the other
woman who was lower on the totem pole than she was-her staff-and
said that this woman could be expected to do only so much. She didn't say
so, but surely she had herselfin mind as well.
Janet Freed's role in the Macy group is teasingly hinted at in the transcripts
to the 1949 Editors' Meeting. Fremont-Smith depended on her to
keep him on track. He decided to make up a little booklet for the Macy
Conference chairmen to supplythem with guidelines, commenting, "It occurred
to us, in fact, it was Miss Freed's suggestion ... " Elsewhere, when
he realized that he had "jumped around a good deal" and gotten offtrack,
he referred to the list oftopics that Freed had made up for him to follow..58
When one ofthe men remarked that there were now thirteen Macy groups
and wondered ifhis office was going "to be able to do it," Fremont-Smith
must have looked at Freed, for he uttered a comment that, in this professional
and overwhelmingly male meeting, comes across as almost shocking
in its personal nature. "You write and get a lovely smile. Do you have anything
else you want to say at this point?" "No," she replies, not elaborating.
Nowhere else in the Macy transcripts, to my knowledge, does someone
simply answer, "No." Perhaps she was embarrassed, or perhaps she simply
felt her position made it inappropriate for her to say more.
Fremont-Smith's remark, faithfullypreservedbythe transcription technologies
that Janet Freed oversaw, has a slightly odd phrasing, and I puzzle
overit. Shewrites and gets a smile, as ifshe had to go somewhere to fetch it,
as if it were produced elsewhere and transported back to her face. I feel I
don't know where the smile comes from because Janet Freed effaces herself.
Rarely do we see her directly; we glimpse her largely through her reflections
in the speech ofothers. More than anyone else, she qualifies as the
outside observer who watches a system that she constructs through the
marks she makes on paper, although the system itself has a great deal of
trouble including herwithin the names ofthose people who are authorized
to speak and make meaning.
What are we to make ofJanet F., this sign ofthe repressed, this Freudian
slip ofa female who, with a flick ofa "u" (the U-shaped table at which she
sits?), goes from Freed to Freud, Freud to Freed?Thinking ofher, I am reminded
ofDorothy Smith's suggestion that men ofa certain class are prone
to decontextualization and reification because theyare in aposition to command
the labors of others.59 "Take a letter, Miss Freed," he says. Miss
Contesting for the Body of Information I 83
Freedcomes in. She gets alovelysmile. The man speaks, and she writes on
her stenographypad (or perhaps on her stenographytypewriter). The man
leaves. He has a plane to catch, a meeting to attend. When he returns, the
letteris on his desk, awaiting his signature. From his point ofview, what has
happened? He speaks, giving commands or dictating words, and things
happen. Awoman comes in, marks are inscribedonto paper, letters appear,
conferences are arranged, books are published. Taken out ofcontext, his
words fly, by themselves, into books. The full burden of the labor that
makes these things happen is for him only an abstraction, a resource diverted
from other possible uses, because he is not the one performing the
labor.
Miss Freed has no such illusions. Embedded in context, she knows that
words never make things happen by themselves-or rather, that the only
things theycan make happen are otherabstractions, like getting married or
opening meetings. They can't put marks onto paper. They can't get letters
in the mail. They can't bring twenty-five people together at the right time
and in the right place, atthe Beekman Hotelin NewYorkCity, where white
tablecloths and black chalkboards await them. For that, material and embodied
processes must be used-processes that exist never in isolation but
always in contexts where the relevant boundaries are permeable, negotiable,
instantiated.
On a level beyond words, beyond theories and equations, in her body
and her arms and her fingers and her aching back, Janet Freed knows that
information is never disembodied, that messages don't flow bythemselves,
and that epistemologyisn't a word floating through the thin, thin air until it
is connected up with incorporating practices.
...............ch..a.p..".e.r. ...F..O..U.f
LIBERAL SUBJECTIVITY IMPERILED:
NORBERT WIENER AND CYBERNETIC ANXIETY
Ofall the implications that first-wave cybernetics conveyed, perhaps none
was more disturbing and potentially revolutionary than the idea that the
boundaries ofthe human subject are constructed rather than given. Conceptualizing
control, communication, and information as an integrated
system, cybernetics radically changed how boundaries were conceived.
Gregory Bateson brought the point home when he puzzled his graduate
students with a question koanlike in its simplicity, asking if a blind man's
cane is part ofthe man.1 The question aimed to spark a mind-shift. Most of
his students thought that human boundaries are naturally defined byepidermal
surfaces. Seen from the cybernetic perspective coalescing into
awareness during and afterWorldWar II, however, cybernetic systems are
constituted byHows ofinformation. In this viewpoint, cane and manjoin in
a Single system, for the cane funnels to the man essential information about
his environment. The same is true ofa hearing aid for a deafperson, avoice
synthesizer for someone with impaired speech, and a helmet with a voiceactivated
firing control for a fighter pilot.
This listis meant to be seductive, for overthe space ofacomma, it moves
from modifications intended to compensate for deficiencies to interventions
designed to enhance normal functioning. Once this splice is
passed, establishing conceptual limits to the process becomes difficult. In
"A Manifesto for Cyborgs," Donna Haraway wrote about the potential of
the cyborg to disrupt traditional categories.2 Fusing cybernetic device and
biolOgical organism, the cyborg violates the human/machine distinction;
replacing cognition with neural feedback, it challenges the human-animal
difference; explainingthe behaviorofthermostats andpeople through theories
of feedback, hierarchical structure, and control, it erases the animatelinanimate
distinction. In addition to arousing anxiety, the cyborgcan
Liberal SubjecTiviTy Imperiled / 8S
also spark erotic fascination: witness the female cyborg in Blade Runner.
The flip side ofthe cyborg's violation ofboundaries is what Harawaycalls its
"pleasurablytight coupling" between parts that are not supposed to touch.
Mingling erotically charged violations with potent new fusions, the cyborg
becomes the stage on which are performed contestations about the body
boundaries that have often marked class, ethnic, and cultural differences.
Especially when it operates in the realm of the Imaginary rather than
through actual physical operations (which act as a reality checkon fantasies
about cyborgism), cybernetics intimates that body boundaries are up for
grabs.
As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have shown in their study ofembodied
metaphors, our images of our bodies, their limitations and possibilities,
openings and self-containments, inform how we envision the
intellectual territories we stake out and occupy.3 When the bodyis revealed
as a constmct, subject to radical change and redefinition, bodies ofknow1edge
are similarly apt to be seen as constmcts, no more inevitable than the
organic form that images them. At the same time that cybernetics was reconfiguring
the body as an informational system, it was also presenting
itself as a science of information that would remap intellectual terrains.
Branching out into diSCiplines as different as biology, psychology, and electrical
engineering, it claimed to be a universal solvent that would dissolve
traditional disCiplinary boundaries.4 Norbeli Wiener, the father ofcybernetics,
could be supposed to endorse this imperialist ambition. Yet, contemplating
the penetration ofcybernetics into social and humanistic fields,
he found himself confronted with some disturbing questions. Where
should the cybernetic dissolution of boundaries stop? At what point does
the anxietyprovoked bydissolution overcome the ecstasy? His writings testify
to both the exhilaration and the uneasiness that cybernetics generated
when its boundary dismptions threatened to get out of hand. They illustrate
the complex dynamiCS that marked the constmction of the cyborg
during the foundational period ofthe late 1940s and 1950s.
As this briefsummary suggests, to engage Wiener's work is to be stmck
by contradiction. Envisioning powerful new ways to equate humans and
machines, he also spoke up stronglyfor liberal humanistvalues. Atalk given
to an audience ofphysiCians in 1954 illustrates the breadth ofhis concern
and ambivalence..5 He predicted the existence ofthe automatic factory, argued
that electronic computers were thinking machines capable oftaking
over many human deCiSion-making processes, and cautioned that humans
must not let machines become their masters. As I indicated in chapter 1,
the values ofliberal humanism-a coherent, rational self, the right ofthat
86 / Chapter Four
selfto autonomy and freedom, and a sense ofagency linked with a beliefin
enlightened self-interest-deeply inform Wiener's thinking. Often these
values stand him in good stead, for example when he rejected the practice
oflobotomy at a time when Lawrence Kubie, alongwith many others, was
endorsing it. During World War II he frantically immersed himself in
military-funded research, but after the war he announced his opposition to
nuclear weapons and from then on refused to do military research.6 The
tension between Wiener's humanistic values and the cybernetic viewpoint
is everywhere apparent in his writing. On the one hand, he used cybernetics
to create more effective killing machines (as Peter Galison has noted),7
applying cybernetics to self-correcting radar tuning, automated antiaircraft
fire, torpedoes, and guided missiles. Yet he also struggled to envision
the cybernetic machine in the image ofa humanistic self. Placed alongside
his human brother (sisters rarely enter this picture), the cybernetic machine
was to be deSigned so that it did not threaten the autonomous, selfregulating
subject of liberal humanism. On the contrary, it was to extend
that selfinto the realm ofthe machine.
But the confluence ofcybernetics with liberal humanism was not to run
so smoothly. The parallel between self-regulating machinery and liberal
humanism has a history that stretches back into the eighteenth century, as
Otto Mayr demonstrates in AuthOrity, Liberty, and Automatic Machinery
in Early Modem Europe. 8 Mayr argues that ideas about self-regulation
were instrumental in effecting a shift from the centralized authoritarian
control that characterized European political philosophy during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries (especiallyin England, France, and Germany)
to the Enlightenment philosophies of democracy, decentralized
control, and liberal self-regulation. Because systems were envisioned as
self-regulating, theycouldbe left toworkontheirown-from the Invisible
Hand ofAdam Smith's self-regulating market to the political philosophyof
enlightened self-interest. These visions of self-regulating economic and
political systems produced a complementarynotion ofthe liberal selfas an
autonomous, self-regulating subject. Bythe mid-twentieth century, liberal
humanism, self-regulating machinery, and possessive individualism had
come togetherinan uneasyalliance thatat oncehelpedto create the cyborg
and also undermined the foundations ofliberal subjectivity. Philip K. Dick
tapped into this potential instabilitywhen he used his fiction to pose a disturbing
question: should a cybernetic machine, sufficientlypowerful in its
self-regulating processes to become fully conscious and rational, be allowed
to own itself?9 Ifowning oneselfwas a constitutive premise for liberal
humanism, the cyborg complicated that premise by its figuring of a
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled / 87
rational subjectwho is always already constituted bythe forces ofcapitalist
markets.
The inconsistencies in liberal philosophy that Dick's fiction exposes are
also apparent in Wiener's texts. His writing indulges in many of the practices
that have given liberalism a bad name among cultural critics: the tendency
to use the plural to give voice to a privileged few while presuming to
speak for everyone; the masking ofdeep stmctural inequalities byenfranchiSing
some while others remain excluded; and the complicity of the
speaker in capitalist imperialism, a complicity that his rhetorical practices
are deSigned to veil orobscure. The closest thatWienercomes to acritique
of these complicities is a rigid machine he constmcts in opposition to the
cybernetic machine. This alien and alienating machine is invested with
qualities he wants to purge from cybernetics, including rigidity, oppression,
militaristic regulation ofthought and action, reduction ofhumans to
antlike elements, manipulation, betrayal, and death. The scope ofthe critique
is limited, for it distances the negative values away from his projects
insteadofrecognizinghis complicitywith them. Whenhe predictedthe automatic
factory, for example, he foresaw that it would result in large-scale
economic displacements (with all the implications that this would have for
working-class people as autonomous independent agents), but he offered
no remedy other than the platitude that men must not let machines take
over.10
Wienerwas not unaware ofthe ironies throughwhich cyberneticswould
imperil the very liberal humanist subjectwhose origins are enmeshedwith
self-regulatingmachinery. Throughouthis mature writings, he stmggledto
reconcile the tradition ofliberalism with the new cybernetic paradigm he
was in the process ofcreating. When I think ofhim, I imagine him labOring
mightily to constmct the mirror of the cyborg. He stands proudly before
this product ofhis reflection, urging us to look into it so thatwe can see ourselves
as control-communicationdevices, differing in no substantial regard
from our mechanicalsiblings. Then he happens to glance overhis shoulder,
sees himselfas a cyborg, and makes a horrified withdrawal. What assumptions
underlie this intense ambivalence? What threads bind them together
into something we might call a worldview? How are the ambivalences negotiated,
and when do they become so intense that the only way to resolve
them is to withdraw?What can these complexnegotiations tell us about the
pleasures and dangers of the posthuman subjectivity that would soon displace
the liberal humanist self?
To explore these questions, we will begin with Wiener's early work on
probability. In his view, it is because the world is fundamentally probabilis-
88 / Chapter Four
tic that controlis needed, for the path offuture events cannotbe accurately
predicted. By the same token, control cannot be static or centralized, for
then it would not be able to cope with unexpected developments. The necessity
for a flexible, self-regulating system of control based on feedback
from the system itselfstarts with the system thumbing its nose at Newtonian
predictability. From this, we will follow a web ofsticky connections: a
reinscription ofhomeostasis; an information construction that grows outof
Wiener's deep beliefin a probabilistic universe; an interpretation ofnoise
linking noise with entropy, degradation, and death; and above all, an analogical
mode ofthinking that moves eaSilyacross boundaries to identifY (or
construct) pattern similarities between very different kinds ofstructures.
As much as anything, itwas these analogical moves that helped to construct
the cyborg as Wiener envisioned it. All this from a man so uncomfortable
with his own body that he could not throw horseshoes in even approximately
the right direction and had to abandon a career in biology because
hewas too clumsyto do the labwork. These physicalcharacteristics are not,
I shall argue, entirely irrelevant to the cybernetic viewpoint that Wiener
was instrumental in forging.
Of Molecules and Men: Cybernetics and Probability
Like Venus, cybernetics was born from the froth ofchaos. Wiener's important
early work was done on Brownian motion, the random motion that
molecules make as theycollide with each other, bounce offeach other, and
collide again, as iftheywere manicbumpercars.11 Given this chaos, itis impossible
to know the microstates in enough detail to predict from the laws
of motion how individual molecules will behave. Therefore, probabilistic
and statistical methods are required. (The Uncertainty Principle introduced
additional complications of a profound nature by setting limits on
how precisely positions and momenta can be known.) Probability calculations
are facilitated ifone assumes that the chaotic motion is homogeneous,
that is, that itis the same regardless ofhowthe system is slicedto analyze it.
This leads to the famous ergodic hypothesis: "an ensemble ofdynamiC systems
in some way traces in the course oftime a distribution ofparameters
which is identical with the distribution of parameters of all systems at a
given time."12 FollOwing George David Birkhoff, Wiener helped to make
this hypothesis more limited, precise, and mathematically rigorous than
hadWillard Gibbs when he first conceived the idea.
Refining Gibbs's methods and ideas, Wiener saw Gibbs as a seminal figure
not only for his own work but for all of twentieth-century science. "It
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled / 89
is ... Gibbs rather than Einstein or Heisenberg or Planck to whom we must
attribute the first great revolution of twentieth century physics," Wiener
wrote in The Human Use ofHuman Beings. 13 Gibbs deserved this honor,
Wiener believed, because he realized the deeper implications ofprobabilitytheory.
One explanation for this uncertaintyis the limit placedon knowledge
by the Uncertainty PrinCiple, mentioned above. In addition to
reflecting our ignorance of microstates, uncertainty also stems from our
finitude as human beings. Thirtyyears before this became an important element
in chaos theory, Wiener shrewdly realized that initial conditions can
never be known exactly because physical measurements are never completely
preCise. "What we have to say about a machine or other dynamiC
system really concerns not what we must expect when the initial positions
and momenta are given with perfect accuracy (which never occurs),
but what we are to expect when they are given with attainable accuracy"
(HU, p. 8).
Related to these epistemological issues is the shift oforientation implicit
in Gibbs's approach. Rather than use probabilistic methods to address
large numbers ofparticles (like the bumpercars), Gibbs used probabilityto
consider how different initial velocities and positions might cause a system
to evolve in different ways. Thus, he considered not many sets within one
world but many worlds generated from a Single set or, in Wiener's phrase,
"all the worlds which are possible answers to a limited set ofquestions concerningourenvironment."
So important didWiener consider this perspective
that he argued, "It is with this point of view at its core that the new
science of CybernetiCS began its development" (HU, p. 12). To see why
Wiener considered the innovation profound, we have only to compare it
with Laplace's famous boast that given the initial conditions, a being with
enough computing power would be able to predict a system's evolution for
eternity. In this view, the universe is completely deterministic and knowable,
as preCise and predictable as a clock made by God-or, amounting to
the same thing for Laplace, a clock governed by Newton's laws of motion.
By contrast, the probabilistic world of Gibbs and Wiener operates like a
baggypair ofpants, holding together all right but constantly rearranging itselfevery
time one tries to sit down.
Already steeped in probability theory and inclined to view the world as
one evolution realized from a range of possible worlds, Wiener thought
about information in the same terms. Working more or less independently
of Leon Brillouin and Claude Shannon, he came to similar conclusions.14
As we saw in chapter 3, Wiener defined information as a function ofprobabilities
representing a choice ofone message from a range ofpossible mes-
90 / Chapter Four
sages that might be sent. In a sense, he took Gibbs's idea and substituted
word for world. Instead of one world coming into being from among a
galaxyofpossible worlds, one message comes into being from a cacophony
ofpossible messages. When the theory worked, Wiener took it as further
confirmation that Gibbs's approach expressed something fundamental
about reality; the word and the world are both essentially probabilistic in
their natures. This interpretation, though fascinating as a window into
Wiener's view ofthe relation between information and physical reality, seriouslyunderstates
the constructive aspect ofinformation theory. Farfrom
beinga passive confirmation, information theorywas an active extension of
a probabilistic worldview into the new and powerfully synthetic realm of
communication theory. We can nowunderstand on a deeper levelWiener's
view of cybernetics as a universal theory of knowledge. Such a universal
perspective would succeed, he thought, because it reflects the way that
we-as finite, imperfect creatures-know the universe. Statistical and
quantum mechanics dealwith uncertainty on the microscale; communication
reflects and embodies it on the macroscale. Envisioning relations on
the macroscale as acts ofcommunication was thus tantamountto extending
the reach ofprobability into the socialworld ofagents and actors.
For us, in the late age ofinformation, it may seem obvious that communication
should be understood as requiring control and that control should
be construed as a form of communication. Underlying this construction,
however, is a complex series ofevents, with its own seriatedhistory ofengineering
problems, material forms, and bureaucratic structures-a history
that James Beniger has written about so well in The Control Revolution:
Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society.15 In
broad outline, the forms ofcontrol moved from mechanical (a cam directing
a mechanical rod to follow a certain path) to thermodynamic (a governor
directing the action of a heat engine) to informational (cybernetic
mechanisms ofall kinds, from computers to the hypothalamus understood
in cybernetic terms). In mechanical exchanges, determinism and predictability
loom large. When the center of interest turns to the furnace,
with its fiery enactments of Brownian motion, probability necessarily enters
the picture.16 When information comes to the fore, probability moves
from being ignorance ofmicrostates to becoming a fundamental attribute
ofthe communication act. As each new form ofexchange came to the fore,
the olderones didnot disappear. An automobile is essentiallyaheat engine,
butit nevertheless continues to use levers and rods ofthe kind known since
the classicalera. Similarly, a computeris an information machine, butitalso
uses molecular processes governed by the laws of thermodynamics. The
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled / 91
newforms are distinguished not bythe disappearance ofthe old but rather
by a shift in the nature oftheir control mechanisms, which in tum are determined
by the kinds ofexchanges the machine is understood to transact.
The move toward cybernetic control theory is itselfdriven by feedback
loops between theory and artifact, research and researcher. Envisioning
different kinds ofexchanges demanded different kinds ofcontrol mechanisms,
and constructing new control mechanisms facilitated the construction
of more exchanges in that modeP The circularity among
experimenter, control mechanism, and system interface is part ofthe story
I want to tell. This story includes not only the mechanisms of cybernetic
systems but also the mindsets of those who constructed themselves and
their machines in a cybernetic image. Wiener's assumptions, as we have
seen, were rooted in a probabilistic worldview. He realized that one ofthe
subtle implications ofthis viewis that messages are constituted, measured,
and communicated not as things-in-themselves but as relational differences
between elements in a field. Communication is about relation, not
essence.
Across the range ofWiener's writing, the rhetorical trope that figures
most importantly is analogy. Understanding communication as relation
suggests adeeper reading ofthis figure. Analogyis not merelyan ornament
of language but is a powerful conceptual mode that constitutes meaning
through relation. Seen in this way, analogy is a crucial operator in everything
from Wiener's passion for mathematics to his advocacyof"blackbox"
engineeringandbehavioristphilosophy. Indeed, cybernetics as adiScipline
could not have been createdwithout analogy. When analogyis used to constitute
agents in cybernetic discourse, it makes an end run around questions
ofessence, for objects are constructedthrough their relations to other
objects. Writing in the years immediately preceding and following World
War II, Wiener antiCipated some aspects ofpoststructuralist theories. He
questioned whether humans, animals, and machines have any "essential"
qualities that exist in themselves, apart from the web ofrelations that constituted
them in discursive and communicative fields. 'Whatever view we
have of the 'realities' underlying our introspections and experiments and
mathematical truths is quite secondary; any proposition which cannot be
translated into a statement concerning the observable is nugatory," he
wrote in 1936 in "The Role ofthe Observer."18 Wiener also saw sense perception
as working through analogy. In his most extreme pronouncement
on the matter, he asserted, "Physics itselfis merely a coherent way ofdescribing
the readings ofphysical instruments" (a statement deeply regretted
by his mathematical biographer, Pesi Masani.)19 Among the mappings
92 I Chapter Four
in his view of the world-as-analogy were metaphors that overlaid mathematics
onto emotion, sense perception onto communication, and machines
onto biological organisms. These mappings throw a different light
on his attempts to reconcile cybernetics with a liberal humanist subject. If
meaning is constituted through relation, then juxtaposing men and machines
goes beyond bringing two preexisting objects into harmonious relation.
Rather, the analogical relation constitutes both terms through the
process of articulating their relationship. To see this meaning-making in
process, let us tum now to a consideration ofanalogy in Wiener's texts and
practices.
Crossing Boundaries: Everything Is an Analogy,
Including This Statement
In his autobiography I Am a Mathematician, Wiener tells of retreating to
the family farm for a weekend after a row with a couple ofinRuential Harvard
mathematicians. Coming home cold and wet, he fell ill and slipped
into delirium. "All through the pneumonia," he wrote, "my delirium assumed
the form ofa peculiar depression andworry [about the row and] ...
anxietyabout the logical status ofmy mathematical work. Itwas impossible
for me to distinguish among my pain and difficulty in breathing, the Rapping
of the window curtain, and certain as yet unresolved parts of the
[mathematical] potential problem on which I was working." Retrospectively
musing on how his pain merged with external stimuli and mental abstraction,
he arrived at a key inSight about his relation to mathematics. "I
cannotsaymerelythat the pain revealeditselfas a mathematical tension, or
that the mathematical tension symbolized itselfas a pain: for the two were
united too closely to make such a separation significant." He realized "the
possibility that almost any experience may act as a temporary symbol for a
mathematical situation which has not yet been organized and cleared up."
IdentifYing an unsolved scientific problem with emotional conRict and
physical pain, he became "more and more conscious" that for him, mathematics
served to "reduce such a discord to semipermanent and recognizable
terms." Once he solved the conceptual problem, its link with a
personal conRict seemed to resolve that as well, allOwing him to "release it
and pass on to something else."20 Mapping mathematics onto emotional
conRicts is one way, then, that Wiener used analogy. No doubt on more
complex grounds than Jacob Bronowski intended, he enthusiastically endorsed
Bronowski's suggestion that all ofmathematics is a metaphor. Mathematics,
Wiener wrote in The Human Use ofHuman Beings, "which most
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled / 93
of us see as the most factual of all sciences, constitutes the most colossal
metaphorimaginable, and must bejudged, aestheticallyas well as intellectually,
in terms ofthe success ofthis metaphor" (RU, p. 95).
His identification ofpersonal conflictswith conceptual problems was so
strong that he perceived it as "driving" him to mathematics, almost as if
against his will.21 The coercive imagery is significant. He was the son ofa
domineering father who conSCiously wanted to mold him into a prodigy.
Once out from under his father's tutelage, he often found it difficult to motivate
himself. Steve Heims, in his biography of Wiener, observes that
Wiener apparently used the identification between emotional states and
mathematical problems as a spurto goad himselfonward.22 While working
on a difficult problem, he would fall into a depression, which he would deliberately
exacerbate to make himselfwork harder. Relying on analogical
equivalencies he set up between mathematics and emotion, he anticipated
that solving the intellectual problem would allow him to regain psychological
homeostasis.
The flip side ofdrawing analogies is constructingboundaries. Analogyas
a figure draws its force from the boundaries it leapfrogs across. Without
boundaries, the links createdbyanalogywould cease to have revolutionary
impact. For Wiener, analogy and boundary work went hand in hand. In
both his professional and his private life, he saw boundaries playing important
roles. He included in his first autobiography, Ex-Prodigy: My Childhoodand
Youth, an account ofhis mother's anti-Semitism and his feeling of
being unwanted and alienated from herwhen he discovered, as a teenager,
that his father's side of the family was Jewish.23 Perhaps because of this
formative experience, the construction ofinside/outside markers characterized
his response to many life situations. In his autobiographies, he frequently
depicted himself as an outsider, standing apart from a privileged
group whose boundaries did not include him. He made it apoint to decline
scientificprizes and to resign from prestigious profeSSionalgroups inwhich
he was offered membership ifhe did not agree with their goals.
Boundaries also played important roles in his scientificwork (as they do
in electrical engineering generally). The problem that engaged him when
he fell ill and felt the flapping curtain woven into the mathematics was a
boundary problem, having to do with what happens to an electrical field
around a sharp physical discontinuity. In his later work on cybernetics,
boundary formation and analogical linking collaborate to create a discursive
field in which animals, humans, and machines can be treated as equivalent
cybernetic systems. The central text displaying this interplay is the
influential cybernetic manifesto that Wiener coauthored in 1943 with
94 / Chapter Four
Julian Bigelow and Arturo Rosenblueth, "Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology."24
Offering an agenda for the nascent field of cybernetics, this work
also created a discursive style that produced the objects ofits analysis.
"Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology" begins by contrasting behaviorism
with functionalism. Whereas functionalism (in the authors' definition)
foregrounds internal structure and is relatively unconcerned with the organism's
relation to the environment, behaviorism focuses on relations between
the organism and environment and is relatively unconcerned with
internal structure. In the laboratory, the behaviorist approach leads to
"blackbox" engineering, inwhich one assumes thatthe organism is a"black
box" whose contents are unknown. Producing equivalent behavior, then,
counts as producing an equivalent system. The obvious justification is that
even when little or nothing is known about internal structure, meaningful
conclusions can still be drawn about behavior. Bracketing internal structure
did more than this, however. It also produced the assertion that
because humans and machines sometimes behave similarly, they are essentially
alike. Note the slippage in this passage comparing living organisms
and machines. "The methods ofstudyfor the two groups are atpresent
similar. Whether they should always be the same may depend on whether
or not there are one or more qualitatively distinct, unique characteristics
present in one group and absent in the other. Such qualitative differences
have not appeared so far" (p. 22). "Appeared" is an apt choice ofverb, for
the behaviorist viewpoint was constructed precisely to elide the very real
differences existingbetween the internal structure oforganisms and that of
machines. The analogy is produced by how the focus of attention is constructed.
The authors make a similar move when they perform successive
cuts in the kinds ofbehavior they find interesting, fOCUSing, for example, on
purposeful rather than random behavior. This series of boundary formations,
they contend, "reveals that a uniform behavioristic analysis is applicable
to both machines and living organisms, regardless ofthe complexityof
the behavior" (p. 22). What tends to drop from Sight is the fact that the
equation between organism and machine works because it is seen from a
position formulated precisely so that it will work.
Another rhetorical move is a reinscription oftwo important terms: purpose
and teleology. Each is carefully defined to fit the cybernetiC situation.
Purpose implies action directed toward a goal (p. 18); teleology implies a
goal achieved through negative feedback. In terms of the offered definitions,
teleological behavior means simply"behavior controlled bynegative
feedback" (p. 24). But keeping a loaded term liketeleology in playis not an
innocent reinscription. It carries with it the sense ofmoving toward a goal
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled I 95
meaningful to the system pursuing that goal, thus implying that meaning
can existfor machines. Italso suggests thatthebehavioristprojecthas acosmolOgical
dimension appropriate to the sweeping vistas oftime and space
that teleologyis usually taken to imply.
The authors reinforce these implications when they point out that teleologyfell
into scientific disrepute because it posits a "final cause" that exists
in time after the effects it is supposed to bring about. Their version ofteleologycircumvents
this problem; it does not rely on Aristotelian causalityof
any kind but onlyon purposeful action toward a goal. Theysuggest that the
opposite ofteleologyis not deterministic causalitybut is nonteleology, that
is, random behavior that is not goal-directed. They thus shift onto new
ground the centuries-olddebate between Newtonian causalityand Christian
teleology. The important tension now is not between science and God
butbetween purpose and randomness. Purpose achievedthrough negative
feedback is the way that goal-seeking devices deal with a probabilistic universe.
By implication, the proper cosmological backdrop for the workings
ofteleolOgical mechanisms is neitherthe cosmos infusedbydivine purpose
as imagined by Christians nor the world of infinite predictability as
dreamedbyLaplace but a Gibbesian universe ofprobabilistic relations and
entropic decay. Through these reinscriptions and analogical links, cybernetics
becomes philosophy byother means.
Ayoung philosopher, Richard Taylor, took up the gauntlet thrown down
in the cybernetic manifesto. In a critique published seven years laterin the
same journal, Philosophy of Science, he sought to show that either "purpose"
had been stretched so far that it could apply to anybehavior or else it
had been used to smuggle in inferences that referred to a machine's behavior
but that had properly originated within a human observer.25 He intended
to demonstrate that the rhetoric of "black box" engineering had
covertlyopened the boxes and putinto them qualities produced bythe very
analysis that treated them as unopened black boxes.
In their rebuttal, Wiener and Rosenblueth make clear that they are appealing
to a discourse community ofscientists, whom they deem superior
to philosophers. They constitute this community by distinguishing between
verbal analysis, which they call "trivial and barren," and their analysis,
which is motivated by "scientific" concerns.26 The implicit contrast
between the verbal ambiguities that might interest a philosopher and the
weightyconcerns of"science" is underscored bythe contrast theydrawbetween
Taylor'S "beliefs" and their repeated use of"science" and "scientific"
to describe their project (eleven times in a short article). Taylor had used
severalexamples to illustrate that"purpose," as theydefinedit, couldbe ap-
96 / Chapter Four
plied to nonteleological mechanisms (aclockthat breaks down at midnight
on NewYear's Eve, a submarine that follows a boat to which itis attached by
a cable). In riposte, Wiener and Rosenblueth contend that these examples
are easily distinguished from true servomechanisms using negative feedback.
To make the point, however, theyare necessarilyled into a discussion
ofthe internal structures ofthe mechanisms-exactlythe position theydid
not want to take in their original article arguing for a behaviorist approach.
Their rebuttal is effective, then, only to the extent that it complements a
strict behaviorist approach with an analysis that, contra behaviorist principles,
uses differences in internal structures to sort behaviors into different
categories.
This alternatingfocus on behaviorandinternal structureis similarto the
rhetorical strategies that GeofBowker analyzes in his article shOwing how
cybernetics constituted itself as a universal science.27 Bowker points out
that cybernetics positioned itself both as a metascience and as a tool that
any other science could use. It offered a transdisciplinary vocabulary that
could be adapted for a variety ofdiSciplinary purposes, presenting itselfin
this guise as content-free, and it Simultaneously offered a content-rich
practice in which cybernetic mechanisms were analyzed, modeled, and occaSionally
built. Operating on these two different levels, cybernetic discourse
was able to penetrate into other diSciplines while also maintaining
its turfas a disciplinary paradigm. In Wiener and Rosenblueth's rebuttal to
Taylor, the alternation between a structure-free and astructure-rich cybernetics
produces a similar rhetorical effect. In its structure-free guise, cybernetics
links men and machines by eliding internal structure; in its
structure-rich form, it presents information flow and negative feedback as
important structural elements. It is no accident that Warren McCulloch
used a similar rhetorical strategyin his argument with Hans Teuber, as discussed
in chapter 3. Just as the alternation between content-free and
content-rich cybernetics allows a deeperpenetration into diSciplinary sites
than would otherwise be possible, so the alternation between behaviorand
structure allowed the discourse Simultaneously to assimilate biolOgical organisms
and machines into the same categoryand to distinguish them from
plain-vanilla mechanical systems.
In his rejOinder, Taylormissed the opportunitytopointout thatthe focus
of Wiener and Rosenblueth's analysis alternated between behavior and
structure.28 Instead he chose to pursue a line ofquestioning similar to that
in his Original article, as he again tried to show that ifone relies only on external
observations ofbehavior, "purpose" cannot be reliably distinguished
from chance or random events. In contestingforwhat counts as "purpose,"
Liberal Subjecrivirlj Imperiled / 97
he wanted to deny to the behaviorist approach a distinction crucial to generating
their system (the difference between purposeful and random behavior).
He sensed that behaviorhad been defined so as to allow intention
and desire to be imputed to machines. Buthe let slip bythe largerpOintthat
behaviorist assumptions were used selectively to accomplish a political
agenda implicit in the way that categories were constructed. For Wiener,
this agenda included constituting one category that encompassed cybernetic
machines and humans, which were put together because they shared
the abilityto use probabilistic methods to control randomness, and another
category for noncybernetic mechanical systems. These boundary markers
implied larger assumptions about the nature ofthe universe (probabilistic
rather than deterministic), about effective strategies for dealing with this
universe (controlling randomness through negative feedback), and about a
system hierarchy that had moral connotations as well as practical values
(flexible systems using negative feedback were better than mechanical devices
that did not use feedback). More than the definition ofpurpose, itwas
these largerinscriptions that made "Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology" the
founding document for cybernetics.
One ofthe most frequent criticisms made ofcybernetics during this period
was that it was not really a new science but was merely an extended
analogy (men are like machines). Wiener heard the charge often enough
that he finally felt it was time to take the cybernetic bull by the horns. In
"The Nature of Analogy," a manuscript fragment dated 1950, he offers a
strong defense for analogy, moving the argument onto new and more compelling
ground.29 Its brevity notwithstanding, "The Nature ofAnalogy" is a
wide-ranging meditation on what analogy means in science, mathematics,
language, and perception. It argues that those who object to Wiener's analOgical
moves do so because they hold realist assumptions that do not stand
up to rigorous scrutiny. CybernetiCS as Wiener envisioned it is about relation,
not essence. The analOgical relations it constructs are therefore not
merely rhetorical figures but are systems that generate the only kind ofsignificance
available to us as perceiving, finite beings with no access to unmediated
reality.
Wiener begins by pointing out that language is always analOgical, in the
sense that it puts forth propositions that listeners must interpret from their
own experiences, which are never identical to the speaker's. This observation
anticipates Michael Arbib and Mary Hesse's argument that signification
occurs through categoryconstitution, not through the communication
ofan Aristotelian essence.3D Like them, Wiener also denies that language
communicates an Aristotelian essence. The convergence points to similar-
98 / Chapter Four
ities between his definition of infomwtion and Ferdinand de Saussure's
view ofla langue, or language as a system. In both cases, communication
proceeds through selection from a field ofpossible alternatives rather than
through the direct articulation ofinherent reference. Just as Saussurian linguistics
is associated with deconstructive theories that reveal the indeterminacy
of reference and that expose the inability of language to ground
itself, so Wiener's cybernetics sees communication as a probabilistic act in
a probabilistic universe, where initial conditions are never known exactly
and where messages signify only through their relation to other messages
that might have been sent. For Wiener no less than Saussure, signification
is about relation, not about the world as a thing-in-itself.31
It is in this context that pattern, associated with information (as we saw
in chapter 2), assumes paramount importance. Wiener's view ofsense perception
makes the point clear. Perception does not reflect reality directly
but rather relies on transformations that preserve a pattern across multiple
sensory modalities and neural interfaces. Representation emerges through
the analogical relation ofthese transformations to the original stimulus. In
this respect, sense perception is like mathematics and logic, for they too
"deal preeminently with pattern apart from content."32 The behaviorist
approach is well suited to this relational epistemology because it concentrates
on transmission of patterns rather than communication of essence.
Consider the antiaircraft predictor that Wiener developed in collaboration
with Julian Bigelow during World War II.33 The prognosticator received
tracking data as input (for example, radar follOwing a plane) and gave, as
output, predictions of where the plane would go. Statistical analysis was
used to find patterns in these data, and the data themselves were understood
as patterns analogically related to events in the world. Thus, perception,
mathematics, and information all concentrate on pattern rather than
content. As data move across various kinds of interfaces, analogical relationships
are the links that allowpattern to be preserved from one modality
to another. Analogy is thus constituted as a universal exchange system that
allows data to move across boundaries. It is the lingua franca of a world
(re)constructed through relation rather than grasped in essence.
Border crossings accomplished through analogy include the separation
between flesh andworld (sense perception), the transition betweenone disCipline
and another (for example, moving from the phYSiology of living organisms
to the electrical engineering of a cybernetic machine), and the
transformation of embodied experience, noisy with error, into the clean
abstractions ofmathematical pattern. Even the prostheses that Wiener deSigned
can be understood as operating through analogy, for they trans-
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled / 99
formed information from one modality into another.34 The "hearingglove,"
for example, was an apparatus that converted sounds (auditory signals) into
touch (tactile signals) by stimulating a deaf person's fingers with electromagnetic
vibrators that were analogical transformations ofsound frequencies.
For Wiener, analogy was communication, and communication was
analogy. Objecting that cybernetics is "merely an analogy" was for him akin
to saying that cybernetics is "merely about howwe know the world."
The problem with this approach lies not so much in the analogical relations
that Wiener constructed between living and mechanical systems as in
his tendency to erase from view the very real differences in embodied materiality,
differences that the analogies did not express. Confronted with
two situations, he was much more inclined to move easilyand quickly to an
abstract level, where similarities in patterns became evident, than to remain
attentive to the particularities that made each situation unique.
No doubt his own lack of involvement in the nitty-gritty work of the lab
was a contributing factor in this elision ofembodied materiality. He noted
the impatience he felt with the exacting procedures ofthe biologicallaboratory.
"This impatience was largely the result of my mental quickness
and physical slowness. I could see the end to be accomplished long before
I could labor through the manipulative stages that were to bring me
there."35 The problem was serious enough to force him to give up his hope
of earning a Ph.D. in biology. In his later profeSSional collaborations with
Rosenblueth and others, he left the lab work to them. Colleagues recall
how he would wander into Rosenblueth's laboratory when an experiment
was under way, make a few notes and ask a few questions, and retreat to his
office to work out the mathematical analogies expressing the physical situation.
When Wiener and his collaborators wrote such phrases as "We cut
the attachment of the muscle," the plural was purely honorary, as Masani
points out in his excellent biography of Wiener.36 Other colleagues suggested
that his ineptitude in the lab made him less attentive to the particularities
ofactual neurophysiological structures. In a posthumous tribute to
Wiener, 'Walter Rosenblith and Jerome Wiesner wrote, "In areas in which
Wiener's intuition was less educated than in engineering, he was often impatient
with experimental details; for example, he seemed sometimes unwilling
to learn that the brain did not behave the way he expected it to."37
For Wiener, the emphaSiS on analogy went hand in hand with a certain estrangement
from the flesh. In this respect, the contrast between him and
McCulloch is clear. As a dedicated experimentalist, McCulloch was sensitive
in a way that Wiener was not to the tension between the plenitude of
embodiment and the sparseness ofabstraction.
100 / Chapter Four
As we have seen, Wiener wanted to inscribe cybernetics into a larger
drama that would reinforce the liberal humanist subject. Given his inclination
toward a Gibbesian universe, that drama focused on probability. In
addition to operating on the microscale of subatomic particles and the
macroscale ofcybernetic circuits, probability also operates on the cosmolOgical
level ofuniversal dissipation and decay. Linking probabilitywith information
allowed Wiener to script the cybernetic subject into a
cosmological drama of chaos and order. It is here, on this cosmological
level, that he staged the moral distinctions between good cybernetic systems,
which reinforce the autonomous liberal subject, and evil machines,
which undermine or destroy the autonomy of the subject. An important
player in this titanic struggle between good and evil machines is entropy, a
protean concept with a richly complex history.
Entropy as Cultural Relay: From Heat Engines to Information
We can begin our investigation into entropy with the series of transformations
that Mark Seltzertraces inBodies and Machines. Seltzer, concentrating
on the social formations oflate-nineteenth-century naturalism, finds at the
heart ofnaturalism a double and seemingly contradictory thrust: on the one
hand, "the insistence on the materiality or physicality ofpersons, representations,
and actions"; on the otherhand, "the insistentabstraction ofpersons,
bodies, and motions to models, numbers, maps, charts, and diagrammatic
representations." Calling the ideologythat resulted from this double thrust a
"dematerialized materialism," Seltzer instances such phenomena as the
emergence of statistical representations for human behavior and the renewed
interest in the ergonomics ofthe human body.38 One focuses on behavior
abstracted into statistical ensembles ofdata, the other on the material
processes of energy consumption and dissipation. They illustrate the construction
ofbodies both as material objects and as probability distributions.
The dualitythat Seltzerlocates in nineteenth-centuryculture continued
into the twentieth century with renewed force when statistical thermodynamics
merged with information theory. One ofthe principal sites for this
merger was cybernetics. The emphasis on pattern constructed bodies as
immaterial flows ofinformation; the alternatingemphasis on structure recognized
that these "black boxes" were heavy with materiality. Complex
couplings between the two registers worked to set up a series ofexchanges
between biological organisms and machines. To see how these couplings
evolved, let us startwith the exchanges that thermodynamiCS set up and follow
them forward into cybernetiCS.
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled I 101
The first law of thermodynamics, stating that energy is neither created
nor destroyed, points to a world in which no energy is lost. The second law,
stating that entropy always tends to increase in a closed system, forecasts a
universe that is constantly winding down. This tension between the first
and second laws, between stability and degradation, runs like a leitmotiv
through turn-of-the-centurycultural formations. According to Seltzer, the
tension itselfacts like a thermodynamic exchanger, allOwing incompatible
terms such as production and reproduction, machines and bodies, to be articulated
together. The body is like a heat engine because it cycles energy
into different forms and degrades it in the process; the body is not like a
heat engine because it can use energy to repair itselfand to reproduce. In
one sense the comparison constructs the difference between bodyand machine;
in another sense it acts as an exchanger that allows bodies and heat
engines to be linked together. Through such comparisons, Seltzer argues,
"what is gradually elaborated is a more or less efficient, more or less effective
system of transformations and relays between 'opposed' and contradictory
registers." These ambiguous linkages were reinforced because
thermodynamics itselfwas perceived as operating in the two different registers
ofconservation and dissipation. Thus, he concludes that thermodynamics,
wrapping both conservative stability and dissipative decay within
the mantle ofscientific authority, "provided a working model ofa new mechanics
and biomechanics ofpower."39
Already functioning as an exchange system within the culture, thermodynamiCS
evolved into "dematerialized materialism" when Ludwig
Boltzmann gave entropya much more general formulation bydefining it as
a probability function. In this "dematerialized" construction, entropy was
interpreted as a measure of randomness. The second law was then reformulated
to state that closed systems tend to move from order to randomness.
Encompassing the earlier definition of entropy, Boltzmann's
formulation also added something new, for it allowed entropy to be linked
with systems that had nothing to do with heat engines.
This dematerialization was carried further when entropywas connected
with information. As early as 1929, the connection was made through Leo
Szilard's interpretation of Maxwell's Demon,4o a mythical being in a
thought experiment proposed by James Clerk Maxwell in 1871. The Demon
gained energy by sorting molecules. Szilard and Leon Brillouin,
among others, pointed out that to sort molecules, the Demon has to have
information about them.41 The container in which the Demon sits is
imagined as a "black body" (a technical term meaning that the radiation is
uniformly dispersed) so that there is no way for the Demon to "see" the
102 / Chapter Four
molecules. Brillouin calculated that the energy the Demon would have to
expend to get information about the molecules is greater than what the
Demon could gain bythe sorting process. The immediate resultwas to rescue
the second law, which in any case was too well-established to be seriouslyin
doubt. The moreimportantimplicationwas to suggestthatentropy
and information are inversely related to each other. The more information
there is, the less entropy; the more entropyis present, the less information.
Brillouin therefore proposed that information be considered as negative
entropy, or negentropy. Maxwell's Demon was one of the relay points
through which a relationship was established between entropy and infor-
mation.
Like Brillouin and many others ofhis generation, Wiener accepted the
idea that entropy was the opposite of information. The inverse relation
made sense to him because he thought ofinformation as allied with structure
and viewed entropy as associated with randomness, dissipation, and
death. "As entropy increases," he wrote, "the universe, and all closed systems
in the universe, tend naturally to deteriorate and lose their distinctiveness,
to move from the least to the most probable state, from a state of
organization and differentiation in which distinctions and forms exist, to a
state of chaos and sameness. In Gibbs' universe order is least probable,
chaos most probable." In this view, life is an islandofnegentropyamida sea
of disorder. "There are local enclaves whose direction seems opposed to
that ofthe universe at large and in which there is a limited and temporary
tendency for organization to increase. Life finds its home in some ofthese
enclaves" (HU, p. 12). In a related metaphor, he envisioned a living organism
as an informational system swimming upstream against the entropic
tide.
This view of entropy makes sense when viewed in the context of
nineteenth-century thermodynamics. But it is not a necessary implication
ofinformation as information is technically defined. Claude Shannon took
the opposite view and identified information and entropy rather than opposed
them.42 Since the choice ofsign was conventional, this formulation
was also a possibility. HeUristically, Shannon's choice was explained bysaying
that the more unexpected (or random) a message is, the more information
it conveys.43 This change in sign did not affect the dematerialization
that entropyhad undergone, butitdid reverse entropy's value in more than
a mathematical sense. In retrospect, identifYing entropy with information
can be seen as a crucial crossingpoint, for this allowedentropyto be reconceptualized
as the thermodynamic motor driving systems to self-organization
ratherthan as the heatengine drivingtheworldto universalheatdeath.
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled I 103
Space will not permit me to tell the story of this reversal here, and in any
event, it has been chronicled elsewhere.44 Suffice it to say that as a result,
chaos went from being associatedwith dissipation in the Victorian sense of
dissolute living and reckless waste to being associated with diSSipation in a
newlypositive sense ofincreasing complexity and new life.
Wienercame close to makingthis crossing. Inone ofhis astonishing analOgical
leaps, he saw a connection between the "light" that the Demon
needs to sort the molecules and the lights that plants use in photosynthesis.
He argued that in photosynthesis, plants act as iftheir leaves were studded
with Maxwell's Demons, all sorting molecules to allow the plant to run uphill
toward increasingcomplexityratherthan downhill toward death.45 But
he did not go beyond this isolatedinsight to the larger realization that large
entropy production could drive systems to increasing complexity. Finally,
he remains on the negative side ofthis divide, seeinglife andhomeostasis as
contrarian islands that, although they may hold out for a while, must eventually
be swamped bythe entropic tide.
So firmly rooted is Wiener in this perspective thathe comes close on several
occasions to saying that entropic decay is evil. Entropy becomes
morallynegative for Wienerwhen he sees it operatingagainst the differential
probabilitydistributions on which the transfer ofinformation depends.
Recall that Gregory Bateson defined information as a difference that
makes a difference; ifthere is no difference, there is no information. Since
entropy tends always to increase, it will eventually result in a universe in
which all distributions are in their most probable state and inwhich universal
homogeneity prevails. Imagine Dr. Zhivago sitting at his desk in a cold,
cold room, trying to telegraph a message to his beloved Laura, while in the
background Laura's theme plays and entropykeeps relentlesslyincreasing.
Icicles hanging from his fingers and the telegraph key; he tries to tap out "I
love you," but he is having trouble. He not onlyis freezing from heat death
but also is styn1ied byinformation death. No matterwhat he taps, the message
always comes outthe same: "eeeeeee" (orwhateverletteris most common
in the Russian alphabet). This whimsical scenario illustrates why
Wienerassociatedentropywith oppression, rigidity, and death. Communication
can be seen, he suggested, as a game that two humans (or machines)
play against noise.46 To be rigid is inevitably to lose the game, for rigidity
consigns the players to the mechanical repetition ofmessages that can only
erode over time as noise intervenes. Only ifcreative play is allowed, ifthe
mechanism can adapt freely to changing messages, can homeostasis be
maintained, even temporarily, in the face ofconstant entropic pressure toward
degradation.
/04 / Chapter Four
In the "dematerialized materialism" of the battlefield where life struggles
against entropy and noise, the body ceases to be regarded primarily as a
material object and instead is seen as an informationalpattern. The struggle,
then, is between strategists who try to preserve this pattern intact and noisy
opponents (or, rather, noise as an opponent) who tryto disrupt it. Duringthe
1940s and 1950s, Wiener was one of the important voices casting the cosmological
drama between cybernetic mechanisms and noise in these terms.
In The Human Use ofHuman Beings, he suggests that human beings are not
so much bone and blood, nerve and synapse, as they are patterns oforganization.
He points out that overthe course ofa lifetime, the cells composing a
human being change many times over. Identity cannot therefore consist in
physical continuity. "Our tissues change as we live: the food we eat and the
air we breathe become flesh ofour flesh and bone ofour bone, and the momentary
elements ofour flesh and bone pass out ofour body every day with
our excreta. We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are
not stuffthat abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves" (HU, p. 96).
Consequently, to understand humans, one needs to understand how the
patterns ofinformation they embody are created, organized, stored, and retrieved.
Once these mechanisms are understood, they can be used to create
cybernetic machines. Ifmemory in humans is the transfer ofinformational
patterns from the environment to the brain, machines can be built to effect
the same kind oftransfer. Even emotions may be achievable for machines if
feelings are considered not as "merelya useless epiphenomenon ofnervous
actions" (HU, p. 72) but as control mechanisms governing learning.47 Considered
as informational patterns, cybernetic machines and men can make
common cause against the disruptive forces ofnoise and entropy.
The picture that emerges from these conjectures shows the cybernetic
organism-human or mechanical-responding flexibly to changing situations,
learning from the past, freely adapting its behavior to meet new circumstances,
and succeeding in preserving homeostatic stability in the
midst of even radically altered environments. Nimbleness is an essential
weapon in this struggle, for to repeat mindlessly and mechanically is inevitably
to let noise win. Noise has the best chance against rote repetition,
where it goes to work at once to introduce randomness. But a system that
already behaves unpredictably cannot be so easily subverted. Ifa Gibbesian
universe implies eventual information death, it also implies a universe
in which the best shot for success lies in flexible and probabilistic behavior.
The Greek root for cybernetics, "steersman," aptly describes the cybernetic
man-machine: light on its feet, sensitive to change, a being that both
is a flow and knows how to go with the flow.
Liberal Subjectivit'l Imperiled I 105
Reinforcing the boundary work that assimilates the liberal humanist
subject and the cybernetic machine into the same privileged space are the
distinctions Wiener makes between good and bad machines. When machines
are evil in The Human Use ofHuman Beings, it is usually because
they have become rigid and inflexible. Whereas the cybernetic machine
is ranged alongside man as his brother and peer, metaphors that cluster
around the rigid machine depict it through tropes of domination and engulfment.
The ultimate horror is for the rigid machine to absorb the human
being, co-opting the flexibility that is the human birthright. "When human
atoms are knit into an organization in which they are used, not in their full
right as responsible human beings, but as cogs and levers and rods, it matters
little that their raw material is flesh and blood. What is used as an elementinamachine,
is in fact an elementin the machine" (HU, p.185). Here
the analogical mappingbetween humans and machines turns sinister, trapping
humans within inflexible walls that rob them oftheir autonomy. The
passage shows how important itis to Wiener to construct the boundaries of
the cybernetic machine so that it reinforces rather than threatens the autonomous
self. When the boundaries tum ri6rid or engulf humans so that
they lose their agency, the machine ceases to be cybernetic and becomes
Simply and oppressivelymechanical.
The cosmological stage upon which the struggle between oppressive
machines and cybernetic systems unfolds is--no surprise-the Gibbesian
universe in which probability reigns supreme. "The great weakness ofthe
machine-the weakness that saves us so far from being dominated byitis
that it cannotyet take into account the vast range ofprobabilitythat characterizes
the human situation." Here the probability differentials that
make communication possible are assimilated to humans and good machines,
leaving bad machines to flounder around in probabilities too diverse
for them to assess. The rules of the contest are laid down by the
second lawofthermodynamics, which allows a margin in which cybernetic
men-machines can operate because it is still cranking up its death engine.
"The dominance ofthe machine presupposes a society in the last stages of
increasingentropy, where probabilityis negligible andwhere the statistical
differences among individuals are nil. Fortunatelywe have not yet reached
such a state" (HU, p. 181). When in the end the universe ceases to manifest
diverse probabilities and becomes a uniform soup, control, communication,
cybernetics-notto mentionlife-will expire. In the meantime, men
and cybernetic machines stand shoulder to shoulder in building dikes that
temporarily stave offthe entropic tide.
The boundaryworkthat links cybernetic machines and humans perhaps
106 I Chaprer Four
reaches its most complex articulation in the distinction that Wiener makes
between Augustinian and Manichean opponents. At issue in this distinction
is the difference between an opponent who plays "honorably," that
is, abidingby rules that do not change, and one who tries to win by manipulation.
ForWiener, the exemplarofan Augustinian opponentis nature. Nature-includingnoise-maysometimes
frustrate the scientist's attempt to
control it, but it does not consciously try to manipulate its opponent. The
exemplar ofthe Manichean opponent is the chess player, including chessplaying
machines. Unlike nature, the chess player acts deviously and, if
possible, manipulatively. When the chess player is contrastedwith the scientist,
it is almost always to the chess player'S detriment. In pointing out
that nature does not try to outwitthe scientist, Wienerobserves that having
an Augustinian opponent means that the scientisthas time to reHect on and
correcthis or her strategy, because no one is trying to take advantage ofthe
scientist's mistakes. Scientists are thus governed by their best moments,
whereas chess players are governed bytheirworst (HU, p. 36).
Peter Galison, in "The Ontologyofthe Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the
Cybernetic Vision," argues that cybernetics (along with game theory and
operations research) should be called a "Manichean science."48 In a finegrained
analysis ofWiener's collaboration with Julian Bigelow to develop
an antiaircraft (AA) weapon duringWorldWar II, Galison brilliantly shows
that Wiener's construction of"the enemy" was significantly different from
that portrayedinwarpropagandaorevenin othertechnical reports. Rather
than seeing the enemy in conventionally human (or, in the case ofpropaganda,
subhuman) terms, Wiener modeled the enemy-for example, a
fighter pilottryingto evade AAfire-as aprobabilisticsystem that couldeffectively
be countered using cybernetic modeling. Unlike other fire systems,
which had fixed rules derived from probabilistic modeling, Wiener's
imagined firing machine could evolve new rules based on prior observation-thatis,
it couldlearn. Thus the firing systemwouldevolve to become
as Manichean as the enemy it faced. Galison argues that this strategy enabled
a series ofsubstitutions and identifications that mapped the enemy
pilotonto the servo-controller and ultimatelyonto the alliedwar personnel
behind the servo-controller. In a "Summary Report for Demonstration,"
Wiener and Bigelowwrote: "We realized that the 'randomness' or irregularity
ofan airplane's path is introduced by the pilot; that in attempting to
force his dynamic craft to execute a useful manoeuvere ... the pilot behaves
like a servo-mechanism" (quoted in Galison, p. 236). Thus cybernetics,
itselfconstituted through analogies, creates further analogies through
Liberal Subiectivity Imperiled / /07
theories and artifacts that splice man to machine, German to American.
Through this relay system, the enemy becomes like us and we become like
the enemy: enemy mine. Ifthese analogical mappings kept the enemypilot
from being demonized, they also made the cybernetic machine (and, byextension,
cybernetics itself) party to a bloody struggle in which Manichean
tactics were used byboth sides to kill as many humans as pOSSible.
Partly in reaction to this co-optation of cybernetics by the military,
Wiener halfa decade after the war wrote the Significantly entitled The Human
Use ofHuman Beings. 49 Although Wiener had done everything in his
power during the war to further cybernetics as a "Manichean science," his
writings after the war show a deep aversion to the manipulation that a
Manichean strategy implies. From his autobiographies, it is clear that he
was hypersensitive to being manipulated, perhaps with good reason. When
he was first beginning to establish himself as a mathematician, his father
tried to get him to use his contacts to advance his father's philological
ideas-an instance ofmanipulation that made Wiener increasinglywary of
how others might try to use his talents and influence to further their owu
ends. It is no accident that he associated the manipulative chess-playing
machine with the military projects that he resolutely turned away from after
atomic bombs vaporized hundreds of thousands ofJapanese civilians.
Remarking on Claude Shannon's suggestion that chess-playing machines
have military potential, he wrote, "When Mr. Shannon speaks ofthe development
of military tactics, he is not talking moonshine, but is discussing a
most imminent and dangerous contingency" (HU, p. 178). The problem, of
course, was that cybernetics adapted all too readily to Manichean tactics,
making it possible to play these deadly games even more effectively.
\Viener's war work, combined with his antimilitary stance after the war,
illustrates with startling clarity how cybernetics functioned as a source of
both intense pride and intense anxiety for him. This tension, often expressed
as an anxious desire to limit the scope ofcybernetics, takes a different
but related form when he considers the question of body boundaries,
always a highly charged issue. When the physical boundaries ofthe human
form are secure, he celebrates the flow ofinformation through the organism.
All this changes, however, when the boundaries cease to define an autonomous
self, either through manipulation or engulfment. In the next
section, we ,vill see how this anxiety erupts into his 1948 book Cybernetics
at critical pOints, causing him to withdraw from the more subversive implications
ofthe diSCipline he fathered. It is no accident that erotic metaphors
are used to carry the thrust ofthe argument. Like cybernetics, eroticism is
108 I Chapter Four
intenselyconcerned with the problematics ofbody boundaries. It is not for
nothing that sexual orgasm is called "the little death" or that writers from
Marquis de Sade to J. G. Ballard have obsessivelyassociated eroticism with
penetrating and opening the body. At stake in the erotically charged discourse
in which Wiener considers the pleasures and dangers of coupling
between parts that are not supposed to touch is howextensively the bodyof
the subject maybe penetratedoreven dissolved bycybernetics as a bodyof
knowledge. It is here, as much as anywhere else, that Wiener's concern to
preserve the liberal subject comes into uneasy tension with his equally
strong desire to advance the cause ofcybernetics. As we shall see, resolution
can be achieved only bywithdrawal, pointing toward a future in which
the cybernetic subject could not finally be contained within the assumptions
ofliberal humanism.
The Argument for Celibacy: Preserving
the Boundaries of the Subject
In Cybernetics, the technical text from which The Human Use ofHuman
Beings was adapted, Wiener looks into the mirror of the cyborg but then
withdraws.50 The scenarios he constructs to enact and justifY this withdrawal
suggestively point to the role that erotic anxiety plays in cybernetic
narratives. In my analYSiS, Iwill focus on the chapterentitled "Information,
Language, and Society." Here Wiener entertains the possibilitythat cybernetics
has provided a way of thinking so fertile that it will allow the social
and natural sciences to be synthesized into one great field ofinquiry. Yet he
finally demurs from this palpable object ofdesire. Given that he is as imperialistic
as most other scientists who think they have invented a new paradigm,
why does he prefer to maintain the intellectual celibacy of his
discovery? I will argue that central to his decision is a fantasy scene that expresses
and controls anxiety by reconstituting boundaries. This fantasy
gives rise to a series oferoticallyencoded metaphors that appearwhenever
anxiety becomes acute. The metaphors also have literal meanings that reveal
howintermingled the physical remains with the conceptual, the erotic
with the cybernetic. As gestures of separation disconcertingly transform
into couplings, the cybernetics ofthe subject and the subjectofcybernetics
interpenetrate.
Wiener works up to the fantasy by pointing out that there are many organizations
whose parts are themselves small organizations. Hobbes's
Leviathan is a Man-State made up of men; a Portuguese man-of-war is
composed ofpolyps that mirror it in miniature; a man is an organism made
Liberal Subjectivity Imperiled / 109
up ofcells that in some respects also function like organisms. This line of
thought leads Wiener to ask how these "bodies politic" function. "Obviously,
the secret is in the intercommunication ofits members." The flow of
information is thus introduced as a principle explaining how organization
occurs across multiple hierarchical levels. To illustrate, he instances the
"sexually attractive substances" that various species secrete to ensure that
the sexes will be brought together (HU, p. 156). For example, the pheromones
that guide insect reproduction are general and omnidirectional, acting
in this respect like hormones secreted within the body. The analogy
suggests that external hormones organize internal hormones, so that a human
organism becomes, in effect, a sort ofpermeable membrane through
which hormonal information flows. At this point we encounter his first demurral.
"I do not care to pronounce an opinion on this matter," he announces
rather pretentiously after introducing it, preferring to "leave it as
an interesting idea" (HU, p. 157).
I think that the idea is left because it is disturbing as well as speculative.
It implies that personal identity and autonomous will are merely illusions
that mask the cybernetic reality. If our body surfaces are membranes
through which information flows, who are we? Are we the cells that respond
to the stimuli?Are we the largercollectiveswhose actions are the resultant
of the individual members? Or are we the host organisms who, as
Richard Dawkins later claimed using cybernetic arguments, engage in sex
because we are controlled by selfish genes within?51 The choice of examples
foregrounds sexuality, but this is a kind ofsexwithout sexuality. Implying
the deconstruction of the autonomous self as a locus of erotic
pleasure, it circumvents the assenting, demurring, intenSifYing, delaying,
and consummatingthat constitute sexual play. When Wiener is confronted
with this sexless sex, his first impulse is to withdraw: coitus interruptus.
His second impulse is to reconstruct himselfas a liberal subject through
a disguised erotic fantasy that allows him to control the flow ofinformation
rather than be controlled by it. Similar fantasies appear everywhere in
American literature, from Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook to Ishmael
and Queequeg. They are ubiquitous because they are about the American
values of masculine autonomy and control, about deferred intimacy between
men in a society that is homophobic, racist, and misogynist. What is
this fantasy? What else but for the American male to imagine himselfalone
in thewoods with an"intelligentsavage,"givinghimselfoverto the pursuits
that men follow when they are alone together (HU, p. 157)?
The fantasy's ostensible purpose is to show that Wiener and his savage
companioncouldachieve intimacyeveniftheydid not touch and shared no
110 / Chapter Four
language. Wienerimagines himself"alertto those moments when [the savage]
shows the signs of emotion or interest," noticing at these moments
what he watches. After a time, the savage would learn to reciprocate by
"pick[ing] out the moments of my special, active attention," thus creating
between them "a language as varied in possibilities as the range ofimpressions
that the two ofus are able to encompass" (HU, p. 157). Alone together
in the woods, the two men construct a world ofobjects through the interplay
of their gazes. In the process they also reconstitute themselves as
autonomous subjects who achieve intimacy through their voyeuristic participation
in each other's emotion and "special, active attention." There remains,
ofcourse, a necessary difference between them. Wiener can move
from this fantasy to the rest ofhis argument, whereas the "intelligent savage"
reappears in his discourse onlywhen Wiener finds it convenient to invoke
the savage. The passage reveals in miniature howthe use ofthe plural
bythe liberal humanist subject can appropriate the voices ofsubaltern others,
who if they could speak for themselves might say something very dif-
ferent.
Having reassured himself ofintimacy, autonomy, and control, Wiener
returns to the problem ofthe "bodypolitic," concentrating on its alarming
lack of homeostasis. In contrast to the regulated, orderly exchanges between
him and his savage friend, the body politic is dominated by exchanges
between knaves and fools, with "betrayal, turncoatism, and
deception" the order ofthe day (HU, p. 59). The economy ofthis society is
clear-cut: the fools desire; the knaves manipulate their desires. The economy
is reinforced by statisticians, SOciolOgists, and economists who prostitute
themselves by figuring out for the knaves exactly how the calculus of
desire can be maximized. The only respite from this relentless manipulation
is found in small, autonomous populations. There homeostasis can still
work, whether in "highly literate communities ... or villages of primitive
savages" (HU, p. 160). The reappearance ofthe savage here is Significant,
for anxietyaboutthe manipulation ofdesire is reachingits height. No doubt
this reappearance has a soothing effect on Wiener's imagination, for it reminds
him that he need not be manipulated after all.
We come now to the crux ofthe argument. The danger ofcybernetics,
from Wiener's point ofview, is that it can potentially annihilate the liberal
subject as the locus ofcontrol. On the microscale, the individual is merely
the container for still smaller units within, units that dictate actions and desires;
on the macroscale, these desires make the individual into a fool to be
manipulated by knaves. Under a cybernetic paradigm, these two scales of
organizationwould be joined to each other. What chance then for intimate
Liberal Subjecriviry Imperiled / /11
communication alone with an intelligent savage in the woods? No, despite
the "hopeswhich some ... friends have built for the social efficacy ofwhatever
new ways of thinking this book may contain," Wiener finds himself
unable to attribute "too much value to this type of wishful thinking"
(HU, p. 162). Ironically, expanded too far across the bodies of disciplines,
the science ofcontrol might rob its progenitor ofthe very control that was
no doubt for him one ofits most attractive features.
Having reached this conclusion, Wiener reenacts the anxiety that gave
rise to it. Through a series ofinteractive metaphors that connect his fantasy
with his anxiety, he claims that it is a "misunderstanding ofthe nature ofall
scientific achievement" to suppose that "the physical and social sciences
can be jOined" (HU, p. 162). They must be kept apart, for they permit different
degrees ofcoupling between the scientist and the object ofhis interest.
The precise sciences "achieve a suffiCiently loose coupling with the
phenomena we are studying [to allow us1to give a massive total account of
this coupling." Erotic interest is not altogether lacking, for "the coupling
may not be loose enough for us to be able to ignore it altogether" (HU,
p. 163). Nevertheless, the restrained science that Wiener practices is dif·
ferent from the social sciences, where the coupling is much tighter and
more intense. The contrast shows how central the concept of the autonomous
selfis to cybernetics as Wiener envisioned it.
The savage makes one last appearance in Wiener's anxious consideration
ofhow tightly the scientist can be coupled with his object without losing
his objectivity. To illustrate the dangers of tight coupling, Wiener
observes that primitive societies are very often changed by the anthropologists
who observe them. He makes the point specifically in terms of language:
"Many a missionary has fixed his own misunderstandings of a
primitive language as law eternal in the process of reducing it to writing"
(HU, p. 63). In implicit contrast to this violation is the pristine intimacy
Wiener achieved with his savage, where no misunderstandings disrupted
the perfect sympathy oftheir gazes.
Concluding that "we are too much in tune \'iith the objects ofour investigations
to be good probes," Wiener counsels that cybernetics had best be
left to the physical sciences, for to carry it into the human sciences would
onlybuild "exaggerated expectations" (HU, p. 164). Behind this conclusion
is the prospect ofan interpenetration so complete that it would link the little
units within to the larger social units without, thereby reducing the individual
to a connective membrane with no control over desires and with no
ability to derive pleasure from them. Not only sex but the sex organs themselves
disappear in this construction. Thus, Wiener decides that however
112 I Chapter Four
tempting the prospect of penetrating the boundaries of other disciplines
might be, cybernetics is better offremaining celibate.
The conjunction of erotic anxiety and intellectual speculation in
Wiener's text implies that cybernetics cannot be adequately understood
simply as a theoretic and technological extension of information theory.
The analogies so important to his thought are constituted not only through
similarities between abstract forms (such as probability ratios and statistical
analysis) but also through the complexlifeworld ofembedded physicality
that natural language expresses and evokes through its metaphoric
resonances. Natural language is not extraneous to understanding the full
complexities of Wiener's thinking, as his mathematical biographer Pesi
Masani implies when Masani contrasts the disembodied abstractions of
mathematics with the "long-winded verbosity [of natural language], the
hallmark ofbureaucratic chicanery and fake labor."52 On the contrary, the
embodied metaphors oflanguage are crucial to understanding the ways in
which Wiener's construction ofthe cybernetic body and the bodyofcybernetics
both privilege and imperil the autonomous humanistic subject.
Viewed in historical perspective, Wiener was not successful in containing
cybernetics within the circle ofliberal humanist assumptions. Only for
a relativelybriefperiod in the late 1940s and 1950s could the dynamic tension
between cybernetics and the liberal subject be maintained-uneasy
and anxious as that accommodation oftenwas for Wiener. Bythe 1960s, the
link between liberal humanism and self-regulation, a link forged in the
eighteenth century, was already stretched thin; by the 1980s, it was largely
broken. It is to Wiener's credit that he tried to craft aversion ofcybernetics
that would enhance rather than subvert human freedom. But no person,
even the father ofa discipline, can single-handedly control what cybernetics
signifies when it propagates through the culture by all manner of
promiscuous couplings. Even as cybernetics lost the momentum of its
drive to be a universal science, its enabling premises were mutating and reproducing
at other sites. The voices that speak the cyborg do not speak as
one, and the stories they tell are very different from the narratives that
Wiener struggled to authorize.
FROM HYPHEN TO SPLICE:
CYBERNETIC SYNTAX IN LIMBO
In Bernard Wolfe's Limbo, the 1952 novel that has become an underground
classic, anxiety about boundaries becomes acute. Like Norbert
Wiener, by whom he was deeply influenced, Wolfe recognized the revolutionarypotential
ofcybernetics to reconfigure bodies. Also like Wiener, he
tried unsuccessfullyto contain that potential, fearing that ifitwent too far it
could threaten the autonomy ofthe (male) liberal subject. Abrasive, outrageous,
transgressive, frustratingly misogynistic, and occasionally brilliant,
Limbo rarely leaves its readers feeling neutral. David Samuelson ranks it
with Brave New World and 1984 as one ofthe three great dystopian novels
of the century.l At the other end of the spectrum are readers (including
some ofmy students) who see it as remarkable mostly for its egregious sexism
and tendentious argument. Whatever one's view of Limbo's literary
value, it is clear that the text is powerfully marked by the tum to a
post-WorldWar II cybernetic economy ofinformation and simulacra.
Limbo arrived at a pivotal moment in U.S. history, at a time when
changes in speed and communication were forcing technologies ofcontrol
into a reorganization that would result in the computer revolution and
when the coldwar loomed large in the national consciousness. Itwas in this
climate that cybernetics was beginning to change what counted as "human."
As we sawin precedingchapters, cybernetics constructedhumans as
information-processing systems whose boundaries are determined by the
flow of information. Cybernetics problematized body boundaries at the
same time that the culture was generally anxious about communist penetrations
into the body politic. The time was right for a text that would overlay
the cybernetic reconfiguration of the human body onto the U.S.
geopoliticalbodyand (givenWolfe's misogynistic views) onto the contested
terrain ofthe gendered body. Limbo creates that imaginary geography and
113
114 / Chapter Five
imbues it with the hypnagogic force ofa nightmare. As a novel ofideas, it
displays some ofthe passageways through which cybernetic notions began
to circulate throughout U.S. culture and connect up with contemporary
political anxieties. As a novel ofideas, it is an important literary document
because it stages encounters between literaryform andbodies represented
within the text. The textual corpus, no less than the represented world,
bears the imprint ofthe cybernetic paradigm upon its body.
War, acknowledged and covert, is the repressedtraumathat threatens to
erupt throughout Limbo. Butthis is wartransfigured, so compoundedwith
neocortical forays and cybernetic refashionings that the terrains on which
itis fought include synapses and circuits aswell as checkpoints andborders.
Although the novel is set in 1990, Wolfe asserts in an afterword: "Anybody
who 'paints a picture' ofsome coming year is kidding-he's only fanCying
up something in the present or past, not blueprinting the future. All such
writing is essentially satiric (today-centered), not utopic (tomorrowcentered)."2
His insistence on the novel's satiric intent is a useful reminder
that Limbo refracts its cybernetics concerns through the hysterical denunciations
and national delirium precipitated by the cold war. In Pure War,
Paul Virilio argues that postmodern technologies, especially global information
networks and supersonic transport, have changed how military organizations
conceptualize the enemy.3 Whereas a country's borders were
previously presumed adequate to distinguish between citizen and alien, in
the post-World War II period the distinction between inside and outside
ceased to SignifY in the same way. The military no longer thought ofits task
as protectingthe bodypolitic against an exteriorenemy. Rather militaryresources
were deployed against a country's own population, as in Latin
American death squads. Such military operations are not aberrations, Virilio
contends, but harbingers ofa deep shift from exo-colonization to endocolonization
throughout postmodern cultures. Although Virilio's thesis is
overstated, it nevertheless provides useful insightinto the McCarthyerain
the United States. During McCarthyism, paranoia about the inability to
distinguish between citizen and alien, "loyal American" and communist
spy, was at its height. In a scenario that, follOwing Virilio, I call endo-colonization,
Limbo joins political and geographical remappings with the cybernetic
implOSion into the body's interior.
As Donna Haraway has pOinted out, cyborgs are simultaneouslyentities
and metaphors, living beings and narrative constructions.4 The conjunction
oftechnologyand discourse is crucial.5 Were the cyborgonlyaproduct
ofdiscourse, it could perhaps be relegated to science fiction, ofinterest to
SF aficionados but not ofvital concern to the culture. Were it only a tech-
From Hyphen to Splice / 115
nological practice, it could be confined to such technical fields as bionics,
medical prostheses, and virtual reality. Manifesting itself as both technolOgical
object and discursive formation, it partakes of the power of the
imagination as well as ofthe actualityoftechnology. Cyborgs actuallyexist.
About 10 percent of the current U.S. population are estimated to be
cyborgs in the technical sense, including people with electronic pacemakers,
artificial joints, drug-implant systems, implanted corneal lenses, and
artificial skin. A much higher percentage participates in occupations that
make them into metaphoric cyborgs, including the computer keyboarder
joined in a cybernetic circuit with the screen, the neurosurgeon guided by
fiber-optic microscopy during an operation, and the adolescent game
player in the local video-game arcade. "Terminal identity" Scott Bukatman
has named this condition, callingit an "unmistakablydoubled articulation"
that Signals the end of traditional concepts ofidentity even as it points toward
the cybernetiC loop that generates a new kind ofsubjectivity.6
Limbo edges uneasily toward this subjectivity and then onlywith significant
reservations. Instead of a circuit, it envisions polarities joined by a
hyphen: human-machine, male-female, text-marginalia. The difference
between hyphen and circuit lies in the tightness of the coupling (recall
Wiener's argument about the virtues ofloose coupling) and in the degree to
which the hyphenated subject is transfigured after becoming a cybernetic
entity. Whereas the hyphen joins opposites in a metonymic tension that
can be seen as maintaining the identity ofeach, the circuit implies a more
reflexive and transformative union. When the body is integrated into a cybernetic
circuit, modification of the circuit will necessarily modifY consciousness
as well. Connected by multiple feedback loops to the objects it
designs, the mind is also an object ofdeSign. In Limbo the ideology ofthe
hyphen is threatened by the more radical implications of the cybernetic
splice. Like Norbert Wiener, the patron saint ofLimbo, Wolfe responds to
this threat with anxiety. To see how this anxiety both generates the text and
fails to contain the subversive implications ofcybernetics, let us tum nowto
a consideration ofthis phantasmic narrative.
Limbo presents itselfas the notebooks of Dr. Martine, a neurosurgeon
who defiantly left his medical post in World War III and fled to an uncharted
Pacific island. He finds the islanders, the Mandunji tribe, practicing
a primitive form oflobotomy to quiet the "tonus" in antisocial people.7
Thus the text reinscribes the privileged status of homeostasis during the
Macy period and also glances toward Wiener's devastating criticism oflobotomy
in the 1948 CybernetiCS and the 1950 The Human Use ofHuman
Beings. 8 Wiener's interest in lobotomy is played out in a short story he
116 / Chapter Five
wrote entitled"The Brain,"with which Wolfe mayhave been familiar. Published
in a 1950 science fiction anthology under the transparent pseudonym
"w. Norbert," the story was explicitly attributed by the editor to
Norbert Wiener.
In the story, a mentalpatient's attendingphysician brings the patient as a
guest to an intellectual dinner club for "a small group of scientists."9 The
dinner conversation is reminiscent ofthe Macydiscussions. During dinner
the patient, a victim ofamnesia, faints. When he comes to with the help of
drugs, he begins to recall the trauma that caused his amnesia. He remembers
that he himselfwas aphysician and that his wife was fatally injured and
his child made into a vegetable in a hit-and-run accident caused by a
fiendishly clever gangster called "The Brain." Later, fate delivered the
gangster into the doctor's hands when he was calledto perform emergency
surgeryon the gangster, who had received a bulletwound to the head. During
the operation, the doctor qUietly performs a lobotomy. Later the gangster
is caught because he has become stupid.
Like the protagonist of"The Brain," Dr. Martine in Limbo performs lobotomies
for the social good, rationalizing that it is better to do the surgery
properly than to let people die from infections and botched jobs. He uses
the operations to do neuroresearch on brain-function mapping. He discovers
that no matter how deeply he cuts, certain characteristics appear to be
twinned. One twin cannot be excised without sacrificing the other. When
aggression is cut out, eroticism goes too; when violence yields to the surgeon's
knife, creativity also disappears. Martine expands his observations
into a theory of human nature. Humans are essentially hyphenated creatures,
he asserts, creative-destructive, peaceful-aggressive. The appearance
on the island of"queer limbs," men who have had their arms and legs
amputated and replaced by atomic-powered plastic prostheses, brings
Martine's philosophy ofthe hyphen into juxtaposition with the splice, the
neologistic cutting, rejoining, and recircuiting that makes a cyb/ernetic
org/anism into a cyborg. On the level ofplot, the intrusion of the cyborgs
gives Martine an excuse to leave his island family and find out how the
world has shaped up in the aftermath ofthe war.
The island/mainland dichotomy is the first ofaproliferating series ofdivisions.
Their production follows a characteristic pattern. First the narrative
presents what appears to be a unity (the island locale; the human
psyche), which nevertheless cleaves in two (mainlanders come to the island;
twin impulses are located within the psyche). The cleavage arouses
anxiety, and textual representations try to achieve unity again by undergoing
metamorphosis, usually truncation or amputation (Martine and the
From Hyphen (0 Splice / 117
narrative leave the island behind and concentrate on the mainland, which
posits itself as a unity; the islanders undergo lobotomies to make them
"whole" citizens again). The logic implies that truncation is necessary ifthe
part is to reconfigure itselfas a whole. Better to formalize the split and render
it irreversible so that life can proceed according to a new definition of
what constitutes wholeness. 'Vithout truncation, however painful it may
be, the part is doomed to exist as a remainder. But amputation always
proves futile in the end because the truncated part splits in two again and
the relentless progression continues.
Through delirious and savage puns, the text works out the permutations
ofthis geography ofthe Imaginary. America has been bombed back to the
Inland Strip, its coastal areas now virtually uninhabited wastelands. The
image of a tnmcated country, its outer extremities blasted away, proves
prophetic, for the rulingpolitical ideologyis Immob. Immob espouses such
slogans as "No Demobilization \vithout Immobilization" and "Pacifism
means Passivity." Citing Napoleon, Paul Virilio wrote, "The capacity for
war is the capacity for movement."l0 Immob reinscribes that proposition
and reverses its import, reasoning that the onlyway to end war is to remove
the capacity for motion. True believers become "vol-amps," men who have
undergone voluntary amputations oftheir limbs. Social mobility paradoxically
translates into physical immobility. Upwardly mobile executives have
the complete treatment to become quadroamps; janitors are content to be
uniamps; women and blacks are relegated to the limbo ofunmodified bodies.
But like the constructions that preceded it, Immob ideology also splits
in two. The majority party, discovering that its adherents are restless lying
aroundwith nothing to do, approves the replacement ofmissing limbs with
powerful prostheses (or "pros"), which bestow enhanced mobility and enable
those who wear them to perform athletic feats impossible for unaltered
bodies. These cyborgs are called (in a twinning pun that tries to
encompass the cyborg under the sign ofthe hyphen) "Pro-pros." The logic
ofthe hyphen dictates that Pro-pros be mirrored by Anti-pros, who believe
that cyborgism is a perversion oflmmob philosophy. Anti-pros spend their
days proselytizing for voluntary amputation, using microphones hooked up
to the baby baskets that are just the right size to accommodate their limbless
human torsos, a detail that later becomes significant.
Unity, cleavage, tnmcation, and further cleavage-these are the counters
through which geopolitical and cybernetic endo-colonization are represented
in Limbo. Amputations, undertaken in an effort to stop the
proliferation of doubleness, only drive the plot toward the next phase of
the cycle, for they are nostalgic attempts to recover a unity that never was.
118 / Chapter Five
This much Wolfe sees clearly. Less clear is the increasingly urgent issue of
how the parts should be reassembled: through a hyphen or through a circuit?
I suggested earlier that the cyborg subverts Martine's (and Wolfe's)
theory of the hyphen, for it implies that the hyphenated polarities will not
be able to maintain their identity unchanged. This possibility, although not
explicitly recognized by the narrator, is already encoded into the text, for
the amputations intended to ensure that paCifism is irrevocable have instead
ensured that the interface between human and machine is irrevocable.
Although the Pro-pros justifythe use ofprostheses bypointingout that
the pros can be detached, many of the changes (such as permanently installed
bio-sockets into which the pros are snapped) have become integral
parts ofthe organism. In a larger sense, the conversions have worked such
far-reaching changes in social and economicinfrastructures that a return to
a precybernetic state is not possible. Whetherfunctioning as an amputee or
a prosthetiC athlete, the citizen ofLimbo's world is spliced into cybernetic
circuits that irreversibly connect his body to the truncated, military-industrial
limbo that the world has become. In the circuit of metaphoric exchanges
that the cyborg sets up, the narrator finds it increaSinglydifficult to
maintain the hyphenated separations that allowWolfe to criticize capitalist
society while maintaining intact his own sexist and technological assumptions.
Breakdown occurs when the hyphen is no longer sufficient to keep
body, gender, and political categories separate from one another.
In explOring this breakdown, I will go further into Wolfe's background
and his relation to cybernetiCS. Not one to disguise his sources, he adds an
afterword in which he lists the books that have influenced him. In case anyone
missed his frequent allusions to Norbert Wiener, the afterword makes
clear that Wiener is a seminal figure. The title Wolfe cites is \Vi"ner's 1948
CybernetiCS. I noted earlier that the cyborg is both a technological entity
and a discursive construction. The chapters ofWiener's book illustrate how
discourse collaborates with technology to create cyborgs. The transformations
thatWiener envisions are for far simpler mechanisms than human beings,
but his explanations work as rhetorical software (Richard Doyle'S
phrase)ll to extend his conclusions to complex human behaviors as well.
We sawthe same kind ofslippage during the Macy discussions. Here is how
it characteristically occurs in Wiener's text. First a behavior is noted-an
intention tremor, a muscle contraction, aphobic orphilic reaction to a stimulus.
Next an electronic or mathematical model that can produce the same
behavior is proposed. Sometimes the model is used to construct a cybernetic
mechanism that can be tested experimentally. Whether actual construction
takes place or the idea remains a thought experiment, the claim is
From Hyphen to Splice / 119
made that the human mechanism, although unknown, might plausibly be
the same as the mechanism embodied in the model. The laboratory "white
box" is thus discursively equated with the human "black box," with the result
that the human is now also a "white box," that is, a servo-mechanism
whose workings are known. Once the correlation is made, cybernetics can
be used not only to correct dysfunction but also to improve normal functioning.
As a result, the cyborg signifies something more than a retrofitted
human. It points toward an improved hybrid species that has the capacity
to be humanity's evolutionary successor. As we saw in chapter 4, the problem
that Wiener encountered was how to restrain this revolutionarypotential
ofcybernetics so that it would not threaten the liberal humanism that so
deeply informed his thinking.
In "Self Portrait," a short story published a few months before Limbo
and concerned with similar themes, Wolfe shows that he understands the
limitations as well as the potential ofWiener's method. "Cybernetics is simply
the science ofbuilding machines that will duplicate and improve on the
organs and functions ofthe animal, based on what we know about the systems
ofcommunication and control in the animal," the narrator says. But
he acknowledges that "everything depends on just how many of the fimctions
you want to duplicate, just howmuch ofthe total organ you want to replace."12
In charge of a cybernetics laboratory, he decides to separate
kinesthetic and neural functioning. He can be reasonably sure ofcreating
an artificial limb that moves like a real one, but connecting it to the body's
sensory-neural circuits is another matter. 13 His hesitation points up how
speculative many of Wiener's claims were. More than a technology, they
functioned as an ideology. Without mentioning Wolfe, Douglas D. Noble,
in "Mental Materiel: The Militarization of Learning and Intelligence in
U.S. Education," argues that the cybernetiC paradigm has in fact brought
about massive transformations in V.S. social, economic, and educational
infrastructures, as Wolfe predicted it would.14 In his view, these transformations
have been driven primarilybythe V. S. military. The cyborg, Noble
insists, is no science fiction fantasy but an accurate image of the modern
American soldier, including pilots wired into "intelligent cockpits," artillery
gunners connected to computerized guidance systems, and infantry
soldiers whose ground attacks are instantaneously broadcast on global television.
His analysiS, consistent with arguments by military strategists for
"neocorticalwarfare" andwith the picture that Chris Graydraws ofthe military's
interest in the cyborg,15 indicates that Wiener's antimilitary stance
was not sufficient to prevent the marriage ofwar and cybernetics, a union
that he both feared and helped to initiate.
120 I Chapter Five
Limbo takes the leap that "Self Portrait" resists, imagining that under
the stimulus ofwar, the machine component, no longerlimited to mimickingan
organiclimb, is hardwired into the human nervous system to form an
integrated cybernetic circuit. This movement toward the splice is figured
in Limbo through tropes of motion. Here Wolfe follows Wiener's lead, for
most ofWiener's examples concentrate on dysfunctions ofmovement. The
intention tremor provided Wiener with one of his first experimental successes.
Through a mechanism that duplicated the behavior ofan intention
tremor, Wiener diagnosed the problem as an inappropriate positive amplification
of feedback and showed how it could be cured. Other kinds of
movement dysfunctions are Similarly diagnosed in the 1948 CybernetiCS.
Even phenomena not obviously associated with motor skills are figured as
various kinds of motion. Thinking, for example, is figured as movement
across neural synapses, and schizophrenia is represented as a feedback
problem in the cognitive-neuralloop. Wiener's emphasis on movement implies
that curing dysfunctions of movement can cure the patient ofwhatever
ails him, whether muscular, neural, or psychological. Given this
context, what could be more cybernetiC than to construct war as a dysfunction
of movement? In this sense, Limbo follows the line of thought that
Wiener mapped out in CybernetiCS, down to particular phrasings that
Wolfe appropriates. Because in many respects Wolfe follows Wiener so
closely, the departure he makes in insisting on the typographic hyphen
rather than the cybernetiC splice is even more Significant. In the end, however,
his resistance to the splice fails to restrain the scarier implications of
cybernetics, much as Wiener's resistance to the cybernetic penetration of
boundaries failed to prevent the dissolution ofthe liberal humanist subject.
The breakdown of Wolfe's "hyphenation" theory occurs, perhaps predictably,
when the hyphen is no longer sufficient to contain the repressed
violence that the cyborg unleashes (uncannily so, for the text operates as if
Wolfe were unconsciously reenacting, from Wiener's war work on antiaircraft
devices, the mapping ofenemyonto self). In the world ofLimbo, warfare
has been replaced by a Superpower Olympics between the capitalist
Inland Strip and the communist East Union, a competition deSigned
to sublimate lethal violence into healthy competition. But in the 1990
Olympics, as ifin recognition ofWiener's failure to prevent the promiscuous
coupling ofcybernetiCS with military research after World War II, cyborg
competition neologistically slides into warfare rather than
metonymically substitutes for it. Athletes from both sides are vol-amps,
and they owe their victories as much to the technicians who design the
prostheses as they do to their athletic abilities. Traditionally the Inland
From Hyphen to Splice / 121
Strip, with its superior technology, has dominated the Olympics. Vishinu,
leader ofthe East Union, announces that this year it will be different. His
people are tired of the imperialist smugness of the Inland Strip and will
demonstrate that they are no second-rate colonials but are superior cyberneticians.
The East Union cyborgs proceed to sweep the competition, winning
every category.
For weeks before the event, Vishinu has darkly hinted at the growing
schism between the two countries. The rare metal columbium is needed to
make the prostheses on which both sides depend, and the East Union alleges
that the Inland Strip has been trying to hoard the world's columbium
supply. At the final ceremony, instead ofconfirming that East Union cyberneticians
will share their technology with the Inland Strip (as custom
dictates), Vishinu Signals the East Union athletes to unveil their newest
prosthetic innovation: artificial arms that terminate in guns. According to
the West's own logiC, Vishinu satiricallyargues, the East Union's triumph in
cybernetics means that it has won the right to all the world's columbium.
While Martine watches incredulously on his television at a remote mountain
retreat, the East Union cyborgs open fire on the reviewing standwhere
Inland Strip officials are seated. The apparatus ofwar has imploded inward
tojoinwith flesh and bone. As a result ofthis cybernetic splice, war radiates
from bodyzones outward.
In the last war, when the EMSIAC computer mindlessly tried to return
Martine's plane to base-whichwould have returned him to almost certain
death-Martine ripped out the circuit cables and destroyed the communication-control
box. But now endocolonization has proceeded far enough
into the human and political body so that he can no longer disable the circuit
simply by ripping out cables. Instead of fleeing to the margins, he
rushes toward the center, returning to the capital and demanding an audiencewith
Helder, Vishinu's western counterpart. He uses as his callingcard
cryptic allusions to an incident that onlyhe and Helderknowabout-an incident
that hints at the network of anxieties that have been activated
through cyborg circuitry. The return ofthese repressed anxieties takes the
form of a corpse that, refusing to stay buried, haunts the narrative.
Throughout Martine's notebook, references to it have surfaced in puns and
half-remembered flashes. Finally, with the outbreak ofwar, the repressed
memories erupt into full articulation. The corpse's name is Rosemary, a
nurse that Helder took to a college peace rally at which he delivered a fiery
speech. He returned with her to her apartment, tried to have sex with her,
and when she refused, brutally raped her. After he left, she committed suicide
by slashing her wrists. Martine's part in the affair was to provide a
122 I Chapter Five
reluctant alibi for his roommate Helder, allowing Helder to escape prosecution
for the rape-manslaughter. The placementofMartine's recollection
of the incident and his use ofit to address the political crisis hint that the
body politic and the politics of the body, like prostheses and trunk, are
spliced together in an integrated circuit.
Throughout the text, the narrator-and behind him, the author-has
exhibited profound ambivalence towardwomen. This ambivalence, like so
much else in Wolfe's cybernetic novel, is figured through tropes ofmotion.
Shortly after his arrival at the Inland Strip, Martine looks down onto the
balcony of the apartment below and sees a quadroamp lying on a lounge
reading a book. Ayoung woman tries to arouse him sexually and begins to
remove his prostheses. Uninterested, the young man pushes her away and
resumes reading. The incident illustrates how sexual politics work under
Immob. Prohibited from becoming vol-amps, women have taken the initiative
in sexual encounters. They refuse to have sex with men wearing
prostheses, for the interface between organism and mechanism is not perfect
and at moments ofstress or tension the limbs are apt to careen out of
control, smashingwhatever is in the vicinity. Partneredwith truncated, immobilized
men, women have perfected techniques that are performed in
the female superiorposition andthat give them satisfactionwhile requiring
no motion from the men. Martine gets a firsthand demonstration when
Neen, an artist visiting from the East Union, seduces him. To Martine, the
ideathat menwould beimmobile during sexis obscene, for he believes that
the onlynormal sexual experience forwomen is a"vaginal" orgasm reached
using the male superior position. Like his Victorian antecedents, Martine
atavisticallypolices what kinds ofmovements are properforwomen during
sexual intercourse, enforcing them with violence when necessary. To revenge
himself on Neen and assure himself that he has not been emasculated
after her "clitoral" orgasm, he rapes her and forces her to have a
"vaginal" orgasm, which the text assures us she enjoys in spite of herself.
Here the rape occurs in acontextwhere Wolfe is in controlofthe dynamiCS,
for it reflects his own deeply misogynistic views. Nevertheless, the narrative
keeps moving toward the moment when another rape will be recalled
andwhen the cyborg circuitryin which the narrator is enmeshedwill make
authorial control much less certain.
On a structural level, the text strives to maintain the ideological purityof
male identity by constructing categOrical and hierarchical differences between
men and women. The man has a real penis, the woman a shadowy
surrogate that the narrator calls a "phantom penis"; the man is active, the
woman passive; the man has a Single orgasm of undoubted authenticity,
From Hyphen to Splice I 123
whereas the woman's orgasms are duplicitous as well as double. The man
responds to sexual aggression, but (the narrator insists) itis the woman who
initiates sexual violence, even when she is raped. So far the novel reads like
a devil's dictionary ofsexist beliefs that are Neolithic even by the standards
ofthe 1950s. Yet at the same time, the text also edges toward a realization
that it cannot unequivocally articulate. Like man and machine, male and
female are splicedtogether in a feedback circuit that makes them mutually
determine each other. No less than geopolitical ideology, sexual ideologyis
subverted and reconfigured by the cybernetic paradigm.
Wolfe's outrageously sexist views echo those of his psychoanalyst
Edmund Bergler, by whom he was deeply influenced.16 Bergler acknowledged
that itcould be difficult for some women to reach orgasm in the male
superior position, but he nevertheless insisted that only this position and
only "vaginal" orgasms were normal for women. The view is inscribed in
Limbo, where the usual (as distinct from "normal") state for women is
frigidity. Martine applies the label liberally, using it to describe every
woman with whom he is intimate except one, his island wife, Ooda. Frigidityapplies
both to women who are too aggressive (like Neen) and towomen
who find sexwith Martine unsatisfYing (like his first wife, Irene, whose connection
with Neen is Signifiedbythe rhyme connecting their names). With
astonishing blindness, he never considers that the dysfunction might lie in
him or his view ofwomen. The text strives to endorse the narrator's blindness.
Yet it also engenders ambiguities beyond the narrator's control and
perhaps beyond Wolfe's.
The kind ofcyborg that Wolfe envisions locates the cybernetic splice at
the joining ofappendage to trunk. As the placement ofthe splice suggests,
the novel's sexualpolitics revolve around fear ofsymbolic and actual castration,
manifestedas extreme anxiety about issues ofcontrol and domination.
Wolfe, described by his biographer as a small man with a large mustache
and fat cigar, creates in Immob a fantasy about technolOgical extensions of
the male bodythat endowit with supernatural power.17 During the sex act,
however, the extensions are laid aside, and only a truncated body remains.
Ifthe artificial limbs swell to an unnatural potency, the hidden price is the
withering of the limb called, in U.S. slang, the third leg or the short arm.
The connection becomes explicit when Martine discovers that his son,
Tom, whom he has not seen in twenty years, has become an activist in the
Anti-pro cause. Tom is a quadroamp, spending his days spreadingthe word
from the baby basket that accommodates his limbless trunk. When war
breaks out, his already truncated body is mutilated by exploding glass
shards. Martine finds him in the street, lifts the blanket that covers his
124 / Chapter Five
trunk, and sees the markofcastration aswell as the wounded torso. He then
shoots Tom, ostensibly to put him out ofhis misery and perhaps also to exorcise
the specter ofcastration he represents.
In more than one sense, Limbo is a masculine fantasy that relates to
women through mechanisms ofprojection. Itis, moreover, afantasyfixated
in male adolescence. Wavering between infantile dependence and adult
potency, Immob re-creates, every time a man takes off his prostheses to
have sex, the dynamic typical ofmale adolescence. With the pros on, a volamp
is capable of feats that even pros like O. J. Simpson and Mike Tyson
would envy. With the pros off, he is reduced to infantile dependence on
women. The unity sought in becoming avol-amp is given the lie by the split
he experiences within himselfas a superman and a symbolically castrated
infant. The woman is constructedin correspondinglyambivalentways-as
a willing victim to male violence, a nurturing mother who infantilizes her
son, and a domineering sex partner all too willing to find pleasure in the
man's symbolic castration. The instabilities in her subject position are consistentwith
the ambiguities characteristic ofmale adolescence. The narrative's
overwritten prose, penchant for puns, and hostility towardwomen all
recall a perpetually adolescent male who has learned to use what Martine
calls a "screen ofwords" to compete with other men and to insulate himself
from emotional involvements with women.
Were this all Limbo was, the novel would be merely frustrating rather
than frustrating and brilliant. What makes it compelling is its ability to represent
and comment on its own limitations. Consider the explanation that
Martine gives for why Immob has been so successful. The author drops a
broad hint in the baby baskets that Immob devotees adopt. In a theory
adapted from Bergler's book on narcissism, Wolfe has his narrator suggest
that the narcissistic wound from which the amputations derive is the male
infant's separation from the mother and his outraged discovery that his
bodyis not coextensive with the world.18 Amputation allows the man to return
to his pre-Oedipal state, where he will have his needs cared for by attentive
and nurturing females. In locating the moment of trauma before
the Oedipal triangle, Wolfe reenacts the same kind of move that Lacan
makes in his revision of Freud. Whereas Freud identified the male child's
fear ofcastration with the moment when he sees female genitalia and constructs
them as lack, Wolfe (following Bergler) places the anxious moment
considerablyearlier, in the series of"splittings" and separations that the infant
experiences from his primarylove object, the mother.19 Given this scenario,
the catalyst for anxiety is not the woman's lack but the ambiguity of
boundaries between infant and mother. The mother is the object of pro-
From Hyphen to Splice / 125
jected anger for two contradictory but paradoxically reinforcing reasons.
When she withdraws from the infant, she traumatizes him; when she does
not withdraw, she engulfs him. The question ofwho is responsible for the
narcissisticwound and its aftermath is a matterfor anxious consideration in
Limbo-a querypresupposing that the violation ofboundaries is centralto
the formation ofmale subjectivity. In its stagings oftraumatic moments of
"splitting," the text vacillates on its answers to the question. At times it
seems that the woman is appropriating the male infant into her body; at
other times it seems that the amputated men are willfully forcing women
into nurturing roles they would rather escape. In fact, once male and female
are plugged into a cybernetic circuit, the question oforigin becomes
irrelevant. Each constitutes the other. In approaching this realization, the
text goes beyond the presuppositions that underlie its sexual politics as it
gropes, however tentatively, toward cyborg subjectivity.
Crucial to this process are transformations in the textual body, transformations
that reenact and re-present the textual dynamiCS of Immob.
The textual body begins by figuring itselfas Martine's notebook "mark ii,"
written in the narrative present. In this notebook, Martine notices that
Immob slogans have a disturbingly familiar ring, particularly the icon ofa
man getting run over by a steamroller (intended to symbolize technology
before Immob, although for the narrator and reader it precisely characterizes
Immob). Only when war erupts does Martine realize why the
steamroller image is eerily familiar. In a notebook that he wrote two
decades earlierand that he entitled "marki," he used the steamrolleras an
ironic emblem for the war machine. In the same notebook and in a similarlyironic
vein, he wrote a satiric fantasy ofa societyin which people preempt
the atrocities ofwar by voluntarily cutting offtheir own limbs. After
Martine deserted and rerouted his plane to the island, Helder found the
notebook among Martine's gear and decided to use the satire as a blueprint
for an actual postwar society. Surrounding Martine's bitter jokes
with his own flat-footed, self-serving commentary, he ventriloquized
Martine's words, making them speak the message he wanted, not what
Martine intended. Martine's notebook thus functions like a child whom
he abandoned (just as he abandoned his son, Tom, when he fled) and who
then was turned into the very thing Martine dreaded most (as was Tom).
The present narrative is recorded in the "mark ii" notebook. The revelation
that the Immob bible is actually Martine's (mis)appropriated "marki"
notebook demonstrates that the body of the text is subject to the same
kind ofcleavages, truncations, and further cleavages that mark the bodies
represented within the text.
126 / Chapter Five
Although Martine tries to heal the split narrative by renouncing the first
notebook and destroying the second, the narrative continues to fragment.
The form this fragmentation takes is significant, for it follows the geographyofImmob.
The text splits into atrunk, consistingofthe main narrative,
andprosthetic extensions constitutedthrough drawings thatpunctuate the
text and lines that scrawl down the page where the trunk ends. Prosthesis
and trunk are connected through puns that act like cyborg circuitry, spliCing
the organic body ofthe writing together with the prosthetic extensions
that operate in a subvocal margin. Pros are thus punningly and cunningly
linked not onlywith the hyphenated Pro-pros but also with the more dangerous
and circuitous cyborg "pros/e," the truncated/spliced noun that
speaks the name ofthe text's body (prose) as well as the name ofthe prostheses
(pros) attached to it and representedwithin it.
Wolfe is notthe onlywriter to link writing and prosthesis. In Prosthesis,
David Wills explores connections between his father's wooden leg and the
language that the son adopted as his prosthesis ofchoice. Trunk and prosthesis,
body and writing, are alike in having limits and in having relations
with somethingbeyond those limits. "Prosthesis is the writing ofmy selfas
a limit to writing," Wills explains as he interrogates the boundaries and
splicings between the body of his prose and his (father's) body in prose.
"There is no simple name for a discourse that articulates with, rather than
issuing from, the body, while at the same time realizing that there is
no other discourse-in the sense ofno other translation, transfer, or relation-no
otherconception ofit except as itis abalancing act performed by
the body, a shift or transfer between the body and its exteriority."20 The
conHation that Wills addresses in this difficult and subtle passage is the superimposition
ofa bodyofprose with bodies constitutedwithin prose. The
passage points toward a double entanglement ofthe textual corpus and the
physical body. Writing is away to extend the author's bodyinto the exterior
world; in this sense, it functions as a technological aid so intimatelybound
up with his thinking and neural circuits that it acts like a prosthesis. At the
same time, the writing within itselfis trying to come to terms with what it
means to have aprosthesis, particularlywith whether the prosthesis should
be incorporated into the subject's identity (in which case he becomes a cyborg)
or should remain outside (in which case the prosthesis is necessarily
alien from the selfand so not somethingone can use with the "natural" dexterity).
For Wolfe, the choice cannot be made in a clear-cut or unambiguous
way. He can neither embrace the transformations that becoming a
textual cyborgwouldimplynor remain contentwith an amputated text that
has alimited range ofmotion. Sohe Simultaneouslycrafts prosthetic exten-
From Hyphen to Splice / 127
sions for the text and forbids the text to recognize them as itself. Just as
pros/e destabilizes the concept ofthe natural human body, so it also destabilizes
the notion ofa text contained and embodied solely within its typographic
markers. Pros/e implies a text spliced into a cybernetic circuit that
reaches beyond the typography ofthe printed book into avariety ofgraphic
and semiotic prostheses that it both authorizes and denies.
It is no surprise to find, then, that the pros/e ofLimbo's corpus implies a
dispersed subjectivity. Whereas the voice that speaks (from) the text's trunk
is clearly characterized as Martine, the subject that produces and is produced
by the prosthetic marginalia is more difficult to identity. The question
ofwhich voice speaks from what textual body was a complicated issue
in Wolfe's career. To supplement his income, he worked for a while as a
ghostwriterfor Billy Rose's syndicated column. Here his words issued from
a body ofprint Signed with someone else's name. He also wrote for popular
science magazines including Mechanix Illustrated, frequently contributing
to articles published under someone else's byline. In addition, he collaborated
on low-level popular science books. One ofthese, Plastics, What
Everyone Should Knott:, appeared under Wolfe's name, although it was
written by someone else.21 The synthetic chemical product that came of
age in World War II and that Wolfe envisions as the substance ofchoice for
prostheses thus functions as a kind of prostheSiS for his corpus, extending
his name through a bodyofprint ventriloquized by someone else.
To explore the complex playbetween Martine's voiced narrative and the
drawings, nonverbal lines, and punning neologisms that serve as prostheses
to the textual tnmk, I want to consider one ofthe drawings in more detail.
It shows a nude woman with three prosthetic legs-the Immob
logo-extruding from each of her nipples.22 She wears glasses, carries a
huge hypodermiC needle, and has around her neck a series oftiny contiguous
circles, which can be taken to represent the popular 1950s necklace
known as a choker. To the right of her figure is a grotesque and diapered
male torso, minus arms and legs, precariously perched on a flat carriage
outfitted \'lith Immob prosthetic legs instead ofwheels. He has his mouth
open in a silent scream, perhaps because the woman appears to be aiming
the needle at him. In the text immediately preceding the drawing, Rosemary
is mentioned. Although the truncated text does not acknowledge the
drawing and indeed seems unaware ofits existence, the proximity ofRosemary's
name indicates that the drawing is of her, with the needle presumably
explained by her profeSSion as a nurse.
In a larger sense the drawing depicts the Immob woman. The voiced
narrative ventriloquizes her body to speak ofthe injustices she has inflicted
128 / Chapter Five
on men, constructing her retrospectively as a cyborg who nourishes and
emasculates cyborg sons. It makes her excess, signified by the needle that
she brandishes and the legs that sprout from her nipples, responsible for
her lover/son's lack. In this deeply misogynistic writing, it is no surprise to
read that woman are raped because theywant to be. Female excess is represented
as stimulating and encouraging male violence, and rape is poetic
revenge for the violence women do to men when they are too young and
helpless to protect themselves. The voiced narrative strives to locate the
origin of the relentless dynamiC of splitting and truncation within the female
body. According to this textual trunk, the refusal ofthe woman's body
to respect decent boundaries between itself and another initiates the
downward spiral into amputation and eventual holocaust.
Countering these narrative constructions are other interpretations authorized
by the drawings, nonverbal lines, puns, and lapses in narrative
continuity. From these semiotic spaces, whichJulia Kristeva has associated
with the feminine, come inversions and disruptions ofthe hierarchical categories
that the narrative uses to construct maleness and femaleness.23
Rosemary, written into nonexistence by her suicide within the text's represented
world, returns in the prosthetic space ofthe drawing and demands
to be acknowledged. On multiple levels, the drawing deconstructs the narrative's
gender categories. In the represented world, women are not allowed
to be cyborgs, yet this female figure has more pros attached to her
bodythan does any man. Women rank after men in the represented world,
but here the woman's bodyis on the left and is thus "read"before the man's.
Above all, women and men are separate and distinct in the represented
world, but in this space, parts ofthe man's body have attached themselves
to her. Faced with these disruptions, the voiced narrative is forced to recognize
that it does not unequivocally control the textual space. The semiotic
intrusions contest its totalizingclaims to write the world.
The challenge is reflectedwithin the narrative byinternalcontradictions
that translate into pros/e the intimations ofthe semiotic disruptions. As the
voiced narrative tries to come to grips with these contradictions, it cycles
closer to the realization that the hierarchical categories ofmale and female
have implodedinto the same space. The lobotomies that Martine performs
suggest the depth ofthis collapse. To rid the psyche (coded male in Limbo)
ofsubversive (female) elements, itis necessaryto amputate. For a time the
amputations work, allowing male performance to be enhanced byprostheses
that bestow new potency. But eventually these must be shed and the
woman encountered again. Then the subvocal feminine within merges
with the prostheses without, initiating a new cycle ofviolence and ampu-
From Hyphen to Splice / 129
tation. No matter how deeply the cuts are made, they can never excise
the ambiguities that haunt and constitute these posthuman and posttypographic
bodies. Limbo envisions cybernetics as a writing technology
that inscribes overthe hierarchical categories oftraditional sexualitythe indeterminate
circuitry ofcyborg gender.
As awhite male writing in the early 1950s, Wolfe was aware that the politics
ofgender relations were beginning to shift. Several times, the narrator
mentions "women's liberation," quarantined by quotation marks and authorial
scorn. Nevertheless, even he cannot escape the feminine within.
After ending his first notebook with a huge "NO" inscribed across the
page, the narrator ends the second notebook with an equally vehement
"YES," which he intends as an affirmation ofhumankind's hyphenated nature.
His mother's birth name was Noyes ("No-yes"), and he dimly senses
the connection between matrilineal heritage and the affirmation he seeks.
Butthe hyphen is not the same as the splice. Byinscribing Noyes as No-yes,
he seeks to draw a line that will preserve each halfofthe hyphenation as a
distinct entity. His voiced concessions to sexualpolitics are Similarlylimited
to realiZing thatwomen are not entirely monsters. The real power relations
at stake in sexist relations remain opaque to him, just as do the deeper implications
ofbeingwired into a cybernetic circuit.
But Limbo knows more than it can say, a paradox inscribed within the
text by the narrator's image of a "screen of words" that hides something
from him. Throughout, there are flashes ofinsight that exceed his formulations
and that are never adequatelyaccounted for byhis theOrizing. The effect
is finally of another voice trying to emerge, authored not so much by
Wolfe as by the cybernetic circuit he can imagine but not fully articulate.
Just as Martine's first notebook has been ventriloquized by Helder, so the
narrative as awhole is ventriloquized by a constellation offorces that make
it speak of a future in which hyphenation gives way to the spliced pros/e
that both signifies and is the cyborg. Ifthe ownership of the writing with
which the prostheSiS signifies is unclear, the obscurity is appropriate, for it
indicates that controlin a cybernetiC circuitis not a localized function but is
an emergent property. Neitherentirelyin control nor out ofcontrol, Limbo
teeters on the edge ofan important recognition.
In one sense, the bodies of Limbo are the cyborgs who populate the
imaginative world of Immob. In another, more literal sense, the body of
Limbo is constituted through the typefaces that march across the page.
Normally readers attend to the represented world and only peripherally
notice the physical body of the text. When the pros/e of Limbo itself becomes
a cyborg, however, the splice operates to join the imaginative world
130 / Chapter Five
of the signifier with the physical body of print. Parallels between a text's
physical form and its represented world have a long history in literature,
from the seventeenth-century iconographic poems of George Herbert to
the maps, tattoos, and bodywriting that litter the surfaces ofKathyAcker's
contemporary novels. What is distinctive about Wolfe's use ofthe correlation
is the suggestion that the bodies in the text and the bodyofthe text not
only represent cyborgs but also together compose a cyborginwhich the neologistic
splice operates to join imaginative signification with literal physicality.
In this integrated circuit, the physical bodyofthe text and the bodies
represented within the text evolve together toward a posthuman, posttypographic
future in which human and intelligent machine are spliced togetherin
an integratedcircuit, subjectivityis dispersed, vocalizationis nonlocalized,
bodies ofprint are punctuated with prostheses, and boundaries
of many kinds are destabilized. More than a conduit through which ideas
from cybernetics boiledinto the wider U.S. culture in the 1950s, Limbo is a
staging of the complex dynamics between cyborg and literary bodies. As
such, it demonstrates that neither body will remain unchanged by the en-
counter.
...........C.h.a.p ..t.e.r...SIx
THE SECOND WAVE OF CYBERNETICS:
FROM REFLEXIVITY TO SELF-ORGANIZATION
It all started with a frog. In a classic article entitled 'What the Frog's Eye
Tells the Frog's Brain," central players in the Macy group-including
Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and Jerry Lettvin-did pioneering work
on a frog's visual system. They demonstrated, with great elegance, that the
frog's visual system does not so much represent reality as construct it.1
What's true for frogs must also hold for humans, for there's no reason to believe
that the human neural system is uniquely constructed to show the
world as it "really" is. Not everyone in the research group was interested in
pursuing the potentially radical epistemological implications of this work.
McCulloch, for example, remained wedded to realist epistemology. But a
young neurophysiologist from Chile, Humberto Maturana, was also on the
research team, and he used it as a springboard into the unknown. Pushing
the envelope oftraditional scientific objectivity, he developed a newway of
talking about life and about the observer's role in describing living systems.
Entwined with the epistemological revolution he started are the three stories
we have been follOwing: the reification ofinformation, the cultural and
technological construction ofthe cyborg, and the transformation ofthe human
into the posthuman. As a result ofwork by Maturana and his collaborator,
Francisco Varela, all three stories took decisive turns during the
second wave of cybernetics, from 1960 to 1985. This chapter follows the
paths that Maturana and Varela took as they probed deeply into what it
means to acknowledge that the observer, like the frog, does not so much
discern preexisting systems as create them through the very act ofobserva-
tion.
Centralto the seriated changes connecting these second-wave developments
to the first wave is the difficult and protean concept ofreflexivity. As
we saw in chapter 3, participants in the Macy Conferences wrestled with
131
132 / Chapter Six
reflexivity, without much success. The particularities ofthe situation-the
embedding of reflexivity within psychoanalytic discourse, Kubie's halitosis
of the personality, the unquantifiability of reflexive concepts-put a
spin on reflexivity that affected its subsequent development.2 Gregory
Bateson's 1968 conference had made clear that the problems posed by including
the observer could be addressed only if a substantial reworking of
realist epistemology was undertaken. The intuitive leap made by Bateson
in concludingthat the internalworld ofsubjective experience is a metaphor
for the external world remained a flash of insight rather than a quantitatively
reliable inference that experimentalists like Warren McCulloch
could endorse. The problem was how to make the new epistemologyoperational
by integrating it with an experimental program that would replace
intuition with empirical data.
At issue in this evolving series ofevents are questions cruciallyimportant
to the technoscientific concepts of information, the cyborg, and the
posthuman. Like Norbert Wiener, Maturana has strong ties with liberal
humanism. At stake for him was how to preserve the central features of
autonomy and individualitywhile still wrenching them out ofthe Cartesian
and Enlightenment frameworks in which they are embedded. Even as he
struggled mightily to "say something new," his work replicates some
assumptions of the first wave at the same time that it radically revises others.:3
\Ve can see an early form of the struggle in the essays of Heinz von
Foerster, the genial and well-connected Austrian emigre who functions as
a transitional figure linking first- and second-wave cybernetics. From this
beginning, we will trace the epistemological revolution that Maturana fomented,
delineate its connections with the three stories we have been following,
and finally explore the differing assumptions that led Varela,
Maturana's collaborator, to set offin a new direction.
Reflexivity Revisited
Von Foerster left Austria in 1948, after working on microwave electronics
for Germany during World War II, work that had important applications in
radar (his 1949 vita lists much ofthis research as "secret").4 In the spring of
1949 von Foerster wrote McCulloch, renowned for his generosity in helping
younger men, to seek his help in finding a job in North America:5
McCulloch found the Austrian a position at the University of Illinois;
he also introduced von Foerster into the Macy group. Soon afterward,
McCulloch and Mead askedvon Foerster ifhe would serve as prinCipal editorofthe
published transcripts. Although he had some misgivings because
The Second Wave of Cybernetics I 133
English was not his native language, he agreed. With his name emblazoned
on the title pages, the published transcripts are associated with him as
much as with anyone.
It was not until the Macy Conferences had run their course, however,
that von Foerster tried to develop more fully the epistemological implications
ofincludingthe observeras partofthe system. The punningtitle ofhis
essay collection, Observing Systems, announces reHexivity as a central
theme. "Observing" is what (human) systems do; in another sense, (human)
systems themselves can be observed. The earliest essay ("On SelfOrganizing
Systems and Their Environments"), taken from a presentation
given in 1960, shows von Foersterthinking about reHexivityas acirculardynamic
that can be used to solve the problem of solipsism. How does he
know otherpeople exist, he asks. Because he experiences them in his imagination.
His experience leads him to believe that other people similarlyexperience
him in their imaginations. "IfI assume that I am the sole reality, it
turns out that I am the imagination ofsomebody else, who in turn assumes
that he is the sole reality."6 In a circle ofintersecting solipsisms, I use my
imaginationto conceive ofsomeone else and then ofthe imagination ofthat
person, in which I find myself reHected.7 Thus I am reassured not only of
the other person's existence but of my own as well. Although charmingly
posed, the argument is lOgically nonsensical, for there is no assurance that
other imaginations are conceiving ofme any more than I am conceiving of
them. Maybe I am thinking not about von Foerster but about a Big Mac.
That even a Hedgling philosopher could reduce the argument to shreds is
perhaps beside the point. Von Foerster himself seemed to recognize that
the argument was the philosophical equivalent to pulling a rabbit from a
hat, for he finally "solves" the paradoxical circling between solipsistiC imaginations
by asserting what he was to prove, namely the existence ofreality.
Although the argument is far from rigorous, it is interesting for the line
ofthought itsuggests. Its implications are illustratedbyacartoon (drawn by
Gordon Pask at von Foerster's request) ofa man in a bowler hat, in whose
head is pictured another man in a bowler hat, in whose head is yet another
man in a bowler hat.8 The potentiallyinfinite regress ofmen in bowler hats
does more than create an image of the observer who observes himself by
observing another. It also visually distinguishes the observer as a discrete
system inside the larger system of the organism. In the aftermath of the
Macy Conferences, one ofthe central problems with reHexivitywas how to
talk about it without falling into solipsism or resorting to psychoanalYSiS.
The message from the Macy Conferences was clear: ifreHexivitywas to be
credible, it had to be insulated against subjectivity and presented in a
134 I Chapter Six
context in which it had at least the potential for rigorous (preferably mathematical)
formulation. As Norbert Wiener was later to proclaim, "Cybernetics
is nothing ifit is not mathematical."g Distinguishing the observer as
a system separate from the organism was one way to make reflexivity more
manageable, for it reduced the problem of the observer to a problem of
communication among systems.
Throughout the 1960s, von Foerster remained convinced of the importance
ofreflexivity, and he experimented with various ways to formulate it.
Abreakthrough occurred in 1969, when he invited Maturana to speak at a
conference at the UniversityofIllinois. There Maturana unveiled his ideas
about treating "cognition as a biological phenomenon."l0 The power of
Maturana's theory must have deeply affectedvon Foerster, for his thinking
about reflexivity takes a quantum leap in complexityafter this date. The increased
sophistication can be seen in his 1970 essay "Molecular Ethology:
An Immodest Proposal for Semantic Clarification," in which he criticizes
behaviorism by making the reflexive move ofturning the focus from the observation
back onto the observer. Behaviorism does not demonstrate that
animals are black boxes that give predictable outputs for given inputs, he
argues. Rather, behaviorism shows the cleverness and power ofthe experimenter
in getting animals to behave as such. "Instead of searching for
mechanisms in the environment that tum organisms into trivial machines,
we have to find the mechanisms within the organisms that enable them to
tum their environment into a trivial machine."ll Here reflexivity moves
from men in bowler hats to the beginning ofa powerful critique ofobjectivist
epistemology. By 1972, von Foerster had been so thoroughly convinced
by Maturana's theory that one of the latest essays in Observing
Systems, "Notes on an Epistemology of Living Things" (pp. 258-71), recasts
the theory in the form ofa circular set ofnumbered quasi-mathematical
propositions, in which the last repeats the first.
To trace the evolution ofMaturana's epistemology, let us tum nowto the
seminal paper"What the Frog's EyeTells the Frog's Brain." In it, Maturana
and his coauthors demonstrate that the frog's sensory receptors speak to
the brain in a language highly processed and species-specific. To arrive at
this conclusion, the authors implanted microelectrodes in a frog's visual
cortex to measure the strength of neural responses to various stimuli. At
this point the frog's brain became part ofa cybernetic circuit, a bioapparatus
reconfigured to produce scientific knowledge. Strictly speaking, the
frog's brain had ceased to belong to the frog alone. I will therefore drop the
possessive and follow the authors by referring to the frog's brain simply as
"the brain" (a phrase that eerily echoes the title of Norbert Wiener's short
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 135
storydiscussed in chapter5). From thewired-up brain, the researchers discovered
that small objects in fast, erratic motion elicited maximum response,
whereas large, slow-moving objects evoked little or no response. It
is easy to see how such perceptual equipment is adaptive from the frog's
point of view, because it allows the frog to perceive flies while ignoring
other phenomena irrelevant to its interests. The results implied that the
frog's perceptual system does not so much register reality as construct it. As
the authors noted, theirwork"shows that the [frog's] eye speaks to the brain
in a language alreadyhighly organized and interpretedinstead oftransmitting
some more or less accurate copy of the distribution oflight upon the
receptors."12 Theworkled Maturanato the maxim fundamental to his epistemology:
"Everything said is said by an observer" (AC, p. xxii). No wonder
the article was quickly recognized as a classic, for it blewafrog-sized hole in
realist epistemology.
Despite the potentiallyradical implications ofthe article's content, however,
itsform reinscribed conventional realist assumptions ofscientific discourse.
The results are reported in an objectivist rhetoric that masks the
fact they are interpreted through the sensory and cognitive interfaces of
embodied researchers, whose perceptions were at least as transformative
as the frog'S. Years later, Maturana would recall that he and Lettvin continued
to work in an objectivist framework even as that framework was being
called into question by their research. In the preface to Autopoiesis and
Cognition: The Realization ofthe Living, Maturana recalled: "When Jerry
Y. Lettvin and I wrote our several articles on frog vision ... we did it with
the implicit assumption that we were handling a clearly defined cognitive
situation: there was an objective (absolute) reality, external to the animal,
and independent ofit (not determined byit), which it could perceive (cognize)....
But even there the epistemology that guided our thinking and
writing was that ofan objective reality independent ofthe observer" (AC,
p. xiv). Faced with this inconsistency, Maturana had a choice. He could
continue to workwithin the prevailing assumptions ofscientific objectivity,
or he could devise a new epistemology that would construct a worldview
consistent with what he thought the experimental work showed.
The break came with his work on colorvision in other animals, including
birds and primates. He and his coauthors (not the Macy group this time)
found they could not map the visible world ofcolor onto the activity ofthe
nervous system.13 There was no one-to-one correlation between perception
and the world. They could, however, correlate activity in an animal's
retina with its experience ofcolor. Ifwe think ofsense receptors as constituting
a boundary between outside and inside, this implies that organiza-
136 / Chapter Six
tionally, the retina matches up with the inside, not the outside. From this
and other studies, Maturana concluded that perception is not fundamentally
representational. He argued that to speak of an objectively existing
world is misleading, for the very idea ofa world implies a realm that preexists
its construction by an observer. Certainly there is something "out
there,"which for lackofabettertermwe can call "reality." Butitcomes into
existence for us, and for all living creatures, only through interactive processes
determined solely by the organism's own organization. "No description
ofan absolute reality is possible," he and Varela wrote in Autopoiesis
and Cognition, for such a description "would require an interaction with
the absolute to be described, but the representation that would arise from
such an interactionwould necessarilybe determined bythe autopoietic organizationofthe
observer ... hence, the cognitive realitythat itwould generate
would unavoidably be relative to the observer" (AC, p. 121). Thus he
was led to a premise fundamental to his theory: living systems operate
within the boundaries ofan organization that closes in on itselfand leaves
the world on the outside.
With Varela, Maturana developed the implications of this inSight in
Autopoiesis and Cognition. He arrived at his theory, he explains in the introduction,
bydeciding to treat "the activityofthe nervous system as determined
by the nervous system itself, and not by the external world; thus the
external world would have only a triggering role in the release ofthe internally-determined
activity of the nervous system" (AC, p. xv). His key inSightwas
to realize that ifthe action ofthe nervous system is determinedby
its organization, the result is a circular, self-reflexive dynamiC. A living system's
organization causes certain products to be produced, for example,
nucleic acids. These products in tum produce the organization characteristic
of that living system. To describe this circularity, he coined the term
autopoiesis or self-making. "It is the circularity of its organization that
makes a living system a unit of interactions," he and Varela wrote in Autopoiesis
and Cognition, "anditis this circularitythatit must maintain inorder
to remain a living system and to retain its identity through different
interactions" (AC, p. 9). Building on this premise of autopoietic closure,
Maturana developed a new and startlingly different account of how we
know the world.14
What is this account? One path into it is to regard the account as an attempt
to counteract anthropomorphic projection by clearlydistinguishing
between two domains of description. On the one hand, there is what one
can say about the circularityofautopoietic processes in themselves, taking
care not to attribute to them anything other than what they exhibit. On the
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 137
other hand, there are the inferences that observers draw when they place
an autopoietic system in the context ofan environment. Seeing system and
medium together over a period of time, observers draw connections between
cause and effect, past and future. But these are the observers' inferences;
they are not intrinsic to the autopoietic processes in themselves.
Let's say I see a blue jay flash through the trees and settle on the birdbath. I
may think, "Oh, it's getting a drink." Other species, for example those lacking
color vision, would react to this triggering event with different constructions.
A frog might notice the quiCk, erratic flight but be oblivious to
the blue jay at rest. Each living system thus constructs its environment
through the "domain ofinteractions" made possible by its autopoietic organization.
What lies outside that domain does not exist for that system.
Maturana, realizing that he was fighting a long tradition ofrealist assumptions
deeply embedded in everyday language, developed an elaborate vocabularyas
aprophylactic against having anthropomorphism creep backin.
The necessity offinding a new language in which to express his theory was
borne home to him during the student revolution in Chile in May 1968. It
was then, he wrote in Autopoiesis and Cognition, that he discovered that
"language was a trap, but the whole experience was a wonderful school in
which one could discover how mute, deafand blind one was ... one began
to listen and one's language began to change; and then, but only then, new
things could be said" (AC, p. xvi).
Shortly we will analyze places where Maturana, like the participants in
the Mac)' Conferences, seems unable to escape from the tar baby of selfreflexive
language. For the moment, however, let us explore the "new
things" he tried to say. No doubt the cumbersome-manywould not hesitate
to call it tortured-quality ofhis language will be immediately apparent
to the reader.1.5 Before we judge it harshly, however, we should
remember that Maturana was attempting nothing less than to give a different
account ofhow we know the world. Since it is partly through language
that humans bring worlds into being for themselves, he was in the impossible
position ofpulling himselfup by his own bootstraps, trying to articulate
the new by using the only language available, the lingua franca whose
meanings had long ago settled along lines very different from those he was
trying to envision.
We can start with that most problematic ofconstructions, the observer.
From Maturana's point ofview, the "fundamental cognitive operation that
an observer performs is the operation of distinction" (AC, p. xxii). Influenced
by C. Spencer-Brown, Maturana (and even more so Varela in his
work Principles ofBiologicalAutonomy)Hi sees the operation ofdistinction
138 I Chapter Six
as marking space so that an undifferentiated mass is separated into an inside
and an outside or, in Maturana's terminology, into a unity and a
medium in which the unity is embedded. Unities distinguished by the observer
can be oftwo types, simple and composite. Asimple unity"only has
the properties with which it is endowed by the operations of distinction
through which it becomes separated from a background." Composite unities,
by contrast, have "structure and organization," (AC, p. xx), terms that
Maturana uses in special senses and that require further explanation.
Acomposite unity's organization is the complexweb ofall possible relationships
that can be realized by the autopoietic processes as they interact
with one another. When Maturana speaks of a system's organization, he
does not mean how this web ofrelationships might be described in abstract
form. Rather, he intends organization to denote the relations actually instantiated
by the autopoietic unity's circular processes. Structure, by contrast,
is the particular instantiation that a composite unity enacts at a
particular moment. For example, when a female human is born, she has
one kind ofstructure; when she enters puberty, she has another; ifshe contracts
a disease, she has still another. Butthroughouther lifetime, her organization
remains the same: that which is characteristic of a living human.
Only when death occurs does her organization change. According to
Maturana, this ability ofliving organisms to conserve their autopoietic organization
is the necessary and sufficient condition for them to count as living
systems. All living systems are autopoietic, and all physical systems, if
autopoietic, can be said to be living (AC, p. 82). Thus life and autopoiesis
are coextensive with one another. Here's how that proposition sounds in
Maturana's terminology. "The living organization is a circular organization
which secures the production or maintenance of the components that
specifyit in such a manner that the product oftheir functioning is the very
same organization that produces them" (AC, p. 48).
To account for a system's embeddedness in an environment, Maturana
uses the concept ofstructural coupling. All living organisms must be structurally
coupled to their environments to continue living; humans, for example,
have to breathe air, drinkwater, eat food (AC, pp. x-xi). In addition,
systems may be structurally coupled to each other. For example, a cell
within my body may be considered as a system in itself, but it relies for its
continued existence on its structural coupling to mybodyas a whole. Here
again the role ofthe observer becomes important, for Maturana is careful
to distinguish between the triggering effect that an event in the medium
has on a system structurallycoupledwith it and the causal relationship that
observers construct in their mind when they perceive the system interact-
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 139
ing with the environment. When my bird dog sees a pigeon, I may think,
"Oh, he's pointing because he sees the bird." But in Maturana's terms, this
is an inference I draw from my position in the "descriptive domain" ofahuman
observer (AG, p. 121). From the viewpoint of the autopoietic processes,
there is only the circular interplay ofthe processes as they continue
to realize their autopoiesis, always operatingin the present moment and always
producing the organization that also produces them. Thus, time and
causality are not intrinsic to the processes themselves but are concepts inferred
by an observer. "The present is the time interval necessary for an interaction
to take place," Maturana and Varela wrote. "Past, future and time
exist only for the observer" (AG, p. 18).
Information, coding, and teleology are likewise inferences drawn by an
observer rather than qualities intrinsic to autopoietic processes. In the autopoietic
account, there are no messages Circulating in feedback loops, nor
are there even any genetic codes. These are abstractions invented by the
observer to explain what is seen; they exist in the observer's "domain ofinteractions"
rather than in autopoiesis itself. "The genetic and nervous system
are said to code information about the environment and to represent it
in their functional organization. This is untenable," Maturana and Varela
noted. "The genetic and nervous systems code processes that speCify series
oftransformations from initial states, which can be decoded only through
their actual implementation, notdeSCriptions that the observer makes ofan
environment which lies exclusively in his cognitive domain" (AG, p. 53).
Similarly, "the notion of information refers to the observer's degree of
uncertainty in his behavior within a domain ofalternatives defined by him,
hence the notion ofinformation only applies \vithin his cognitive domain"
(AG, p. 54). The same applies to teleology "A living system is not a goaldirected
system; it is, like the nervous system, a stable state-determined
and strictlvdeterministic svstem closed on itselfand modulated by interac-
- -tions not speCified byits conduct. These modulations, however, are apparent
as modulations only for the observer who beholds the organism or the
nervous system externally, from his own conceptual (descriptive) perspective,
as lying in an environment and as elements in his domain of interactions"
(AG, p. 50).
One implication oflettinggo ofcausalityis that systems always behave as
they should, which is to say, they always operate in accord with their structures,
whatever those may be. In Maturana's world, my car always works,
whether it starts or not, because it operates only and always in accord with
its structure at the moment. It is I, as an observer, who decides that my car
is not working because it will not start. Such "punctuations," as Maturana
'40 / Chapter Six
and Varela call them, belong to the "domain of the observer" (AC,
pp. 55-56). Because theyare extrinsicto the autopoieticprocesses, theyare
also extrinsic to the biological description that Maturana aims to give of
life and cognition. In an important essay entitled "Biology of Language,"
Maturana remarks that the"operation ofa structure-determined system is
necessarily perfect: that is, it follows a course determined only by neighborhood
relations in its structure and bynothing else. Itis onlyin a referential
domain, such as the domain ofbehavior, that an observer can claim that
an error has occurredwhen his or her expectations are not fulfilled."17
To assess the changes that the autopoieticview entails, let us turn nowto
compare its account ofliving systems with that given by first-wave cybernetics.
A convenient focal point for the comparison of the two theories is
liberal humanism, where their implications for the construction ofsubjectivitywill
become apparent. Having traced these implications, we will then
consider the impactofsecond-wave cybernetics on the entwinedstorieswe
have been following: the reification ofinformation, the construction ofthe
cyborg, and the transformation ofthe human into the posthuman.
Reconfiguring the Liberal Humanist Subject
As we saw in chapter 4, Norbert Wiener had a complex relation to the liberal
humanist subject. Father of a theory that put humans and machines
into the same category, he was nevertheless committedto creatinga cybernetics
that would preserve autonomy and individuality. His nightmare was
the human reduced to a cogin a rigid machine, lOSing the Hexibility and autonomous
functioning that Wiener regarded as the birthright of a cybernetic
organism. Echoes of this cybernetic tradition linger in Maturana's
description of composite unities as "autopoietic machines" (AC, p. 82).
Fully aware ofthe implications ofcalling autopoietic systems "machines,"
Maturana makes clear that there is nothing in his theory to prohibit
artificial systems from becoming autopoietic unities. "If living systems
were machines, they could be made by man," he and Varela point out (AC,
p. 83). Theypooh-pooh the ideathat life cannot orshould not be created by
humans. "There seems to be an intimate fear that the awe with respect to
life and the living would disappear ifa living system could be not only reproduced,
but deSigned by man. This is nonsense. The beauty of life is
not a gift of its inaccessibility to our understanding" (AC, p. 83). When
Maturana objects to first-wave projects that attributed biolOgical properties
to machines, his criticism addresses howlife is defined, notthe ideathat
machines can be alive. Forexample, he criticizesJohnvon Neumann's pro-
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 141
posal to create a self-reproducing machine by arguing that von Neumann
modeleddescriptions thatbiologists had made rather than autopoietic processes
in themselves. Von Neumann modeled inferences about "what appeared
to take place in the cell in terms of information content, program
and coding. By modeling the processes expressed in these descriptions he
produced a machine that could make another machine but he did not
model the phenomena of cellular reproduction, heredity and genetics as
they take place in living systems."18
This critique points to an important change between Maturana's position
and that announced by Wiener and his coauthors in their cybernetic
manifesto. Whereas the latter argued that it is the system's behavior that
counts, Maturana argues that it is the autopoietic processes generating behaviorthat
count. As we have seen, first-wave researchers concentrated on
building artifacts that would behave as cybernetic mechanisms: John von
Neumann's self-reproducing machines; Claude Shannon's electronic rat;
Ross Ashby's homeostat. By contrast, Maturana and others in the second
wave look to systems instantiating processes that count as autopoietic. The
homeostat might behave cybernetically, for example, but it does not count
as an autopoietic machine because it does not produce the components
thatproduce its organization. Perhaps because ofthis emphasis on process,
autopoietic theoryhas proven readily adaptable to the analysis ofsocial systems.
In autopoietic theory, the machine ofinterest is much more likely to
be the state than Robocop orTerminator.19
In first-wave cybernetics, questions ofboundaryformation were crucial
to its constructions ofsubjectivity. Boundary questions are also important
in autopoietic theory. Wiener's anxieties recirculate in discussions about
what happens when one autopoietic unity is encapsulated within the
boundaries ofa larger autopoietic unity, for example when a cell functions
as part of a larger machine. Can the cell continue to function as an autonomous
entity, or must its functioning be subordinated to the larger
unity? To distinguish these two cases, Maturana introduces the term allopoietic.
Whereas autopoietic unities have as their only goal the continuing
production of their autopoiesis, allopoietic unities have as their goal
something other than producing their organization. When I drive my car,
its functioning is subordinatedto the goals I set for it. Instead ofthe pistons
using their energy to repair themselves, for example, they use their energy
to turn the drive shaft so that I can get to the store. I function autopoietically,
but the car functions allopoietically.
We saw in chapter 4 that cybernetic boundary questions often involve
deep ethical and psycholOgical issues, such as those that troubled Wiener
142 / Chapter Six
when he envisioned the dissolution ofthe autonomous liberal subject. In
autopoietic theory, one of the principal effects of autopoiesis is to secure
for a livingsystem the crucial qualities ofautonomyand individuality. Consequently,
boundary issues are often played out in discussions of how
much autonomy autopoietic systems will retain for themselves and how
much autonomy they will demand from the systems with which they are
structurally coupled. The distinction between allopoietic and autopoietic
gives Maturana a way to talk about power struggles within society. In autopoietic
theory, the idea corresponding to Wiener's horror at a man being
forced to act as a cog in a machine is a system that is capable ofautopoiesis
being forced instead to function allopoietically, especially for humans.
Maturana's ideal is a human societyin which one would "see all human beings
as equivalent to oneself, and to love them ... without demanding
from them a larger surrender ofindividuality and autonomy than the measure
that one is willing to accept for oneselfwhile integrating it as an observer"
(AC, p. xxix). Such a society, he adds, "is in its essence an anarchist
society, a society made for and byobservers that would not surrender their
condition ofobservers as their onlyclaim to social freedom and mutual respect"
(AC, p. xxx). In such rhetoric, we can eaSily hear a reinscription of
liberal humanist values, even though the epistemology that Maturana advocates
is very different from that which gave rise to the Enlightenment
subject.
Yet it would be a mistake to think that Maturana's radicalism can be so
easily recuperated backinto liberal subjectivity. The split between his position
and liberal philosophy becomes obvious when questions ofobjectivity
arise. Consider, for example, his insistence that ethics cannot be separated
from scientific inquiry. Instead ofaccepting the proposition that the scientist
simply reports what he or she sees and in this sense remains alooffrom
ethical considerations, Maturana envisions autopoietic theory as a way to
reconnect ethics and science. Emphasizing that autonomy always takes
place in the context of structural coupling, autopoiesis rejects the objectivism
that drives awedge betweenthe scientist-observerand the worldbeing
observed. For Maturana, observation does not mean that the observer
remains separate from what is being observed; on the contrary, the observer
can observe only because the observer is structurallycoupled to the
phenomenon she sees. Expanded to social ethics, this implies "in man as a
social being ... all actions, however individual as expressions of preferences
or rejections, constitutively affect the lives of other human beings
and, hence, have ethical significance." Structural coupling requires that
human beings "as components ofasociety, necessarily realize their individ-
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 143
ual worlds and contribute to the determination ofthe individual worlds of
others" (AC, p. xxvi).
Although Maturana thus follows in the liberal tradition of cyberneticians
like Wiener in placing a high value on the autonomous individual, the
meaning of autonomy has undergone significant change. Autonomy as
Maturana envisions it is not consistentwith laissez-faire capitalism; it is not
consistent with the idea that each person is out for himself and devil take
the hindmost; and it is not consistent with the ethical position that a scientist
could undertake a research program without being concerned about
how the results ofthe research would be used. In these respects, the individualism
and autonomythat Maturana champions challenge the premises
embodied in liberal subjectivity at least as much as they reinscribe those
premises.
To explore further how liberal subjectivity is both contested and reinscribed
in autopoietic theory, let us tum now to Maturana's account ofthe
observer. Nowhere does Maturana depart more clearly from first-wave
philosophies than in his insistence that the observer must be taken into account.
"The observeris a living system and any understanding ofcognition
as a biological phenomenon mustaccountfor the observerand his role in it"
(AC, p. 48). The act ofobservation necessarily entails reflexivity, for one of
the systems that an observer can describe is the observer as an autopoietic
system. But reflexivity as Maturana envisions it is very different from the
psychoanalytic reflexivity that Lawrence Kubie introduced into the Macy
Conferences (see chapter 3). In contrast to Kubie's emphasiS on unconscious
symbolism, Maturana's observer does not have psycholOgical depth
or specificity. Rather, Maturana's observer is more like the observer that
Albert Einstein posits in the special theory ofrelativity. The one who sees is
always called simply"the observer,"without further speCification, implying
that any individual ofthat species occupying that position would see more
or less the same thing. Although the observer's perceptions construct reality
rather than paSSively perceive it, for Maturana this construction depends
on positionality rather than personality. In autopoietic theory, the
opposite ofobjectivism is not subjectivism but relativism.
Ifthe interplaybetween conscious and unconscious processes is not important
for Maturana, how is the observer produced? The observer begins
as an autopoietic unity, as all living systems are said to be. As a particular
kind of autopoietic unity capable of becoming an observer, the observersystem
can generate representations of its own interactions. When the
system recursively interacts with these representations, it becomes an observer.
The system can then recursively generate representations ofthese
144 I Chaprer Six
representations and interact with them, as when an observer thinks, "I am
an observing system observingitselfobserving." Each twist ofthis reflexive
spiral adds additional complexity, enlarging the domain ofinteractions that
specifY the world for that autopoietic unity. Maturana and Varela summarize
the situation thus in Autopoiesis and Cognition: "We become observers
through recursivelygenerating representations ofourinteractions,
and by interacting with several representations simultaneously we generate
relations with the representations ofwhich we can then interact and repeat
this process recursively, thus remaining in a domain of interactions
always larger than that ofthe representation" (AC, p. 14). Reflexivityis thus
fundamental to Maturana's account not onlybecause the autopoietic operations
ofa unity specifyfor it aworld but also because the system's reflexive
doubling back on its own representations generates the human subject as
an observer.
What about consciousness? Maturanaseldom uses this word, preferring
to talk instead about "thinking" and "self-consciousness." Thinking occurs
in a state-determined nervous system when neurophysiological processes
can interact "with some ofits own internal states as ifthese were independent
entities." This recursive circling "corresponds to what we call thinking"
(AC, p. 29). To get from "thinking" to "self-consciousness" requires
language, according to Maturana. In the samewaythatperceptiondoes not
consist ofinformation from the environment passing into the organism, so
language does not consist ofsomeone giving information to someone else.
Rather, when an observer uses language, this acts as a trigger for the observer's
interlocutor, allowing the interlocutor to establish an orientation
within his or her domain of interactions similar to the orientation of the
speaker. Onlywhen two entities have largelyoverlappingdomains-for example,
when they are both humans sharingsimilarcultures and beliefs-is
it possible for them to achieve the illusion that communication between
them has occurred.
From this description, it is apparent that Maturana explains language by
simply extending to the linguistic realm the same ideas and terminology he
uses to explain perception-an explanation that, in myview, fails to account
for some ofthe distinctive features oflanguage. Shortlywe will have an opportunity
to look critically at this view oflanguage. For the moment, it permits
us to understand Maturana's view of self-consciousness. Selfconsciousness
arises when the observer "through orienting [linguistic]
behaviorcanorient himselftowards himself, and then generate communicative
descriptions that orient him toward his description of this self-orientation."
The observer generates self-consciousness, then, when he endlessly
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 145
describes himselfdescribing himself. "Thus discourse through communicative
description originates the apparent paradox of self-description: selfconsciousness,
a newdomain ofinteractions" (AC, p. 29). Because Maturana
understands self-consciousness solely in linguistic terms, seeing it as an
emergent phenomenon that arises from autopoieticprocesses when theyrecursivelyinteractwith
themselves, consciousness forhim becomes aepiphenomenon
ratherthan adefiningcharacteristicofthe human as an autopoietic
entity. The activity ofcerebration represents only a fraction of the total autopoietic
processes, and self-consciousness represents only a fraction ofcerebration.
Thus the theory implicitly assigns to consciousness a much more
peripheral role than it does to autonomy and individualism. In this respect,
autopoietic theorypoints towardthe posthuman even as it reinscribes the autonomy
andindividualityofthe liberal subject.
The complex relation of autopoietic theory to liberal humanism becomes
even more apparent when we ask how the theory attempts to establish
a foundational ground for itself. As we saw in chapter 1, liberal
humanism (in C. B. Macpherson's readingofit) grounds itselfon the notion
ofpossessive individualism, the idea that subjects are individuals first and
foremost because they own themselves. The equivalent foundational
premise in autopoietic theory is the idea that living systems are living because
theyinstantiate organizationalclosure. Itis preciselythis closure that
guarantees the subject will operate as an autonomous individual. But how
is it that Maturana (or anyone else) knows that organizational closure exists?
Is the claim that autopoietic closure is intrinsically a feature ofliving
systems, or is it how a human observer perceives living systems, including
itself?This question lies coiled around the brainstem ofautopoietic theory,
layered into its evolutionary history through its founding distinctions between
qualities intrinsic to autopoieticprocesses and qualities attributedto
them byan observer. Ifthe theory says thatthe observercreates the system
bydrawing distinctions, it risks undercutting the ontolOgical primacyoforganizational
closure. If it says that autopoietic processes are an essential
feature of reality, it risks undercutting its epistemological radicalism.
Facedwith this Scylla and Charybdis, Maturana at first steered toward relativism
and then, as its dangers loomed closer, changed course and steered
toward the absolutism ofautopoietic processes existingin reality as such.
So in "BiologyofCognition," the earlieressayinAutopoiesis and Cognition,
Maturanaoften wrote as ifit is the observer's action that distinguishes
an autopoietic unity from its background or medium. "Although a distinction
performed by an observer is a cognitive distinction and, strictly, the
unity thus specified exists in his cognitive domain as a description, the ob-
146 / Chapter Six
serverin his discourse specifies a metadomain ofdescriptions from the perspective
ofwhich he established a reference that allows him to speak as ifa
unity ... existedas aseparate entity" (AC, p. xxii, emphasis added). Thisimplies
the autopoietic unityexists as a distinction thatis performedbythe observer
ratherthan as an entitythat couldexistin the absence ofan observer.
However, in "Autopoiesis: The Organization ofthe Living," the second and
lateressayinAutopoiesisandCognition, MaturanaandVarelawrote as ifan
autopoietic unity has the ability to constitute itselfindependent of an observer.
Autopoietic machines, through "theirinteractions and transformations
. . . continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes
(relations) that producedthem," in the process constitutingthemselves "as
a concrete unity in the space in which they (the components) existby specifying
the topological domain of [the autopoietic machine's] realization of
such anetwork" (AC, p. 79). Here the operation ofthe autopoietic entityitself-rather
than a distinction drawn byan observer-creates the space in
which the entity exists. Even more explicit is the claim that individuality
comes from the processes themselves ratherthan from the actions ofan observer.
"Autopoietic machines have individuality; that is, by keeping their
organization as an invariant through its continuous production they actively
maintain an identity which is independent oftheir interactions with
an observer" (AC, p. 80).
It is not surprising that the issue continues to be debated in autopoietic
theory, for it admits ofno easy solution. In Maturana's desire to found autopoiesis
on somethingmore than an observer's distinction, we can see him
tryingto pull awayfrom the tarbabyofhis own reflexive language. Relevant
for our purposes is not so much the resolution to this dilemma (as ifthere
could be a definitive resolution!) or even the demonstration that the theory's
founding moves make itvulnerable to deconstructive critique. Rather,
the important point here is that the foundational ground for establishing
the subject's autonomy and individuality has shifted from self-possession,
with all ofits implications for the imbrication ofthe liberal subjectwith industrial
capitalism. Instead, these privileged attributes are based on organizational
closure (the system closes on itself, byitself) or on the reflexivity
ofa system recurSivelyoperatingon its own representations (the observer's
distinctions close the system). Closure and recursivity, then, play the foundational
role in autopoietic theory that self-possession played in classic liberal
theory. The emphaSiS on closure is visually apparent in the computer
simulations, called tessellation automata, that Varela created to illustrate
autopoietic dynamics. In contrast to the artificial-life programs that will be
discussed in chapter 9, the point of tessellation simulations is to find out
The Second Wave of Cybernetics I 11,7
how boundaries close on themselves, how they are maintainedwhen interacting
with other tessellation automata, and how and when boundaries
break down, which in autopoietic theory is equivalent to death. In this description
we see the affinity of autopoiesis not for industrial capitalism
(which Maturana frequently excoriates) but for utopian anarchy. Autonomy
is important not because it serves as the (paradoxical) foundation for
market relations but because it establishes a sphere ofexistence for the individual,
a location from which the subject can ideally learn to respect the
boundaries that define other autopoietic entities like itself. This emphasis
on closure, autonomy, andindividualityalso changes what count as primary
concerns. When the existence ofthe world is tied to an observer, the urgent
questions revolve around how to maintain boundaries intact and still keep
connection with a world that robustly continues to exist regardless ofwhat
we think about it.
These changes from liberal humanism also bring with them limitations
that are distinctively different from those of first-wave cybernetics.
Whereas first-wave philosophies tended to obscure the importance ofembodiment
and the observer, autopoietic theory draws its strength precisely
from its emphasis on these attributes. Its Achilles' heel, by contrast, is accounting
for living systems' explosive potential for transformation. The
very closure that gives autopoietic theory its epistemological muscle also
limits the theory, so that it has a difficult time accountingfor dynamic interactions
that are not circular in their effects. Aprime example, in myview, is
the convoluted and problematic way that Maturana treats language. Consistent
with his emphasis on circularity, he prefers to talk not about language
but "languaging," a process whereby observers, acting solely within
their own domain ofinteractions, provide the triggers that help other observers
Similarly orient themselves within their domains. Autopoietic theory
sees this exchange as a coupling between two independent entities,
each ofwhich is formed only by its own ongoing autopoietic processes. As
this description shows, the theory is constantly in danger of solipsism, a
danger it both acknowledges and attempts to avoid by protesting that it is
not solipsistic. The main reason the theory adduces for not being solipsistic
is its acknowledgment of"structural coupling," the phrase used to denote
an organism's interaction with the environment. Even ifwe grant that this
move rescues the theory from solipsism, the theory still seriously understates
the transformative effects that language has on human subjects. We
have only to recall the term that Maturana employs for a language-using
subject-"the observer"-to see how curiously inert and self-enclosing is
his view oflanguage.
148 I Chapter Six
What drops from view in Maturana's account is the active nature oflinguistic
interactions. Researchers from Jean Piaget on have shown that a
child's neuralhardwarecontinues to develop afterbirthin conjunctionwith
the linguistic and social environment in which the child is embedded. In
light ofthis work, it is misleading to talk about the process ofactive shaping
through language simplyas an entity"orienting"itselfwith the aid ofan environmental
trigger. To appreciate just how active this process is, we can
look at instances where it has been short-circuited and the child thus consequentlyfails
to develop normally. In Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism
and Theory ofMind, Simon Baron-Cohen argues this is what happens with
autistic children.20 Somehow the shaping mechanisms fail to direct neural
development, and as a result the child is unable to create an internal scenario
that would explain why others act as they do. For such children,
Baron-Cohen argues, the world ofsocial interactions is chaotic and unpredictable
because they suffer from "mindblindness," an inability to imagine
for others the emotions and feelings they themselves have. Autopoietic
theory, in its zeal to construct an autonomous sphere of action for selfenclosing
entities, formulates a deSCription that ironically describes autistic
individuals more accurately than it does normally responsive people.
For the autistic person, the environment is indeed merely a trigger for processes
that close on themselves and leave the world outside.
In the next section, we will tum to a discussion ofhowautopoietic theory
treats evolution. Like language, evolution represents another area where
Maturana's version ofautopoietic theory fails to come to terms with the dynamic,
transformative nature of the interactions between living systems
and their environments. From there we will explore the split that develops
between Maturana and Varela. While Maturana continued to replicate his
original formulation ofthe theory, Varela and others became increasingly
interested in changing the theory so that it could better account for dynamic
interactions. Keeping many of the central insights of autopoietic
theory, Varela added new material and reworked some assumptions in the
seriatedpattern ofinnovation and replicationwe have seen atworkinother
sites. One effect ofthese changes was to allow elements ofautopoietic theory
to be integrated into contemporary cognitive science and especially
artificial life, which will be the focus ofmy discussion ofthird-wave cybernetics
in chapter 9.
At this point, a summary may be useful ofhow autopoietic theory contributes
to ourevolving stories of(1) the reification ofinformation, (2) the
construction ofthe cyborg, and (3) the transformation ofthe human into
the posthuman. First, whereas first-wave cybernetics played a large role
The Second Wave of Cybernetics I 149
in divesting information ofits body, autopoietic theory draws attention to
the fact that "information," so defined, is an abstraction that has no basis
in the physically embodied processes constituting all living entities. Autopoiesis
thus swerves from the trajectory traced in chapters 3 and 4 with
regard to information, insisting that information without a body does not
exist other than as an inference drawn by an observer. Second, whereas
first-wave cybernetics envisioned the cyborg mostly as an amalgam between
the organic and the mechanical, autopoietic theory uses its expanded
definition oflife to speculate on whether social systems are alive.
The paradigmatic cyborg for autopoiesis is the state, not the kind of mechanical
human imagined by Bernard Wolfe or Philip K. Dick. Third, autopoietic
theory preserves the autonomy and individuality characteristic
ofliberal humanism, but it sees thinking as a secondary effect that arises
when an autopoietic entity interacts with its own representations. Selfconsciousness,
a subset of thinking, is relegated to a purely linguistic
effect. The grounding assumptions for individuality shift from self-possession
to organizational closure and the reflexivity of a system recursively
operating on its own representations.
A status report, then: information's bodyis still contested, the empire of
the cyborg is still expanding, and the liberal subject, although more than
ever an autonomous individual, is literally lOSing its mind as the seat of
identity.
Autopoiesis and Evolution
It is no accident that evolution is a sore spot for autopoietic theory, for the
theory was deSigned to correct what Maturana and Varela saw as an
overemphasis on evolution and reproduction as the defining characteristics
oflife. Over and over, they argue that evolution and reproduction are
logically and practically subordinate to autopoiesis. "Reproduction and
evolution are not essential for living organisms," they assert in Autopoiesis
and Cognition (AC, p. 11). They are even more opposed to defining living
organisms in terms ofgenetic code. As Varela made clear in a retrospective
assessment, he and Maturana were conSciously aware of wanting to provide
an alternative account oflife, an account that would not depend in any
importantway on the idea ofa genetic code. "The notion ofautopoiesis was
proposed ... with the intentionofredressingwhat seemedto us to be afundamental
imbalance in the understanding ofliving organization." In correctingthis
imbalance, theyhad two interrelated goals. Alongwith creating
a theory ofthe living that would debunk the current emphasis on DNA as
150 I Chapter Six
the "master molecule" oflife, they also wanted to insist on the holistic nature
ofliving systems.21
Varela is willing to admit that perhaps they erred on the side ofoveremphasizingautopoiesis
at the expense ofgenetics. Bycontrast, Maturana became
ifanything more confirmed in his opposition as time went on. Many
critics, including Richard Lewontin, Evelyn Fox Keller, Lily Kay, Richard
Doyle, and others, have commented on the distortions created in modem
biology by the present overemphasis on DNA.22 But few go as far as
Maturana. In the 1980 article "Autopoiesis: Reproduction, Heredity, and
Evolution," a recapitulation of autopoietic theory, he wrote, "I claim that
nucleic acids do not determine hereditaryand genetic phenomenain living
systems, and that they are involved in them, like all other cellular components,
according to the particularmannerinwhich theyintegrate the structure
ofthe living cell and participate in the realization ofits autopoiesis."23
Let us grantthat modem biologyoveremphasizes the role ofDNAand that
DNA is, as Maturana points out in this passage, only one of many cellular
components involved in reproduction. Does he nevertheless go too far in
the other direction by insisting that everything be subordinated to au-
topoiesis?
The problems created bysubordinatingeverythingto autopoiesis can be
seen in The Tree ofKnowledge, an account ofautopoiesis written for a general
audience.24 As the opening diagram indicates, Maturana and Varela
envision each chapter leading into the next, with the final one coming back
to the beginning, so thatthe form ofthe book recapitulates the circularityof
autopoietic theory. "We shall follow a rigorous conceptual itinerary," they
announce in the introduction, "wherein everyconceptbuilds on preceding
ones, until the whole is an indissociable network" (p. 9). InAutopoiesis and
Cognition, Maturana commented that he and Varela were unable to agree
on howto contextualize the theory, so hewrote the introduction byhimself.
Now, seven years later, Varela is less his student and more an accomplished
figure in his own right. This is the last work the two men will coauthor together;
Varela has already begun to head in a different direction. The divergences
in their viewpoints are accommodated through a clever visual
device. Certain key ideas are separated from the text and put into boxes.
Each box has a cartoon figure representing the speaker. Maturana's figure
wears heavyglasses andis noticeablyolderthanVarela's, soitis easyto identify
which is which. Sometimes Maturana's figure authorizes the boxed
comments, sometimes Varela's, and sometimes both together. Even without
the boxes, it is not difficult to discern that Varela's voice is stronger in
The Tree ofKnowledge than inAutopoiesis and Cognition.
The Second Wave of Cybernetics I 151
I take Varela's Buddhist orientation to be the inspiration behind what
the authors announce as a central idea, "all doing is knowing and all knowingis
doing" (p. 27). Theyillustrate the conceptbyconstructingthe book as
acircle, startingtheir discussionwith unicellularorganisms (first-ordersystems),
progressing to multicellular organisms with nervous systems (second-order
systems), and finally coming to cognitively aware humans who
interact through language (third-order systems). Pointingout that humans
in tum are composed of cells, they close the circle by nesting first-and
second-order systems within third-order systems, thus joining the doing of
autopoiesis with the knowing ofeognitivelyaware creatures. Autopoiesis is
the governing idea connecting systems at all levels, from the single cell to
the mostcomplexthinking being. 'What defines [livingsystems] is their autopoieticorganization,
anditis in this autopoietic organizationthat theybecome
real and specifythemselves at the same time" (p. 48). Traversing this
path, the "doing" of the reader-the linear turning of pages during the
reading-is to become a kind of"knowing" as the reader experiences the
organization characteristic of autopoiesis through a textual structure that
circles back on itself.
The problem comes when the authors try to articulate this circular
structure togetherwith evolutionary lineages. In evolution, lineage carries
the sense both of continuity (traced far enough back, all life originates in
single-cell organisms) and ofqualitative change (different lines branch off
from one another and follow separate evolutionary pathways). Whereas in
autopoiesis the emphaSiS falls on circular interactions, in evolution lines
proliferate into more lines as speciation takes place through such mechanisms
as genetic diverSity and differential rates of reproductive success.
The tension between evolutionary lines of descent and autopoietic circularity
becomes apparent in the authors' claim that autopoiesis is conserved
at every point as organisms evolve. To describe the changes taking place,
the authors use the term "natural drift." There seems to be a natural drift in
"natural drift," however, and in later passages "natural drift" becomes
"structural drift." If structure changes, what does it mean to say that autopoiesis
is conserved? Here they fall back on the structure/organization
distinction that they had previously used in Autopoiesis and Cognition.
"Organization denotes those relations that must exist among the components
ofa system for it to be a memberofa specific class. Structure denotes
the components and relations that actuallyconstitute a particularunity and
make its organization real" (p. 47). Interestingly, they use a mechanical
rather than a biolOgical analogy to illustrate the distinction. A toilet's parts
can be made ofwood orplastiC; these different materials correspondto dif-
'52 / Chapter Six
ferences in structure. Regardless ofthe material used, however, the toilet
will stillbe atoiletifit has atoilet's organization. The analogyis strangelyinappropriate
for biology. All life is based on the same four nucleotides;
hence for living organisms, it is not the material that changes but the way
the material is organized.
Whatdoes it mean, then, to saythatautopoiesis is conserved?According
to the authors, it means that organization is conserved. Andwhat is organization?
Organization is "those relations that must exist among the components
of a system for it to be a member of a specific class" (p. 47). These
definitions force one to choose between two horns ofa dilemma. Consider
the case ofan amoeba and a human. Either an amoeba and a human have
the same organization,whichwould make them members ofthe same class,
in which case evolutionary lineages disappear because all living systems
have the same organization; or else an amoeba and a human have different
organizations, in which case organization-and hence autopoiesis-must
not have been conserved somewhere (or in many places) along the line.
The dilemma reveals the tension between the conservative circularity of
autopoiesis and the linear thrust of evolution. Either organization is conserved
and evolutionarychange is effaced, ororganization changes and autopoiesis
is effaced.
The strain of trying to articulate autopoiesis with evolution is perhaps
most apparent in what is not said. Molecular biologyis scarcely mentioned
and then only in contexts that underplay its importance-a choice consistent
with Maturana's claim that hereditydoes not depend on nucleic acids.
There is an additional problem in bringing up molecular biology, for any
discussion of DNA coding would immediately reveal that the distinction
between structure and organization cannot be absolute-and if this distinction
goes, autopoiesis is no longerconservedin evolutionaryprocesses.
For if organization is construed to mean the biolOgical classes characterized
as species, then it is apparent that organization changes as speciation
takes place. Iforganization means something other than species, then organizationceasesto
distinguishbetweendifferent kinds ofspecies andsimply
becomes the property of any living system. Conserving organization
means conserving life, a fact that may be adequate for autopoiesis to qualifYas
a propertyofliving systems but does nothing to articulate autopoiesis
with evolutionary change.
The essential problem here is not primarily one ofdefinitions, although
the problem becomes manifest at these sites in the text because definitions
are used to anchor the argument, which otherwise drifts offinto such nebulous
terms as "natural drift." Rather, the difficulties arise because ofMat-
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 153
urana's passionate desire to have something conserved in the midst ofcontinuous
change. Leaving aside the problems with his explanation ofstructure
and organization, that something is basically the integrity of a
self-contained, self-perpetuating system that is operationally closed to its
environment. In Maturana's metaphysics, the system closes on itself and
leaves historical contingency on the outside. Even when he is concerned
with the linearbranching structures ofevolution, he turns this linearityinto
a circle and tries to invest it with a sense of inevitability. Seen as a textual
technology, The Tree ofKnowledge is an engine ofknowledge production
that vaporizes contingency by continuously circulating it within the space
ofits interlocking assumptions.25
Nowhere is the divergence ofVarela and Maturana since 1980 clearer
than on this point. While Va.-ela moved on to otherissues andways ofthinking
about them, Maturana continued to occupy essentially the same position
and to use the same language as in Autopoiesis and Cognition. Clearly
Maturana has a more intense and long-lasting commitment to the original
formulation ofautopoiesis than does Varela. Not COincidentally, Maturana
regards himselfas the father ofthe theory, whereas he sees Varela's role as
more tangential. In a 1991 article titled "The Origin of the Theory ofAutopoietic
Systems," he claims credit as the creator of the theory and says
that Varela was very much a collaborator who appeared on the scene after
the basic ideas had been formulated. "Strictly, Francisco Varela did not
contribute to the development of the notion of autopoiesis," Maturana
wrote. "This notion was developed between 1960 and 1968. Francisco was
my student as an undergraduate during the years 1966 and 1967 in Santiago,
then he went to Harvardwhere he was from 1968 to 1970, when he returned
to Chile to workwith me in mylaboratoryin the FacultyofSciences
in Santiago." Although Varela's Principles ofBiological Autonomy clearly
shows that Vareladid most ofthe actual computerwork in creatingtessellation
automata, Maturana claims credit for this idea too. He wrote, "During
the year 1972, I proposed one dayto make a computer program that would
generate an autopoietic system in a graphic space as the result ofgenerating
in that space certain elements like molecules."26 In PrinCiples, Varela
acknowledged that Maturana was among those "who have influenced this
book so pervaSively" that their thought was woven into it throughout, but
he also wrote in "Describing the Logic ofthe Living," his 1981 retrospective
assessment ofautopoiesis, that"the notion ofautopoiesis was proposed
by Humberto Maturanaandmyself"27Thisjostlingfor position, especially
when a theoryhas proven to be histOricallyimportant, is ofcourse common
in almost every field, and particularly in scientific communities, where
154 / Chapter Six
greatemphasis is placedon beingthe first to discover something. I mention
it here not in any way to diminish the contributions ofeither Maturana or
Varela but to contextualize the fact that Varela moved on to other ways of
thinking about autopoiesis while Maturana continued to write in much the
same vein as when he had started.
The Voice of the Other: Varela and Embodiment
After The Tree ofKnowledge, Varelaincreasinglymoved away from the closure
that remains a distinctive feature of autopoiesis. The change can be
seenin "Describingthe Logicofthe Living: The Adequacyand Limitations
ofthe Idea ofAutopoiesis," his contribution to the important 1981 collection
editedby Milan Zeleny: Autopoiesis: A Theory ofLiving Organization.
While stressing that he continues to see autopoiesis as very valuable
because it "pointed to a neglecting ofautonomy as basic to the living individual,"
Varela also criticizes autopoiesis for going both too far and not far
enough (p. 37). Itwenttoo far, in his view, in becoming a paradigm notjust
for biological organisms but for social systems as well. Insisting that autopoiesis
should not be confused with organizational closure in general, he
points out that "the definition ofautopoiesis has some precision because it
is based on the idea ofproduction ofcomponents, and this notion ofproduction
cannot be stretched indefinitely without losing all of its power"
(pp. 37-38). Although cells and animals clearly do physically produce the
components that instantiate their organization, social systems do not. Departing
from Maturana on this point, Varela would restrict autopoiesis to
where, in his view, itis most applicable, to the"domain ofcells and animals"
(p.38).
Autopoiesis did not go far enough in building a bridge between its approach
and the first-wave emphasis on information flow, teleology, and behavior.
"We did not take ourcriticism far enough to recovera non-naive and
useful role ofinformation notions in the descriptions oflivingphenomena,"
he wrote. Conceding that information, coding, and messages can be "valid
explanatory terms," he suggests that they might serve as complementary
modes of description for autopoiesis ( p. 39). Although he continues to
maintain that autopoiesis is logicallynecessary to acomplete explanation, it
maynotbe "sufficientto give asatisfactoryexplanation oflivingphenomena
on both logical and cognitive grounds" (p. 44). "There was, evidently, a
need in [Autopoiesis and Cognition] to overemphasize a neglectedside ofa
polarity" (p. 39). To posit an analogous situation in literature, imagine trying
to explain howto read a Shakespearean sonnet bystartingoutwith ade-
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 155
scription ofcellular processes. Logically, it is true that the behavior resultingin
readingthe sonnet has to originate in cellularprocesses, but one does
not need to be a literature teacher to see that a "chunked," higher-level description
would be much more useful.
WhatVarela argues for, finally, is a dual system ofexplanation. The operational
explanation would emphasize the physical concreteness of actual
processes; the symbolic orsystems-theoretic explanationwould emphasize
more abstract ideas that help to construct the system at a higher level of
generality. Even so, this "duality of explanation" should "remain in full
view" as an antidote to those in computer science and systems engineering
who mistake a symboliC deSCription for an operational one, for example by
considering that "information and information processing are in the same
categoryas matterand energy." In this respect Varela remains fiercely loyal
to autopoiesis. "To the extent that the engineering field is prescriptive by
design, this kind of epistemological blunder is still workable. However, it
becomes unbearable and useless when exported from the domain ofprescription
to that ofdeSCription of natural systems.... To assume in these
fields that information is some thing that is transmitted, that symbols are
things that can be taken at face value, or that purposes and goals are made
clear by the systems themselves is all, it seems to me, nonsense.... Information,
sensu strictu, does not exist. Nor do, by the way, the laws ofnature"
(p.45).
In more recent work, Varela and his coauthors provide a positive dimension
to this critique ofdisembodied information. Theyexplore the constructive
role of embodiment in ways that go importantly beyond
autopoiesis. Although autopoietic theoryimplicitlyprivileges embodiment
in its emphaSis on actual biological processes, it has little to say about embodied
action as a dynamic force in an organism's development. It is preCiselythis
point that is richly elaborated byVarelaand his coauthors in their
concept of"enaction."28 Enaction sees the active engagement ofan organism
with the environment as the cornerstone of the organism's development.
The difference in emphaSiS between enactionand autopoiesis can be
seen in how the two theories understand perception. Autopoietic theory
sees perception as the system's response to a triggering event in the surrounding
medium. Enaction, by contrast, emphaSizes that perception is
constituted through perceptuallyguided actions, so that movement within
an environment is crucial to an organism's development. As Varela further
explained in "Making It Concrete: Before, During, and After Breakdowns,"
enaction concurs with autopoiesis in insisting that perception
must not be understood through the viewpOint ofa "pre-given, perceiver-
156 / Chapter Six
independent world." Whereas autopoietic theory emphasizes the closure
ofcircular processes, however, enaction sees the organism's active engagementwith
its surroundings as more open-endedand transformative. Asimilar
difference informs the views of cognition in the two theories. For
autopoiesis, cognition emerges from the recursive operation of a system
representing to itself its own representations. Enaction, by contrast, sees
cognitive structures emerging from "recurrent sensory-motor patterns."29
Hence, insteadofemphasizing the circularityofautopoietic processes, enaction
emphasizes the links ofthe nervous system with the sensorysurfaces
and motor abilities that connect the organism to the environment.
Embedded in the idea ofenaction is also another story about what consciousness
means, a story different from that articulated by autopoietic
theory. In The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science andHuman Experience,
Varela and his coauthors take the Buddhist-inspired point ofview that the
"self" is a storyconsciousness tells itselfto block out the fear and panic that
would ensue ifhuman beings realized there is no essential self. Opposed to
the false unity and self-presence ofgrasping consciousness is true awareness,
which is based on actualizing within the mind an embodied realization
of the person's ongoing processes. We saw that autopoietic theory
invokes the "domain ofthe observer" as a way to integrate common-sense
perceptions with the theory's epistemological radicalism, a move that
ended up deconstructing the liberal humanist subjectin some respects but
recuperating it in others. By contrast, in enaction, consciousness is seen as
a cognitive balloon that must be burst ifhumans are to recognize the true
nature oftheirbeing. The thrust ofThe Embodied Mind is to showthat cognitive
science has alreadybeen headed in this direction and to interpret the
Significance ofthis trajectoryin the framework ofBuddhistphilosophies of
emptiness and the not-self. Here the boundaries ofthe liberal subject are
not so muchpenetrated, stretched, ordissolved as theyare revealedto have
been an illusion all along. In contrast to the anxiety and nostalgia that
Wiener and Maturana expressed when confronted with the loss ofthe liberal
subject, Varela, speakingin a voice now not conjoined with his teacher
and mentor, celebrates the moment when the selfdrops away and awareness
expands into a realization ofits true nature. No longerWiener's island
oflife in a sea ofentropy or Maturana's autonomous circularity, awareness
realizes itselfas a part ofa larger whole-unbounded, empty, and serene.
What marks this realization as something other than a mystical vision is
Varela's insistence that the most advanced research in Western cognitive
science points toward the same conclusion. Referencing such works as R.
Jackendoff's Consciousness and the Computational Mind and Marvin
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 157
Minsky's Society ofMind (about which we will hear more in chapter 9), he
and his coauthors show that contemporary models ofcognition implicitly
deconstruct the notion ofa unified selfbydemonstratingthat cognitioncan
be modeled through discrete and semiautonomous agents. Each agent
runs a modular program designed to accomplish a specific activity, operating
relatively independent of the others. Only when conflicts occur between
agents does an adjudicating program kick in to resolve the problem.
In this model, consciousness emerges as an epiphenomenon whose role it
is to tell a coherent story about what is happening, even though this story
may have little to do with what is happening processurally. These models
posit the mind, Varelawrote, "not as a unified, homogenous unity, nor even
as a collection ofentities, but rather as a disunified, heterogeneous, collection
ofprocesses" (p. 100).
In "MakingIt Concrete,"Varelaexpands this line ofthought by showing
how Minsky's "societyofmind" model can be combined with nonlinear dynamics
to give an account ofliving systems in action. He continues to insist
on the importance of the concrete and embodied. "The concrete is not a
step towards anything: it is howwe arrive and where we stay." Reminiscent
ofthe autopoietic theory's claim that processes happen always and only in
the present, he remarks that "it is in the immediate present that the concrete
actually lives" (p. 98). To show how Minsky's model is incomplete, he
points out that "itis not a model ofneural networks orsocieties; itis a model
ofthe cognitive architecture that abstracts (again!) from neurolOgicaldetail
and hence from the web of the living and of lived experience." "What is
missing here," he continues, "is the detailed link between such agents and
the incarnated coupling, by sensing and acting, which is essential to living
cognition" (p. 99).
The question he poses is how the mind can move smoothly from one
agent processing its program to another agent running quite another program.
To answer this question satisfactorily, he suggests, we need to link
these abstractions with embodied processes. He proposes a "readiness to
action" that in effect constitutes a microidentity. As an example, he imagines
a man walking down the street, and Varela sketches the kind ofbehaviorassociatedwith
this microidentity. Suddenlythe man realizes he has left
his billfold behind in the last store he visited. Instantly a different microidentity
kicks in, geared toward a search operation rather than a leisurely
stroll down the street. How does one get from the microidentity of"stroll"
to the microidentityof"intense search"?The answer, Varelaspeculates, involves
chaotic, fast dynamiCS that allows emergent self-organizing structures
to arise. In linking the dynamiCS of self-organizing structures with
158 / Chapter Six
microidentities, Varela is following a line ofthought vigorously pursued by
Zeleny and others, who want to join autopoietic theory with the dynamics
ofself-organizing systems.30 The idea is to supplement autopoietic theory
so that it can also more adequately account for change and transformation
and also to specifY the mechanisms and dynamics through which an autopoietic
system progresses from one instant in the present to another.
These revisions aim to jog autopoietic theory out ofits relentless repetitive
circularity by envisioning a living organism as a fast, responsive, flexible,
and self-organizing system capable ofconstantly reinventing itself, sometimes
in new and surprising ways. In this tum toward the new and unexpected,
autopoietic theory begins to look less like the homeostasis of the
first wave and more like the self-evolvingprograms thatwill be discussed in
chapter 9 as exemplars ofthird-wave cybernetics.
As autopoietic theory continues to evolve, what are likely to be the enduring
contributions ofautopoiesis as Maturana originally formulated it?
In my view, these will certainly include the follOwing: his emphasis on the
concreteness and specificityofembodied processes; his insistence that the
observer must be taken into account, with all the implications this has for
scientific objectivism; his distinction between allopoietic and autopoietic
systems, and the ethical implications bound up with making this distinction;
and his insight that, in a literal sense, we make aworld for ourselves by
living it.
In one ofhis more radical moments, Maturana used the insights ofautopoiesis
to push toward a formulation that, taken out of context, sounds
solipsistic indeed: "We do not see what we do not see, and what we do not
see does not exist."31 In context, he is always careful to qualifythis apparent
solipsism by pointing out that a world outside the domain ofone observer
may exist for others, as when I see a large stationary object that a frog cannot
perceive. In this way, the world's existence is recuperated in a modified
sense-not as an objectively existing reality but as a domain that is constantly
enlarging as self-conscious (scientific) observers operate recurSively
on their representations to generate new representations and
realizations. Ifthis isn't exactly the "scientific quest for new knowledge," it
nevertheless allows for a qualifiedvision ofscientific progress.
But what if"the observer" ceases to be constructed as a generic marker
and becomes investedwith a specific psychology, including highly idiosyncratic
and possibly psychotic tendencies? Will the domains of selfconscious
observers fail to stabilize external reality? Will the uncertainties
then go beyond questions ofepistemology and become questions ofontology?Will
the observation that "whatwe do not see does not exist" sinkdeep
The Second Wave of Cybernetics / 159
into the structure of reality, undermining not only our ability to know but
the abilityofthe world to be?To entertain these suppositionsis to enterinto
the world as it is constructed in the literary imagination of Philip K. Dick.
Writing contemporaneouslywith Maturana but apparentlywith no knowledge
ofautopoietic theory, Dick is obsessed with many ofthe same issues.
In turning from Maturana's radical epistemologyto Dick's radical ontology,
we will follow our evolvingstories ofthe reification ofinformation, the construction
ofthe cyborg, and the emergence ofthe posthuman into a phantasmagoric
territory that continues to exist only as long as an observer
thinks it does. And what observers Dick's characters tum out to be!
· .........c.h.. Q. pre..r....s.e.y.e.n
TURNING REALITY INSIDE OUT AND
RIGHT SIDE OUT: BOUNDARY WORK
IN THE MID-SIXTIES NOVELS
OF PHILIP K. DICK
As much as any literarywork in his generation, Philip K. Dick's fictions enact
the progressively deeper penetration of cybernetic technologies into
the fabric of the world. For a public fascinated by the artificial life-forms
made famous in Blade Runner (adapted from his most famous novel, Do
Androids Dream ofElectric Sheep?), his work demonstrates how potent
the android is as an object for cultural appropriation in the late twentieth
century. Consistently in his fictions, androids are associated with unstable
boundaries between selfand world. The form that these associations take
may be idiosyncratic, but the anxieties that his texts express are not. Subterranean
fears about the integrityofthe subject under the cyberneticparadigm
were already present in the subtext of Norbert Wiener's 1948
Cybernetics, as we saw in chapter 4. When system boundaries are defined
by information flows and feedback loops rather than epidermal surfaces,
the subject becomes a system to be assembled and disassembled rather
than an entitywhose organicwholeness can be assumed.
For Humberto Maturana, the problem ofsystem definition was solved
bypositingacirculardynamicwherebythe living continuallyproduces and
reproduces the relations constituting its organization. In effect, he turned
first-wave cybernetics inside out. Instead oftreating the system as a black
box and focusing on feedback loops between the system and the environment,
he treated the environment as a black box and focused on the
reflexive processes that enable the system to produce itselfas such. He developed
the political implications ofautopoietic theory by suggesting that
power struggles often take the form of an autopoietic system forcing another
system to become allopoietic, so that the weaker system is made to
serve the goals ofthe stronger rather than pursuing its own systemic unity.
Dick's relation to the work of Maturana and Francisco Varela is almost
160
Turning Reality Inside Out / 161
certainly not a case ofdirect influence. Rather, both Dick and the creators
of autopoiesis were responding to the problem of incorporating the observer
into the system and, as a result, were experimenting with more or
less radical espistemologies. Without using autopoietic terminology (indeed,
there is no evidence that he knew ofit), Dick explored the political
dimension ofandroid-human interactions in terms consistent with Maturana's
analysis. In Do Androids Dream, Roy Batyunderstands full well that
androids have been denied the status ofthe living and consequentlyforced
to serve as slaves rather than function as the autopoietic systems they are
capable ofbecoming. The struggle to achieve autopoietic status can be understood
as a boundary dispute in which one tries to claim the privileged
"outside" position ofan entity that defines its own goals while forcing one's
opponent to take the "inside" position of an allopoietic component incorporated
into a larger system. Working along apparently independent lines
of thought, Dick understood that how boundaries are constituted would
be a central issue in deciding what counts as living in the late twentieth
century.
Especiallyrevealing are the novels he wrote from 1962 to 1966, when he
popped amphetamines like crazy and channeled the released energy into
an astonishinglylarge creative output (eleven novels in one year alone!), including
a series of major works that sought to define the human by juxtaposing
it with artificial life-forms.1 Drawing on the scientific literature on
cybernetics, Dick's narratives extend the scope ofinquiry by staging connections
between cybernetics and a wide range of concerns, including a
devastating critique of capitalism, a view of gender relations that ties together
females and androids, an idiosyncratic connection between entropy
and schizophrenic delusion, and a persistent suspicion that the objects surrounding
us-and indeed reality itself-are fakes.
At the center of this extraordinarily complex traffic between cultural,
scientific, and psycholOgical implications ofcybernetiCS stands what I will
call the "schizoid android," a multiple pun that hints at the splittings, combinations,
and recombinations through which Dick's writing performs
these complexities. In Dick's fiction, the schizoid functions as if autistic.
Typicallygendered female, she is often represented as a bright, cold, emotionally
distant woman. She is characterized by a flattening ofaffect and an
inability to feel empathy, incapable ofunderstanding others as people like
herself. Whether such creatures deserve to be called human or are "things"
most appropriately classified as androids is a question that resonates
throughout Dick's fictions and essays. In one ofits guises, then, the schizoid
android represents the comingtogetherofapersonwho acts like a machine
162 / Chapter Seven
with a literal interpretation ofthat person as a machine. In other instances,
however, the android is placed in opposition to the schizoid. If some humans
can be as unfeeling as androids, some androids turn out to be more
feeling than humans, a confusion that gives Do Androids Dream its extraordinary
depth and complexity. The capacity of an android for empathy,
warmth, and humane judgment throws into ironic relief the schizoid
woman's incapacity for feeling. Ifeven an android can weep for others and
mourn the loss ofcomrades, how much more unsympathetic are unfeeling
humans? The android is not so much a fixed symbol, then, as a Signifierthat
enacts as well as connotes the schizoid, splitting into the two opposed and
mutually exclusive subject positions ofthe human and the not-human.
Implicated in these boundary disputes between human and android
are the landscapes of Dick's mid-sixties novels. Typically these are highly
commercialized spaces in which the boundaries between autonomous individual
and technological artifact have become increasingly permeable.
Circulating through them are not only high-end products such an intelligent
androids but also a more general techno-animation ofthe landscape:
artificial insects that buzz around spouting commercials; coffeepots that
demand coins before they will begin to perk; and homeostatic apartment
doors that refuse to open for the tenant until fed the appropriate credit.
The interpellation of the individual into market relations so thoroughly
defines the characters of these novels that it is impossible to think of the
characters apart from the economic institutions into which they are incorporated,
from small family firms to transnational operations. Moreover, the
corporation is incorporated in multiple senses, emplOying people who frequentlyowe
to the corporation not onlytheireconomic and socialidentities
but also the verycorporeal forms that define them as physical entities, from
organ implants and hypertrophied brains to completely artificial bodies.
Given this dynamiC, it is no surprise that the struggle for freedom often expresses
itself as an attempt to get "outside" this corporate encapsulation.
The ultimate horror for the individual is to remain trapped "inside" a world
constructed by another being for the other's own profit.
The figure of the android thus allows Dick to combine a scathing critique
ofthe politics ofincorporation with the psychological complexities of
trying to decide who qualifies as an "authentic" human. Gender dynamiCS
is central to these complexities, for when the schizoid woman is brought
into close proximity with a male character, he reacts to the androidism in
her personality by experiencing a radical instability in the boundaries that
define him and his world. With the issue ofwhat is "outside" someone else's
"inside" already supercharged with psychological and political tensions,
Turning Reality Inside Out / 163
these enfoldings further implicate capitalism with androidism, the human
with the not-human, and the technological with the ontological-that is,
cybernetics with the social, political, economic, and psychological formations
that define the liberal subject. To unpack these complexities and relate
them to the mid-sixties novels, let us tum first to Dick's essays and
biography, where the genetic elements that make up these recombinant
fictions can be found.
The Schizoid Woman and the Dark-Haired Girl
In "How To Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later," a
speech written in 1978 and first published in 1985, Dick linked the "authentic
human" with the "real," a construction that also implies its inverse.
"Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake
realities and then sell them to otherhumans, turning them, eventually, into
forgeries of themselves."2 The ontology of the human and the ontology of
the world mutuallyconstruct eachother. When one is fake, the otheris contaminated
by fakery as well; when one is authentic, the authenticity ofthe
other is, ifnot guaranteed, at least held out as a strong possibility.
With so much riding on the "authentic" human, the qualities defining it
take on special significance. Authenticity does not depend on whether the
being in question has been manufactured or born, made offlesh and blood
or ofelectronic circuits. The issue cannot be decided by phYSiolOgical criteria.
Here Dick would agree with Maturana and Varela, who argued that
artifiCiallycreated systems can certainly qualif)' as living. Unlike Maturana
and especially Varela, however, he leaps over the importance of embodiment.
His fiction displays the same orientation, for it shows almost no interest
in how intelligent machines are constructed, dismissing the issue
with a few words ofhand-waving "explanations" about homeostatic mechanisms.
The important point for Dick is not how intelligent machines are
built but that they could be build. Descriptions of bodies (except those of
women, where the bodies serve as sexual markers) also rarely appear in
Dick's fiction. The emphaSiS falls almost entirely on perception and thinking.
Without embodiment to stabilize his epistemological skeptiCism, the
cracks he opens in the perceiver'S knowledge widen into rifts in the fabric of
the world.
The differences between his ontological skepticism and autopoietic stability
can be seen in how his fictions enact the human, as distinct from how
he defines the human in his essays. In a formulation strikingly reminiscent
of Maturana and Varela, he suggests that the human is that which can
164 / Chapter Seven
create its own goal. He goes on to develop other characteristics that, for
him, set the human apart from the android: being unique, acting unpredictably,
experiencing emotions, feeling vital and alive. The list reads like a
compendium of qualities that the liberal humanist subject is supposed to
have. Yet everyitem on the list is brought into question by the humans and
androids of Dick's fiction. Human characters frequently feel dead inside
and see the world around them as dead. Many are incapable oflove or empathy
for other humans. From the android side, the confusion of boundaries
is equally striking. The androids and simulacra of Dick's fiction
include characters who are empathic, rebellious, determined to define
their own goals, and as strongly individuated as the humans whose world
they share. What does this confusion signify?
Here I want to draw connections between Dick's biography and the female
characters in his fiction, a topic so obviously important to Dick's work
that its absence from much ofthe criticism on Dickamounts to ascandaJ.3In
"The EvolutionofaVital Love," Dickdocuments his fascination for acertain
type ofwoman: slender, lithe, and young (younger and younger as he grew
older),withlongdarkhair. Repeatedlyhe hooked upwith suchwomen inhis
life and wrote about them in his fiction. He calls this type "the dark-haired
girl."4Althoughthe physicaltype remainedthe same, in "The Evolutionofa
Vital Love" he wrote about what he sees as a continuing development in
thesewomen and his relationshipswith them. Whereas the firstwomen (fictional
and actual) are schizoid, cruel, unfeeling, and unempathic-in short,
androids by his definition-later he meets and has relationships with
women who, although they match the phYSical type, are much warmer and
more supportive ofhim and his goals. For Dick, the progression ofthe darkhaired
girl from schizoid to empathic is vitallyimportant to defining the human
and, byimplication, the real. "To define what is real is to define what is
human, ifyou care about humans. Ifyou don't you are schizoid and like Pris
[a characterin his novelWe Can BuildYou] and the way I see it, an android:
thatis, nothuman andhence not real."5 In Dick's readingofhis life, then, the
dark-haired girl started out being allied with the android, but as time went
on she became polarized against the android, a stay against the unreality
withwhich the android is perSistentlylinked.
Itgoeswithoutsaying, I think, that Dick regards himselfas human. Why,
then, does he repeatedly refer to his attraction for the dark-haired girl as a
programmed "tropism," a word he picked up from Norbert Wiener's account
of cybernetic creations such as the Moth, which had build into it a
"tropism" for light. Ifprogrammed behavior marks the difference between
the human and the android, Dick's tropism for dark-haired girls puts him in
Turning Reality Inside Out / 165
the paradoxical position of acting most machinelike when he repeatedly
seeks out the woman who, he says, "evolved" until she represented the
authentically human. These subterranean connections between the darkhaired
girl, machine behavior, and the construction ofmasculine subjectivity
are explored repeatedly in the fiction through configurations that link
androidism in an attractive dark-haired woman with a radical confusion of
boundaries between "inside" and "outside" for a male subject. The linkage
also has implications for female subjectivity. Replication, the mark of the
machine, is injected back into the dark-haired girl even after she has supposedly
evolved beyond androidism, because the male subject's "tropism"
converts her into one ofa series, a succession ofbrunette womenwho are at
once different and the same-hence the multiple ambiguities of the descriptor
that Dick constructs for them: "the dark-haired girl." The phrase
points both to their singularity (each takes the definite article) and to their
identity with one another. Each is unique and uniquely remembered by
Dick but remembered as one ofa repeating series that stretches back to the
early stages ofhis erotic life.
Many of the critics who have written on Dick's critique of capitalism
have scorned psychological explanations, as iftheywere trivial or unrelated
to Dick's satiric view of economic exploitation.6 But in Dick's fictional
worlds, psychology interpenetrates social structure. Contradictions in social
structure manifest themselves as aberrant psychology, and aberrant
psychology has social consequences. Understanding the relation of Dick's
life to his fictional constructions need not reduce his social critique to private
neurosis. On the contrary, it illuminates how he was able to fashion a
syntheSiS that undermines precisely the distinctions that would keep the
personal in a sanitized domain separate from the social, political, and economic
structures constituting the individual.
Ifwe look for a psychological explanation for Dick's tropism, its origins
are not hard to find. His parents were divorced when he was six, and he was
raised by his mother, Dorothy Kindred Dick (from whom he takes his middle
name). Whatevershe was in fact, Dickperceived her as an intellectually
gifted but emotionally cold woman who denied him warmth and affection.
Yet he was also extremely dependent on her and maintained an emotional
closeness almost incestuous in its intensity. As his biographer Lawrence
Sutin skillfully and senSitively shows, the combination ofextreme need for
affection and extreme fear ofrejection also marked his adult relationships,
especially his relationships with women.7
His anxiety toward his mother was brought into focus for him through
his twin sister, Jane, who died at six weeks ofage because Dorothy did not
166 / Chapter Seven
have enough milk for both infants and was too ignorant to realize that the
twins, already underweight at birth, were becoming fatally malnourished.
"Somehow I got all the milk," Dick told his friends.8 The story of Jane's
death became a family legend. Dick reported that Dorothy discussed it
with him on several occasions, trying to explain that she had done the best
she could under the circumstances. Herexplanations ironicallyhad the opposite
effect, for theyvividlyburnedJane's existence into his consciousness
and invested her with intense emotional significance. As a young adult,
Dick developed a phobia about eating and could not consume food in public,
as ifeatingwere a deeply shameful act.9
Despite Dorothy's explanations, Dick blamed his mother for Jane's
death, seeing it as evidence ofher inability to care physically and emotionally
for her children. The blame was all the more intense because he must
have felt that on some level he shared it, having taken from Jane the milk
she needed to survive. He fantasized thatifJane had lived, she would have
become a lovelydark-haired girl. He came to believe that she was a lesbian,
a sexual orientation reflected in the character ofAlys in Flow My Tears, the
Policeman Said. 10 And he intuited that in some sense he continued to carry
this shadowy Other within his body, a figuration that reflected the fact that
Jane no longer had an autonomous existence apart from his imagination of
her. Through no fault ofher own, she was fated to occupy the subordinate
"inside" position while he, the surviving twin, had an "outside" subject position
that made him a recognized person in the world.11
With Jane as the first dark-haired girl (compoundedwith Dorothy, from
whom she could scarcely be separated in Dick's mind), it is not difficult to
see why the figure should be invested with so many conflicting emotional
attributes. Like Dorothy, the dark-haired girls that Dick depicts in his fiction
are intellectuallybrilliant but emotionally cold, capable ofcutting the
men around them to emotional shreds while feeling almost nothing themselves.
In his account ofthe women in his life, he suggests that he was able
to break away from this type ofwoman and find other "dark-haired girls"
who were sympathetic. These are the figures he intends to rallyto his cause
to help him defeat the android. But his worst nightmare remains that the
androidwill tum out to be none otherthan the dark-haired girl. The enemy
is the ally, and the ally is the enemy: enemy mine.12 It is no wonder that in
his essays, the accounts of the human and the android often seem selfcontradictory.
For the complexities this entangled, he needed-and
used-fiction to articulate them fully.
Dick's distinctive gift as a writer was to combine the personal idiosyncrasies
of the schizoid woman/dark-haired girl configuration, along with
Turning Reality Inside Out / 167
the inside/outside confusions with which it is entangled, with much
broadersocialinterrogations into the inside/outside confusions ofthe market
capitalism that incorporates living beings by turning humans into objects
at the same time that it engineers objects so that they behave like
humans. Toexplore further this complexnexus amongthe personal, the political,
and the economic, let us tum now to the fiction.
Capitalism and the Schizoid Android
Elucidating the connection between Dick's fiction and capitalism is Carl
Freedman's fine article arguing that Dick's fictional techniques reinscribe
a post-Marxist view of the subject.13 Freedman points out that the
schizohrenic subject, as theorizedbyLacan, Deleuze, Guattari, and others,
evolves as an interplay between an alienated "I" and an alienating "not I."
Under capitalism, these theorists argue, schizophrenia is not a psychological
aberration but the normal condition of the subject. Freedman further
argues that paranoia and conspiracy, favorite Dickian themes, are inherent
to a social structure inwhich hegemoniccorporations actbehind the scenes
to affect outcomes that the populace is led to believe are the result ofdemocratic
procedures. Acting in secret while maintaining a democratic facade,
the corporations tend toward conspiracy, and those who suspect this
and resist are viewed as paranoiac.
Dick's novel The Simulacra seems tailor-made to illustrate Freedman's
point about the synergistic relation between capitalism and paranoid schizophrenia.
Set in the USEA (United States of Europe and America), The
Simulacra depicts a capitalist society that includes Germany as one of its
most powerful states. Although national elections still exist, the president
has been reduced to a nominal figurehead, "derAIte." The countryappears
to be run by the first lady, Nicole Thibodeaux, who takes as her husband
whatever man the electorate chooses for her every four years. Unbeknownst
to the electorate, "der Alte" is a simulacrum. Nicole herselfis revealed
to be a look-alike playing Nicole, who died several years earlier and
has since been played by a succession of actresses. Behind Nicole is the
shadowyCouncil,whose orders she follows, buteven Nicole has neverseen
the Council. Thus the entire government is a fake, its real machinery hidden
behind Nicole's beautiful face. The presidential simulacrum, far from
being an anomaly, serves as a metaphor for the entire political process.
Social classes are divided between the Ge (high status) and the Be (low
status). The Signifier generating the classes is the Geheimnis, the secret.
Those who know the secret-that the government has become, in Dickian
168 I Chapter Seven
tenns, a giant android rather than a human institution-are the Geheimnistrager,
bearers ofthe secret, in contrast to the Befahaltrager, those who
merely carry out instructions. Thus economic distinctions merge seamlesslywith
the kind ofsocial structure that a paranoid schizophrenic might
imagine when constructing a system that brings everything together into a
monolithic system ofexplanation.
Paranoid schizophrenia is enacted most dramatically through the character
of Richard Kongrosian, a psionic pianist who plays his instrument
without touching the keys. Already unstable, Kongrosian is thrown into
schizophrenia when he learns that "der Alte" is a simulacrum. The news
shakes his faith in Nicole, who has served as his anchor in reality (afunction
that "the dark-haired girl" frequently plays for Dick's male characters). He
suspects that Nicole is contaminatedbythe android governmentshe serves
(precisely the fear that haunts Dick's essays), and this intrusion of androidism
tips his already fragile psyche into psychosis. "Something terrible's
happening to me," he warns Nicole. "I no longer can keep myselfand
myenvironment separate." As she watches, he makes avase on the desk sail
through the air and enter his body, telling her: "'I absorbed it. Now it's me.
And-' He gesturedat the desk. T mit!'" The process alsoworks in reverse.
Where the vase had been, Nicole sees "forming into density and mass and
colour, a complicated tangle of interwoven organic matter, smooth red
tubes andwhat appeared to be portions ofan endocrine system.... The organ,
whatever it was, regularlypulsed; it was alive and active.... 'I'm turning
insideout!' Kongrosianwailed. 'Prettysoon ifthis keeps up I'm goingto
have to envelop the entire universe and everything in it, and the only thing
that'll be outside me will be my internal organs and then most likely I'll
die!"'14
The conjunction in this scene ofandroidism, schizophrenia, and a profound
confusion of"inside" and "outside" is more than coincidence. Kongrosian
enacts a confusion ofboundaries not unlike commodity fetishism.
Freedman recalls for his readers Marx's view ofhow commodities become
fetishized under capitalism. Once objects are imbuedwith exchange value,
they seem to absorb into themselves the vitalityofthe human relations that
createdthem as commodities. Freedman reminds us that onedefinition for
reification is the projection ofsocial relations onto the relations ofobjects.
The incidents that precipitate Kongrosian's turning inside out suggest that
the specter ofthe android has somehowcaused this bizarre phenomenon.
In fact, the android performs an extraordinarily complex staging ofreification
in Dick's fiction. On the one hand, it is a commodity, an object created
by humans and sold for money. In this guise it is reified in much the same
Turning Reality Inside Out / ,69
way that any object capable ofbeing bought and sold is reified, like the animals
that bestowhigh status ontheirhuman owners in Do Androids Dream
or like "der Alte" in The Simulacra, whose sole function as an object is
to serve as a signifier for the democratic processes that are as fake as
helit is. In another sense, however, "der Alte" is an anomaly among Dick's
androids, for most ofthem- Rachael Rosen, Abraham Lincoln, Edwin M.
Stanton-are shown in scenes that make them virtually indistinguishable
from humans. Theythink, feel outrage, bondwith theirfellows. Given their
abilities, they should be able to participate in the social realm ofhuman relations,
but in such texts as Do Androids Dream, they can do so (legally)
only as objects. In this view they are not objects improperly treated as if
they were social beings but are social beings improperly treated as ifthey
were objects. For them the arrow ofreification points painfully in both di-
rections.
The scene in which Kongrosian turns inside out is revealing in another
respect as well, forit demonstrates the megalomaniacexpansion ofselfthat
the paranoid schizophrenic experiences in the frenzy of delirium. The
paranoid feels compelled to interpret all the surrounding mysterious signs
and orderthem into a Single coherent system. From here itis a small step to
feeling responsible for the signs. If everything that happens is the paranoid's
responsibility, the belief easily follows that the paranoid actually
caused all these events. When Kongrosian states ''I'm going to have to envelop
the entire universe and everything in it," his actions can be understood
as a literalization of this view. Gifted or cursed with telekinesis, he
causes things to happen in the world by thinking about them. From this he
moves on to believingthat he orders the universe; then he progresses to the
fantasy that he is the universe. Part ofthe guerrillawarfare that Dick stages
on the everydayis tovalorize such perceptions by renderingthem as events
that other characters witness and that the narrator reports as "actually"
happening. In this way, the reader's perceptions undergo a transformation
similar to Kongrosian's, for our relationship to the character is turned inside
out. Instead ofhis world existing inside our minds, the textual world is
rendered so as to make our perceptions work as ifthey were part ofhis internal
world.
The battle to occupy the"external" position relative to other characters
is waged over and over in Dick's fiction in different guises. The stakes are
high, for if the selfis unable to expand to megalomaniac proportions, it is
likelyto shrink so that it becomes merely a dot on the horizon, an atom in a
cold, pitiless, inanimate landscape shaped by the dead forces ofcause and
effect and completely unresponsive to human desire. This is the tomb
170 / Chapter Seven
world, the landscape inwhichentropyrules. Frequentlythe pendulumwill
swing between dangerous hyperinflation and excruciating shrinkage ofthe
ego without ever stabilizing at the middle position ofeveryday reality.
Scott Durham has perceptively pOinted out that this alternation between
the expanding selfand the shrinking selfis intimately related to the
constitution ofsubjectivity under capitalism.15 Capitalism encourages the
inflation ofdesire, marketing its products by seducing the consumer with
power fantasies. Butwhen the realization sinks in that this is merelya capitalistploy,
the subject shrinks in inverse proportionto how much it had earlier
inflated. So in Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch,
Chew-Z is marketed by linking it with claims ofomnipotence through the
slogan "GOD PROMISES ETERNAL LIFE; WE CAN DELIVER IT."16 When the
subject consumes the product (figuratively and also literally by ingesting
it), he finds that he is catapulted into aworldwhere Palmer Eldritch makes
all the rules. Rather than taking the product inside him, he has been imprisoned
inside the product. Forhe soon discovers that no matter what escape
hatch he builds or invents, Palmer Eldritch remains exterior to his
reality, determining its workings and glinting through the other characters
as theybeginto manifest Eldritch'stelltale stigmata. The eternitydelivered
here is preciselynot the apotheosis ofthe liberal autonomous subjectcapable
of free thought and action but is the subject as pawn in a capitalist's
game, imprisoned for eons in a universe that a terrifYing and menacing
alien otherhas created to increase his profits.
The boundaryinstability that the Kongrosian scene so vividly illustrates
recurs repeatedlyin Dick's mid-sixties novels. In one version ofthe drama,
the [male] subject expands and contracts in an agonized dance between
megalomania and victimization. This dance is intimately bound up with a
related oscillation in the attractive female character between the schizoid
woman and the dark-haired girl. In the promiscuous couplings these various
subject positions permit, the android serves as an ambiguous term that
simultaneouslyincorporates the liberal subject into the machine and challenges
its construction in the flesh. To develop further the complex connections
and disjunctions Signified by the schizoid android, I tum now to
pick up again the thread ofthe schizoidwoman/dark-haired girl.
The Schizoid Woman (De)Constructs Male Subjectivity
PatriciaWarrick has insightfullyargued that Dick's fiction is structured as a
series ofreversals deSigned to defeat the reader's expectation that it is possible
to discover what the situation "really" is.17 Building on her argument
Turning Reality Inside Out / 171
and also modifying it, I want to demonstrate that the reversals are not arbitrary
but follow an inner lOgic oftheir own. I shall take as my tutor text We
Can Build You, in part because Warrick remarks, in passing, that its two
themes-the constructionofandroids and the male character's fascination
with the schizoid woman-are not connected with each other, which she
sees as an aesthetic failing. I will argue that although the themes are not
well integrated, they are deeply connected through the figure of the
schizoid android.
As Dick recognizes in "The Evolution ofa Vital Love," the prototype for
the schizoidwoman is Pris in We Can Build You. Louis Rosen, the little guy
who serves as protagonist for the novel, finds Pris fascinating but also terrifYing.
Her most notable attribute is what he calls "emptiness dead center,"
an inability to feel empathyor indeed almost any emotion.18 Talented, creative,
and fiercely intelligent, Pris had a nervous breakdown while still in
high school (as did Dick himself). When she takes up with the rich entrepreneur
Sam Barrows, deserting the family firm to move in the glittering
world ofthe rich and famous, Louis's attraction toherbecomes compulsive.
The more this dark-haired girl/schizoid woman recedes out of his realm,
the more he yearns after her, finally becoming so obsessed that getting
together with her becomes more important to him than anything else,
including the family firm. "What awoman, what athing to fall in love with,"
he thinks to himself, in a conflation that makes clear that Pris, as a schizoid
woman, has more than a touch ofandroidism in her. "Itwas as ifPris, to me,
were both life itself-and anti-life, the dead, the cruel, the cutting and
rending, andyet also the spiritofexistence itself" (p. 155). As hernewname
"Pris Womankind" indicates, she is at once uniquely herself and symbolic
ofthe role that Dick assigned to the bright, cold, cutting women in his life,
particularly his mother, Dorothy, and (after they divorced) his fourth wife,
Nancy. More than a tie to life, Pris is Louis's anchor to reality, much as
Nicole was for Kongrosian in The Simulacra. Atthe same time, Lollis experiences
Pris as the "anti-life," which in later novels takes shape as the tomb
world. The flips that Warrick notices in Dick's text have an inner logic that
make it impossible for the male character to do without the dark-haired
girl/schizoid woman, even when he sees her as a source ofpowerful contamination
driving him into psychOSiS.
When Louis and Pris rendezvous at a motel, the encounter fizzles because
neither can abandon their cat-and-mouse games long enough to experience
physical intimacy. Still obsessed, he falls into a delusional state in
which he hallucinates that he is making love to her, although he is alone
with his father and his brother in a bedroom and his "lovemaking" takes
112 I Chapter Seven
place while they look on bemusingly. By the novel's end, he traces Pris to
the mental institution where she has been readmitted, and he himselfbecomes
apatient. After months ofdrug therapyin which he hallucinates that
they court, marry, and have a child, he finally has a chance to talk with her.
She tells him she will soon be leaving and suggests how he can present his
case to be dismissed also. He wins dismissal, only to learn that Pris has deceived
him. "I lied to you, Louis," she tells him. "I'm not up for release; I'm
much too sick. I have to stayhere along time more, maybe forever" (p. 252).
For Louis, sanity means lOSing her and, with her, the vitality oflife, which
can be seen as a kind ofmental illness, but having her means mental illness
ofanother kind.
The ambiguityofPris's motives in this final scene-does she trick Louis
because she doesn't want him around or because she wants him to get on
with his life?-indicates that even in a female protagonist figured mostlyas
a schizoid woman, Hashes ofthe empathic dark-haired girl still appear. In
Do Androids Dream, these instabilities in the female subject position are
exacerbated as the schizoidwoman is broken into twin characters, Rachael
Rosen and Pris Stratton. The two are the same model ofandroid, a Nexus-
6, so they are physically identical. But they play very different roles in the
plot. Rachael becomes for Deckarda particularlyambivalentversion ofthe
dark-haired girl.19 At his low point she comes to him, and they end up in
bedina sexualliaisonthat Pris and Louis couldn'tmanage to bringoff. During
this scene and the one follOwing, her characterization oscillates wildly
between adesirable, empathicpartnerand acold, calculatingmanipulator.
The scenes are worth looking at in detail for what they reveal about the
dynamic of the male character who experiences the schizoid woman as a
splittingbetween an android (literallysowith Rachael) and the dark-haired
girl.
Deckard calls Rachael because she has offered to help him "retire" the
escaped Nexus-6 androids. When he shows her his hit list, she turns pale
because one of the androids ("andys"), Pris, is the same model as she
is. Earlier that day Rick, working with Phil Resch, had helped to kill
Luba Loft, an escaped android who was also a superb opera singer. After
Deckard expressed regret at Luba's death, Resch (depicted as a coldblooded
killer who, unlike Deckard, feels no empathy for Luba or any of
the androids he kills) interprets his regret as sexual desire. Although human-android
sex is strictly illegal, he confesses that he once fancied a female
android and advises Deckard that instead ofkilling the android and
then wanting her, he should go to bed with her first and kill her afterward.
Now, in the hotel room with Rachael, it occurs to Deckard that he is inad-
Turning Realit'! Inside Out / 113
vertently about to follow Resch's advice, for he intends to go to bed with
Rachael and kill Pris afterward. Shaken by the realization, he refuses to
have sex with Rachael. In a last-ditch attempt to cajole him, she tells him
she loves him and then, when he still refuses, offers to kill Pris herself. She
explains, "I can't stand getting this close and then-" (p. 170).
After the sex, Rachael apparently feels free to reveal her motives. She
tells Deckard that his careeras abountyhunteris overbecause no manwho
has gone to bedwith herhas found it possible afterward to kill any androids.
Shehas hadsexwith severalbountyhunters, she explains placidly, andithas
worked every time. The one exception is a "very cynical man, Phil Resch"
(p. 174). The euphemism that Deckard uses to describe killing androids"retiring"
them-ironically returns in a reversal that has a female android
"retiring"bountyhunters.2o Rachael's strategyimplies that she feels empathy
for her fellow androids, giving the lie to the government's position that
androids feel no loyalty to each other. If she can care for her fellow androids,
we maywonderifshe also cares for Deckard, as she claims when she
tells him that she loves him.
Enraged by her revelation that she has "retired" him, Deckard tries to
kill her and cannot, whereupon she reproaches him for lOving the Nubian
goat he has acquired with his bounty money more than he does her-a response
that works on multiple levels. It hints at the ironic fact that humans
revere animal life but feel free to kill intelligent android life, and it also suggests
that Rachael, although she uses Deckard for her own political purposes,
cares about whether he cares for her. After Deckard succeeds in
killing the last three andys, he returns home to discover that Rachael has
pushed the goat offthe roof, an act that conflates her jealousy of the goat
with revenge for Deckard's killing her friends. The mixture ofhuman passion
and cold calculation in Rachael's responses shows that she combines
within herself attributes of the dark-haired girl and of the android. The
closer the relationship gets to intimacy, the wilder the oscillations between
these subject positions become, in tum inducing alternating moods in
Deckard: betweendespairand empowerment, ego shrinkage andinflation.
It is as ifDeckard's attraction to herwere destabiliZing reality itself.
That possibility, latent in Deckard's relationship with Rachael, becomes
overt in J. R. Isidore's perceptions. Deckard's desire for Rachael is formally
mirrored in the plot by J. R.'s desire for her twin, Pris. Rachael's character,
split within itself, splits again into Rachael and Pris, a division in which
Rachael is closer to the dark-haired girl and Pris to the schizoid woman.
Whereas Rachael's manipulation ofDeckard is relatively subtle, Pris's manipulation
ofJ. R. is bald-faced and cold. Although J. R. fantasizes that per-
'74 I Chapter Seven
haps they might have a relationship, Pris never indicates any feeling for
him, and it is clear that sex between them isn't going to happen. In We Can
Build You, Louis likens Pris to a spider, seeing her as an alien being who
goes about her business oblivious of her effects on others. The image returns
in Do Androids Dream in the scene in which Pris and Irmgard Baty,
holed up in J. R.'s apartment, cut off the legs of a spider, which J. R. has
found, to see how many legs it can do without and still walk. As a chickenhead
(this society's term for someone who is degenerating mentally), J. R.
lacks Deckard's analytical skills, and he often expresses his insights visually
and intuitively, such as when he briefly hallucinates that Roy Baty is made
ofgears and coils rather than flesh and blood. Faced with this desecration
ofMercer's decree that all life is sacred, J. R. perceives the force of"kippie"
(a neologism that Dick uses for the entropic decay that has been nibbling
away at the apartment building) suddenly becoming an avalanche of destruction.
Chairs crumble; the table melts askew; gaping holes appear in
the walls. From Pris's exclamations, the reader knows that J. R. has gone
berserkand is causingthe destruction himself. Nowhere, perhaps, is Dick's
conflation ofcybernetic concerns with idiosyncratic psychology more apparent
than in this scene. The entropic decay that Wiener imagined could
be forestalled bycybernetics is preternaturallyaccelerated until it is viSibly
apparent in the landscape, and this visibilityalso functions as a sign that system
boundaries have become radicallyunstable. The moment is a finely realized
piece of writing that performs cybernetic boundary disputes in a
context that makes clear their relation to a male character's attachment
to the female android/schizoid woman. The result is a deep confusion of
boundaries between inside and outside.
Confronted with Pris's torture ofthe spider and thus impliCitly with her
emotional coldness, J. R. perceives the heat energy rushing from the room,
as ifthe room's physical decay sprang directly from her lack ofempathy. As
this conflation ofinside/outside suggests, his perception ofthe boundaries
between himself and the outside world has become badly distorted. The
psychologicaldynamiCis clearfrom Dick's repeateduse ofthe situation. The
(male) selfyearns to expandoutwardin a moment ofunion, butwhen the female
android/schizoid woman rejects him, the result is a devastating instability
in which it is difficult or impossible for him to establish robust
boundaries between himself and the world. Louis Rosen, rejected by Pris
Womankind, projects his fantasies ofher into a hallucinatorylove partner. J.
R. Isidore, shocked by Pris Stratton's crueltyto his spider, perceives his own
rampage as the impersonalforce ofkippie atwork. In Dick's novels, the sudden
collapseofan inside/outside distinction is oftena signthatthe male sub-
Turning Reality Inside Out I '75
ject is plunging into psychosis. One ofthe sites where this dynamic plays itselfoutis
the tomb world. Let us tum nowto a closerexaminationofthis surrealistic
landscape to explore its connection with the schizoid android.
Wasting Time in the Tomb World
In Do Androids Dream, a compelling "proof" of the official ideology that
androids occupyacategoryontologicallydistinct from that ofhumans is the
fact that androids cannot experience fusion with Mercer, a quasi-religious
figure who appears when a human grips the handles of the empathy box.
Androids, incapable ofexperiencing this fusion, are judged to be lacking in
empathy, the touchstone of the "authentic" person. Staging a moment in
human history when androids rival or surpass humans intellectually, Do
Androids Dream shows the essential quality of"the human" shifting from
rationality to feeling. Animals, evoking feeling in their owners and capable
of feeling themselves, occupy the privileged position of fellow creatures
whose lives, like human lives, are sacred, whereas the rational androids are
denied the status of the living. The change comes when nonhuman animals,
rapidly fading into extinction, have ceased to pose any conceivable
threat to human domination. Since the real threat now comes from the androids,
the shiftin definition is hardlya coincidence. To extend the critique,
Dick emphasizes the capitalist marketing ofanimals, an industry fueled by
the religious significance that owningan animal has under Mercerism. Like
certain forms of Puritanism, Mercerism joins with capitalism to create a
system in which the financially privileged merge seamlessly with the reli-
giouslysanctified.
Despite this pOinted satire, Dick's treatment of Mercerism remains
complexly ambiguous. The text refuses an either/or choice and implies
that Mercerism is both political hucksterism and a genuinely meaningful
experience. In an expose by BusterFriendly, a radio talk-showhost later revealed
to be an android, Mercer is proved to be a fake, a drunk hired by unknown
parties to act out a few cheesy scenes ofhumiliation and atonement
on cheap sets. Yet Mercer is also an inspiring figure who mysteriously appears
to Deckard to tell him that killing androids is both wrong and necessary,
just as Mercer acknowledges that he is at once fake and genuine.
These multiple confusions are reenacted when J. R., already operating
in the borderland between hallucination and reality, rushes to the empathy
box after the tidal wave of kipple engulfs his apartment. As he grabs the
handles, he plays out the scenario that Mercer endlessly repeats in a landscape
hovering ambiguously between the internal and external worlds.
176 / Chapter Seven
Like Sisyphus, Merceris doomed to climb up adustyhill, while unseen tormentors
throw rocks at him, only to slide back down when he reaches the
top. But he does not merely regress to the bottom. He plunges all the way
down into the tomb world, a world where nothing but him lives, a world
populated by the decaying skeletons and rotting carcasses of animals. In
the tomb world, time has either stopped or moves so slowlythat its passage
cannot be perceived. All one can do is wait passively for what seems like
eons in the utter desolation, surrounded by death and decay, until very
slowlythings begin to come alive again and it is possible to climb out.
A clue to the psychological significance of the tomb world comes in
Dick's analysis of schizophrenia in "Schizophrenia and The Book of
Changes. "21 In high school, Dickexperienced an agoraphobia so acute that
he had to be tutored at home. As ayoung man, he compulsivelyengaged in
various neuroticbehaviors, includinghis eatingdisorder. He hadthree nervous
breakdowns and attempted suicide several times. When he talks
about the experience of mental illness, therefore, we may suppose he
knows whereofhe speaks. Writing at a time when R. D. Laing was calling
for a reassessment ofschizophrenia, Dick echoed Laing in viewing schizophrenia
with sympathy and even admiration.22 In a letter to Patricia
Warrick, he wrote that he wanted to draw a "sharp line" between the neurotic
schizoid, whom he saw as an essentially cold person seeking power
over others, and the psychotic schizophrenic, who is too "nuts" to be much
ofa threatto anyone but himselfor herself.23 In contrastto his scathingindictment
of the schizoid, who withdraws emotions from the world, Dick
sawthe schizophrenic as someone who suffers because ofprojecting emotions
too much into the world.
His sympathy is evident in "The Android and the Human" when he observes
that for the schizophrenic, time stops because nothing new can happen.24
The ego has become so distended, so inHated, that it blocks out
everything else. Since the self is perceived as responsible for explaining
everythingandputtingitintoorder, there can be no surprises. The new, the
inexplicable, the mysterious, and the unexplained do not exist for the paranoid
schizophrenic. The tomb world is a literary and fictional representation
ofthis state seen from the point ofviewofthe person who experiences
it. The dreariness, the hopelessness, the feeling that time has stopped and
there is nothing to do but wait, the deadness inside projected onto an exterior
landscape-these are the markers ofextreme mental distress as Dick
describes them. The tomb world appears in several ofDick's fictions from
the mid-sixties, and it is always associated with a deep confusion of inside/outside
boundaries.
Turning Reality Inside Out / 111
The inside/outside confusion links the schizophrenic to the android.
Like the schizophrenic, the android is a hybrid figure-part human, part
machine-whose very existence calls boundaries into question. Whereas
the android's actions are always predictable-the android is characterized
bypredictability"mostofall," Dickwrote in"TheAndroidandthe Human"
(p. 191)-for the paranoid schizophrenic, the world's actions are always
predictable. In the first case, the predictability is understood as coming
from the android's internal programming; in the second case, the predictabilityis
perceived as originatingin the externalworld. This distinction
is moot in the tomb world, however, for inside and outside merge in its ambiguous
landscape. Surelyit is no accident that Dick's mid-sixties novels in
which the tomb world prominently appears also feature android charac-
ters.
The android that Dick writes about in his essays represents the loss of
free play, creativity, and most of all, vitality-in short, the triumph ofobsession
over the flexibility and empathy that a writer needs to create the
new. Yet as we have seen, Dick's fictional androids are considerably more
complex than this portrayal. We can understand this contrast through a
paradox: the simple version ofthe android represents a loss ofvitality that
would make writing impossible, yet this view of androidism is precisely
what Dick makes into the occasion for writing. Androidism both annihilates
writing and makes it possible. The paradox is written into Mercerism
through the ambiguities it generates between selfand other. The moment
a human grasps the empathy box, his consciousness fuses with that of unknown
and unnamed others. He is both alone and in company, cut offfrom
his surroundings and in emotional communication with other human beings.
In short, he partakes ofthe instabilities that male subjects feel when
they come into close proximity with female characters who participate in
the schizoid woman/android/dark-haired girl configuration. He experiences
an ego expansion that, although it can be extremely dangerous ifit
progresses into megalomania, in the empathy box remains relatively contained
and so is relatively benign.
Even so, the downside is hardly negligible. The empathy box interpolates
the private delusions of the subject into a shared ideology that inscribes
his characteristic experiences into scripts invested with religious,
political, and social Significance. As Jill Galvin points out, there are hints
that the government, faced with a declining population in a world rapidly
becoming uninhabitable by humans, encourages the use of the empathy
boxto keep citizens quiescent and tractable.2.5 In the empathybox, citizens
feel empowered, but the endless scenarios they play out make clear that
'78 I Chapter Seven
they are in fact powerless, a paradox that is a more insidious version of
Dick's empowerment bywritingabout the hopelessness and androidism of
the tomb world. Buster Friendly, his ulterior motives notwithstanding,
makes a good point when he asks his listeners to question "what it is that
Mercerism does. Well, ifwe're to believe its many practitioners, the experience
fuses ... men and women throughout the Sol System into a Single
entity. But an entitywhich is manageable by the so-called telepathic voice
of'Mercer.' An ambitious politically-minded would-be Hitler could-."26
Despite the obvious exploitative potential of Mercerism, Dick also insists
that alongside its fakery there exists a possibility for genuine atonement
and redemption, a possibilitywritten into Do Androids Dream when
Mercer's intervention saves Deckard's life. IfMercer is in some sense real
as well as fake, then the tomb world must also at once be a delusion and a
necessary purgation. The key to understanding its mysterious double nature
lies in the schizoid woman/dark-haired girl configuration. As we have
seen, the oscillation between the dark-haired girl and the schizoid woman
becomes more pronouncedthe closerthe male characterdraws to her. The
male character nurses a fierce ambivalence toward her, both desiring intimacy
and fearing it. Because ofthe multiplicity ofher nature as Dick constructsit,
she is the perfectscreenonwhich to projectthis ambivalence. On
the one hand, she represents a rejection all the more inevitable and absolute
because it springs not from deficiencies in the male, which he could
presumablycorrect, but from her own inability to relate to anyone. On the
other hand, she represents all that the male finds desirable and vital, so for
him to be cut offfrom her is tantamount to not living. Ifshe rejects him, it
means he is not really alive and thus is an android. Ifshe accepts him, it
means he will be tied to her and thus exposedto the coldness he most fears.
Either way, exposure to her compromises his humanity with a touch ofandroidism,
a possibility brilliantly realized in Do Androids Dream through
the intimation that Deckard himself may be an android. The tomb world
acknowledges this pollution and tries to atone for it.
Occasionally male characters, who are constantly in danger of being
suckedinto the maelstrom ofconflictingimpulses that the schizoidandroid
evokes, take revenge on the woman who attracts them, presumably with
authorial sanction. The violence that the narrator (and, behind him, Dick)
can visit on the schizoid woman is revealed in the scene from The Three
Stigmata in which Leo Bulero propositions his attractive assistant, Roni
Fugate, a character who bears more than a passing resemblance to the
schizoidwoman. When she turns him down, Leo spitefullywishes she were
old, over one hundred years old. Leo has consumed (and been consumed
Turning Realitv Inside Out I 119
by) Chew-Z and so has never really left the space where Palmer Eldritch
makes the rules. Too late he remembers that in this delusional world, his
thoughts are coextensive with the apparently real landscape. He turns
around to see a "spiderweb, gray fungoid strands wrapped one around another
to form a brittle column that swayed ... he saw the head, sunken at
the cheeks, with eyes like dead spots ofsoft, inert white slime that leaked
out gummy, slow-movingtears." Aghast, he wishes her alive again. The gray
mass becomes a puddle that "flowed gradually outward, then shuddered,
and retracted into itself; in the center the fragments of hard gray matter
swam together, and cohered into a roughly shaped ball with tangled, mattedstrands
ofhairfloating at its crown. Vague eyesockets, empty, formed; it
was becoming a skull, but ofsome life-formation to come: his unconscious
desire forherto experienceevolutioninits horrific aspecthadconjuredthis
monstrosityinto being."27
Two lessons emerge from this episode. First is the connection between
the schizoidwoman and the tomb world, here made explicitwhen the male
who perceives himselfinsulted byher takes revenge by makingherthe victim
ofthe tomb world dynamiCS. Although he maybe punished byperceiving
the world as a dust heap, the punishment he visits upon her is the more
extreme violence of being made to incorporate within her own body the
preternatually accelerated entropic decay ofthe tomb world. The second
lessonis the inescapabilityofalandscape inwhich the subject's "inside" has
merged with the world's "outside." Time can go forward again into life, but
it can't be reversed back to where it was before the psychotic episode happened,
for Leo or, more drastically, for Roni either. Leo learns that one can
climb out ofthe tomb world, as Mercer eventually does, but once one has
fallen into it, the tomb world itselfnever goes away. It stays there, waiting,
until the boundaries separating inside and outside again become so unstable
that the subject slides down into it once more, as Jack Bohlen does in
Dick's novel Martian Time-Slip.
Given these complexities, how does resolution occur in Dick's novels?
How are the endlessly complex splittings and recombinations of the
schizoid android stabilized enough to achieve closure? To answer this
question, I tum now to the staging ofthe schizoid android in his novel Dr.
Bloodmoney.
Turning Right-Side Out in Dr. Bloodrrwney
In a brilliant article entitled "AfterArmageddon: Character Systems in Dr.
Bloodmoney," Fredric Jameson uses the semiotic square to elucidate the
180 I Chapter Seven
relationships between characters in Dr. Bloodrrwney.28 His analysis posits
a primary axis between "organic" and "mechanical," where the terms exist
in an oppositional relation to each other. The appearance of this axis is
scarcelya surprise, since the opposition between human and mechanical is
a prominenttheme in Dick's fiction. Less obvious is the axis labeled contradictory,
inwhich the terms are not opposites to the terms ofthe first axis but
exist in a subtler relation ofincluding realms that the first terms exclude.
The lower-right position is occupied by the "not-organic," which Jameson
interprets as lacking organs, that is, as the dead, and the lower-left position
is held by"neithermechanical nor organic," to which he assigns those characters
who possess extraordinary or spiritual powers, such as talking animals
and humans gifted with preternatural abilities. Most of the major
characters exist in positions synthesizing these four primary terms. From
this analysis, it becomes clear that the characters are arranged according to
their poweroverwords or things, a conclusion with important implications
in these fictions where words are used to reveal the unreality ofthings and
where things are used to reveal the instabilities in words.
In my view, the only unconvincing part of Jameson's argument is the
supposition he uses to launch his analysis. He points out that Dr. Bloodrrwney
shows the event that the other mid-sixties novels presume but do
not depict: the nuclear holocaust that destroys the environment and permanently
changes the relation ofthe human race to Earth. He argues that
the bomb demands a "flat yes orno," thus defeating Dick's aesthetic ofcreating
an indeterminate reality and requiring a newtechnique.29 The character
system, he suggests, is this new technique, although how it works to
solve the problem he posits is never made clear. But Dick has no problem
rendering the reality ofthe bomb problematic (as we shall see shortly), so
from this pointofview, the charactersystemis overkill. Iwant to suggest, on
the contrary, that the character system is more aptly understood in relation
to a different interpretive problem, one that I believe is central to the narrative
dynamics ofDr. Bloodrrwney: the boundarywork ofturning characters
who are inside out right-side out.
The first time the bombs come, the narrative makes clearthat the event
is "actually" taking place, although significantly it is rendered through the
eyes ofBruno Bluthgeld (the "Dr. Bloodmoney" ofthe title), a theoretical
physicist who convinced people that high-altitude nuclear tests would be
safe. His calculations proved tragically off-base, and a generation of malformed
children were born as a result. Now, nine years later, he goes bythe
name "Mr. Tree," fantasizes that large disfiguring blotches under his skin
mark him for those in the know, and believes that there are massive con-
Turning Reality Inside Out I 181
spiracies afoot to kill him. Leaving the psychiatrist he has consulted to get
rid of his "infection" (which he construes physiologically but which the
reader has no trouble recognizing as paranoid schizophrenia), he sees the
San Francisco street suddenly sink and tilt to the left. He attributes the
phenomenon to his astigmatism. "Sense-data so vital, he thought. Not
merely what you perceive but how.... Perhaps I have picked up a mild
labyrinthitis, a virus infection of the inner ear."30 The monstrous incommensurability
between a minor ear infection and a nuclear holocaust
reveals how out ofwhack are Bluthgeld's perceptions. Like other schizophrenics
in Dick's fiction, he has experienced an inRation ofego so extreme
that he believes he alone is responsible for everything that happens. In his
delirium, he interprets the holocaust as a defensive measure he was
"forced" to take to punish those conspiring against him.
In contrastto this first scene is the secondholocaust, more shadowythan
real. Bluthgeld, now living as "Mr. Tree" in a postnuclear society on the
Marin headlands, grotesquely decides that the conspiracy against him has
beenreactivatedwhen Stuart McConchie arrives in the community. (In the
afterword to Dr. Bloodrrwney, Dick identified McConchie, an African
American, as representinghis ownviewpointwithin the novel.) Alarmedby
this fantasized conspiracy, Bluthgeld/Mr. Tree concentrates on reactivating
the destructive forces that will drop the bombs. The second time
around, it is not so easy for us to decide the ontological status ofthe bomb.
Since many of Mr. Tree's other fantasies obviously don't work, the reader
may be tempted to dismiss his calling forth the bomb as a private delusion.
Butothercharacters corroborate that someversion ofanuclearhit is taking
place, although exactly in what sense is not clear. The most important of
these corroborations is the viewpoint of Walt Dangerfield, a would-be
Martian emigre trapped in a satellite after war broke out. From high over
Earth, Dangerfield sees on the horizon a Rash that he thinks he recognizes
from the holocaust nine years earlier. "Seconds passed and there were no
further explOSions. And the one he had seen; it had been peculiarly vague
and shadowy, with a diffuseness that had made it seem somehow unreal, as
ifitwas onlyimagined" (p. 230). Thus Dickconstructs the event soithovers
suspended between internal fantasy and exterior corroboration, using
much the same multifocal narrative techniques that operate in his other
novels. Whatever the purpose ofthe character system, its object cannot be
to infect the holocaust with ontological uncertainty, for Dick accomplishes
this byother means.
So what does the character system accomplish? As I suggested earlier, I
believe it is directed toward the different problem of how to escape be-
182 I Chapter Seven
coming trapped in the "inside" ofa power-mad fantasy and how to tum the
world right-side out again. Jameson rightly notices that Dick runs into a
problem when he tries to defeat violent characters by using characters still
more violent, for the cure quicklybecomes worse than the disease. Exactly
this problem arises in Dr. Bloodrrwney. When Mr. Tree goes crazy and
starts setting offbombs again, Hoppy, a "phocomelus" born with no legs,
with flippers for arms, and with fearsome telekinetic powers, saves himself
(and incidentally the town) by killing Mr. Tree, tossing Mr. Tree high into
the air by using his telekinetic powers. But Hoppy has a growing megalomania
akin to that ofBluthgeld. Drunkwith his powers, he has no empathy
for anyone else and has such an inflated ego that onlyhis own needs and desires
are real to him. Moreover, his reach extends beyond the town. He has
been preparing himselfto become the world's dictator by using telekinesis
to kill Walt Dangerfield and take over his satellite broadcasts, which have
hitherto provided the one bright spot in an otherwise darkworld. Like Mr.
Tree, Hoppywants to locate others "inside" his fantasy and arrange matters
so that others are forced to live there on his terms.
The resolution comes from another direction entirely. Opposing Hoppy
and Mr. Tree is Edie Keller, ayoung girlwho carries the homunculus ofher
twinbrother, Bill,who formed inside herbodywhentheywere in thewomb
and communicates with her telepathically. No doubt her characterization
reflects Dick's beliefthat he carried the spirit ofJane inside his body; Edie
and Bill are Dick and Jane turned inside out. Whereas Mr. Tree and Hoppy
are completely narcissistic, the confusion ofboundaries that Bill and Edie
experience includes genuine concern for each other. Bill's greatest hope is
that he can exit Edie's body and live on his own, rather than vicariously
through her reports to him. Although Edie can be thoughtless and cruel,
she also tries earnestlyto find a suitable home for him. When she hears that
Mr. Tree has gone crazy, she hurries to him, reasoning that Bill will make
betteruse ofMr. Tree's body. ButHoppykills Mr. Tree before she can reach
him. Hernextplan is to trick Hoppyinto allowing her to get close to him, so
that Bill can expropriate Hoppy's body. But Hoppy, telepathic as well as
telekinetic, takes Bill outofher bodybefore she can reach the phocomelus;
he tosses Bill's tiny, malformed body into the air, as he did with Bluthgeld.
Bill, however, has authorial resources that Bluthgeld lacked. Tongue in
cheek, Dick uses an avis ex rnachina to rescue Bill. Bill succeeds in exchanging
bodies with Hoppy seconds before the homunculus bodydies. In
contrast to Hoppy's megalomania, Bill's aspirations are modest. Although
Hoppy's body is severely deformed, it is so superior to Bill's previous body
thathe is delightedwith it, for nowhe can see andhear on his own. Thus the
Turning Realiry Inside Our / 183
inside/outside confusionis resolved in twoways. Bluthgeld and Hoppy, the
characters who threatened to expand until others were condemned to live
in the "inside" oftheir horrific mental worlds, are killed; and Bill and Edie,
innocents who through no fault oftheir own were caught in a tragic encapsulation
that threatened both their lives, are turned right-side out. The
happy conclusion reverses the tragic end of Dick and Jane's twinship. Instead
oftwo children becoming one when the girl twin dies, here one child
becomes twowhen the boytwin succeeds in leaving his sister's bodyand living
on his own.
Why can this accommodation be achieved in Dr. Bloodmoney when it
eludes the other mid-sixties novels, with their darker endings? Central to
this "extremely hopeful novel" (Dick's phrase in the afterword, p. 300) is
the characterization of Bonny Keller, who remains largely outside Jarneson's
semiotic square. Depicted as a beautiful woman, Bonny is one ofthe
very few attractive females who is neither fetishized as the dark-haired girl
nor feared as the schizoid woman in Dick's fiction. Her deepest allegiance
seems to be toward livinglife as fully, honestly, andjoyfullyas pOSSible. The
day the bombs fall, her immediate reaction is to make love with the first
man who comes along, Andrew Gill, as ifto affirm that life can still go on. As
a result, Edie and Bill are conceived. As ifto confirm that she is emphatic as
well as life-affirming, her next reaction is to weep for all the people who
have died in the city.
Bonny's moment oftruth comes, Significantly, when she refuses to take
responsibility any longer for Bluthgeld's madness. Throughout the years
she has tried to protect him and even to reasonwith him, butwhen his madness
breaks through again, she leaves him to his folly. She has a similar reaction
when Hoppy starts terrorizing the town. Rather than fight him, she
intends to get as far awayas pOSSible. Somehowher shruggingoffthese selfaSSigned
responsibilities comes across as the right thing to do, even though
it means leaving her children behind. Talkingwith Dr. Stockwell, Billwonders
what his mother will thinkwhen she realizes she has twins rather than
aSingle child. Buthe and his sisterneverfind out, for Bonnyhas already run
offwith Andrew Gill. The Gordian knot formed by the tangled complexities
ofmothers who cannot properlycare for their children, oftwins whose
lives enmesh with disastrous results, and ofvicious circles that form when a
male character both desires and fears the dark-haired girl/schizoid woman
is Simply cut through by a knifelike clarity that says in effect: "This mess is
not my responsibility. I have my own life to lead."
Jameson remarks that one ofthe purposes the character system serves is
a"freshening"ofthe world, wherebycommodified products that used to be
184 / Chapter Seven
taken for granted become homemade luxuries that bring delight and pleasure
to the lives of those who consume them. This redemption ofcapitalism,
the refusal ofthe double bind ofthe dark-haired girl!schizoid woman,
the destruction of those who would engorge themselves so that they can
forcibly encapsulate others in their "inside," the turning right-side out ofa
tragically enfolded twin boy and girl, the choice for life over futile selfassigned
and self-defeating responsibilities-these are the entwined complexities
that the elaborate textual machinery of the character system is
designed to straighten out. More so than other texts from this period (with
the possible exception ofMartian Time-Slip), Dr. Bloodrrwney succeeds in
cutting through the entanglements figured by schizoid android.
As Dick moved out ofthe mid-sixties era, the frequency with which the
dark-haired girl/schizoid woman appears in his fiction diminishes. Ubik,
written at the outer range ofthis period, in 1966, functions as an interesting
transitional text, for it suggests that Dickwas able to resolve the deep ambiguities
of the dark-haired girl/schizoid woman configuration through his
writing. Structured as a series ofrevelations, each ofwhich exposes its predecessor
as a facade rather than an authentic reality, Ubik uses this favorite
Dickian technique to suggest that the dark-haired girl/schizoid woman
configuration is itselfmerely a facade underlaid by a deeper reality. To see
how Dick achieves this psychological resolution, let us turn now to this
complexly reflexive text.
Dark-Haired Girl/Schizoid Woman as Facade:
The Reality Underneath
In Ubik, the struggle to occupy an "outside" relative to someone else's "inside"
takes place on multiple levels. The little guy of the novel, Joe Chip,
works for Glen Runciter, head ofa"prudence organization" that specializes
in "anti-psis" who can neutralize the psionic talents oftelepaths, pre-cogs,
and the like. Lured to Luna by a business rival, Glen Runciter, Joe Chip,
and a group oftheir "anti-psis" are hit by a bomb. What happens afterward
is notOriously unclear. Forawhile Joe believes that Glen has been fatally injured,
and he and his team rush back to Earth to put Glen in cryogenic suspension,
where the little life force that remains can be stretched out into
several years of"half-life" in a moratorium, a neologism that points toward
the liminal state that half-lifers occupy as they hover suspended between
life and death. No sooner does Joe return to Earth, however, than he finds
the world around him manifesting preternaturally rapid decay. Unlike earlier
protagonists, who accepted the tomb world as reality, Joe puzzles over
Turning Reality Inside Out / 185
where the boundaries between inside and outside should be drawn. "It isn't
the universe which is being entombed," he thinks. "All this is going on
within me, and yet I seem to see it outside.... Is the whole world inside
me? Engulfed by my body?"31 The mystery seems to clear when he receives
messages inscribed on various media-recorded telephone calls,
matchbook covers, parking citations, bathroom graffiti-implying that it
was he and his team who were fatally injured in the explosion. In this versionofreality,
Runciter is"outside"in amoratorium tryingto communicate
with those "inside" the world ofdreaming half-lifers.
Although this explanation may account for the messages, Joe does not
understand how it relates to the decay and regression, which soon attack
people as well as objects. The woman he aspires to marry, Wendy Wright,
who at first looks so "durable" that he can't imagine her aging-"she had
too much control over herselfand outside realityfor that" (p. 55)-he later
finds desiccated in his closet, "a huddled heap, dehydrated, almost mummified"
(p. 90). He suspects that the culprit causing this disastrous
intrusion ofthe entropic tomb world into his "reality" is Pat Conley, a devastatingly
attractive woman with a lithe body, tell-tale dark eyes, and long
black hair (p. 31). Pat is particularly dangerous because she can change
what happened in the past, thus creating a different present-and, moreover,
a present that other people do not realize is not the same present as
the one they were living in a moment ago. After several members ofJoe's
partyturn into desiccated heaps, the decay attacks him. As he crawls up the
stairs to his room, heroically struggling so that he can die in decent privacy,
Pat taunts him and gloats over his imminent demise, revealing herselfas a
particularlyvicious instantiation ofthe schizoidwoman. "The thingwe call
Pat," Joe Significantly names her in this moment ofconfrontation (p. 159).
Yet this signing ofthe dark-haired girl as an android, a spectacle that in earlier
texts had proved so obseSSivelyengrossingthat it derailed the plot (witness
We Can Build You), here is revealed as a mere facade, behind which
stands a more "authentic" reality. The real culpritresponsible for the desiccation,
Joe discovers, is not Pat but the teenage Jory, characterized principallybyhis
voracious appetitefor life. Condemned to half-life while still an
adolescent, Jory maintains his crude but vibrant vitality by feeding on the
life force ofhalf-lifers weaker than himself. "I eattheirlife, what remains of
it," Jory tells Joe Chip when he is exposed. "I need a lot ofthem. 1used to
wait until theyhad been in half-life awhile, but now1have to have them immediately"
(p. 174).
If part of Dick's fascination with the schizoid woman/dark-haired girl
comes from his guilt over Jane's death, Jory's unveiling moves toward un-
186 / Chapter Seven
tangling the complexities ofthe dark-haired girl/schizoid android configuration,
for it brings into view the child who performs the fantasized act of
eatingwhat others need to survive. The Hathorror that attends Jory's cannibalistic
appetite recalls Dick's teenage phobiaofeatingin public. When Joe
hears that Jory consumes his victims, he recoils in horror. '~How do you
mean "ate"?' Literally? he wondered, his Hesh undulating with aversion;
the gross physical motion rolled through him, engulfing him, as ifhis body
wanted to shrink away" (p. 173). He learns firsthand what Jory does when
the youngster leaps at him. Even though the perceived actions must be
happening symbolically rather than literally (in half-life each person is
cryogenically suspended in his or her individual container, so physical assault
is impossible), the description ofthe attack is vividly animalistic and
horrific. "Snarling, Jory bit him. The great shovel teeth fastened into Joe's
right hand. They hung on as, meanwhile, Jory raised his head, lifting Joe's
hand with his jaw; Jory stared at him with unwinking eyes, snoring wetlyas
he tried to close his jaws" (pp. 175-76).
The intensity of Dick's revulsion here is unmistakable. Nevertheless,
Joryfinds a measure ofabsolution, as ifDick recognizedthatJoryis onlydoingwhathe
mustto survive. EllaRunciter, Glen's wifewho enteredhalf-life
at age twenty-two and who is described as "pretty," "light-skinned," and
blue-eyed in the tradition of Bonny Keller, acts like the mother that Dick
might have wished he had. She insists, "God knows I detest Jory." But she
also accepts Jory and his kind as a condition oflife, seeing his preying on
others as "averity, a rule, ofour kind oflife." She urges Joe to come to terms
with Jory's predation, insisting that moving to a newsite won'thelp because
there are "Jorys in every moratorium." When Joe insists that he wants to
"defeat" Jory, she cautions, "I doubt ifyou can truly destroy him-in other
words consume him-as he does to half-lifers placed near him in the moratorium"
(p. 183). The language makes clear that consuming the predator
cannot be a final solution, for the onlyway to achieve this illusoryclosure is
by taking the predator "inside," thus symbolically and literally becoming a
predator oneself.
As in Dick's other novels from this period, the psychological interpenetrates
the social and the economic. It comes as no surprise, then, that Jory's
appetite is also linked with the relentless capitalism that preempts the beginning
of each chapter with a commercial for Ubik. When Joe asks Ella
why Jory can't simply be phYSically removed from proximitywith the halflifers
he preys on, she replies, "Herbert [the moratorium owner] is paid a
great deal of money annually, by Jory's family, to keep him with the others
and to think up plaUSible reasons for doing so" (p. 183). In the commercials
Turning Realitv Inside Out / 187
that selVe as epigraphs for the chapters, Ubik signifies all manner ofcapitalist
predation, from used cars to foods, accompanied by the ominous disclaimer
"Safe when used as directed." As in Dr. Bloodrrwney, resolution of
a personal crisis is mysteriously linked with the redemption ofcapitalism,
even though resolution in the economic sphere is not logically motivated in
the plot.
Thus when JOJ)'is revealed and accepted as an inevitability, the meaning
of Ubik is mysteriously changed as well. In the final epigraph, we find the
following proclamation: "I am Ubik. Before the universewas, I am ... I created
the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them
there. They go as I say, they do as I tell them.... I am called Ubik, but that
is not my name. I am. I shall always be" (p. 190). When Joe Chip discovers
Ella as the force opposingJoryand muses, ''I've reached the last entities involved,"
she replies caustically: "I don't think ofmyselfas an 'entity.' I usually
think of myself as Ella Runciter" (p. 182). Now, the unlocatable voice
speaking the epigraph seems to reveal itself as the "final entity." To my
knowledge, no one has attempted to explain why Ubik changes from signifying
the worst excesses of capitalism to standing for a ubiquitous God.
Many critics even suggest that Ubik has somehow "really" been God all
along. I want to suggest that on the contrary, Ubik undergoes a sudden
transformation and that this transformation cannot be understood except
in relation to the revelation that behind Pat stands Jory and behind Jory
stands his animalistic appetite. Only after acknowledging this appetite
(which must be understood as operating on the multiple levels Signified by
"consuming") can the author discern, among the trashy surfaces ofcapitalist
excess, the divine within the world-and byimplication, within himself.
ForifUbikis intended to signifYan ultimate "authentic" reality, it can do
so only from a perspective inside the text. Outside the text (let us suppose,
Derrida notwithstanding, that we can imagine such a vantage), Ubik must
be none other than Philip K. Dick. It is ultimately Dick who "created the
lives and the places [the characters] inhabit," who "put them there" in this
text. Confused about where Ubik comes from, Joe at first assumes that
Runciter has smuggled it to him, but Jory insists that no objects can come
into the half-life world from the outside, only words. The distinction between
words and things encoded into the character system ofDr. Bloodmoney
is here invoked to remind us ofthe difference between resolution in
fictional worlds, where writing has efficacy only in the performative realm
ofsymbolic action, and resolution in the real world, where the materiality
ofthings is often stubbornly resistant to verbal intelVentions. This split between
words and things maps onto the split in Dick's life between past and
188 / Chaprer Seven
present, sedimentedpsychological formation andpresent active intention.
Ifhe is writing his way toward resolving deep conflicts in his life, he can do
so through words that have only a mediated and uncertain relation to the
ghosts inhabiting his psyche. As a writer, he passes messages through his
fiction into his own heart of darkness, hoping that somehow they might
prove efficacious. Within the world ofthe text, the murmurs the half-lifers
hearfrom theworld"outside"trope this situation, for nothings canpass between
"inside" and "outside," onlywords. Joe Chip seems to comment on
this aspect ofDick's writing when he remarks, from his perspective in halflife:
'We are served by organic ghosts ... who, speaking and writing, pass
through this our new environment. Watching, wise, phYSical ghosts from
the full-life world, elements of which have become for us invading
but agreeable splinters of a substance that pulsates like a former heart"
(pp.188-89).
Ubik's distinctive achievement is to represent Simultaneously the performative
power oflanguage and the mediated, uncertain relation oflanguage
to the material world while also mapping this difference onto an
"inside"-"outside"boundarythat hints at the complexityofcommunication
between selfand other, conscious and unconscious. The hope Ubik holds
outis thatalthough boundarydisputes will neverdisappear, inside and outside
can be made to touch each otherthrough the medium ofawriting that
is no less valuable for infecting our world with all manner ofepistemological
and ontolOgical instabilities.
Punctuating the Endless Regress of Reflexivity
Like Maturana and Varela, Dick is a system builder. He takes seriouslyan
idea they also propose (follOwing Spencer-Brown): thatthe observer creates
a system by drawing a distinction between inside and outside. For
Maturana and Varela, this move introduced certain instabilities into the
foundation oftheir system, instabilities that they sought to fix bylocating
the formation ofthe system boundaries in reality as such. For Dick, such
instabilities have potentially deadly consequences as subjects struggle to
define boundaries that are "outside" relative to others' "inside." Consistent
with their base in the biological sciences, Maturana and Varela tend
to assume rational observers. The observer they posit is the kind of observerwho
sits in a laboratorywatching an instrument dial. Grantingconstructive
power to the observer may be epistemolOgically radical, but it is
not necessarily politically or psychologically radical, for the rational observer
can be assumed to exercise restraint. Dick makes no such assump-
Turning Realiry Inside Our / 189
tion. His conclusions are darker and more psychologically complex because
he is acutely aware of cases in which the stability of the observing
mind cannot be assumed, especially when the act ofcreating a world may
stimulate an already insatiable appetite for power and self-expansion.
Thus Dick uses the inclusion ofthe observer to opposite effect. Whereas
Maturana and Varela use the "domain of the observer" to recuperate
everyday notions like cause and effect, Dick uses it to estrange further
consensus reality.
Similarly, Dick shares with second-wave cybernetics an emphasis on reflexivity,
though he changes its use and intent. Maturana sought to rescue
the reflexivity inherent in autopoiesis from an infinite regress by asserting,
"We do not see whatwe do not see, andwhatwe do not see does not exist."32
The infinite regress of observers watching other observers is thus contained,
for the reflexive spiral does not continue past the boundaries ofthe
observer. Sharing Maturana's passion for systems, Dick used a different
strategy. Instead of bracketing "reality," he turned to the creation of ever
more inclusive systems. His most ambitious attempt at system creation
sprang from a series ofvisionaryexperiences he had in Februaryand March
of 1974, dates that he abbreviated as 2-3-74. To explain these experiences,
he wrote a vast tract, entitled Exegesis, that ran to more than three thousand
pages in length, selections ofwhich have been published.
There is a possible phYSiological explanation, skeptically entertained by
Dick's biographer Lawrence Sutin and embraced by others, for the visions
of 2-3-74.33 Within eight years Dick would die of a massive stroke, and
throughout this period, he had extreme hypertension. The visions he experienced
are consistentwith symptoms experiencedbypeople who have had
small strokes in the brain, which can stimulate the auditory centers and
cause hallucinations. Dick himself was skeptical of the visions and entertained
numerous hypotheses about them. As ifto make good Maturana's assertion
that there can be no difference between a hallucination and reality
for one who experiences the hallucination,34 Dick finally concluded that
the most likely explanation was that he had been contacted by an extraterrestrial
intelligence he called the Vast Active Living Intelligent System, or
VALIS, the subject ofa final trilogy ofnovels that are among the best ofhis
fiction. On November 17, 1980, he had another visionary experience, in
which he believed God contacted him directly. For Dick, the contact
solved the problem ofinfinite regress that inevitably haunts reflexive constructions.
Wherever a regress appeared, the voice claimed that Dick had
encountered the infinite, therefore the divine, therefore God. Here is
Dick's account ofthe experience, as it is recorded in ExegeSis.
190 I Chapter Seven
[God] said, "I am the infinite. 1will showyou. Where 1am, infinityis; where infinity
is, there 1 am. Construct lines of reasoning by which to understand your
experience in 1974. 1will enter the field against their shifting nature. You think
they are lOgical but they are not; they are infinitely creative."
1thought a thought and then an infinite regress oftheses and countertheses
came into being. God said, "Here 1 am; here is infinity." 1thought another explanation;
again an infinite series ofthoughts split offin dialectical antithetical
interaction. God said, "Here is infinity; here I am."35
For Dick, the construction ofthe observercannot finallybe separatedfrom
the construction ofreality. Both end at the same point, in infinite regresses
that, for mystical reasons, he chose to call God ratherthan a Maturanian realitythat
remains outside the compass ofhuman knowing. In this way, Dick
constructs an outside, authorized with the name of God and made invulnerable
bycontinuingto infinity, an outside that is safe from beingco-opted
and forced to become an "inside."The irony, ofcourse, is that this very construction
may itself have been precipitated by a physical event inside his
brain.
In contrast to the ambitious system building that Dick undertook in response
to the visions of2-3-74, his fiction ofthe mid-sixties tends toward a
different kind ofaffirmation, one that I find more appealing. Itcan be illustrated
by the ending of Do Androids Dream. After Deckard succeeds in
killing the last three androids on his list and returns home to find out that
Rachael has pushed his beloved goatoffthe roof, he is so exhausted and demoralized
that he heads for the desolate country north of San Francisco,
"whereno livingthingwould go. Not unless itfelt thatthe endhadcome."36
There he has a visionary experience. Hundreds of miles from his government-sanctioned
empathybox, he feels a rockhit him as he stands on top of
a dead hill, as ifhe were enacting Mercer's endless scenario. Panicked, he
calls the office on the carphone and tells his secretary: "I'mWilbur Mercer.
I've permanentlyfused with him. And I can't unfuse" (p. 207). Here the expansion
ofthe ego comes not from megalomania but from suffering and inner
conflict, a result ofthe empathy that Deckard has increasinglycome to
feel for the androids. Psychologicallyifnotintellectually, he has refusedthe
distinctions that make androids fair game for bounty hunters. The fusion
experience ends only when he spies a toad, an animal sacred to Mercer,
half-buried in the lifeless dust. Awed by his discovery, he takes it as a sign
that he is meant to go on living.
When he returns home to Iran, his wife, and shows her the toad, she discovers
the trap door hidden in its belly. It is electrical, like the ersatz sheep
Turning Reality Inside Out I 191
withwhich he triedto fool his neighbors. The sign is a delusion; the miracle
is afake. Butthis ironic tum is not quite the end. He tells Iran that the delusion
doesn't matter: "The electricthings have theirlives, too. PaltI)'as those
lives are" (p. 214). When Iran tells him to dial"Longdeservedpeace"onthe
mood organ, he agrees but falls asleep without it, finding peace without
needing a cybernetic benediction. She then orders artificial flies for
the electric toad to eat, showing a tenderness toward her husband that was
notably lacking at the beginning ofthe novel. Although nothing has happened
to explain how she moved from bitterness to tenderness, it is as if
Deckard's struggle with the schizoid android has somehow resolved tensions
in their relationship as well. The symbolicwayin which resolution occurs
emphasizes that no big problems are solved here. Only a modest
accommodation has been reached, infused with multiple ironies, that emphasizes
survival and the mixed condition of humans who are at their best
when they show tolerance and affection for the creatures, biological and
mechanical, with whom they share the planet. One could do worse than to
accept this as a fitting conclusion to the deep epistemological and ethical
problems that second-wave cybernetics raised but did not conclusively
solve.
........... C.h..a.p..t..e.r. ... fIgh ..t
THE MATERIALITY OF INFORMATICS
Every epoch has beliefs, widely accepted by contemporaries, that appear
fantastic to later generations. Ofsuch are New Historical studies madewith
good reason, for understanding the constellation ofpractices, metaphors,
andpresuppositions that underlie apparentlybizarrebeliefs opens a
windowonto aculture'sideology. One contemporarybelieflikelyto stupefY
future generations is the postmodern orthodoxythat the bodyis primarily,
if not entirely, a linguistic and discursive construction. Coincident with
cybernetiC developments that stripped information of its body were
discursive analyses within the humanities, especially the archaeology of
knowledge pioneered by Michel Foucault, that saw the body as a play of
discourse systems. Although researchers in the physical and human sciences
acknowledged the importance ofmateriality in different ways, they
nevertheless collaborated in creating the postmodem ideology that the
body's materiality is secondary to the lOgical or semiotic structures it en-
codes.
It is not difficult to find pronouncements supporting an ideology ofdisembodiment
in cultural theory, no less than in cybernetiCS. Consider, for
example, the follOwing claims. "The human body, our body, seems superfluous
in its properexpanse, in the complexityand multiplicityofits organs,
ofits tissue and functions, because today everything is concentrated in the
brain and the genetic code, which alone sum up the operational definition
of being," Jean Baudrillard wrote in The Ecstasy of Communication. l
Arthur Kroker and Marilouise Kraker out-Baudrillard Baudrillardin Body
Invaders: Panic Sex in America, imagining "second-order simulacra" and
"floating body parts" that herald the disappearance ofthe body into a fluid
and changing display ofsigns. "If, today, there can be such an intense fascination
with the fate of the body, might this not be because the body no
19 2
The Materiality of Informatics / 193
longer exists?" they ask in what they evidently believe is a rhetorical question.
They count the ways the body is disappearing: ideologically, into the
signs offashion; epistemologically, as the Cartesian consciousness guaranteeing
its existence falls apart (that "grisly and false sense ofsubjectivity");
semiotically, into tattoos and floating signs; and technologically, into "ultra
refuse" and "hyper-functionality."2 O. B. Hardison concludes his disappearing
act by writing the body into computers. He penSively observes,
"N0 matter what precautions are taken, no matter how lucky the bodyis, in
the end it betrays itself." Echoing Hans Moravec, he imagines "the relation
between carbon man and the silicon devices he is creating" to be like "the
relation between the caterpillar and the iridescent, winged creature that
the caterpillar unconSCiously prepares to become.".3
How can we account for these ecstatic pronouncements and delirious
dreams? As I suggested in chapters 1 and 2, I believe they should be taken
as evidence not that the bodyhas disappeared but that a certain kind ofsubjectivityhas
emerged. This subjectivityis constituted by the crossing ofthe
materiality ofinformatics with the immateriality ofinformation.4 The very
theorists who most emphatically claim that the body is disappearing also
operate within material and cultural circumstances that make the claim for
the body's disappearance seem plausible. The body's dematerialization depends
in complex and highly speCific ways on the embodied circumstances
that an ideologyofdematerialization would obscure. Excavating these connections
requires a way of talking about the body responsive to its construction
as discourselinformation and yet not trapped within it. This
chapter suggests a new, more flexible framework in which to think about
embodiment in an age ofvirtuality. This framework comprises two dynamically
interacting polarities. The first polarity unfolds as an interplay between
the body as a cultural construct and the experiences ofembodiment
that individual people within a culture feel and articulate. The second polarity
can be understood as a dance between inscribing and incorporating
practices. Since the body and embodiment, inscription and incorporation,
are in constant interaction, the distinctions forming these polarities are
heuristic rather than absolute. They nevertheless play an important role in
understanding the connections between an ideology ofimmateriality and
the material conditions that produce the ideology.
Thus one purpose ofthis chapter is to develop a theoretical framework
to integrate the two camps ofabstraction and embodiment that have been
sitting uneasily side by side since my discussion ofthe Macy Conferences.
A second purpose is to demonstrate the usefulness of the framework for
reading texts. William Burroughs'S The Ticket That Exploded serves as my
194 I Chapter Eight
example, in partbecause Burroughs turns the tables onthosewho advocate
disembodiment. Instead of discourse dematerializing the body, in Ticket
the body materializes discourse. Situating this text in the high technology
(for its time) ofmagnetic tape-recording, I demonstrate how the theoretical
framework can be used to foreground embodiment while still being attentive
to the complexities of representational codes. To prepare the
ground for these discussions, let us tum now to a brief consideration of
Foucault's archaeology and its treatment ofembodiment.
Foucault's Archaeology and the Erasure of Embodiment
Acknowledgingthatthe Panopticonwas neverbuilt, Foucaultnevertheless
argues that it "mustnot be understood as adream building; itis the diagram
of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form; its functioning, abstracted
from any obstacle, resistance or friction, must be represented as a
pure architectural and optical system; it is in fact a figure ofpolitical technologythat
may and must be detached from any specific use."5 On the one
hand, the abstractionofthe Panopticon beyond "anyobstacle, resistance or
friction" into a system of diSciplines dispersed throughout society gives
Foucault's analysis its power and universality. On the other hand, it diverts
attention awayfrom howactual bodies, in their cultural and phYSical specificities,
impose, incorporate, and resist incorporation ofthe material practices
he describes.
Itis not coincidentalthat the Panopticon abstracts poweroutofthe bodies
ofdisciplinarians into auniversal, disembodied gaze. On the contrary, it
is preciselythis move that gives the Panopticon its force, for when the bodies
ofthe diSciplinarians seem to disappear into the technology, the limitations
ofcorporeality are hidden. Although the bodies ofthe diSciplined do
not disappear in Foucault's account, the specificities oftheir corporealities
fade into the technology as well, becoming a universalized body worked
upon in a uniform way by surveillance techniques and practices. When actual
situations involving embodied agents are considered, limits appear
that are obscured when the Panopticon is considered only as an abstract
mechanism. Failing to recognize these limits, Foucault's analysis reinscribes
as well as challenges the presuppositions of the Panoptic society.
Foucault thus participates in, as well as deconstructs, the Panoptic move of
disembodiment. Exposing the assumptions underlying Panoptic society,
his analysis also fetishistically reconstructs them bypositing a body constituted
through discursive formations and material practices that erase the
contextual enactments embodiment always entails.6 A useful antidote to
The MaterialilY of Informatics / 195
this viewis Elaine Scarry's studyoftorture in The Body in Pain: The Making
and Unmaking ofthe World. 7 Like Foucault, Scarry interrogates the cultural
assumptions and political purposes that underlie the use of torture;
also like Foucault, when she talks about assaults on the body, she uses representations
to bring them into the realm of discourse (what other choice
could there be?). But unlike Foucault's discussions, her representations
are crafted to emphaSize that bodily practices have a physical reality that
can never be fully assimilated into discourse.
Although the absorption of embodiment into discourse imparts interpretive
power to Foucault, it also limits his analysis in Significant ways.
Many commentators have criticized the universality of the Foucaultian
body; this universality is a direct result ofconcentratingon discourse rather
than embodiment.'" Fissuring along lines ofclass, gender, race, and privilege,
embodied practices create heterogeneous spaces even when the discursive
formations describing those practices seem uniformly dispersed
throughout the society. The assimilation ofembodiment into discourse has
the additional disadvantage ofmaking it difficult to understand exactlyhow
certain practices spread through a society. Foucault delineates the transformations
that occurred when corporeal punishment gave way to surveillance,
but the engine driving these changes remains obscure. Focusing on
embodiment would help to clarify the mechanisms of change, for it links
a changing technological landscape with the instantiated enactments that
create feedback loops between materiality and discourse. Building on
Foucault's work while going beyond it requires understanding how embodiment
moves in conjunction with inscription, technology, and ideology.
Attentive to discursive constructions, such an analysiS would also examine
how embodied humans interact with the material conditions in which they
are placed.
Elizabeth Grosz makes a good start in her valuable study, Volatile
Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. 9 She argues that the mind/body
split, pervasive in the Western tradition, is so bound up with philosophical
thinking that philosophy literallycannot conceive ofitselfas having a body.
"Philosophy has always considered itselfa diSCipline concerned primarily
or exclUSively \vith ideas, concepts, reason, judgment-that is, ~ith terms
clearlyframed by the concept ofmind, terms which marginalize or exclude
considerations of the body" (p. 4). Even those philosophers who do take
embodiment seriously tend unreflectingly to take the male body as the
norm, as Grosz shows in discussing a range oftheorists, including MerleauPonty,
Freud, Lacan, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Deleuze and Guattari.
Reading these male writers to find resources for a feminist understanding
196 I Chapter Eight
ofembodiment, she offers as a model a Mobius strip in which outside becomes
inside becomes outside. The attraction ofthe model for her is that it
undercuts dichotomies byhavingone tum into the other. So she structures
her book by first showing how models ofthe psyche produce the body, the
"inside out," and then how the body produces the psyche, the "outside in."
En route to this analysis, she makes an important observation: "Indeed,
there is no body as such; there are only bodies-male or female, black,
brown, white, large or small-and the gradations in between. Bodies can
be represented or understood not as entities in themselves or simply on a
linear continuum with its polar extremes occupied by male and female
bodies ... but as a field, a two-dimensional continuum in which race (and
possibly even class, caste, or religion) form body specifications" (p. 19). Although
I am fully sympatheticwith Grosz's project, the Mobius strip model
has limitations, as she recognizes (pp. 209-10). In particular, the imperceptible
transformations ofinside/outside make it difficult to chart gradations
within the continuum. It seems to me that the "field" in which bodies
take shape may profitably be represented as an interplay between two intersecting
axes. The polarities defining the end points ofthe axes acknowledge
the historical importance of dichotomies, but the field itself is
generated bythe interplaybetween these end points.
To delineate this field, let me begin byclarifyingwhat I mean byembodiment,
an understandingthat aligns itselfwith Grosz's comment that"there
is no body as such; there are only bodies." Embodiment differs from the
conceptofthe bodyin thatthe bodyis always normative relative to some set
of criteria. To explore how the body is constructed within Renaissance
medical discourse, for example, is to investigate the normative assumptions
used to constitute a particular kind ofsocial and discursive concept.
Normalization can also take placewith someone's particularexperiences of
embodiment, converting the heterogeneous flux ofperception into a reified
stable object. In contemporary scientific visualization technologies
such as positron-emission tomography(PET), for example, embodimentis
converted into a body through imaging technologies that create a normalized
construct averaged over many data pOints to give an idealized version
ofthe object in question.10 In contrast to the body, embodiment is contextual,
enmeshedwithin the specifics ofplace, time, phYSiology, and culture,
which together compose enactment. Embodimentnever coincides exactly
with "the body," however that normalized conceptis understood. Whereas
the body is an idealized form that gestures toward a Platonic reality, embodiment
is the specific instantiation generated from the noise of difference.
Relative to the body, embodiment is other and elsewhere, at once
The Materiality of Informatics I 197
excessive and deficient in its infinite variations, particularities, and abnor-
malities.
During any given period, experiences of embodiment are in continual
interaction with constructions of the body. Consider, for example, the
stress put on the vaginal orgasm during the early part ofthe twentieth century
across a range of cultural sites, from Freudian psychoanalysis to the
novels of D. H. Lawrence. Women's experiences of embodiment interacted
with this concept in a variety ofways. Some women disciplined their
experiences to bring them into line with the concept; others registered
their experiences as defective because they were other than the concept;
still others were skeptical about the concept because it did not match their
experiences. Experiences ofembodiment, far from existing apart from culture,
are always already imbricated within it. Yet because embodiment is
individuallyarticulated, there is also at least an incipient tension between it
and hegemonic cultural constructs. Embodiment is thus inherently destabilizingwith
respect to the body, for at any time this tension can widen into
a perceived disparity.
Foucault is not exceptional in focUSing on the body rather than embodiment.
Most theorists who write on corporeality make the same choice, for
theory by its nature seeks to articulate general patterns and overall trends
ratherthan individual instantiations. Theories,like numbers, require acertain
level ofabstraction and generality to work. Atheorythat did not generalize
would be like the number scheme that Jorge Luis Borges imagines in
"Funes the Memorious."ll Funes, blessed or cursed by a head injury that
enables him to remember each sensation and thought in all its particularity
and uniqueness, proposes that each number be aSSigned a unique, nonsystematic
name bearing no relation to the numbers that come before and after
it. If embodiment could be articulated separate from the body-an
impossibility for several reasons, not least because articulation systematizes
and normalizes experiences in the act ofnaming them-it would be
like Funes's numbers, a froth ofdiscrete utterances registering the continuous
and infinite play ofdifference.
Yet there are theories, like this one, that abstractlyand generallyinsiston
the importance ofthe particular. Michel de Certeau, for example, provides
a useful corrective to Foucault in pointing to the importance of individual
articulations ofcultural appropriations.12 Embodiment is akin to articulation
in that it is inherently performative, subject to individual enactments,
and therefore always to some extent improvisational. Whereas the body
can disappear into information with scarcely a murmur ofprotest, embodiment
cannot, for it is tied to the circumstances ofthe occasion and the per-
198 I Chapter Eight
son. As soon as embodiment is acknowledged, the abstractions of the
Panopticon disintegrate into the particularities ofspecific people embeddedin
specific contexts. Alongwith these particularities come concomitant
strategies for resistances and subversions, excesses and deviations.
It is primarilythe bodythat is naturalized within a culture; embodiment
becomes naturalized only secondarily through its interactions with concepts
of the body. Consequently, when theorists uncover the ideolOgical
underpinnings of naturalization, they denaturalize the body rather than
embodiment. As the exampleofFoucaultillustrates, itis possible to deconstructthe
content ofthe abstraction while stillleavingthe mechanism ofabstraction
intact. Moving out ofthe frictionless and disembodied realm of
abstraction requires articulatingembodiment and the bodytogether. How
can this articulation be accomplished without simply absorbing embodiment
backinto the body?
Onepossibilityis to complicate and enrichthe tension between embodiment
and the body byjuxtaposing this tension with another binary distinction-inscription
and incorporation-that partly converges and partly
diverges from it. I envision these two bimodalities actingin complexsyncopationwith
each other, like two sine waves moving at different frequencies
and with different periods of repetition. How does the inscription/incorporation
coupling relate to body/embodiment? Like the body, inscription
is normalized and abstract, in the sense that itis usuallyconsidered as a system
of signs operating independently of any particular manifestation. In
Foucault's analysis ofLinnaeus's biolOgical taxonomies, it does not matter
whether the taxonomies were Originallyprinted in Gothic or Roman type;
their significance derives from the concepts they express, not from the
medium in which they appear. When the concepts are transported from
one medium to another, for instance by being cited in Foucault's text and
thus printed in a different typeface, the original medium disappears from
sight. Moreover, even the awareness that the original medium has disappeared
is erased by the implicit assumption that Linnaeus's words have
been exactlyreproduced. Suchwritingpractices are so commonthatwe do
not normally attend to them. I foreground them now to point out that they
constitute inscription as aconceptual abstraction ratherthan as an instantiated
materiality.
In contrast to inscription is incorporation. An incorporating practice
such as a good-bye wave cannot be separated from its embodied medium,
for it exists as such onlywhen it is instantiated in a particularhand making
a particular kind of gesture. It is pOSSible, of course, to abstract a sign
from the embodied gesture by representing it in a different medium, for
The Materiality of Informatics I 199
example by drawing on a page the outline of a stylized hand, with wavy
lines indicating motion. In this case, however, the gesture is no longer an
incorporating practice. Rather, it has been transformed precisely into an
inscription that functions as if it were independent of any particular in-
stantiation.
This line ofthought leads to the follOwing homology: as the body is to
embodiment, so inscription is to incorporation. Just as embodiment is in
constant interplaywith the body, so incorporatingpractices are in constant
interplaywith inscriptions that abstract the practices into signs. When the
focus is on the body, the particularities ofembodiment tend to fade from
view; similarly, when the focus is on inscription, the particularities ofincorporation
tend to fade from view. Conversely, when the focus shifts to embodiment,
a specific material experience emerges out ofthe abstraction of
the body, just as the particularities ofan incorporating practice emerge out
ofthe abstraction ofinscription. Embodiment cannot existwithout a material
structure that always deviates in some measure from its abstract representations;
an incorporating practice cannot exist without an embodied
creature to enact it, a creature who always deviates in some measure from
the norms. One path into further understanding the articulation between
embodiment and the body, then, is to explore the connection between inscribing
and incorporating practices.
Incorporating Practices and Embodied Knowledge
The distinction between incorporating and inscribing practices, a distinction
implicit in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception,
13has been developed further by Paul Connerton in How Societies
Remember. Following Connerton, I mean by an incorporating practice an
action that is encoded into bodily memoryby repeated performances until
it becomes habitual. Learning to type is an incorporating practice, as both
Connerton and Merleau-Pontyobserve. When we saythat someone knows
how to type, we do not mean that the person can cognitively map the location
of the keys or can understand the mechanism producing the marks.
Rather, we mean that this person has repeatedlyperformed certain actions
until the keys seem to be extensions of his or her fingers. Someone can
know how to type but not know how to read the words produced, such as
when a typist reproduces script in alanguage that the typist does not speak;
conversely, just as someone can be able to read a typescript without knowing
how to type. The body's competencies and skills are distinct from discourse,
although in some contexts they can produce discourse or can be
200 / Chapter Eight
readdiscursively. This is Connerton's pointwhenhe notes thatthe meaning
ofa bodily practice "cannot be reduced to a sign which exists on a separate
'level' outside the immediate sphere of the body's acts. Habit is a knowledge
and a remembering in the hands and in the body; and in the cultivation
ofhabit it is our bodywhich 'understands.'"14
In distinguishing between inscribing practices and incorporating practices,
I do not mean to imply that incorporating practices are in any sense
more"natural," more universal, orless expressive ofculturethan inscribing
practices. The bodyis enculturated through both kinds ofpractices. Characteristic
ways of sitting, gesturing, walking, and moving are culturally
specific, just as are characteristic ways of talking and writing. Moreover,
culture not only Hows from the environment into the body but also emanates
from the body into the environment. The body produces culture at
the same time that culture produces the body. Posture and the extension of
limbs in the space around the body, for example, convey to children the
gendered ways in which men and women occupy space. These nonverbal
lessons are frequently reinforced verbally; "boys don't walk like that," or
"girls don't sit with their legs open." It is significant that verbal injunctions
often take a negative form, as in these illustrations, for the positive content
is much more effectively conveyed through incorporating rather than inscribingpractices.
ShOwingsomeone how to standis easy, but describing in
words allthe nuances ofthe desiredposture is difficult. Incorporatingpractices
performthe bodilycontent; inscribingpractices correct and modulate
the performance. Thus incorporating and inscribing practices work together
to create culturalconstructs. Gender, the focus ofthese examples, is
produced and maintained not only by gendered languages but also by gendered
body practices that serve to diScipline and incorporate bodies into
the complex significations and performances that constitute genderwithin
a given culture.IS
Because incorporating practices are always performative and instantiated,
they necessarily contain improvisational elements that are contextspecific.
Postures are generalizable to some extent, but their enactments
also depend on the specifics ofthe embodiedindividual: the precise length
oflimbs and torso, the exact musculature connecting tendon andjoint, the
sedimented history of body experience shaping the muscle tension and
strength. Incorporation emerges from the collaboration between the body
and embodiment, between the abstract model and the specific contexts in
which the model is instantiated. In contrast to inscription, which can be
transported from context to context once it has been performed, incorporation
can never be cut entirely free from its context. As we shall see, the
The Materiality of Informatics I 201
contextual components of incorporation give it qualities that are distinctively
different from those ofinscription.
Just as incorporating practices are not necessarily more "natural" than
inscribing practices, so embodiment is not more essentialist than the body.
Indeed, it is difficult to see what essentialism would mean in the context of
embodiment. Essentialism is normative in its impulse, denoting qualities
or attributes shared by all human beings. Though it is true that all humans
share embodiment, embodied experience is dispersed along a spectrum of
possibilities. Which possibilities are activated depends on the contexts of
enactment, so that no one position is more essential than any other. For
similar reasons, embodiment does not imply an essentialist self. As Francisco
Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch argue in The Embodied
Mind, a coherent, continuous, essential selfis neither necessary nor sufficientto
explain embodiedexperience.16 The closerone comes to the flux of
embodiment, Varela and his coauthors believe, the more one is aware that
the coherent selfis a fiction invented out ofpanic and fear. In this view, embodiment
subversively undercuts essentialism rather than reinforces it.
Ifembodiment is not essentialist, it is also not algOrithmic. This conclusion
has important implications for debates over what difference embodiment
makes to thinking and learning. In What Computers Can't Do,
Hubert Dreyfus argues that many human behaviors cannot be formalized
in a heuristic program for a digital computer because these behaviors are
embodied. For Dreyfus, embodiment means thathumans have available to
them a mode ofleaming, and hence ofintellection, different from that deriving
from cogitation alone. He gives the example of a child learning to
pickup a cup. The child need not have an analytic understandingofthe motor
responses and dynamiCS involved in this action; the child need onlyflail
around until managing to connect. Then, to learn the action to be able to
perform it at will, the child only has to repeat what was done before. At no
point does the child have to break down the action into analytical components
or explicit instructions.
The advantage ofthis kind ofleamingis that everythingdoes not need to
be specified in advance. Moreover, the learning can be structured into
complex relations without the necessityofa formal recognition that the relations
exist. Drawing from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Karl Polanyi, Jean
Piaget, and other phenomenologists, Dreyfus delineates three functions
that are characteristic of embodied learning and are not present in computer
programs: an "inner horizon" that consists of a partly determined,
partlyopen context ofanticipation; the global characterofthe anticipation,
which relates itto otherpertinent contexts in fluid, shiftingpatterns ofcon-
zoz I Chapter Eight
nection; and the transferabilityofsuch anticipation from one sense modality
to another.17 One implication ofthis view ofembodied learning is that
humans know much more than they consciously realize they know. Another
is that this embodied knowledge may not be completely formalizable,
since the openness of the horizon allows for ambiguities and new
permutations that cannot be programmed into explicit decision procedures.
As we shall see in chapter 9, this provides researchers in mobile robotics
such as Rodney Brooks with an argument for the superiority of
mobile (embodied) robots overcomputer programs, which have no capacityto
move about and explore the environment. Inways Dreyfus did notanticipate,
artificial-life researchers have moved closer to his position than to
the artificial-intelligence research programs that he argues against.
A further implication ofembodied interaction with the environment is
developed by Pierre Bourdieu. He argues that even ifone is successful in
reducing some area of embodied knowledge to analytical categories and
explicit procedures, one has in the process changed the kind ofknowledge
itis, for the fluid, contextualinterconnections that define the open horizons
of embodied interactions would have solidified into discrete entities and
sequential instructions. He makes this point-that largely unnoticed and
unacknowledged changes occur when embodied knowledge is expressed
through analytical schema-in his discussion ofthe seasonal rituals ofthe
Kabyle, agroup ofBerbertribes livingin Algeria and Tunisia. The calendar
that the Kabyle enact through improvisational embodied practices is not
the same calendar that the anthropologist extracts in schematic form from
data provided by informants. Whereas the anthropologist's schema will
show fields, houses, and calendars arranged according to such dualities as
hot and cold, male and female, for the Kabyle this knowledge exists not as
abstractions but as patterns ofdaily life learned by practicing actions until
theybecome habitual. Abstraction thus not only affects how one describes
learning but also changes the account ofwhat is learned.
Bourdieu's work illustrates how embodied knowledge can be structurally
elaborate, conceptually coherent, and durably installed without ever
having to be cognitively recognized as such. Through observation and repetition,
the child attains "a practical mastery ofthe claSSificatory schemes
which in no way implies symboliC mastery." By transposing terms ofsymmetry
relations, the child is able to grasp the rationale ofwhat Bourdieu
calls the "habitus" (aword coinedto recall the habitual nature ofembodied
actions), defined as the "durably installed generative principle of regulated
improvisations."18 The habitus, which is learned, perpetuated, and
The Materialitv of Informatics / 203
changed through embodied practices, should not be thought ofas a collection
of rules but as a series of dispositions and inclinations that are both
subject to circumstances and durable enough to pass down through generations.
The habitus is conveyed through the orientation and movement of
the body as it traverses cultural spaces and experiences temporal rhythms.
Forthe Kabyle, the spatial arrangements ofhome, village, and field instantiate
the dichotomies that serve as generative principles stimulatingimprovisation
within the regulated exchanges defined by the habitus. Living in
these spaces and participating in their organization form the body in characteristicways,
which in tum provides a matrixofpermutations for thought
and action.
To look at thought in this wayis to tum Descartes upside down. The central
premise is not that the cogitating mind can be certain only ofits ability
to be present to itselfbut rather that the body exists in space and time and
that, through its interaction with the environment, it defines the parameters
within which the cogitating mind can arrive at "certainties," which not
coincidentally almost never include the fundamental homologies generating
the boundaries ofthought. What counts as knowledge is also radically
revised, for conscious thoughtbecomes an epiphenomenon corresponding
to the phenomenal base the body provides.
In "Eye and Mind," Merleau-Ponty articulates a vision similar to Bourdieu's
when he states that the body is not "a chunk ofspace or a bundle of
functions" but "an intertwining ofvision and movement."19 Whereas the
causalthinking that Descartes admired in geometryand sought to emulate
in philosophy erases context by abstracting experience into generalized
patterns, embodiment creates context by forging connections between instantiated
action and environmental conditions. Marking a tum from
foundation to flux, embodiment emphaSizes the importance of context to
human cognition. Here, in another key and a reverse direction, we see replayed
the decontextualization that information underwent when it lost its
body. Just as disembodiment required that context be erased, so remembering
embodiment means that context be put backinto the picture.
When accounts oflearning change, so do accounts ofcultural transmission.
In How Societies Remember, Paul Connerton links embodiment with
memory. He points outthat rituals, commemorativeceremonies, and other
bodily practices have a performative aspect that an analysis ofthe content
does not grasp. Like performative language, performative rituals must be
enacted to take place. Aliturgy, for example, "is an ordering ofspeech acts
which occurs when, and only when, these utterances are performed; if
204 / Chapter Eight
there is no performance there is no ritual." Although liturgies are primarily
verbal, they are not exclusively so. Gestures and movements accompany
the words, in addition to the sense data created by speaking and hearing.
Over and above (or better, below) the verbal aspects is the incorporation
enacted through sensory responses, motor control, and proprioception.
Because these ceremonies are embodied practices, to perform them is always
in some sense to accept them, whatever one's conscious beliefs. "We
maysuppose the beliefs someone else holds sacred to be merelyfantastic,"
Connerton wrote, "but it can never be a light matter to demand that their
actual expression be violated.... To make patriots insult their flag or to
force pagans to receive baptism is to violate them."20
Bodilypracticeshave this powerbecausetheysedimentintohabitual actions
and movements, sinkingbelowconscious awareness. Atthis levelthey
achieve an inertia that can prove surprisingly resistant to conscious intentions
to modifYor change them. Bytheir nature, habits do not occupyconscious
thought; they are habitual precisely because they are done more or
less automatically, as if the knowledge of how to perform the actions
resided in one's fingers or physical mobility rather than in one's mind. This
property of the habitual has political implications. When a new regime
takes over, it attacks old habits vigorously, for this is where the most refractory
resistance to change will be met. Bourdieu comments that all societies
wanting to make a "new man" should approach the task through processes
of"deculturation" and "reculturation" focused on bodily practices. Hence
revolutionaries place great emphasis "on the seemingly most insignificant
details ofdress, bearing, physical and verbal manners," because "they entrust
to [the body] in abbreviated and practical, i.e., mnemonic, form the
fundamental principles ofthe arbitrarycontent ofthe culture."21
Bourdieu somewhat overstates the case when he asserts that "principles
em-bodied in this way are placed beyond the grasp ofconsciousness and
hence cannot be touched by voluntary, deliberate transformation" (p. 94),
but he is correct in emphasizingthe resistance ofsuch practices to intellection.
He also rightly sees the importance ofthese practices for education
and discipline. "The whole trick of pedagOgic reason," he observes, "lies
preCiselyin the wayitextorts the essentialwhile seemingto demand the inSignificant:
in obtaining the respect for form and forms of respect which
constitute the most visible and at the same time the best-hidden (because
most 'natural') manifestation of submission to the established order....
The concession of politeness always contains political concessions"
(pp. 94-95). Along similar lines, Connerton wrote: "Every group will entrust
to bodily automatisms the values and categories which they are most
The Materiality of Informatics / 205
anxious to conserve. They will know how well the past can be kept in mind
by a habitual memory sedimented in the body."22
To summarize: four distinguishing characteristics ofknowledge gained
through incorporating practices have emerged from the discussion so far.
First, incorporated knowledge retains improvisational elements that make
it contextual rather than abstract, that keep it tied to the circumstances of
its instantiation. Second, it is deeply sedimented into the bodyand is highly
resistant to change. Third, incorporated knowledge is partlyscreened from
conscious view because it is habitual. Fourth, because it is contextual, resistant
to change, and obscure to the cogitating mind, it has the powerto define
the boundaries within which conscious thought takes place. To these
four characteristics I want to add a fifth. When changes in incorporating
practices take place, they are often linkedwith new technologies that affect
how people use their bodies and experience space and time. Formed by
technology at the same time that it creates technology, embodiment mediates
between technology and discourse by creating new experiential
frameworks that serve as boundary markers for the creation ofcorresponding
discursive systems. In the feedback loop between technological innovations
and discursive practices, incorporation is a crucial link.
Having distinguished between incorporating and inscribing practices, I
want to explore the connections between them. To complete the model I
have been constructing, I tum now to Mark Johnson'S The Body in the
Mind. 23 It is a truism in contemporary theory that discourse writes the
body; Johnson illustrates how the bodywrites discourse. He shows that the
body's orientation in time and space, deriving from such common experiences
as walking upright and finding a vertical stance more conducive to
mobility than a horizontal position, creates a repository ofexperiences that
are encoded into language through pervasive metaphoric networks. Consider,
for example, metaphors having to do with verticality. We speak of
someone being "upright" in a moral or ethical sense, ofpeople "at the top,"
and of"upscale" lifestyles. Depressing events are a "downer," in a recession
people are "down on their luck," and entry-level people start at the "bottom
of the ladder." The hierarchical structures expressed and constituted
through these metaphors, Johnson argues, have a basis in bodily experience
that reinforces and reinscribes their social and linguistic implications.
Other common body experiences giving rise to extensive metaphoric networks
include in/out, front/back, and contained/uncontained. Johnson
characterizes such schema as prepropositional. The point ofhis inquiry is
to show that these encoded experiences bubble up into language in propositional
statements, such as "He got high," and in metapropositional state-
206 / Chapter Eight
ments havingto dowith the truth orgoodness ofpropositions, such as "That
statementexpresses ahighertruth."An obvious implicationis thatifwe had
bodies with significantlydifferent physiological structures, for example exoskeletons
rather than endoskeletons or unilateral rather than bilateral
symmetries, the schema underlyingpervasive metaphoric networks would
also be radically altered.
Ofthe theorists discussed here, Johnson launches perhaps the most severe
attack on objectivism. Thus it is ironic that he reinscribes objectivist
presuppositions in positing a universal body unmarked by gender, ethnicity,
physical disability, or culture. Insisting that the body is an important
part of the context from which language emerges, he erases the specific
contexts provided by embodiment. The consequences of this erasure can
be seenin his discussion ofapassage from Men on Rape inwhich a lawclerk
tells why rape is, in his view, sometimes justified. Johnson shows that the
clerk's reasoningis based on a series ofinterrelated propositions that begin
with the idea that "physical attraction is a physical force." The clerk constructs
awoman's physical attractiveness as an aggression that she practices
on men and to which they sometimes respond with (allegedly retaliatory)
violence.
In some ways Johnson's analysis is remarkably astute, for it reveals how
gendered experiences ofembodiment get encoded into implicit propositions.
Yet with stunning reticence, he never remarks on the gender politics
so obviouslyforegrounded by this series ofpropositions, treatingthe example
as ifitwere sexuallyand culturallyneutral. More than one graduate student
whom I have asked to read Johnson's book has thrown it down in
disgust at this point, assuming that any analysis so gender-blind could have
nothingsignificantto sayto her. Although I sympathizewith the reaction, it
is a mistake, for the general point that embodiment is encoded into language
through metaphoric networks is strengthened rather than undercut
by insisting on the specificities of phYSically diverse and differentially
marked bodies. Just as I can imagine that schema would vary for different
physiologies, so I canenvisionthat metaphorswouldvaryin response to different
experiences of embodiment created by histOrically positioned and
culturally constructed bodies. From such considerations emerges an enriched
appreciation ofhowinscribing and incorporatingpractices work togethertocreate
the heterogeneous spaces ofpostmodern technolOgies and
cultures.
Although Johnson does not develop this implication, his analysis suggests
that when people begin using their bodies in Significantly different
ways, either because of technological innovations or other cultural shifts,
The Materiality of Informatics / 207
changing experiences of embodiment bubble up into language, affecting
the metaphoric networks at playwithin the culture. At the same time, discursive
constructions affect how bodies move through space and time, influence
what technologies are developed, and help to structure the
interfaces between bodies and technologies. By concentrating on a period
when a new technology comes into being and is diffusing throughout the
culture, one should be able to triangulate between incorporation, inscription,
and technological materiality to arrive at a fuller description ofthese
feedback loops than discursive analysis alone would yield. To develop such
an analysis, I concentrate in the follOwing section on an information technologyappropriate
to the era under discussion, specificallythe use ofmagnetic
tape-recording from the early 1900s to 1962, the year Burroughs
published The Ticket That Exploded. Chapters 9 and 10continuethe analysis
into an array ofcontemporaryvirtual technolOgies. Let us now return to
an earlier period, when it was a startling discovery to learn that one's voice
could be taken out ofthe body and put into a machine, where it could be
manipulated to say somethingthat the speakerhad never heard before.
Audiotape and Its Cultural Niche
In his groundbreakingwork Reading Voices: Literature and the Phonotext,
Garrett Stewartasks nothowwe read, orwhywe read, butwherewe read.24
He decides we read in the body, particularlyinthevocal apparatus that produces
subvocalization during silent reading. This subvocalization is essential,
he argues, to the production ofliterary language. Language becomes
literary for Stewartwhen it cannot be adequately replaced byotherwords,
when that particular language is essential to achieving its effects. Literary
language works by surrounding its utterances with a shimmer of virtual
sounds, homophoniCvariants that suggestalternative readings to thewords
actually printed on the page. Subvocalization actualizes these possibilities
in the body and makes them available for interpretation. Several interesting
consequences flow from this argument. First, the bodily enactment of
suppressed sound plays a central role in the reading process. Second, readingis
akin to the interior monologue thatwe all engage in, exceptthatit supplies
us with another story, usually a more interesting one than that
provided by the stream ofsubvocalized sound coming out ofour own consciousness.
Third, the production ofsubvocalized sound may be as important
to subjectivity as it is to literarylanguage.25
We are now in a position to think about what tape-recording means for
certain literary texts. Audiotape opens the possibility that the voice can be
208 I Chapter Eight
taken out ofthe body and placed into a machine. Ifthe production ofsubvocalized
sound is essential to reading literary texts, what happens to the
stories we tell ourselves ifthis sound is no longer situatedin the body's subvocalizations
but is in the machine? Often histories oftechnologyand literature
treat technology as a theme or subject to be represented within the
world ofthe text. I want to take a different approach, focusing on the technical
qualities of audiotape that changed the relation ofvoice and body, a
change Burroughs associates in Ticket with the production ofa newkind of
subjectivity. In the mutating and metamorphosing bodies ofTicket, we can
see a harbinger ofthe posthuman body that will be fully articulated in the
follOwing chapters. These mutations are intimatelybound up with internal
monologues that, in Burroughs's view, parasitically inhabit the body. But I
am getting aheadofmystory. Firstwe need to trace the developmentofthe
audio technology that he uses to effect this startling view ofdiscourse as a
bodilyinfestation.
Born in the early 1900s and comingofage afterWorldWar II, audiotape
may already be reaching old age, fading from the marketplace as it is replaced
by compact disks, computer hypermedia, and the like. The period
when audiotape played an important role in U.S. and European consumer
culture may well be limited to the four decades of 1950-90. Writing his
cybernetic trilogy-The Ticket That Exploded, The Soft Machine, and
Nova Express-in the late 1950s and 1960s, William Burroughs was close
enough to the beginnings ofaudiotape to regard it as a technology ofrevolutionary
power. Long afterwriting dissociated presence from inscription,
voice continued to imply a subject who was present in the moment and in
the flesh. Audiotape was ofcourse not the first technology to challenge this
assumption, and the culturalwork it did can best be understood in the context
of related audio technologies, particularly telephone, radio, and
phonograph.
Telephone and radio brokethe linkbetweenpresence andvoice bymaking
it possible to transport voice over distance.26 Before audiotape and
phonograph, however, telephone and radio happened in the present.
Speaker and listener, although phYSically separated, had to share the same
moment in time. Telephone and radio thus continued to participate in the
phenomenology ofpresence through the simultaneity that they produced
and that produced them. In this sense theywere more like each otherthan
either was like the phonograph. By contrast, the phonograph functioned
primarilyas a technologyofinscription, reproducing soundthrough a rigid
disk that allowed neither the interactive spontaneity oftelephone nor the
ephemeralityofradio.
The Materiality of Informatics / 209
The niche that audiotape filled was configured through the interlocking
qualities ofthe audio technologies that preceded it, in a process Friedrich
Kittler has aptly called "medial ecology" (discussed briefly in chapter 2).27
Like the phonograph, audiotape was a technology ofinscription, but with
the crucial difference that it permitted erasure and rewriting. As early as
1888, Oberlin Smith, at one time president ofthe American SocietyofMechanical
Engineers, proposed that sound could be recorded by magnetizingiron
particles that adhered to a carrier.28 He was too busyto implement
his idea, however, and the ballpassedto ValdemarPoulsen, ayoung Danish
engineer who accidentally discovered that patterns traced on the side ofa
magnetized tuning fork became visible when the fork was dipped in iron
powder. When the fork was demagnetized, the patterns were erased. He
saw in the imprinting and erasure of these patterns the possibility of a
recording device for sound, using iron wire as the carrier. Its immediate
commercial use, he imagined, would lie in providing tangible records of
telephone conversations. He called the device a "Telegraphone," which he
understood to signify"writingthe voice at adistance." At the 1900Paris Exposition,
he won the Grand Prixfor his invention.29 Despite extensive publicity,
however, he was not able to raise the necessary capital in Europe for
its development. By 1903 the patents had passed to the American Telegraphone
Company (ATC), which raised a huge amount of money
($5,000,000) by selling stock. Five years later the owners ofATC had still
not built a single machine. Their main business, in fact, turned out to be
raising money for the machines rather than actually producing the machines.
When they did finally tum out a few operational devices in 1911,
using the famous model Phoebe Snow to advertise them as dictation machines,
the sound quality was so bad that the Dupont Company, after installing
them in a central dictation system, ended up suing. The
questionable status ofthe machines was exacerbated during World War I,
when the Telefunken Company ofAmerica was accused of using them to
encode and transmit secret messages to Germany. From the beginning, audiotape
was marked with the imprint ofinternational capitalism and politics
as surelyas it was with the imprint ofvoices.
By 1932, steel tape had become the carrier of choice in high-end machines,
and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) became actively
interested in the development ofsteel tape, using it to carrythe Christmas
address ofKing George Vin that year. Film tape, created by coating paper
or plastic tape with iron oxide and feeding it through a ring-shaped head,
appeared on the scene by 1935.30 The great advantage offilm tape was that
it could be easily spliced, but originally it had such poor sound quality that
210 / Chapter Eight
itcould not competewith steeltape. The problem ofestablishinggoodcorrespondence
between sound frequency and the pattern on film tape (that
is, controlling hysteresis) was partly solved by the introduction of highfrequency
bias in 1938.31 By 1941 the sound quality of film tape had so
improved that itwas competitivewith steeltape in studiowork. Onthe consumermarket,
machines withwire were still common. Itwas not until after
WorldWar II that systematic research was carried out to find the optimum
coating material for film tape, and only in 1948 was the first American
patent issued for a magnetic recording machine using film tape and a ring
head. The use offilm tape then expanded rapidly, andwithin adecade ithad
rendered steel tape obsolete, with film tape being used in the consumer
market as well as the professional studios.
By the late 1950s, then, magnetic tape had acquired the qualities that,
within the existing cultural formation, gave it the force ofparadox. It was a
mode ofvoice inscription at once permanent and mutable, repeating past
moments exactlyyet also permittingpresent interventions that radicallyaltered
its form and meaning. These interventions could, moreover, be done
at home by anyone who had the appropriate equipment. Whereas the
phonograph produced objects that could be consumed onlyin their manufactured
form, magnetic tape allowed the consumer to be a producer as
well. The switches activating the powerful and paradoxical technoconceptual
actors ofrepetition and mutation, presence and absence, were in the
hands ofthe masses, at least the masses who could afford the equipment.
The paradoxical qualities that magnetic tape was perceived to have in
the late 1950swere forcefully expressedby RoyWalker, involvedin making
tape-recordings for the BBC during this period. "Anyone who has made a
BBC recording and been in on the editing session may emerge feeling that
he can no longer call himselfhis own. Cuts and transpositions can be and
are made. Halves of sentences spoken at different times can be amalgamated
to let a speaker hear himself say the opposite ofwhat he knows he
said. Hearingoneselfsaysomethingand continuewith something else said
half an hour earlier can be peculiarly disconcerting. You might have the
feeling that ifyou went quickly out ofthe studio you might catch yourself
comingin."32 Hislanguagelocates the disconcertingeffectbothin the time
delay ("sentences spoken at different times can be amalgamated") and in
the disjunction between voice and presence ("he can no longer call himself
his own"). When these qualities ofaudiotape were enacted within literary
productions, a complex interplay was set up between representational
codes and the specificities of the technology. When voice was displaced
onto tape, the body metonymicallyparticipatedin the transformations that
The Materiality of Informatics / 211
voice underwent in this medium. For certain texts after 1950, the body became
a tape-recorder.
When Burroughs wrote The Ticket That Exploded, he took seriously the
possibilities for the metonymic equation between tape-recorder and
body..33 He reasoned that ifthe bodycan become a tape-recorder, the voice
can be understood not as a naturalized union ofvoice and presence but as a
mechanical production with the frightening ability to appropriate the
body's vocal apparatus and use it for ends alien to the self. "Theword is now
avirus" (TTE, p. 49), the narrator says in a phrase indebted to the Buddhistinspired
idea that one's sense ofselfhood is maintained through an internal
monologue, which is nothing other than the story the selftells to assure itselfthat
it exists.34 'Woven into this monologue are the fictions that society
wants its members to believe; the monologue enacts self-discipline as well
as self-creation. Burroughs proposes to stop the interior monologue by
making it external and mechanical, recording it on tape and subjecting the
recording to various manipulations. "Communication must become total
and conscious before we can stop it," the narrator asserts (TTE, p..51). Yet
splicing tape is far from innocuous. Once someone's vocalizations and body
sounds are spliced into someone else's, the effects can feed back into the
bodies, setting off a riot of mutations. The tape-recorder acts both as
a metaphor for these mutations and as the instrumentality that brings
them about. The taped body can separate at the vertical "divide line,"
grotesquely becoming half one person and half another, as if it were tape
splicedlength\vise. In a disturbingly literal sense, the tape-recorder becomes
a two-edged sword, cutting through bodies as well as through the
programs that control and discipline them.
In The Ticket That Exploded, the body is a site for contestation and
resistance on many levels, as metaphor, as physical reality, as linguistic construct,
and last but hardly least, as tape-recorder. The tape-recorder is central
to understanding Burroughs's vision ofhow the politics ofco-optation
work. Entwined into human flesh are "pre-recordings" that function as
parasites ready to take over the organism. These "pre-recordings" may be
thought ofas social conditioning, for example an "American upper middleclass
upbringing with maximum sexual frustration and humiliations
imposed by Middle-Western matriarchs" (TTE, p. 139), which not coincidentally
matches Burroughs'S own experience. A strong sense of sexual
nausea pervades the text, and sexuality is another manifestation of prerecording.
Parodically rewriting the fable in Plato's Symposium about the
spherical beings who were cut in halfto make humans, the narrator asserts:
"All human sex is this unsanitary arrangement whereby two entities at-
212 / Chapter Eight
tempt to occupy the same three-dimensional coordinate points giving rise
to the sordid latrine brawls.... Itwill be readilyunderstandable that aprogram
of systematic frustration was necessary in order to sell this crock of
sewage as Immortality, and Garden ofDelights, and love" (TTE, p. 52).
The idea oftwo entities trying to occupy the same space is further reinforced
bythe vertical"divide line" crossingthe body, the phYSicallymarked
line in bone, muscle, and skin where the neural canal ofthe month-old fetus
closes to create the beginnings ofthe torso.35 The early point at which
the "divide line" is imprinted on human flesh suggests how deeply implicated
into the organism are the prerecordings that socialize it into community
norms. In one scene the narrator sees his body"on the operating table
split down the middle," while a "doctor with forceps was extracting crab
parasites from his brain and spine-and squeezing green fish paraSites
from the separated flesh." "My God what a mess," the doctor exclaims.
"The difficulty is with two halves-other parasites will invade sooner or
later.... Sewhim up nurse" (TTE, p. 85). As the doctorintimates, the body
is always alreadyfallen. Dividedwithin itselfrather than an organic unity, it
is subject to occupation and expropriation by a variety of parasitic forms,
both cultural and physical.
Chief among these parasitic forms is "the word." It is a truism in contemporary
theory that discursive formations can have material effects in
the physicalworld. Without having read Foucault and Derrida, Burroughs
came to similar conclusions a decade earlier, imagining "the word" as the
body's "Other Half." The narrator stated: "Word is an organism. The presence
ofthe 'Other Half' a separate organism attached to your nervous system
on an air line ofwords can nowbe demonstrated experimentally." The
experiments to which the narrator alludes were performed by, among others,
John Cunningham Lilly, who in the late 1950s and 1960s used isolation
tanks to test the malleability ofhuman perception.36 The experiments required
subjects to enter a dark tank and to float, cut offfrom all sensoryinput,
in water kept at body temperature. The narrator mentions that a
common "hallucination"ofsubjects in sensewithdrawal was "the feeling of
another body sprawled through the subject's bodyat an angle" (TTE p. 49).
"Yes quite an angle," the narrator ironically remarks, identifYing the sensation
as the subject's perception of his "other half,'" the word virus that
invades the organism until it seems as intrinsic to the body as flesh and
bone.
For the narrator, the proofofthis parasitic invasion and infection is the
interior monologue we all experience. "Modem man has lost the option of
silence," he asserts. "Try to achieve even ten seconds ofinner silence. You
The Materiality of Informatics / 213
will encounter a resisting organism thatforces you to talk. That organism is
the word" (TTE, pp. 49-50). Burroughs's project is to offer the reader as
manyways as he can imagine to stop the monologue, to rewrite orerase the
"pre-recordings," and to extricate the subject from the parasitic invasion of
the "Other Half." Tape-recorders are central to this project; "it's all done
with tape recorders," the narrator comments (TTE, p.162). One strategyis
to "externalize dialogue" by getting "it out of your head and into the machines"
(TTE, p. 163). He suggests thatthe reader recordthe last argument
the readerhadwith aboyfriendorgirlfriend, puttingthe reader's side ofthe
argument on one recorder and the friend's side on the other. Then the two
recorders can argue with each other, leaving the human participants free to
stop replaying the conversation in their heads and get on with their lives.
The narrator also suggests recording random sounds on a third machinesnippets
from a news broadcast, say-and mixing them in too. The intrusion
of the random element is significant; it aims to break the reader not
only out ofpersonal obsessions but also out ofthe surrounding, culturally
constructed envelope ofsounds and words. "Wittgenstein said: 'No proposition
can contain itselfas an argument,'" the narrator remarks, interpreting
this as follows: "The only thing not prerecorded in a prerecorded
universe is the prerecording itselfwhich is to say any recording that contains
a random factor" (TTE, p.166).
The intrusion of randomness is important in another way as well, for
Burroughs is acutely aware ofthe danger that he might, through his words,
spread the viral infection he is trying to combat. It is important, therefore,
that disruptive techniques be instantiated within the text's own language.
These techniques range from his famous use of the "cut-up," where he
phYSicallycuts up previouslywritten narratives and arbitrarilysplices them
together, to more subtle methods such as shifting between different linguistic
registers without transition or explanation.37 Perhaps the single
most important device is the insistent pressure to take metaphors
literally-or put another way, to erase the distinction between words and
things. Language is not merely like a virus; it is a virus, replicating through
the host to become visible as green fish in the flesh and crab parasites tearing
at the base ofthe spine and brain. In Burroughs, the material effects of
language do not needto be mediated throughphysicaldiSCipline to re-form
the body, for example throughthe prescribed postures and gestures usedto
teach penmanship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With a
writer's license, he makes language erupt directly into the body. The body
itself, moreover, is treated as ifit phYSically were a recorder, regulated by
the principles that govern magnetic tape in its reproduction, erasure, and
214 I Chapter Eight
reconfiguration. Here, within the represented world of the text, techniques
ofinscription merge withincorporated practices in a cyborgconfiguration
of explosive potential. The double edge of this potential is not
difficult to understand, for the reifYing and infective powerofwords can be
defused onlythrough otherwords, whichcan always tum againsttheir master
and become infectious in tum. Making the word flesh is both how the
virus infects andhowthe vaccine disinfects. In eithercase, the flesh will not
continue unchanged.
The pressure toward literalization can be seen in the narrative sections
that use the conventions ofscience fiction to figure the invasion ofthe word
as a physical operation (early on the narrator announces, "I am reading a
science fiction bookcalled The Ticket That Exploded" [TTE, p. 5]). On this
track, Earth has been invaded by the alien Nova mob, so-called because
theirstrategyis to drive the planetto extreme chaos or"nova." The mob includes
such creatures as heavy-metal addicts from Uranus, sex addicts
from Venus, and other parasitic organisms that can occupy human flesh.
"Nova criminals are not three-dimensional organisms-(though they are
quite definite organisms as we shall see)-but they need three-dimensional
human agents to operate" (TTE, p. 57). A single parasitic alien can
take over hundreds ofhumans, stringing together its hosts to form rows of
"coordinate points," analogous to lines of print or to phonemes subordinated
through grammarandsyntax. The reputedleaderofthe mob is an appropriately
bimorphic creature called variously "Mr Bradly Mr Martin,"
"Mr and Mrs D," or simply "the Ugly spirit." In this instantiation of the
"Other Half," the word itselfis split down the middle.
A counterinvasion has been staged by the Nova police, whose weapons
include radio static, "camera guns" that destabilize images by vibrating
them at supersonic speeds, and ofcourse tape-recorders. Recruiting "Mr.
Lee" (this pseudonym used often by Burroughs was his mother's maiden
name), the district supervisor tells Mr. Lee that he will receive his instructions
"from books, street signs, films, in some cases from agents who purport
to be and may actually be members ofthe organization. There is no
certainty. Those who need certainty are of no interest to this department.
This is in point offact a non-organization the aim ofwhich is to immunize
our agents against fear despair and death. We intend to break the birthdeath
cycle" (TTE, p. 10). One of the criminals the department seeks is
JohnnyYen, whose name suggests sexualdesire. "Deathis orgasmis rebirth
is death in orgasm is their unsanitary Venusian gimmick is the whole birth
death cycle ofaction," the narratorexplains. He proceeds, apparentlyexasperated,
to make his point even more obvious. "You got it?-Now do you
The Materiality of Informatics I 215
understandwho JohnnyYenis?-The Boy-Girl Other Halfstrip tease God
ofsexual frustration-Errand boyfrom the death trauma" (TTE, p. 53).
On this track, the action can be read as a physical contest between the
Nova mob and the Nova police, as when a police operative from Minraud
blows a mob crab guard into smithereens. But ifthe word is a parasite with
materialeffects, the distinction between metaphorand actuality, representation
and reality, is moot. Thus another strategy of resistance is the
"Rewrite Room," the space from which comes the expose ofJohnny Yen
citedabove. JohnnyYen is notblownawaybut ratheris rewritten to become
a rather enchanting green fish boy, an amphibious life-form (a benign bimorphic
creature) living in the canals and mating with Ali the street boyin
anonhuman life cycle that destabilizes the human sense ofwhatconstitutes
the body, life, and death. The crisis of mutation, the recognition that pattern
is always already penetrated by randomness, is here associated with a
form ofembodiment that moves through a froth ofnoise as easily as a fish
through water.
For human subjects, however, this destabilization is bound to be threatening
rather than simply liberating, for the narrative attempts to put into
playall theboundaries that define humansubjectivity. Bodyboundaries are
often literally diSintegrated, for example by the Sex Skin, an organism that
surrounds its victims with a second skin that gives its victims intense sexual
pleasure while dissolving and ingesting them. Positioned against the clear
threat ofthis kind ofsexual delirium are tape-recorders, potentiallyliberating
but also not without danger. Recording one's body sounds and splicing
them into someone else's can free one from the illusion that body sounds
cannot exist apart from the interior monologue. But just as Burroughs's
words can become parasitic ifnot self-disrupted, so these sounds have the
potential to constitute a parasitic monologue in tum. According to the narrator,
the splicing produces a strong erotic reaction. Ifit is expressed in actualsexualcontact"itacts
as an aphrodisiac ... nothing more.... Butwhen
a susceptible subjectis spliced inwith someonewho is notthere then it acts
as a destructive virus," ironically becoming the phenomenon it was meant
to counteract (TTE, p. 20).
As well as disruptingwords audiblypresent, Burroughswants to createor
expose-new ones from the substrata of the medium itself. He describes
experiments based on "inching tape.," manually rubbing the tape
back and forth across the head at varying speeds. "Such exercises bringyou
a liberation from old association locks ... you will hearwords thatwere not
in the original recording newwords made by the machine different people
will scan out different words of course but some of the words are quite
216 I Chapter Eight
clearly there." The technique gives new meaning to Marshall McLuhan's
aphorism "The medium is the message," for itis "as ifthe words themselves
had been interrogated and forced to reveal their hidden meanings it is interesting
to record these words literally made bythe machine itself" (TTE,
p. 206). Here Burroughs envisions incorporating practices that can produce
inscriptionswithout the mediation ofconsciousness.
He actually performed the tape-recorder experiments he describes
from the late 1950s through the late 1970s. He inched tape to create, as he
heard it, new words; he recorded radio broadcasts and spliced the tape to
achieve an aural "cut-up"; and he held the microphone to the base of his
throat andtriedto recordhis own subvocal speech. As ifanticipatingChristian
fundamentalists who hear Satanic messages hidden in records and
tapes (people whose sensibilities he would no doubt enjoy outraging), he
also read from his books, including The Nova Express and The Ticket That
Exploded, and spliced the readings in with music played backward. The
recordings have been preserved, and some of this archival material has
been collected in a phonograph album entitled "Nothing Here Now but
the Recordings."38 Late one night I traveled to the music libraryat the University
ofCalifornia at San Diego to listen to the album. Even though the
experience of sitting in the nearly deserted high-tech facility, insulated
from exterior sound, was eerily conducive to hearing the words that
Burroughs claims are there, some ofthe passages are clearly ofhistoric interest
only. In particular, the section that records subvocal speech is virtually
unintelligible as patterned sound. Perhaps paradOxically, I found the
recording less forceful as a demonstration ofBurroughs's theories than his
writing. For me, the auralityofhis prose elicits a greater response than the
machine productions it describes and instantiates.
The power ofthat writing is evident in the "writing machine" section of
The Ticket That Exploded. The narrator describes an "Exhibition," which
includes "a room with metal walls magnetic mobiles under flickering blue
light and smell ofozone" (TTE, p. 62). The room is situated, ofcourse, inside
a tape-recorder. Normally, narrative fiction leaps over the technologies
(printing press, paper, ink) that produce it and represents the external
world as ifthis act ofrepresentation did not require a material basis for its
production. Burroughs turns this convention inside out, locating the "external"
worldinside the technolOgical artifact. The move constructs a completely
different relation between fiction and the material means of its
production, constitutingthe technologyas the groundoutofwhich the narrative
action evolves. This technique hints thatthe technologyis not merely
a medium to represent thoughts that alreadyexist butis itselfcapable ofdy-
The Materiality of Informatics / 217
namic interactions producing the thoughts it describes. At issue, then, is
the technology not only as a theme but as an articulation capable of producing
new kinds ofsubjectivities.
The tape-recording qualities important in the Exhibition are the twin
and somewhat contradictory powers of inscription and mutation. Unlike
marks on paper, this writing can eaSily be erased and rewritten in other
forms. As spectators clink through turnstiles of the Exhibition, "great
sheets of magnetized print held color and disintegrated in cold mineral silence
as word dust falls from demagnetized patterns" (TTE, p. 62). The description
points to the attraction the recorder has for Burroughs. Sound,
unlike print, dies away unless it is constantly renewed. Its ephemerality
calls forth a double response that finds material expression in the technology.
On the one hand, magnetic tape allows sound to be preserved over
time; in this respect it counters the ephemerality ofsound by transforming
it into inscription. On the other hand, inscriptions can be easily erased and
reconfigured; in this sense, it reproduces the impermanence of sound.
Burroughs was drawn to both aspects ofthe technology. The inscription of
sound in a durable medium suited his belief that the word is material,
whereas the malleability ofsound meant that interventions were possible,
interventions that could radically change or eradicate the record.
At the Exhibition, language is inscribed through "word dust" that falls
from the walls as pervasively as smog particlles from the Los Angeles sky.
Anticipating videotape, Burroughs imagines that "picture dust" also falls
from the walls. "Photomontage fragments backed with iron stuck to patterns
and fell in swirls mixing with color dust to form new patterns, shimmering,
falling, magnetized, demagnetized to the flicker ofblue cylinders
pulsing neon tubes and globes" (TTE, pp. 62-63). When the Nova police
counterinvade the planet, "falling" phrases repeatedly appear, as if they
were news bulletins read over and over on the radio: "Word falling-Photo
falling-Time falling-Break through in Grey Room"; "Shift lingualsCut
word lines-Vibrate tourists-Free Doorways-Pinball led streetsWord
falling-Photo falling-Break through in Grey Room-Towers,
open fire" (TTE, p. 104); "cut all tape"; "Break through in Grey Room'Love'
is falling-Sex word is falling-Break photograph-Shift body
halves" (TTE, p. 105). The "Grey Room" evidently refers to the mob's communication
and control center, perhaps the "board room" where, the narrator
tells us, multinationals plot to take over outer and inner space.
In opposition to the linear centralized control ofthe "Grey Room" is the
chaotic recursivity of the Exhibition. Here there is no clear line between
those who act and those who are acted upon. The traffic flow through the
218 / Chapter Eight
room is structured like a recursive loop. As the spectators pass, they are
recorded "by a battery oftape-recorders recording and playing back moving
on conveyor belts and tracks and cable cars spilling the talk and metal
music fountains and speech as the recorders moved from one exhibit to another."
The narrator remarks parenthetically, "Since the recorders and
movies ofthe exhibition are in constant operation itwill be readily seen that
any spectator appears on the screen sooner or later ifnot today then yesterday
or tomorrow" (TTE, p. 64). Thus spectators move along within the
room, hearing andwatching recordings ofthemselves as the recordings are
played back from machines that are also moving along a conveyor belt.
Their reactions as they hear and watch are also recorded in turn by other
machines, creating an infinite regress in which body and tape, recording
and voice, image and Sight, endlessly reproduce each other. Within this
world, it makes aweird kind ofsense for bodies to mutate as easilyas spliced
tape, for the distinction between reality and representation has been
largely deconstructed. "Characters walk in and out ofscreen flickering different
films on and off' (TTE, p. 64); bodies split in halflengthwise; screens
show two films simultaneously, halfofone on one side, halfofthe other on
the other side; awriting machine "shifts one halfone text and halfthe other
through a page frame on conveyor belts" (TTE, p. 65). Inscriptions, bodies,
sounds, and images all follow the same dynamics and the same logic of
splices running lengthwise to create mutated posthuman forms that both
express and strive to escape from the conditioning that makes them into
split beings.
In a wonderfully oxymoronic phrase, Burroughs calls the place where
culture produces its replicatingsound and image tracks the "realitystudio."
"Clearlyno portentous exciting events are about to transpire," the narrator
says, implicitly mocking the melodrama ofhis own space-alien track. "You
will readilyunderstandwhypeople will go to anylengths to getin the film to
cover themselves with any old film scrap ... anything to avoid the hopeless
dead-end horror ofbeing just who and where you all are: dying animals on
a doomed planet." Connecting capitalist finanCing with cultural productions
(as if remembering the American Telegraphone Company), he continues:
"The film stock issued now isn't worth the celluloid its [sic] printed
on. There is nothing to back it up. The film bank is empty. To conceal the
bankruptcy ofthe reality studio it is essential that no one should be in position
to set up another reality set. ... Work for the reality studio or else. Or
else you will find out how it feels to be outside thefilm" (TTE, p. 151).
As the text draws to a close, the narrator directs the reader's attention to
the possibility that the reality studio may indeed be closing down and that
The Materiality of Informatics / 219
the reader will therefore shortly be outside the film, off the recording. A
similar message is given in a different medium, when at the end of the
penultimate section, the printofthe text is dislUptedbyseverallines ofcursive
script, English alternating with Arabic. Each line lUns through a permutation
of "To say good by silence," with the lines gradually becoming
more random and indecipherable as they proceed down the page (TTE,
p. 203) Perhaps Burroughs is trying to prepare the reader for the panic that
sets in when the interior monologue is dislUpted and, for the first time in
one's life, one hears silence instead of language. For whatever reason, he
takes extraordinarycare to achieve a feeling ofclosure unusual in his works
from this period. Comparedwith Naked Lunch, the ending here is formally
elaborate and thematicallyconclusive.
Echoing The Tempest, the text as it winds down splices in dialogue from
Shakespeare's play with visions of contemporary technologies. "i foretold
you were all spirits watchingTVprogram-Terminal electricvoices endThese
ouractors cutin-Afew seconds lateryou are meltedinto air-Rub
out promised by our ever-living poet-Mr Bradly Mr Martin, five times
oursummons-no shelterin settingforth" (TTE, p. 174). The splices invite
the reader to tease out resonances between the two works. Whereas insect
imagery predominates in Naked Lunch, in Ticket the usual form ofnonhuman
life is aquatic or amphibian, recalling Caliban's characterization as a
"fishy monster." Prospero conjures spirits from the air, and yet his magic
has a terrible materiality; he can, we are told, raise bodies from the dead.
Most ofall he is asupreme technician, blendingillusionwith realityso skillfully
that his art can effect changes in the real world. Burroughs aims for
nothingless, using language to dislUpt the viral poweroftheword, creating
recordings to stop the playbacks that imprison our future in the sounds of
our past. Ifthe tape-recorder is, as Paul Bowles called it, "God's little toy,"
The Ticket That Exploded is the tape that reveals this god-machine's lifetransforming
possibilities (Bowles quoted in TTE, p.166).
'Whatwe see is dictated bywhat we hear," the narrator ofTicket asserts
(TTE, p. 168). There is considerable anecdotal evidence to support his
claim. Whereas Sight is always focused, sharp, and delineated, sound envelopes
the body, as ifit were an atmosphere to be experienced rather than
an object to be dissected. Perhaps that is why researchers in virtual reality
have found that sound is much more effective than sight in imparting emotional
tonalities to theirsimulatedworlds.39 Theirexperiences suggest that
voice is associated with presence not only because it comes from within
the body but also because it conveys new information about the subject,
information that goes deeper than analytical thought or conscious inten-
220 I Chapter Eight
tion. Manipulating sound through tape-recorders thus becomes a way
ofproducing a new kind ofsubjectivity that strikes at the deepest levels of
awareness. If we were to trace the trajectory suggested here to the end
ofthe periodwhen audiotape held sway, it would lead to texts such as C. J.
Cherryh's Cyteen trilogy, where the body has become a corporate product
molded by "taking tape," that is, listening to conditioning tapes that lay the
foundation for the subject's "psychset." Burroughs anticipates Cherryh's
implication that the voice issuing from the tape-recorder sounds finally not
so much postmodern as it does posthuman.
Where hope exists in Ticket, it appears as posthuman mutations like the
fish boy, whose fluidity perhaps figures a type ofsubjectivity attuned to the
froth ofnoise rather than the stabilityofa false self, living an embodied life
beyondhumanconsciousness as we knowit. Butthis is mereconjecture, for
any representation ofthe internal life ofthe fish boycould be done only in
words, which would infect and destroy exactly the transformation they
were attemptingto describe. For Burroughs, the emphasis remains on subversion
and disruption ratherthan creative rearticulation. Even subversion
risks beingco-opted and taken overbythe viralword; itcan succeed onlyby
continuing to disrupt everything, includingits own priorwriting.
In this chapter, I have been concernedwith Burroughs's fictions not only
as harbingers of the posthuman but, more immediately, as sites where
body/embodiment and inscriptionlincorporation are in constant and
dynamiC interplay with one another. As we have seen, in the Exhibition,
inscriptions fall from the walls to become corporeal "word dust"; incorporations
are transformed into inscriptions through video- and audio-recording
devices; bodies understood as normative and essentialized entities are
rewritten to become particularized experiences ofembodiment; and embodied
experience is transformed, through the inscriptions of the taperecording,
back into essentialized manifestations of "the word." The
recursivities that entangle inscription with incorporation, the body with
embodiment, invite us to see these polarities not as static concepts but as
mutating surfaces that transform into one another, much like the Mobius
strip that Grosz imagines for her "volatile bodies." Starting from a model
emphasizingpolarities, then, we have moved toward avisionofinteractions
both pleasurable and dangerous, creatively dynamiC and explOSivelytrans-
formative.
It is no accident that recursive loops and reflexive strategies figure importantly
in these transformations, for Burroughs shared with Humberto
Maturana and Philip K. Dick an appreciation for how potently reflexivity
can destabilize objectivist assumptions. Whereas Maturana located reflex-
The Materiality of Informatics / 221
ivity in biolOgical processes and Dick placed it in psycholOgical dynamics,
Burroughs located it in a cybernetic fusion of language and technology.
Mutating into and out ofthe tape-recorder, the viral word reconfigures the
tape-recorder as a cybernetic technology capable ofradicallytransforming
bodies and subjectivities. As for the "external" world, where clear divisions
separate observer from system, human from technological artifact, Maturana,
Dick, and Burroughs agreed (although for different reasons) that
there is no there there. Whatever the limitations oftheirworks, theyshared
a realization that the observer cannot stand apart from the systems being
observed. In exploring how to integrate observer and world into a unified
field ofinteraction, they also realized that liberal humanism could not continue
to hold sway. Just as the tide ofposthumanism that Norbert Wiener
had struggled to contain could not be held back, neither could the technolOgical
advances in informatics, advances that would soon displace secondwave
issues with third-wave concerns.
... C.h.o.pr..e.r.. ..NI.n..e
NARRATIVES OF ARTIFICIAL LIFE
In contrast to the circular processes ofHumberto Maturana's autopoiesis,
the figure most apt to describe the third wave is a spiral. Whereas the second
wave is characterized by an attempt to include the observer in an account
of the system's functioning, in the third wave the emphasis falls on
getting the system to evolve in new directions. Self-organization is no
longerenough. The thirdwave wants to impartan upward tension to the recursive
loops ofself-organizing processes so that, like a spring compressed
and suddenly released, the processes break out of the pattern ofcircular
self-organization and leap outward into the new.
Just as Heinz von Foerster served as a transition figure between the first
and second waves, so Francisco Varela bridges the transition between the
second and third waves. We sawin chapter 6 that Maturana and Varela extended
the definition ofthe living to include artificial systems. After coauthoringThe
Embodied Mind, 1 Varela began to work in a new field known as
Artificial Life and coedited the papers from the first European conference
in that field. In the introduction to the conference volume, Toward a Practice
ofAutonomous Systems, he and his coauthor, Paul Bourgine, layout
their view ofwhat the field ofArtificial Life should be. They locate its origins
in cybernetics, referencing William Grey Walter's electronic tortoise
and Ross Ashby'S homeostat. Although some characteristics ofautopoiesis
are reinscribed on the successor field ofArtificial Life, especially the idea
that systems are operationallyclosed, otherfeatures are new. The change is
signaled in Varela's subtle reconception ofautonomy. He and his coauthor
wrote: "Autonomy in this context refers to [the living's] basic and fundamental
capacity to be, to assert their existence and bring forth a world that
is Significant and pertinent without being pre-digested in advance. Thus
the autonomy ofthe living is understood here both in regards to its actions
222
Narratives of Artificial Life / 223
and to the way it shapes a world into significance. This conceptual exploration
goes hand in hand with the design and construction ofautonomous
agents and suggests an enormous range of applications at all scales, from
cells to societies."2 For Maturana, "shap[ing] a world into significance"
meant that perception was linked primarily to internal processes rather
than external stimuli.3 We have seen the difficulties he had with evolution,
because he sought to put the emphasis instead on the organism's holistic
nature and autopoietic circularity. When Varela and his coauthor speak of
"shap[ing] a world into significance," the important point for them is that
the system's organization, far from remaining unchanged, can transform itself
through emergent behavior. The change is not so much an absolute
break, however, as a shift in emphasis and a corresponding transformation
in the kind ofquestions the research programs pose, as well as new strategies
for answering them. Thus the relation ofthe thirdwave to the secondis
again one ofseriation, an overlappingpattern ofreplication andinnovation.
The shift in questions and methodologies is not, ofcourse, neutral. For
researchers who come to the field from backgrounds in cognitive science
and computer science, rather than from autopoiesis as Varela does, the
underlying assumptions all too eaSilylend themselves to reinscribing a disembodied
view of information. But as Varela's presence in the field indicates,
not everyone who works in the field agrees that disembodied
"organisms" are the best way to construct Artificial Life. Just as there were
competing camps in the Macy Conferences-one arguing for a disembodiedviewofinformation
and one for acontextualized embodiedview-so in
Artificial Life some researchers concentrate on simulations, insisting that
embodiment is not necessary, whereas others argue that only embodied
forms can fully capture the richness ofan organism's interactions with the
environment. Our old friend the observer, who was at the center of the
epistemological revolution sparked by Maturana, in the thirdwave retreats
to the periphery, with a consequentloss ofthe sophistication that Maturana
brought to epistemological questions. The observer has, however, not altogether
vanished from the scene, remaining in the picture as narrator and
narratee ofstories about Artificial Life. To see howthe observer's presence
helps to construct the field, let us tum nowto considerthe strange flora and
fauna ofthe world ofArtificial Life.
The Nature and Artifice of Artificial Life
At the Fourth Conference on Artificial Life in the summer of1994, evolutionary
biolOgist Thomas S. Ray put forth two proposals.4 The first was a
224 I Chapter Nine
plan to preserve biodiversity in Costa Rican rain forests; the second was a
suggestion that Tierra, his software program creating Artificial Life-forms
inside a computer, be released on the Internet so that it could "breed" diverse
species on computers allover the world. Raysawthe two proposals as
complementary. The first aimed to extend biological diversity for proteinbased
life-forms; the second sought the same for silicon-based life-forms.
Theirjuxtapositiondramaticallyillustratesthe reconstruction ofnature going
on in the field ofArtificial Life, affectionatelyknownbyits practitioners
as AL. "The object ofan AL instantiation," Ray wrote recently, "is to introduce
the natural form and process oflife into an artificial medium."5 The
lines startle. In Ray's rhetoric, the computer codes composing these "creatures"
become natural forms oflife; only the medium is artificial.
How is it possible in the late twentieth century to believe, or at least
claim to believe, that computercodes are alive-and not onlyalive but natural?The
question is difficult to answer directly, for itinvolves assumptions
that are not explicitly articulated. Moreover, these presuppositions do not
stand by themselves but move in dynamic interplay with other formulations
and ideas circulatingthroughout the culture. In view ofthis complexity,
the subject is perhaps best approached through indirection, bylooking
not only at the scientific content ofthe programs but also at the stories told
about and through them. These stories, I will argue, constitute a multilayered
system of metaphOriC and material relays through which "life," "nature,"
and the "human" are being redefined.
The first level of narrative with which I will be concerned is the Tierra
program and various representations of it written by Ray and others. In
these representations, authorial intention, anthropomorphic interpretation,
and the operations ofthe program are so interwoven that it is impossible
to separatethem. As a result, the program operates as muchwithin the
imagination as it does within the computer. The second level of narrative
focuses on the arguments and rhetorical strategies that AL practitioners
use as they seek to position Artificial Life as a valid area ofresearch within
theoretical biology. This involves telling a story about the state ofthe field
and the contributions that AL can make. As we shall see, the second-level
story quickly moves beyond purely profeSSional considerations, evoking a
larger narrative about the kinds oflife that have emerged, and are emerging,
on Earth. The narrative about the present and future ofterrestrial evolution
forms the third level. It is constituted through speculations on the
relation of human beings to their silicon cousins, the "creatures" who live
inside the computer. Here, at the third level, the implication of the observer
in the construction of all three narratives becomes explicit. To in-
Narratives of Arrificial Life I 225
terrogate how this complex narrative field is initiated, developed, and interpolated
with other cultural narratives, let us begin at the first level, with
an explanation ofthe Tierra program.
Conventionally, Artificial Life is divided into three research fronts.
Wetware is the attempt to create artificial biolOgical life through such techniques
as building components of unicellular organisms in test tubes.
Hardware is the construction of robots and other embodied life-forms.
Software is the creation ofcomputer programs instantiating emergent or
evolutionaryprocesses. Although each ofthese areas has its distinctive emphases
and research agendas, they all share the sense ofbuilding life from
the "bottom up." In the software branch, with which I am concerned here,
the idea is to begin with a few simple local rules and then, through structures
that are highly recursive, allow complexity to emerge spontaneously.
Emergence implies that properties orprograms appear on their own, often
developing in ways not anticipated by the person who created the simulation.
Structures that lead to emergence typicallyinvolve complexfeedback
loops in which the outputs ofa system are repeatedly fed back in as input.
As the recursive looping continues, small deviations can quickly become
magnified, leading to the complex interactions and unpredictable evolutions
associated with emergence.6
Even granting emergence, it is still a longjump from programs that replicate
inside a computer to living organisms. This gap is bridged largely
through narratives that map the programs into evolutionary scenarios traditionally
associated with the behavior ofliving creatures. The narratives
translate the operations of computer codes into biolOgical analogues that
make sense ofthe program logiC. In the process, the narratives alter the binaryoperations
that, on aphysical level, amount to changingelectronic polarities,
transforming the binary operations into the high drama of a
Darwinian struggle for survival and reproduction. To see this transformation
in action, consider the follOwing account of the Tierra program. This
account is compiled from Thomas Ray's published articles and unpublished
working papers, from conversations I had with him about his program,
and from public lectures he has given on the topic.7
When I visited Ray at the Santa Fe Institute, he talked about the genesis
ofTierra. Frustratedwith the slow pace ofnatural evolution, he wondered
ifit would be possible to speed things up bycreating evolvable artificial organisms
within the computer. One of the first challenges he faced was designing
programs robust enough to withstand mutation without crashing.
To induce robustness, he conceived of bUilding inside the regular computera"virtualcomputer"
made outofsoftware. Whereas the regular com-
226 / Chapter Nine
puteruses memoryaddresses to find data and execute instructions, the virtual
computer uses a technique Ray calls "address bytemplate." Taking its
cue from the topological matching ofDNA bases, in which one base finds
its appropriate partner bydiffusing through the medium until itlocates another
base with a surface it can fit into like a keyinto a lock, address bytemplate
matches one code segment to another by looking for its binary
inverse. For example, ifan instruction is written in binary code 1001, the
virtual computersearches nearbymemoryto find amatching segmentwith
the code 0110. The strategy has the advantage ofcreating a container that
holds the organisms and renders them incapable ofreplicating outside the
virtual computer, for the address by template operation can occur only
within avirtual computer. Presentedwith a string such as 0110, the regular
computerwould read it as data rather than instructions to replicate.
Species diversifY and evolve through mutation. To introduce mutation,
Ray created the equivalent ofcosmic rays by having the program flip the
polarity of a bit once in every 10,000 executed instructions. In addition,
replication errors occur about once in every 1,000 to 2,500 instructions
copied, introducing another source ofmutation. Other differences spring
from an effect Ray calls "sloppy reproduction," analogous to the genetic
mixingthat occurswhen abacterium absorbs fragments ofadead organism
nearby. To control the number of organisms, Ray introduced a program
that he calls the "reaper." The "reaper" monitors the population and eliminates
the oldest creatures and those who are "defective," that is, those who
have most frequently erred in executing their programs. Ifa creature finds
a way to replicate more efficiently, it is rewarded by being moved down in
the reaper's queue and so becomes "younger."
The virtual computer starts the evolutionary process by allocating a
block of memory that Ray calls the "soup," an analogy with the primeval
soup at the beginning oflife on Earth. Unleashed inside the soup are selfreplicating
programs, normally starting with a Single 80-byte creature
called the "ancestor." The ancestor comprises three segments. The first
segment counts the instructions to see howlong the ancestor is (this procedure
ensures that the length can change without throwing off the reproductive
process); the second segment reserves that much space in nearby
memory, puttingaprotective membrane aroundthe space (ananalogywith
the membranes that enclose living organisms); and the third segment
copies the ancestor's code into the reserved space, thus completing the reproduction
and creating a "daughter cell" from the "mother cell." To see
how mutation leads to new species, considerthat abit flip occurs in the last
line of the first segment, changing 1100 to 1110. Normally the program
Narratives of Artificial Life / 227
would find the second segmentbysearchingfor its first line, encoded0011.
Now, however, the program searches until it finds a segment starting with
0001. Thus it goes not to its own second segment but to another string of
code in nearby memory. Many mutations are not viable and do not lead to
reproduction. Occasionally, however, the program finds a segment that
starts with 0001 and that will allow it to reproduce. Then a new species is
created, as this organism begins producing of£~pring.
When Ray set his program running overnight, he thought he would be
lucky to get a 1- or 2-byte variation from the 80-byte ancestor. Checking it
the next morning, he found that an entire ecology had evolved, including
one 22-byte organism. Among the mutants were parasites that had lost
their own copying instructions but had developed the ability to invade a
host and hijack its copying procedure. One 45-byte parasite had evolved
into a benign relationship with the ancestor; others were destructive,
crowding out the ancestor with their own offspring. Later runs ofthe program
saw the development of hyperparasites, which had evolved ways to
compete for time as well as memory. Computertime is doled out equallyto
each organism bya"slicer"that determineswhen the organism can execute
its program. Hyperparasites wait for parasites to invade them. Then, when
the parasite attempts to reproduce using the hyperparasite's copy procedure,
the hyperparasite directs the program to its own third segment instead
ofreturning the program to the parasite's ending segment. Thus the
hyperparasite's code is copied on the parasite's time. In this way the hyperparasite
greatly multiplies the time it has for reproduction, for in effect it
appropriates the parasite's time for its own.
This, then, is the first-level narrative about the program. It appears with
minor variations in Ray's articles and lectures. It is also told in the Santa Fe
Institute videotape "Simple Rules ... Complex Behavior," in which
Ray collaborated with a graphiC artist to create a visual representation of
Tierra, accompanied by his voiceover.8 Ifwe ask how this narrative is constituted,we
can see that statements about the operation ofthe program and
interpretations ofits meaning are in continuous interplay with each other.
Consider the analogies implicit in such terms as "mother cell," "daughter
cell," "ancestor," "parasite," and "hyperparasite." The terms do more than
set up parallels with living systems; they also reveal Ray's intention in creating
an appropriate environmentinwhich the dynamiC emergence ofevolutionary
processes could take off. In this respect, Ray's rhetoric is quite
different from that of Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, a work also
deeply informed by anthropomorphic constructions? Dawkins's rhetoric
attributes to genes human agency and intention, creating a narrative ofhu-
228 I Chapter Nine
manlike struggle for lineage. In his construction, Dawkins overlays onto
the genes the strategies, emotions, and outcomes that properly belong to
the human domain. Ray, by contrast, is working with artificial systems designed
by humans precisely so the "creatures" would be able to manifest
these qualities. This is the primary reason why explanation and interpretation
are inextricablyentwined in the first-level narrative. Ray's biomorphic
namings and interpretations function not so much as an overlayas an explication
ofan intention that was there at the beginning. Analogy is not incidental
or belated but is central to the program's artifactual design.
Important as analogy is, it is not the whole story. The narrative's compellingeffect
comes not onlyfrom analogical naming butalso from images.
In rhetorical analysis, ofcourse, "image" can mean either an actual picture
or a verbal formulation capable of evoking a mental picture. Whether an
image is avisualization orvisuallyevocative language, it is apowerful mode
ofcommunication because it draws on the high density ofinformation that
images convey. Visualization andvisuallyevocative language collaborate in
the videotape that the Santa Fe Institute made to publicize its work. As the
narrative about Tierra begins, the camera flies over a scene representing
the inside ofa computer. This stylized landscape is dominated by a blocklike
structure representing the CPU (Central Processing Unit) and dotted
with smaller upright rectangles representing other integrated circuits.
Then the camera zooms into the CPU, where we see a grid upon which the
"creatures" appear and begin to reproduce. Theyare imaged as solid polygons
strung together to form three sections, representing the three segments
of code. Let us linger at this scene and consider how it has been
constructed. The pastorallandscape uponwhich the "creatures" are visualized
instantiates a transformation characteristic of the new information
technologies and the narratives that surround them. Amaterial object (the
computer) has beentranslatedinto the functions itperforms (the programs
it executes), whichin tum have been representedinvisual codes familiar to
the viewer (the bodies of the "creatures"). The path can be represented
schematically as material base -7 functionality -7 representational code.
This kind oftransformation is extremelywidespread, appearing in popular
venues as well as in scientific applications. It is used byWilliam Gibson in
Neuromancer, for example, when he represents the data arrays ofa global
informational network as solid polygons in a three-dimensional space that
his protagonist, transformed into a point of view, or pov, can navigate as
though flying through the atmosphere.lO The schematic operates in remarkably
similar fashion in the video, where we become a disembodied
povflying over the lifeworldofthe "creatures," aworldcomfortinglyfamil-
Narrarives of Arrificial Life / 229
iar in its three-dimensional spaces and rules of operation. Whereas the
CPU landscape corresponds to the computer's interior architecture, however,
the lifeworld ofthe"creatures" does not. The seamless transition between
the two elides the difference between the material space that is
inside the computer and the imagined space that, in actuality, consists of
computer addresses and electronic polarities on the computer disk.
To explore how these images work to encode assumptions, consider the
bodies ofthe "creatures,"which resemble stylizedants. In the program, the
"creatures"have bodies onlyin a metaphoriC sense, as Rayrecognizes when
he talks abouttheir bodies ofinformation (itselfan analogy).D These bodies
ofinformation are not, as the expression might be taken to imply, phenotypic
expressions of informational codes. Rather, the "creatures" are
their codes. For them, genotype and phenotype amount to the same thing;
the organism is the code, and the code is the organism. By representing
them as phenotypes, visuallybygiving them three-dimensional bodies and
verbally by calling them "ancestors," "parasites," and such, Ray elides the
difference between behavior, properly restricted to an organism, and execution
of a code, applicable to the informational domain. In the process,
our assumptions about behavior, in particular our thinking ofit as independent
action undertaken by purposive agents, are transported into the
narrative.
Further encoding takes place in the plot. Narrative tells a story, and intrinsic
to story is chronology, intention, and causality. In Tierra, the narrative
is constituted through the emerging story of the struggle of the
"creatures" for survival and reproduction. More than an analogy or an image,
this is a drama that, ifpresented in a different medium, one would not
hesitate to identify as an epic. Like an epic, it portrays life on a grand scale,
depicting the rise and fall of races, some doomed and some triumphant,
and recording the strategies they invent as they play for the high stakes of
establishinga lineage. The epic nature ofthe narrative is even more explicit
in Ray's plans to develop a global ecology for Tierra. In his proposal to create
a digital "biodiversity reserve," the ideais to release the Tierra program
on the Internet so that it can run in background on computers across the
globe. Each site will develop its own microecology. Because background
programs run when demands on the computer are at a minimum, the programs
will normally be executed late at night, when most users are in bed.
Humans are active while the "creatures" are dormant; the "creatures"
evolve while we sleep. Ray points out that someone monitoring activity in
Tierra programs would therefore see it as a moving wave that follows darkfall
around the world. Linking the evolution of the "creatures" to the hu-
230 / Chapter Nine
man world in a complementary diurnal rhythm, the proposal edges toward
a larger narrative level that interpolates their story into ours, ours into
theirs.
A similar interpolation occurs in the video. The narrative appears to be
following the script ofGenesis, from the lightning that, flickering over the
landscape, represents the life force to the "creatures," who, like their human
counterparts, follow the biblicalimperative to be fruitful and multiply.
When a death's-head appears on the scene, representing the reaper program,
we understand that this pastoral existence will not last for long. The
idyll is punctured bycompetition between species, strategies ofsubversion
and co-optation, and exploitation ofone group byanother-in short, all the
trappings of rampant capitalism. To measure how much this narrative accomplishes,
we should remember that what one actually sees as the output
ofthe Tierra program is a spectrum ofbar graphs tracking the numbers of
programs ofgiven byte lengths as a function oftime. The strategies emerge
when human interpreters scrutinize the binary codes that constitute the
"creatures" to find out how they have changed and determine how they
work.
No one knows this better, of course, than Ray and other researchers in
the field. The video, as theywould no doubt want to remind us, is merely an
artist's visualization and has no scientific standing. It is, moreover, intended
for awide audience, not all ofwhom are presumed to be scientists. This fact
in itselfis interesting, for the tape as a whole is an unabashed promotion of
the Santa Fe Institute. It speaks to the efforts that practitioners in the field
are making to establish Artificial Life as a valid, significant, and exciting
area ofscientific research. These efforts are not unrelated to the visual and
verbal transformations discussed above. To the extent that the "creatures"
are biomorphized, their representation reinforces the strongclaim that the
"creatures" are actually alive, extending the implications ofthe claim. Nor
do the transformations appear onlyin the video, although they are particularly
striking there. As the discussion above demonstrates, they are also inscribed
in published articles and commentary. In fact, they are essential to
the strong claim that the computer codes do not merely simulate life but
are themselves alive. At least some researchers at the Santa Fe Institute
recognize the relation between the strong claim and the stories that researchers
tell about these "organisms." Asked about the strong claim, one
respondent insisted: "It's in the eye ofthe beholder. It's not the system, it's
the observer."12
In the second wave of cybernetics, accounting for the observer was of
course a centralconcern. What happens when the observeris taken into ac-
Narratives of Artificial Life / 231
countin Artificial Life research? To explore further the web ofconnections
betweenthe operations ofthe program, descriptions ofits operation byobservers,
and the contexts in which these descriptions are embedded, we
will follow the thread to the next narrative level, where arguments circulate
about the contributions that Artificial Life can make to scientific knowl-
edge.
Positioning the Field: The Politics of Artificial Life
Christopher Langton, one of the most visible of the AL researchers, explains
the reasoning behind the strong claim. "The principle [sic] assumption
made in Artificial Life is that the 'logical form' ofan organism can be
separatedfrom its materialbasis ofconstruction, and that 'aliveness'willbe
found to be a propertyofthe former, not ofthe latter."131t would be easy to
dismiss the claim on the basis that the reasoning behind it is tautological:
Langton defines life in such away as to make sure the programs qualify, and
then, because theyqualify, he claims theyare alive. Butmore is atworkhere
than tautology. Resonating through Langton's definition are assumptions
that have markedWestern philosophical and scientificinquiryat least since
Plato. Form can lOgicallybe separated from matter; form is privileged over
matter; form defines life, whereas the material basis merely instantiates
life. The definition is a site of reinscription as well as tautology. This convergence
suggests that the contextfor ourinquiryshould be broadened beyond
the logical form ofthe definition to the field ofinquiry in which such
arguments persuade preciselybecause they reinscribe.
This context includes attitudes, held deeplyby many researchers in scientific
communities, about the relation between the complexity ofobservable
phenomena and the relatively simple rules they are seen to embody.
Traditionally, the natural sciences, especially physics, have attempted to
reduce apparent complexity to underlying simplicity. The attempt to find
the "fundamentalbuilding blocks" ofthe universe in quarks is one example
ofthis endeavor; the mapping ofthe human genome is another.14 The sciences
ofcomplexity, with their origins in nonlinear dynamiCS, complicated
this picture bydemonstratingthat for certain nonlinear dynamical systems,
the evolution ofthe system could not be predicted, even in theory, from the
initial conditions (just as Ray did not know what creatures would evolve
from the ancestor). Thus the sciences ofcomplexity articulated a limit on
what reductionism could accomplish. In a significant sense, however, AL
researchers have not relinquished reductionism. In place ofpredictability,
which is traditionally the test ofwhether a theory works, they emphasize
232 / Chapter Nine
emergence. Instead ofstartingwith a complex phenomenalworld and reasoningbackthrough
chains ofinference to what the fundamental elements
must be, theystart with the elements, complicating the elements through
appropriately nonlinear processes so that the complex phenomenal world
appears on its own.15
What is the justification for calling the simulation and the phenomena
that emerge from it a "world"? It is precisely because they are generated
from simple underlying rules and forms. AL reinscribes, then, the mainstream
assumption that simple rules and forms give rise to phenomenal
complexity. The difference is that AL starts at the simple end, where synthesis
can move forward spontaneously, rather than at the complex end,
where analysis must work backward. Langton, in his explanation of what
AL can contribute to theoretical biology, makes this difference explicit:
"Artificial Life is the study of man-made systems that exhibit behaviors
characteristic ofnatural living systems. It complements the traditional biological
sciences concerned with the analysis of living organisms by attempting
to synthesize life-like behaviors within computers and other
artificial media. Byextendingthe empiricalfoundation uponwhich biology
is based beyond the carbon-chain life that has evolved on Earth, Artificial
Life can contribute to theoretical biology by locating life-as-we-know-it
within the larger picture oflife-as-it-could-be."16
The presuppositions informing such statements have been studied by
Stefan Helmreich, an anthropologist who spent several months at the
Santa Fe Institute.17 Helmreich interviewedseveral ofthe majorplayers in
the U.S. ALcommunity, includingLangton, Ray, John Holland, andothers.
Helmreich summarizedhis informants' views about the "worlds" they create:
"For many ofthe people I interviewed, a 'world' or 'universe' is a selfconsistent,
complete, and closed system that is governed by low level laws
that in tum support higher level phenomena which, while dependent on
these elementarylaws, cannotbe simplyderived from them."18 Helmreich
used comments from the interviews to paint a fascinating picture of the
various ways in which simple laws are believed to underlie complex
phenomena. Several informants thought that the world was mathematical
in essence. Others held the view, also extenSively articulated by Edward
Fredkin, that the world is fundamentally composed of information.19
From these points of view, phenomenological experience is itself a kind
of illusion, covering an underlying reality of simple forms. For these
researchers, a computer program that generates phenomenological complexity
out ofsimple forms is no more or less illusorythan the "real" world.
The form/matter dichotomy is intimately related to this vision, for real-
Narratives ol Artificial Life I 233
ity at the fundamental level is seen as form rather than matter, specifically
as informational code whose essence lies in a binary choice rather than a
material substrate. Fredkin, for example, says that reality is a software program
run by a cosmic computer, whose nature must forever remain unknown
to us because it lies outside the structure ofreality, whose programs
it runs.20 For Fredkin, AL programs are alive in preciselythe same sense as
biolOgical life-because they are complex phenomena generated by underlying
binary code. The assumption that form occupies a foundational
position relative to matter is especiallyeasy to make with information technologies,
since information is defined in theoretic terms (as we have seen)
as a probability function and thus as a pattern or form rather than as a materially
instantiated entity.
Information technologies seem to realize a dream impossible in the natural
world-the opportunity to look directly into the inner workings ofreality
at its most elemental level. The directness ofthe gaze does not derive
from the absence ofmediation. On the contrary, ourabilityto look intoprograms
like Tierrais highly mediated byeverythingfrom computer graphiCS
to the processing program that translates machine code into a high-level
computer language such as C++. Rather, the gaze is privileged because
the observer can peer directly into the elements of the world before the
world cloaks itself with the appearance of complexity. Moreover, the observer
is presumed to be cut from the same doth as the world being inspected,
inasmuch as the observer is also constituted through binary
processes similar to those seen inside the computer. The essence ofTierra
as an artificial world is no different from the essence ofthe observer or of
the world that the observer occupies: all are constituted through forms understood
as informational patterns. When form is triumphant, Tierra's
"creatures" are, in a disconcertingly literal sense, just as much life-forms as
are any otherorganisms.
We are nowin aposition to understand the deep reasons whysome practitioners
think ofprograms like Tierra not as models or simulations but as
life itself. As Langton and many others point out, in the analytic approach,
realityis modeled bytreating a complexphenomenon as ifitwas composed
ofsmaller constituent parts. These parts are broken down into still smaller
parts, until we find parts sufficiently Simplified that they can be treated
mathematically. Most scientists would be qUick to agree that the model is
not the reality, because they recognize that many complexities had to be
tossed out bythe wayside in orderto lighten the wagon enough to get itover
the rough places in the trail. Their hope is that the model nevertheless captures
enough ofthe relevant aspects ofa system to tell them something sig-
234 / Chapter Nine
nificant about howrealityworks. In the synthetic approach, bycontrast, the
complexities emerge spontaneously as a result of the system's operation.
The system itselfadds back in the baggage that had to be tossed out in the
analytic approach. (Whether it is the same baggage remains, ofcourse, to
be seen.) In this sense Artificial Life poses an interesting challenge to the
view of nineteenth-century vitalists, who saw in the analytic approach a
reductionist methodology that could never adequately capture the complexities
oflife. Ifit is true that the analytical approach murders by dissection,
by the same reasoning the synthetic approach ofAL may be able to
procreate byemergence.
In addition to these philosophical considerations, there are also more
obviouslypolitical reasons to make a strong claim for the "aliveness" ofArtificial
Life. As a new kid on the block, AL must jockey for position with
larger, better-established research agendas. A common reaction from
other scientists is, "Well, this is all very interesting, but what good is it?"
Even AL researchers joke that AL is a solution in search of a problem.
When applications are suggested, they are often open to cogent objections.
As long as AL programs are consideredto be simulations, any results
produced from them may be artifacts ofthe simulation rather than properties
ofnatural systems. Sowhat ifacertain result can be producedwithin
the simulation? The result is artifactual and therefore nonsignifying with
respect to the natural world unless the same mechanisms can be shown to
be at work in natural systems.21 These difficulties disappear, however, if
AL programs are themselves alive. Then the point is not that they model
natural systems but rather that they are, in themselves, also alive and
therefore as worthy ofstudy as evolutionary processes in naturally occurring
media.
This is the tack that Langton takes when he compares AL simulations to
syntheticchemicals.22 In the earlydays, he observes, the studyofchemistry
was confined to naturally occurring elements and compounds. Although
some knowledge could be gained from these, the results were limited by
what lay ready at hand. Once researchers learned to synthesize chemicals,
their knowledge took a quantum leap forward, for then chemicals could be
tailored to specific research problems. Similarly, theoretical biology has
been limited to the cases that lie ready at hand, namely the evolutionary
pathways taken bycarbon-based life. Even though generalizing from a single
instance is notoriously difficult, theoretical biology had no choice; carbon-based
life was it. Now a powerful new instance has been added to the
repertoire, for AL simulations represent an alternative evolutionary pathwayfollowed
by silicon-based life-forms.
Narratives of Artificial Life / 235
What theoretical biology looks for, in this view, are similarities that cut
across the particularities of the media. In "Beyond Digital Naturalism,"
Walter Fontana and his coauthors layout a research agenda "ultimately
motivated by a premise: that there exists a logical deep structure ofwhich
carbon chemistry-based life is a manifestation. The problem is to discover
what it is and what the appropriate mathematical devices are to express
it."23 Such a research agenda presupposes that the essence oflife, understood
as logical form, is independent ofthe medium. More is at stake in this
agenda than expanding the frontiers oftheoretical biology. By positing AL
as a second instance oflife, researchers affect the definition of biological
life as well, for now it is thejuxtaposition that determines what counts as
fundamental, not carbon-based forms by themselves.
This change hints at the far-reaching implications ofthe narrative ofArtificial
Life as an alternate evolutionary pathway for life on Earth. To explore
these implications, let us turn to the third level ofnarrative, where we
will consider stories about the relation ofhumans to oursilicon cousins, the
Artificial Life-forms that represent the road not taken-until now.
Reconfiguring the Body of Information
As research on Artificial Life-forms continues and expands, the construction
ofhuman life is affected as well. Rodney Brooks, ofthe Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory at MIT, and the roboticist Hans Moravec, noted in
earlier chapters, tell two different narratives ofhow the human will be reconfiguredin
the face ofartificial bodies ofinformation. Whereas Moravec
privileges consciousness as the essence of human being and wants to preserveitintact,
Brooks speculates that the more essentialpropertyofthe human
being is the ability to move around and interact robustly with the
environment. Instead of starting with the most advanced qualities ofhuman
thought, Brooks starts with locomotion and simple interactions and
works from the bottom up. Despite these different orientations, both
Brooks and Moravec see the future ofhuman being inextricably bound up
with Artificial Life. Indeed, in the future world they envision, distinguishing
between natural and Artificial Life, human and machine intelligence,
will be difficult or impossible.
InMind Children: The Future ofRobotandHuman Intelligence, Moravec
argues that the age ofcarbon-basedlife is drawingto aclose.24 Humans are
about to be replaced by intelligent machines as the dominant life-form on
the planet. Drawing on the work ofA. C. Cairns-Smith, Moravec suggests
that such a revolution is not unprecedented.25 Before protein replication
236 I Chapter Nine
developed, aprimitive form oflife existedin certain silicon crystals that had
the ability to replicate. But protein replication was so far superior that it
soon left the replicating crystals in the dust. Nowsilicon has caught up with
us again, in the form ofcomputers and computerized robots. Although the
Cairns-Smith hypothesis has been largely discredited, in Moravec's text it
serves the useful purpose ofincreasing the plausibility ofhis vision by presenting
the carbon-silicon struggle as a rematch ofan earliercontest rather
than as an entirely new event.
A different approach is advocated by other members ofthe AL community,
among them Rodney Brooks, Pattie Maes, and Mark Tilden.26 They
point to the importance of having agents who can learn from interactions
with aphysical environment. Simulations, theybelieve, are limitedbythe artificiality
oftheir context. Compared with the rich variety and creative surprises
ofthe natural world, simulations are stick worlds populated by stick
figures. No one argues this case more persuasively than Brooks. When I
talked with him at his MIT laboratory, he mentioned that he and Hans
Moravec had been roommates in college (a coincidence almost allegorical in
its neatness). Moravec, for his senior project, had built a robot that used a
central representation of the world to navigate. The robot would go a few
feet, feed in data from its sensors to the central representation, map its new
position, and move a few more feet. Using this process, it would take several
hours to cross a room. Ifanyone came in during the meantime, it would be
thrown hopelessly offcourse. Brooks, a loyal roommate, stayed up late one
night to watch the robot as it carried out its agonizinglyslowperambulation.
The thought occurred to Brooksthat acockroach couldaccomplish the same
task in a fraction ofthe time, andyet the cockroach could not pOSSiblyhave as
much computingpower aboard as the robot. Deciding that there had to be a
betterway, he began building robots according to a different philosophy.
In his robots, Brooks uses what he calls "subsumption architecture." The
idea is to have sensors and actuators connected directly to simple finitestate
machine modules, with a minimum of communication between
them. Each system "sees" the world in a way that is entirely different from
how the other systems see the world. There is no central representation,
only a control system that kicks in to adjudicate when there is a conflict between
the distributed modules. Brooks points out that the robot does not
need to have a coherent concept of the world; instead it can learn what it
needs directly through interaction with its environment. The philosophyis
summed up in his aphorism: "Theworld is its own best model."27
Subsumption architecture is deSigned to facilitate and capitalize on
emergent behavior. The idea can be illustrated with Genghis, a Six-legged
Narratives (If Artificial Life / 237
robot somewhat resembling an oversize cockroach, which Brooks hopes to
sell to NASA as a planetary explorer.28 Genghis's gait is not programmed in
advance. Rather, each ofthe six legs is programmed to stabilize itselfin an
environment that includes the other five. Each time Genghis starts up, it
has to learn to walk anew. For the first few seconds it will stumble around;
then, as the legs begin to take account of what the others are doing, a
smooth gait emerges. The robot is relatively cheap to build, is more robust
than the large planetary explorers that NASA currently uses, and is under
its own local control rather than being dependent on a central controller
who may not be on site to see what is happening. "Fast, cheap, and out of
control" is another aphOrism that Brooks use~ to sum up the philosophybehind
the robots he builds.
Brooks's program has been carried furthe r by Mark Tilden, a Canadian
roboticist who worked under Brooks and novv is at the University of\Vater-
100. In my conversation with him, Tilden mentioned that he grew up on a
farm in Canada and was struck by how chickens ran around after they their
heads had been cut off, performing, as he likes to put it, complicated navigational
tasks in three-dimensional space vvithout any cortex at all. He decided
that considerable computation had to be going on in the peripheral
nervous system. He used the insight to design insectlike robots that operate
on nervous nets (considerably simpler than the more complex neural nets)
composed ofno more than twelve transistor circuits. These robots use analogue
rather than digital computing to carry out their tasks. Like Genghis,
they have an emergent gait. They are remarkably robust, are able to right
themselves when turned over, and can even learn a compensatory gait
when one oftheir legs is bent or broken off.29
Narratives about the relation of these robots to humans emerge when
Brooks and others speculate about the relevance of their work to human
evolution. Brooks acknowledges that the robots he builds have the equivalent
of insect intelligence. But insect intelligence is, he says, nothing to
sneer at. Chronologically speaking, by the time insects appeared on Earth,
evolution was already 95 percent of the way to creating human intelligence.:30
The hard part, he believes, is evolving creatures who are mobile
and who can interact robustly with their environment. Once these qualities
are in place, the rest comes relatively quickly, including the sophisticated
cognitive abilities that humans possess. How did humans evolve? In
his view, they evolved through the same kind of mechanisms that he uses
in his robots, namely distributed systems that interact robustly with the
environment and that consequently "see" the world in very different ways.
Consciousness is a relatively late development, analogous to the control
238 / Chapter Nine
system that kicks in to adjudicate conHicts between the different distributed
systems. Consciousness is, as Brooks likes to say, a "cheap tricK," that
is, an emergent propertythat increases the functionality ofthe system but
is not part ofthe system's essential architecture. Consciousness does not
need to be, and in fact is not, representational. Like the robot's control system,
consciousness does not require an accurate picture of the world; it
needs only a reliable interface. As evidence that human consciousness
works this way, Brooks adduces the fact that most adults are unaware that
they go through life with a large blank spot in the middle of their visual
field.
This reasoning leads to yet anotheraphOrism that circulates through the
AL community: "Consciousness is an epiphenomenon." The implication is
that consciousness, although it thinks it is the main show, is in fact a latecomer,
aphenomenon dependent on and arisingfrom deeper and more essential
layers of perception and being. The view is reminiscent of the
comedian Emo Phillips's comment. "I used to think that the brain was the
most wonderful organ in the body," he says. "But then I thought, who's
telling me this?"
It would be difficult to imagine a more contrarian position to the one
that Hans Moravec espouses when he equates consciousness with human
subjectivity. In this respect Moravec aligns with Artificial Intelligence
(AI), whereas Brooks and his colleagues align with Artificial Life (AL).31
Michael Dyer, in his comparison ofthe two fields, points out that whereas
AI envisions cognition as the operation oflogic, ALsees cognition as the operation
ofnervous systems; AI starts with human-level cognition, AL with
insect- or animal-level cognition; in AI, cognition is constructed as ifindependent
ofperception, whereas in AL it is integrated with sensory/motor
experiences.32
Brooks and his colleagues forcefully argue that AI has played itselfout
and that the successorparadigm is AL. Brooks and Rayboth believe thatwe
willeventuallybe able, usingAL techniques, to evolvethe equivalentofhuman
intelligence inside a computer. For Brooks, that project is already under
way with "Cog," a head-and-torso robot with sophisticated visual and
manipulative capability. But AL researchers go about creating high-level
intelligence in ways dramatically different from those of AI researchers.
Consider the implications ofthis shift for the construction ofthe human.
The goalofAI was to build, inside amachine, an intelligence comparable to
that ofahuman. The humanwas the measure; the machinewas the attempt
at instantiation in a different medium. This assumption deeply informs the
Turing test, dating from the early days ofthe AI era, which defined success
Narratives of Artificial Life I 239
as building a machine intelligence that cannot be distinguished from a
human intelligence. By contrast, the goal of AL is to evolve intelligence
within the machine through pathways found by the "creatures" themselves.
Rather than serving as the measure to judge success, human intelligence
is itself reconfigured in the image of this evolutionary process.
Whereas AI dreamed ofcreating consciousness inside a machine, AL sees
human consciousness, understood as an epiphenomenon, perching on top
ofthe machinelike functions that distributedsystems carryout.33 In the AL
paradigm, the machine becomes the model for understanding the human.
Thus the human is transfigured into the posthuman.
To indicate the widespread reach ofthis refashioning ofthe human into
the posthuman, in the following section I want to sketch with broad strokes
some ofthe research contributing to this project. The sketch will necessarily
be incomplete. Yet even this imperfect picture will be useful in indicating
the scope of the posthuman. So pervasive is this refashioning that it
amounts to anewworldview-one stillin process, highlycontested, andoften
speculative, yet with enough links between different sites to be edging
toward a vision ofwhat we might call the computational universe. In the
computational universe, the essential function for both intelligent machines
and humans is processing information. Indeed, the essential function
ofthe universe as awhole is processing information. In away different
from what Norbert Wiener imagined, the computational universe realizes
the cybernetic dream ofcreating a world in which humans and intelligent
machines can both feel at home. That equality derives from the view that
not onlyourworldbut the great cosmos itselfis avast computerand thatwe
are the programs it runs.
The Computational Universe
Let us start our tour ofthe computational universe at the most basic level,
the level that underlies all life-forms, indeed all matter and energy. The
units that compose this level are cellular automata. From their simple onoff
functioning, everything else is built up. Cellular automata were first
proposed byJohn von Neumann in his search to describe self-reproducing
automata. Influenced by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts's work
on the on-off functioning of the neural system, von Neumann used the
McCulloch-Pitts neuron as a model for computers, inventingSwitchingdevices
that could perform the same kind oflogical functions that McCulloch
had outlined for neurons. Von Neumann also proposed that the neural system
could be treated as a Turing machine. Biologythus provided him with
240 / Chapter Nine
clues to build computers, and computers provided clues for theoretical biology.
To extend the analogybetween biological organism and machine, he
imagined a giant automaton that could perform the essential biological
function of self-reproduction.34 (As we saw in chapter 6, Maturana referred
to this when he made the point that what von Neumann modeled
were biologists' descriptions ofliving processes rather than the processes
themselves.)
Stanislaw Vlam, a Polish mathematician who workedwith von Neumann
at Los Alamos during World War II, suggested to von Neumann that he
could achieve the same result by abstracting the automaton into a grid of
cells. Thus von Neumann reduced the massive and resistant materiality of
the self-reproducing automaton as he had originally envisioned it to undifferentiated
cells with bodies so transparent that they were constituted
as squares marked off on graph paper and later as pixels on computer
screens.35
Each cellular automaton (or CA) functions as a simple finite-state machine,
with its state determined solely by its initial condition (on or off), by
rules telling it how to operate, and by the state ofits neighbors at each moment.
For example, the rule for one group ofCAs might state, "On if two
neighbors are on, otherwise off." Each cell checks on the state ofits neighbors
and updates its state in accordance with its rules at the same time that
the neighboring cells also update their states. In this way the grid ofcells
goes through one generation after another, in a succession ofstates that (on
a computer) caneasilystretchto hundreds ofthousands ofgenerations. Extremely
complex patterns can build up, emerging spontaneously from interactions
between the CAs. Programmed into a computer and displayed
on the screen, CAs give the uncanny impression ofbeing alive. Some patterns
spread until they look like the deSigns ofintricate Oriental rugs, others
float across the screen like gliders, and stillothers flourish onlyto die out
within a few hundred generations. Looking at the emergence ofcomplex
dynamical patterns from these simple components, more than one researcherhas
had the intuition thatsuch asystemcan explain the growth and
decay of patterns in the natural world. Edward Fredkin took this inSight
further, seeing in cellular automata the foundational structure from which
everything in the universe is built up.
How does this building up occur? In the computational universe, the
question can be rephrased by asking how higher-level computations can
emerge spontaneouslyfrom the underlying structure ofcellular automata.
Langton has done pioneering work analyzing the conditions under which
cellularautomatacan support the fundamental operations ofcomputation,
Narratives of Artificial Life / 241
which he analyzes as requiring the transfer, storage, and modification ofinformation.36
His research indicates that computation is most likely to arise
at the boundary between ordered structures and chaotic areas. In an ordered
area, the cells are tightly tied together through rules that make them
extremelyinterdependent; it is preciselythis interdependence that leads to
order. But the tightly ordered structure also means that the cells as an aggregate
will be unable to perform some ofthe essential tasks ofhigher-level
computation, particularly the transfer and modification ofinformation. In
a chaotic area, by contrast, the cells are relatively independent of one another;
this independence is what makes them appear disordered. Although
this state lends itself to information transfer and modification, here the
storage of information is a problem because no pattern persists for long.
Only in boundary areas between chaos and order is there the necessary innovationlreplication
tension that allows patterns to build up, modify, and
travel over long distances without dying out.
These results are strikingly similar to those discovered by Stuart Kauffman
in his work on the origins oflife. Kauffman was McCulloch's last protege;
in several interviews, McCulloch said that he regarded Kauffman as
his most important collaboratorsince Pitts.:37 Kauffman argues that natural
selection alone is not enough to explain the relatively short timescale on
which life arose.-'38 Some other ordering principle is necessary, which he
locates in the ability of complex systems spontaneously to self-organize.
Calculating the conditions necessary for large molecules to organize spontaneously
into the building blocks oflife, he found that life is most likely to
arise at the edge of chaos. This means that there is a striking correspondence
between the conditions under which life is likely to emerge and
those under which computation is likely to emerge-a convergence regarded
by many researchers as an unmistakable sign that computation and
life are linked at a deep level. In this view, humans are programs that run on
the cosmic computer. When humans build intelligent computers to run AL
programs, they replicate in another medium the same processes that
brought themselves into being.
An important reason why such connections can be made so eaSily between
one level and another is that in the computational universe, everything
is reducible, at 801ne level, to information. Yet among proponents of
the computational universe, not everyone favors disembodiment, just as
they did not in the Macy Conferences when the idea ofinformationwas being
formulated. Consider, for example, the different approaches taken by
Edward Fredkin and the new field ofevolutionarypsychology. When Fredkin
asserts that we can never know the nature of the cosmic computer on
242 / Chapter Nine
which we run as programs, he puts the ultimate material embodiment out
of our reach. All we, as human beings, will ever see are the informational
forms ofpure binary code that he calls cellular automata. By contrast, the
field of evolutionary psychology seeks to locate modular computer programs
in embodied human beings whose physical makeup is the result of
hundreds ofthousands ofyears ofevolutionary processes.
The agenda for this new field is set out by Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides,
and John Tooby in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology
and the Generation ofCulture. Like Minksy, they argue that the model (or
metaphor) of computation provides the basis for a wholesale revision of
what counts as human nature.39 They aim to overcome cultural anthropologists
and others' objections to the idea of "human nature" by offering a
more flexible version ofhow that nature is constituted. They argue that behavior
can be modeled as modular computer programs running in the
brain. The underlying structure of these programs is the result of thousands
ofyears ofevolutionary tinkering. Those adaptations that conferred
superior reproductive fitness survived; those that did not died out. The programs
are structured to enable certain functionalities to exist in humans,
and these functionalities are universallypresent in all humans. These functionalities,
however, represent potentials rather than actualities. Just as the
actual behavior ofa computer program is determined by a constant underlying
structure and varying inputs, so actual human behavior results from
an interplay between the potential represented by the functionalities and
the inputs provided bythe environments. All normal human infants, for example,
have the potential to learn language. Ifthey are not exposed to language
by a certain critical age, however, this potential disappears and they
can never become linguistically competent. Although human behavior
varies across a wide spectrum of actualization, it nevertheless has an underlying
universal structure determined byevolutionaryadaptations. Thus
a science ofevolutionary psychology is possible, for the existence of a universal
underlying structure guarantees the regularities that any science
needs in order to formulate coherent and consistent knowledge.
This cybernetic-computer vision ofhuman behavior leads to a very different
account of "human nature." Although the evolutionary programs
that the brain-computer runs do not lead to universal behavior, they are
nevertheless rich with content. The potentials lie notjustin the structure of
the general machine but, much more specifically, in the environmentally
adaptive programs that proactivelyshape human responses. Thus children
are not merelycapable oflearninglanguage; theyactivelywant to learn language
and will invent it among themselves ifno one teaches them.40 Like
Narratives of Artificial Life I 243
Wiener's cybernetic machine, the cybernetic brain is responsive to the flow
ofevents around it and is adaptive over an astonishingly diverse set ofcircumstances.
The fact that only the intelligent machine is seen to be light
enough on its feet to do justice to human variabilityis a measure ofjust how
much our vision ofmachines has changed since the Industrial Revolution.
Itwill nowperhaps be clearwhythe most prized functionality is the abilityto
process information, forin the computationaluniverse, informationis
king. Luc Steels, an AL researcher, reinscribes this value when he distinguishes
between first-order emergence and second-order emergence
(surelyitis no accident that the terminologyhere echoes the distinction between
first-ordercybernetics and second-order cybernetics, the grandparent
and parent of Artificial Life). First-order emergence denotes any
properties that are generated byinteractions between components, that is,
properties that emerge as a result ofthose interactions, in contrast to properties
inherent in the components themselves. Among all such emergent
properties, second-order emergence grants speCial privilege to those that
bestow additional functionality on the system, particularly the ability
to process information.41 To create successfill Artificial Life programs, it
is not enough to create just any emergence. Rather, the programmer
searches for a design that will lead to second-order emergence. Once
second-order emergence is achieved, the organism has in effect evolved
the capacity to evolve. Then evolution can really take off. Humans evolved
through a combination ofchance and self-organizing processes until they
reached the point where they could take conscious advantage ofthe principles
ofself-organizationto create evolutionarymechanisms. Theyusedthis
ability to build machines capable of self-evolution. Unlike humans, however,
the machine programs are not hampered by the time restrictions
imposed by biolOgical evolution and physical maturation. They can run
through hundreds ofgenerations in a day, millions in a year. Until very recently,
humans have been without peer in their ability to store, transmit,
and manipulate information. Now they share that ability with intelligent
machines. To foresee the future ofthis evolutionary path, we have only to
askwhich ofthese organisms, competing in manyways for the same evolutionary
niche, has the information-processing capability to evolve more
qUickly.
This conclusion makes clear, I think, why the computational universe
should not be accepted unCritically. Ifthe name ofthe game is processing
information, it is onlya matter oftime until intelligent machines replace us
as our evolutionary heirs. Whetherwe decide to fight them orjoin them by
becomingcomputers ourselves, the days ofthe human race are numbered.
244 / Chapter Nine
The problem here does not lie in the choice between these options; rather,
itlies in the framework constructed so as to make these options the onlytwo
available. The computational universe becomes dangerous when it goes
from beinga useful heuristic to an ideologythat privileges information over
everything else. As we have seen, information is a sociallyconstructed concept;
in addition to its currently accepted definition, it could have been, and
was, given different definitions. Just because information has lost its body
does not mean that humans and the world have lost theirs.
Fortunately, not all theorists agree that it makes sense to think about information
as an entity apart from the medium that embodies it. Let us revisit
some of the sites in the computational universe, this time to locate
those places where the resistance ofmaterialitydoes usefulworkwithin the
theories. From this perspective, fracture lines appear that demystify the
program(s) and make it possible to envision other futures, futures in which
human beings feel at home in the universe because they are embodied
creatures living in an embodied world.
Murmurs from the Body
One of the striking differences between researchers who work with flesh
and those who workwith computers is how nuanced the sense ofthe body's
complexityis for those who are directlyengaged with it. The difference can
be seen in the contrast between Marvin Minsky's "society of mind" approach
and the approach ofthe evolutionarypsychologists. Although Minsky
frequently uses evolutionary arguments to clarifY the structure of a
program, his main interest clearly lies in bUilding computer models that
can accomplish human behaviors.42 He characteristicallythinks in terms of
computer architecture, about which he knows a great deal, rather than humanphysiology.
In his lectures (and less so in his writing), he rivals Moravec
in his consistent downplaying of the importance of embodiment. At the
public lecture he delivered in 1996 on the eve ofthe Fifth Conference on
Artificial Life in Nara, Japan, he argued that only with the advent ofcomputer
languages has a symbolic mode ofdescription arisen adequate to account
for human beings, whom he defines as complicated machines. "A
person is not a head and arms and legs," he remarked. "That's trivial. Aperson
is a very large multiprocessor with a million times a million small parts,
and these are arranged as a thousand computers." It is not surprising, then,
that he shares with Moravec the dream ofbanishing death by downloading
consciousness into a computer. ''The most important thing about each person
is the data, and the programs in the data that are in the brain. And some
Narratives of Artificial Life / 245
dayyou will be able to take all that data, and put it on a little disk, and store
it for a thousand years, and then tum it on again and you will be alive in the
fourth millennium or the fifth millennium."4:l
Yet anyone who actuallyworks with embodiedforms, from the relatively
simple architecture of robots to the vastly more complicated workings of
the human neural system, knows that it is by no means trivial to deal with
the resistant materialities of embodiment. To Minsky, these problems of
embodiment are nuisances that do not even have the virtue ofbeing conceptuallyinteresting.
In his plenarylecture at the Fifth Conference on Artificial
Life, he asserted that a student who constructed a simulation of
robot motion learned more in six months than the roboticists did in sixyears
of building actual robots.44 Certainly simulations are useful for a wide
range ofproblems, for they abstract a few features out ofa complex interactive
whole and then manipulate those features to get a better understanding
ofwhat is going on. Compared with the real world, they are more
efficient precisely because they are more Simplified. The problem comes
when this mode of operation is taken to be fully representative of a much
more complex reality and when everything that is not in the simulation is
declared to be trivial, unimportant, or uninteresting.
Like Varela in his criticisms and modifications of Minsky's model (discussed
in chapter 6); Barkow, Tooby, and Cosmides are careful not to make
this mistake. They acknowledge that the mind-body duality is a social construction
that obscures the holistic nature of human experience. Another
researcherwho speaks powerfullyto the importance ofembodimentis Antonio
Damasio, in Descartes' Error: Enwtion, Reason, and the Human
Brain. Discussingthe complex mechanisms bywhich mind and body communicate,
he emphasizes that the body is more than a life-support system
for the brain. The body"contributes a content that is part and parcel ofthe
workings of the normal mind."4.5 Drawing on his detailed knowledge of
neurophysiology and his years of experience working with patients who
have suffered neural damage, he argues that feelings constitute a window
through which the mind looks into the body. Feelings are how the body
communicates to the mind information about its structure and continuously
varying states. If feelings and emotions are the body murmuring
to the mind, then feelings are "just as cognitive as other precepts," part
of thought and indeed part of what makes us rational creatures (p. xv).
Damasio finds it significant that cognitive science, with its computational
approach to mind, has largelyignored the fact that feelings even exist (with
some notable exceptions, such as The Embodied Mind, discussed in chapter
6). One can guess what his response to the scenario ofdownloading hu-
246 I Chapter Nine
man consciousness would be, from the following passage: "In brief, neural
circuits represent the organism continuously, as it is perturbed by stimuli
from the physical and sociocultural environments, and as it acts on those
environments. Ifthe basic topic of those representations were not an organism
anchored in the body, we might have some form of mind, but I
doubt that itwould be the mindwe do have" (p. 226). Human mindwithout
human bodyis not human mind. More to the point, it doesn't exist.
What are we to make, then, ofthe posthuman? As the liberal humanist
subject is dismantled, many parties are contesting to determine what will
count as (post)human in its wake. For most ofthe researchers discussed in
this chapter, becoming a posthuman means much more than having prosthetic
devices grafted onto one's body. It means envisioning humans as information-processing
machines with fundamental similarities to other
kinds ofinformation-processing machines, especially intelligent computers.
Because of how information has been defined, many people holding
this view tend to put materiality on one side ofa divide and information on
the other side, making it possible to think ofinformation as a kind ofimmaterial
fluid that circulates effortlessly around the globe while still retaining
the solidityofa reified concept. Yetthis is notthe onlyview, and in myjudgment,
it is not the most compelling one. Other voices insist that the body
cannot be left behind, that the specificities of embodiment matter, that
mind and body are finally the "unity" that Maturana insisted on rather than
two separate entities. Increasingly the question is not whether we will become
posthuman, for posthumanityis already here. Rather, the question is
what kind ofposthumans we will be. The narratives ofArtificial Life reveal
that ifwe acknowledge that the observermustbe part ofthe picture, bodies
can never be made ofinformation alone, no matter which sine ofthe computer
screen they are on.
.................. C.h..ap.r.e.r...Te ..n
THE SEMIOTICS OF VIRTUALITY:
MAPPING THE POSTHUMAN
Over twenty years ago Ihab Hassan, prescient as usual, predicted the arrival
of the posthuman. 'We need first to understand that the human
form-including human desire and all its external representations-may
be changing radically, and thus must be re-visioned ... five hundred years
ofhumanism may be coming to an end as humanism transforms itselfinto
something we must helplessly call posthumanism."l As we accelerate into
the new millennium, questions about the posthuman become increasingly
urgent. Nowhere are these questions explored more passionately than in
contemporary speculative fiction. This chapter returns to terms previously
introduced to show how they can be used to map the posthuman as a literary
phenomenon. The truism that the map is not the territory is especially
so in this instance, for the posthuman, although still a nascent concept,
is already so complex that it involves a range of cultural and technical
sites, including nanotechnology, microbiology, virtual reality, artificial
life, neurophysiology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science, among
others. Nevertheless, even a crude map may serve as a useful heuristic in
understanding the axes along which the posthuman is unfolding and the
deep issues the posthuman raises.
To construct the map, I return to the idea that the two central dialectics
involvedin the formation ofthe posthuman are presence/absence and patternlrandomness.
In chapter 2, I suggested that as information becomes
more important, the dialectic of pattern/randomness (with which information
has deep ties) tends toward ascendancy over the dialectic ofpresence/absence.
It would be a mistake to think that the presence/absence
dialectic no longer has explanatory power, however, for it connects materiality
and signification in ways not possible within the pattern/randomness
dialectic. To be useful, the map ofthe posthuman needs to contain both di-
247
248 / Chapter Ten
alectics. Thus I pick up here the clue, dropped at the end ofchapter 2, that
pattern/randomness can profitably be seen as complementary to presence/absence
rather than as antagonistic. Conjoining the two dialectics in
this chapterwill also allowus to explore the full complexities ofthe theoretical
framework, proposed in chapter 8, ofembodiment/body and incorpo-
ration/inscription.
Let us begin by considering the pattern/randomness and presence/absence
dialectics as the two axes ofa semiotic square. The semiotic square
appeals to me as aheuristic because ofits unusual combination ofstructure
and flexibility.2 The structure is defined bythe axes and the formal relationships
they express, but the terms composing those axes are not static.
Rather, they interact dynamically with their partners, and out ofthese interactions
newsyntheticterms can arise. The dialectics can be setin motion
byplacingpresence/absence along the primaryaxis, with pattern/randomness
located along the secondary axis. The relation ofthe secondary axis to
the primary axis is one of exclusion rather than opposition (see figure 2).
Pattern/randomness tells a part of the story that cannot be told through
presence/absence and vice versa. The diagonal connecting presence and
pattern can conveniently be labeled replication, for it points to continuation.
An entity that is present continues to be so; a pattern repeating itself
across time andspace continues to replicateitself. Bycontrast, the axis connecting
absence and randomness signals disruption. Absence disrupts the
illusion ofpresence, revealing its lack oforiginary plenitude. Randomness
tears holes in pattern, allowing the white noise ofthe background to pour
through.
Now we are ready to set the semiotic square in dynamiC motion. Out of
the interplaybetween and amongterms on the primaryand secondaryaxes
more dialectics can be produced, which in tum produce further dialectics,
Presence -.----------.Absence
disruption7"---_---1.~/ ~'<"""---- replication
Randomness-. - - - - - - - - -~ Pattern
FIGURE 2 The semiotics ofvirtuality
The Semiotics of Virtuality I 249
and so on indefinitely. For my purposes here, it will be sufficient to move
through one of these transformations by adding a layer of synthesizing
terms to the original square (see figure 3).
On the top horizontal, the synthetic term that emerges from the interplaybetweenpresence
and absence is materiality. I mean the term to refer
both to the signifYingpower ofmaterialities and to the materialityofsignifYing
processes. On the left vertical, the interplay between presence and
randomness gives rise to mutation. Mutation testifies to the mark that randomness
leaves upon presence. When a random eventintervenes to affect
an organism's genetic code, for example, this intervention changes the
material form in which the organism will manifest itself in the world. In
chapter 2, mutation was associated with the displacement of presence/
absence by pattern/randomness. Here it appears as a synthesizing term
between randomness and presence to indicate that when randomness
erupts into the material world, mutation achieves its potency as a social
and cultural manifestation ofthe posthuman. On the right vertical, the interplay
between absence and pattern can be called, following Jean Baudrillard,
hyperreality. Predicting the imploSion of the social into the
hyperreal, Baudrillard has described the process as a collapse ofthe dis-
Materiality
Mutation Hyperreality
Information
FIGURE 3 Transformation ofthe semiotic square
250 / Chapter Ten
tance between signifier and signified, or between an "original" object and
its simulacra. The terminus for this train of thought is a simulation that
does not merely compete with but actually displaces the original. Anyone
who has spent a lifetime seeing reproductions ofthe Mona Lisa and then
stoodbefore the original, seeingit nownot as the originalbut simplyas one
more term in a reproduction of images, will understand intuitively the
process that Baudrillard calls the precession ofsimulacra.3 Finally, on the
bottom horizontal, the interplay between pattern and randomness I will
label information, intendingthe term to include both the technical meaning
ofinformation and the more general perception that information is a
code carried by physical markers but also extractable from them. The
schematic shows how concepts importantto the posthuman-materiality,
information, mutation, and hyperreality-can be understood as synthetic
terms emerging from the dialectics between presence/absence and pat-
tern/randomness.
To flesh out this schematic, I will take as my tutor texts four novels chosen
to illustratevarious articulations ofthe posthuman (see figure 4).4 Each
pair of texts can be represented through a pair of complementary questions.
Representing mutation is Greg Bear's Blood Music, a narrative in
which the posthuman emerges by radically reconfiguring human bodies.
Pairedwith it along the horizontal axis is Cole Perriman's Terminal Games,
a murder mystery in which the murderer turns out to be a virtual conBody
Boundaries
Problematized
Mutation
Blood Music
Modes ofI nscription Problematized
Materiality
Galatea 2.2
Hyperreality
~----+-----~
Terminal Games
Information
Snow Crash
FIGURE 4 Tutor texts mapped onto the semiotic square
The Semiotics of Virtuality I 25'
sciousness who believes his simulated virtual world is more real than the
material world inhabited by the humans. Both are driven by anxiety about
body boundaries, a theme familiar to us from scientific works such as
Norbert Wiener's Cybernetics and Humberto Maturana's autopoiesis and
from literary works such as Bernard Wolfe's Limbo and Philip K. Dick's
Simulacra. Blood Music asks, 'What if humans were taken over by their
component parts, functioning now as conscious entities themselves?" Terminal
Games asks the complementary question, "What if humans were
made to function as iftheywere components ofanother entity?"
On the vertical axis, illustrating the dynamiCS of materiality is Richard
Powers's Galatea 2.2, an autobiographical novel in which the protagonist
becomes involved in a project to create a neural net sophisticated enough
to pass a master's examination in English literature. Here the posthuman
takes the form ofa sympathetic artificial intelligence that finally becomes
so complex and self-referential that it might as well be called conscious.
The question this text asks is, "What ifa computer behaved like a person?"
The dynamiCS ofinformation is explored through Neal Stephenson's Snow
Crash, a novel based on the premise that a computer virus can also infect
humans, crashing their neocortical software and turning them into mechanized
entities who have no choice but to run the programs fed into them.
The complementaryquestion this text poses is, "What ifpeople were made
to behave as if they were computers?" Whereas the question of body
boundaries figures importantly along the horizontal axis, here along the
vertical axis the important questions are concerned with modes ofinscription
and their ability to dominate or substitute for the flesh.
As the shape ofalandscape emerges from the wire-frame abstractions of
the model, it will become evident that there is no consensus on what the
posthuman portends, in part because how the posthuman is constructed
and imagined varies so widely. What the topologywill reveal is not so much
an answer to the deep question of how the human and the posthuman
should be articulated together as the complexity of the contexts within
which that question is beingposed. Let us turn nowto adiscussion ofthe individual
texts, where an array ofdifferent configurations ofthe posthuman
will be articulated. The posthuman appears in these texts not as an abstract
entity obeying general rules but as a heterogeneous force field through
which certainvectors run. I have chosen not to weave the discussions into a
seamless web, lest I make the posthuman appear more unified than it is.
Rather, the discussions are meant to perform like hypertext lexias, inviting
the reader to construct Significance out ofruptures, juxtapositions, and implied
links.
252 / Chapter Ten
The Mutating Bodies of Blood Music
Vergil Ulam is a brilliant but irresponsible researcherwho has found a way
to combine human cells with computer chips. His name, an amalgam of
Dante's guide, Vergil, and the cocreatorofthe atom bomb, StanislawUlam,
hints at his dual function as guide and provocateur. Panickedwhen his illicit
research is discovered by his supervisors, Vergil decides to swallow the
biochips, hoping in this way to smuggle them out of the lab and retrieve
them later from his bloodstream. But the cells have other ideas. Inside his
body, they continue to evolve until each cell is as intelligent as a human. As
if fulfilling Wiener's nightmare vision of communication paths between
small internal units that bypass and sabotage the human subject, the cells
increasinglygain control over their macroscopic host. Already highlyorganized,
they begin rearranging his body: rebuilding his spinal column, correcting
his vision, changing his metabolism. Within a few days they break
through the blood-brain barrier and realize that Vergil is not coextensive
with the universe. Then they begin leaking through his skin to colonize the
world outside. In a stunningly short time, they reorganize almost all ofthe
human population of North America, converting the humans from autonomous
organisms into flowing brown sheets that drape gracefully over
the landscape.
Human language has encodedwithin it, along manyvectors, the presupposition
ofa human actorwith agency, autonomy, and discrete boundaries.
When the cells become speakers as well as actors, Greg Beartries to invent
for them a language and a typography that encode their profoundly different
relations to each other and to their environment. Other than Vergil,
they have two interlocutors. One is Michael Bernard, a high-level consultant
for Vergil's company. Bernard flees to a high-security isolation ward at
a European biological research company. Although he is already infected,
the cells delay reorganizing him; trapped inside the isolation room, they
would notbe able tojoinwith othercellcolonies. In North America, the human-cell
dialogue is continuedthrough SuzyMcKenzie, a retardedwoman
whom the cells have not converted. Although she thinks it might be because
theywant to keep her as a specimen ofa nearlyvanished species, like
an "animalin a zoo" (BM, p. 220), we find outit is because her retardation is
associated with an unusual blood chemistry that the cells have not yet fig-
uredout.
For Suzy, the dialogue takes the form ofconversations she has with family
members who return to her after they have "changed." No longer human,
these posthumans are reconstructions that the cells have built with
The Semiotics of Virtuality / 253
great effort and that they can sustain for only a short time. The reconstructions
suggest that Suzycan choose whether she wants to change or not. The
dialogue thus becomes a vehicle through which the author can compare
the relative advantages of human and posthuman states. The reconstructions
reassure Suzy about the change, telling her that she has nothing to
lose but her loneliness. These posthumans insist they have not been destroyed,
only mutated so that they now can have continuous and rich communication
with millions ofotherintelligent beings. Slowerthan her fellow
humans, Suzyhas felt isolated and alone most ofher life. Her situation, accentuated
by the fact that there are almost no other humans left on North
America, comes to function as a metaphor for the human condition. By
comparison with the combined mental power of the cells, humans are an
inferior breed, suffering from mental deficiency and a congenital inability
to communicatewith theirfellows exceptin highly mediated and uncertain
ways. In this sense we are all Suzys, clinging to ourautonomy as ifit were an
addictive drug, suffering acutelyfrom loneliness but too stubborn and slow
to accept the change that would transform us into the posthuman.
For Bernard, as intelligent and quick as Suzyis slowandbewildered, the
dialogues take a different form. As Vergil did, Bernard "hears" the cells
telepathicallyand senses them kinestheticallyas a music in his blood. Since
there is no percentage in changing him, the cells try to preserve his identity
for as long as pOSSible. "You already are one of us," they communicate
to him. "We have encoded parts of you into many teams for processing.
We can encode your PERSONALITY and complete the loop." Bernard confesses,
'Tm afraid you will steal my soul from inside." They counter, "Your
SOUL is already encoded" (BM, p. 174). The isolation room in which he is
encapsulated serves as a visible metonymy for his existential condition as a
human. His case is exceptional because he is literallycut offfrom his fellow
humans, but it is typical in the sense that, comparedwith the rich stream of
continuous communication the cells experience, all humans remain in relative
isolation from one another. Facedwith a lifetime sentence ofisolation
versus life as a cell colony, Bernard-like Suzy-decides to go willingly
into that dark night. From his computer terminal, which gradually becomes
merged with his body as the cells reorganize his digits so that he can
tap directly into the digital information flow, he sends back reports to his
once-fellowhumans on what it feels like to become a posthuman: "There is
no light, but there is sound. Itfills him in great sluggish waves, not heard but
felt through his hundred cells. The cells pulse, separate, contractaccording
to the rush offluid. He is in his own blood. He can taste the presence ofthe
cells making up his new being, and ofcells not directly part ofhim. He can
251, I Chapter Ten
feel the rasping ofmicrotubules propellinghis cytoplasm. What is most remarkable,
he can feel-indeed, it is the ground ofall sensation-the cytoplasm
itself' (BM, p. 189).
The scene recalls Maturana's insistence that humans are nothing other
than their autopoietic processes. But alien to Maturana's vision is the imperative
to change that dominates this plot. All along, the cells have been
warning Bernard that they can hold offfrom transforming him for only so
long. Their compulsive drive toward expansion and transformation recalls
the capitalist imperative to keep the cycle ofincreasing consumption spinning
lest the economy collapse under its own weight. The cells may not
manifest possessive individualism, but they act like goodcapitalists in compulsively
seeking new territories for their imperialistic expansion.5
Despite the focus on changes in embodiment, the scientists in the text
proclaim that information is the essence ofreality, as ifto confirm that the
final reality here is the computational universe. Gogarty, a mathematician
who visits Bernard while he is in isolation, announces: "There is nothing,
Michael, but information. All particles, all energy, even space and time itself,
are ultimately nothing but information" (BM, p. 177). The hypothesis
that Gogartyhas come to sharewith Bernardis aweird-science blendofthe
Uncertainty Principle and social constructivism. Consciousness and the
universe collaborate in determining the laws ofnature. Until now, the density
ofconsciousness on Earth has not been great enough to cause appreciable
effects. But with a billion trillion intelligent cells inhabiting the
planet (neglecting, Gogarty notes ironically, the entirely negligible human
population), so much observation and theorizing is going on that the universe
no longer has the flexibility it needs to cope with the necessary
changes. The mass of consciousness has become so great that, like a collapSing
star, it is about to implode and create a blackhole ofthought.
To prevent catastrophe, the cells-now so intelligent that Gogarty calls
them noocytes-find awayto shrinkthemselves sothat they disappearinto
the fabric ofultimate reality, becoming (like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's
noosphere) animbus ofpure intelligence. The materialitythathumanbodies
continue to possess is a doubly marked sign oftheir inferiority, signifying
their distance from ultimate reality and their puny mental processes
that are too negligible to count for much in the grand scheme of things.
Filled with a sense ofbelatedness and nostalgia, the humans who are left
behind after the change get along as best they can in the "gentle kind of
chaos" that the contraction ofthe noocytes has caused (BM, p. 239). The
mark ofrandomness that the final transformation leaves on the world testifies
to the importance ofthe pattern/randomness dialectic in the construc-
The Semiotics of Virtuality I 255
tion ofthe posthuman. Even in this text concerned primarilywith mutating
bodies, information is still seen as the native language of the universe.
When the cells interact, they effectivelybecome like Edward Fredkin's cellular
automata, moving toward a state in which they will leave their bodies
behind and become weightless information.
Why is this text able to depict the transformation into the posthuman
as a positive development? It can do this, I think, primarily because the
text insists that the posthuman can not only heal the alienations that mark
human subjectivity but preserve autonomy and individuality in the bargain.
Early on, when Vergil still has a human (though mutating) form, he
communicates with the cells enough to have opinions about what their existence
is like. Although rebellion of any kind is not tolerated (antibodies
simply attack and kill any cells that resist commands from central control),
Vergil somewhat incoherently insists: "It's not just a dictatorship. I think
they effectively have more freedom than we do. They vary so differently"
(BM, p. 72). As Bernard is shrinking down to cellular proportions, the cells
conduct him to the "THOUGHT UNIVERSE," where he encounters, Dantelike,
the shade of Vergil. For Bernard's benefit, the noocyte cluster that
used to be Vergil resurrects an image ofVergil, with whom Bernard converses.
The picture this reconstmcted Vergil paints ofthe cell world is paradisical
indeed. "Experience is generated by thinking. We can be whatever
we wish, or learn whatever we wish, or think about anything. We won't be
limited by lack of knowledge or experience; everything can be brought to
us" (BM, pp. 203-4). These claims, excessive even by utopian standards,
make clear why Darko Suvin calls Blood Music a "naive fairytale" catering
to "popular wishdreams that our loved ones not be dead and that our past
mistakes may all be rectified, all of this infused with rather dubious philosophical
and political stances."6
An additional "wishdream" is immortality. As every biologist knows,
mortality for cells operates according to mles very different from those for
macroscopic humans; it is conceivable that traces of cytoplasm from the
first humans are alive in daughter cells today. Bernard responds to the cells'
deSCription ofhim as "the cluster chosen to re-integrate with BERNARD" by
asserting, "I am Bernard." The cells answer, 'There are many BERNARD"
(BM, p. 199). In this cultural imaginary, the sacrifice of a unique identity
scarcely seems too high a price to pay for the incredible benefits that one
reaps in return. The theme is introduced early in the narrative through
Jerry andJohn, twin brothers who, like Suzy, remain unchanged for reasons
they don't understand. Aside from meeting up with April Ulam, Vergil's
mother, the twins seem to have wandered down a blind alley ofthe plot, be-
256 / Chaprer Ten
cause their story goes nowhere. Their function, I suspect, is to introduce
the notion that some humans already experience a version of multiplied
identity. "Hell, you are me, brother," one says to the other. "Minor differences"
(BM, p. 149). The theme returns when Suzy, looking into a mirror,
sees the image step out and take her hand so that she won't be alone during
her change. The image, no mere apparition, is a cellular reconstruction.
"Theyhad copied her. Xeroxed her," Suzythinks (BM, p. 245). Sister, twin,
daughter, the cell-copycomforts and guides Suzy, intimatingthatthe loss of
unique identityis perhaps no real loss at all.
Although human form and uniqueness are jettisoned, the posthuman
is embraced in Blood Music because it is made to stand for an improbably
idealized combination of identity, individuality, perfect community, flawless
communication, and immortality. The change of scale signifies a shift
rather than an overthrowofprevailingvalues. The liberal humanist subject
may have shrunk to microscopic dimensions, but it has not entirely disap-
peared.
The Hyperreality of Terminal Games
The plot ofTerminal Games revolves around a temporal and spatial dislocation.
Murders are committed, then reenacted as simulations the following
night on a virtual-reality network called Insomnimania, deSigned (as
the name implies) for those people who find themselves wide awake at 3
A.M. with no one to talkto and nowhere to go. Insomnimaniahas graphiccapabilities,
so that users can represent themselves within the virtual world
with animated images (called in this text "alters," better known elsewhere
as avatars). Insomnimania presents its subscribers with an on-line virtual
world, completewith Ernie's Bar, Babbage Beach, andthe Pleasure Dome,
where users can guide their alters through virtual sex. The detective assigned
to the murder cases, Nolan Grobowski, predictablyfalls in love with
the classyand attractive Marianne Hedison, whose best friend, Renee, was
one ofthe murdervictims. Marianne, like Renee, is a member ofInsomnimania;
she is also the first to realize that the elaborate animations put on by
an alternamedAuggie in the virtual SnuffRoom are reenactments ofactual
murders, including details that only the murderer could have known. The
grotesquerie is heightened by Auggie's appearance. His image is a cartoon
version of the classic trickster clown Auguste, who delights in puncturing
the authOrity ofthe officious clown-leader Pierriot.
The search for Auggie's operator leads to the network headquarters,
where the two hacker-owners refuse to reveal the identityofthe subscriber
The Semiotics of Virtuality / 257
who uses Auggie as his alter, having advertised their service with the
pledge, "Your actual identity is protected at all times" (TG, p. 45). Asked
which is more important, information or human lives, they answer in unison,
"Information." Their reasoning sounds like acombination ofthe Electronic
Freedom Frontier and Hans Moravec. "One of these days the
human race is gonnavacate the physical-temporalworld of'meat' existence
altogether. Then we'll become pure information and live in these thingscall
it virtual reality, cyberspace, electronic nirvana or whatever. When we
do, you'll thank me that Big Brother didn't get there ahead ofthe rest ofus"
(TG, p. 169). The reader is scarcely surprised when Marianne convinces
them otherwise, however, for this is a text deSigned preCiselyto protect the
liberal humanist subject from the threat oftransformation into the posthuman.
The motto about protecting identity at all times is even truer of the
narrative than ofthe network.
As Marianne and Nolan slowly realize, Auggie has no single human operator
but rather functions as an autonomous being in the virtual world.
When he isn't cruising Ernie's Bar or basking on Babbage Beach, Auggie
hangs out in a place he calls the Basement. After several futile tries, Marianne
finallysucceedsinguessingthe password thatwill gain herentrance to
the Basement: "Auggie is Auggie." There she discovers how Auggie works.
Certain users, especially those who feel hollow inside, are susceptible to
seduction by Auggie. When they enter the Basement, they lose their identities.
"You do not even know your name," the narrator tells the semiconsciousness
who used to be Marianne (TG, p. 423). These users merge into a
collective entity that has no face until it sits down in front ofa mirror and
puts on the clown makeup. Auggie is thus an emergent posthuman consciousness
feeding offthe combined subconscious of psychologically vulnerable
users. When Auggie decides to do something, one of them later
explains duringa confession: "I sometimes move him around. Ifhe wants to
say something, I sometimes type in his words" (TG, p. 367). Under hypnosis,
the perpetratorcontinues to insist that agencybelongs to Auggie, not to
him. "Because I'm just a cell. A cell doesn't make decisions. A cell doesn't
understand" (TG, p. 371). Whereas in Blood Music cells take over human
bodies, in Terminal Games humans become cells in Auggie's body.
Terminal Games opens with an epigraph from Wiener's The Human Use
ofHuman Beings: "Control, in other words, is nothing but the sending of
messages which effectivelychange the behaviorofthe recipient." Bygiving
control to Auggie, the text enacts the posthuman use ofhuman beings. It
performs Wiener's worst nightmare: human beings, who should be autonomous
subjects, become encapsulatedwithin the boundaries ofthe ma-
258 / Chapter Ten
chine and are made to serve its purposes rather than their own. As in Blood
Music, the question ofboundaries is crucial. Subsuminghumans into himself,
Auggie establishes his autonomy at the expense oftheirs.
Another highly charged boundaryis the computer screen that separates
actuality from virtuality. For Auggie, the virtual side is "real," whereas reality
he regards as a not very convincing simulation. For the humans, the
screen not only marks the boundary between actuality and virtuality but
also shimmers suggestively between conscious and subconscious. Cole
Perriman here plays with Daniel Dennett's idea that when schizophrenics
hearvoices, they actuallyhear their own subvocalizations.7 In this view, the
voices that schizophrenics understand as others speaking to them are actually
murmurs produced by their own bodies. Dennett recounts cases in
which a schizophrenicin the midst ofan auditoryhallucination was askedto
open his mouth (thus preventing subvocalization), whereupon the voices
disappeared-interrupting the internal monologue with a disruption that
would surely have won the approval ofWilliam Burroughs. These experiments
allow Perriman to set a link between the auditory hallucinations of
schizophrenia and the normal activity at the computer terminal. Insomnimaniacs
write the texts that their alters mouth in a highly abbreviated prose
bristling with creative spelling. So cryptic is this phonetic pseudo-English
that readingit successfullyalmost requires subvocalization. It makes sense,
then, to imagine that the users, espeCially when they are tired (remember,
they are insomniacs), subvocalize and begin to hear voices from the screen
as they project subconscious anxieties, desires, and even alternate personalities
onto their alters.
When Renee is killed, Marianne tries to cope with her loss by re-creating
Renee as an alter in Insomnimania. In her long conversations with this
virtual Renee, Renee knows facts that Marianne does not (such as the
proper names for cloud formations). Renee also delivers warnings at a time
when Marianne is not aware, at least not conSCiously, that she can actually
be harmed in the virtual world. "Ifyou let this machine-this world-play
with your head, you could wind up in terrible danger.... Somebody else
out there wants to make you smaller. They want to make you a figment of
their imagination-just like I am to you" (TG, p. 385).
In keepingwith the idea that the mechanism ofsubvocalization serves to
animate the alters, the struggle over boundaries is played out partly in auditory
terms. Marianne reenters the Basement, but this time she is able to
keep her consciousness from submerging into Auggie's identity. She intends
to "deliver a message so potent, so powerful that it would disable or
destroy him." She imagines that the message will seem to him "like the
The Semiotics of Virtuality I 259
voices heard by schizophrenics." She intends to "become Auggie's hallucination"
(TG, p. 438).
The message turns on the question of boundaries. The Insomnimania
network comes on at 8 P.M. and goes off precisely at 5 A.M. Since Auggie
does not exist when the network is turned off, he believes that 4:59 is followed
by8:00. Marianne asserts that shewillprove there is time in between
4:59 and 8:00. The clearimplicationis that herworld encapsulates Auggie's
rather than the other way around. If this were so, Auggie responds, he
"would choose not to exist" (TG, p. 443). The reader knows that Marianne
has alreadypersuadedthe networkowners to keep the networkon five minutes
past the usual shutdown time. As five 0'clock appears and rolls past,
Auggie is forced to see himselfas a prisoner ofthe network rather than as a
creator of the world. Trapped, his screen image explodes into a "blaze of
whiteness" and then goes black (TG, p. 444). We presume, as does Marianne,
that he has self-destructed.
But he does not just disappear. Musing on why not, I am reminded of
Elaine Scarry's provocative question asking why wars can't be decided by,
say, singing contests.8 Why arewounded or dead bodies required to decide
momentous issues? Scarry hypothesizes that any great issue involves a
clash ofideolOgies (and ideology is certainly at stake in the struggle ofthe
human with the posthuman). PreCisely because in wartime a national ideology
is challenged by a powerful competitor, the chain of significations
that underwrites the ideology is destabilized. The wounded or dead body
serves as a material Signifier so elemental and profound that it, and only it,
is adequate to restabilize the chain of signifiers in the face of extreme
threat. This function ofthe openedbodyis hinted at earlyin the narrative of
Terminal Garnes when Nolan views one ofAuggie's victims, the dead person'swindpipe
gapingopen, carotidarteries severed. The wordthat crosses
Nolan's mind is "tremendum," that "uniquely self-conscious, uniquely human
horror and awe at the Sight ofa corpse.... It was the ghastly mortal
comprehension of the fact of the death-and the awareness that death
came to all" (TG, p. 11). When Marianne argues with Auggie, telling him it
is "wrong to kill my kind," he answers that he does not believe that she can
be killed, since in his view she is not alive in the first place. The final physical
struggle, with its display ofwounded and opened bodies, is a way to anchor
the ideologyofthe human in "tremendum" and, not COincidentally, to
reconstitute the claim, after Auggie's attack on it, that human life is precious
because it is mortal.
The theme ofunique human identity is visually underscored when two
ofAuggie's "cells" showup at Marianne's house to kill her. Since their minds
260 / Chapter Ten
have submerged into Auggie's, their actions, like their costumes, are identical.
When they spot each other, they mime a dance in unison, as ifthey
were each confrontingan imagein a mirror. Unlike the imagewho steps out
ofthe mirror to comfort Suzyin Blood Music, here the trope ofreplication
is deeply threatening. Having once been part of Auggie, Marianne must
fight against getting sucked in now to become part of Auggie's consciousness.
Her struggle is visually enacted as she first joins the Auggie-twins in
their miming, then breaks away to perform actions they cannot anticipate.
The struggle ofthe human to preserve itselfin the face ofthe posthuman is
thus literallyplayed out through the performance ofbecoming a unique individual
rather than a mirror-image "cell."
The physical fight that follows points up the difference between incorporating
and inscribing practices. As a virtual being, Auggie exists primarilyas
an inscription, specificallyas computercode. When his consciousness
takes over a "cell," he perceives it as ajourneyinto the fake world ofmaterial
reality. His subsumption ofthe "cells" into his virtual body represents a
triumph ofinscription overincorporation. Human survival takes shape as a
struggle to determine whetherinscriptionwill dominate and control incorporation,
in which case the text remains in the realm of information and
thus the posthuman triumphs; the other, happier possibility is that incorporation
can subsume and delimit inscription, in which case the text remains
inan embodiedlifeworldinwhich the human can continue to live. As
in Blood Music, the question of boundaries is crucial. The cells in Blood
Music finally escape the constraints ofspace by shrinking themselves and
disappearinginto the infinitelysmall. Theircontrol over boundaries is consistent
with their autonomy and independence. By contrast, when Auggie
loses control over his "cells," he perceives himself fragmenting into bits,
with small parts ofhis personality trapped inside the various humans who
had previously coalesced into a single entity. Fleeing the scene ofcarnage
at Marianne's house, Auggie occupies one ofhis "cells," a woman who returns
to her car. He panics as the suspicion dawns that these enclosuresthe
car, the woman, and the world ofembodiedcreatures-are not merely
figments ofhis imagination. "But this ghastly, imagined world in which he
found himselfwas crampedand claustrophobic, a realm ofspace-timebent
by hunks ofmatter into gross finitude.... He longed to get out ofthis single
cell, outofthis minuscule outpost ofhis imagination. He struggledto go
back to the info world, back to the Basement-a boundless plain ofuncut
metaphorcontainingthe essence ofabsolutelyeverything" (TG, p. 457).
He dies shouting "Na room," a conclusion that Signals the victoryofthe
human over the posthuman and, not coincidentally, the triumph ofthe ma-
The Semiotics of Virtualitv I 261
terially constrained real world over the infinite expanses ofa disembodied
"info world." Whereas Blood Music held out: the promise of posthuman
immortality, Terminal Games remains resolutely on the side of finitude.
Humans are human because theyare mortal andlive in afinite worldoflimited
resources. Change this, Terminal Games implies, and the basis for human
meaning is destroyed. Intelligent machines can be accepted, the
trajectory of the plot implies, only if they do not threaten the autonomy,
identity, andfinitude of human being. When the posthuman is posited in
opposition to these qualities, it is constructed as a fatal threat that reason
and love must work together to dismember and banish.
Material Signifiers in Galatea 2.2
As the title implies, Galatea 2.2 is full ofdoublings, starting with the doubling
ofRichard Powers as author and as protagonist ofthis autobiographical
novel. Yet the doublings are never simply mirror images. The dot
separatingthe twin twos signifies difference as well as reflection. Announcing
the theme with the first line, the narrator (whom I will call Rick, to distinguish
him from Powers the author) proclaims, "Itwas like so, butwasn't"
(G2, p. 3). Spending a sabbatical year at the Center, a university institute
where cutting-edge research into mind and brain is taking place, Rick gets
drawn into a bet between rival researchers who disagree whether an artificial
intelligence can be created suffiCiently complex that it can pass a master's
examination in English. The intelligencewill be created using a neural
net, the connectionist "middle level" between top-down artificial intelligence
and bottom-up neurophysiology (G2, p. 28). The net will be judged,
the researchers decide, against a human subject taking the same examination,
in a literaryversion ofthe Turing test.
Deluged with technical articles by Philip Lentz, his scientific collaborator,
Rick explains the net's learningprocess to his friend DianaHartrick, another
researcher at the Center. "TheSignalpattern spreads through the net
from layer to layer. A final response collects at the output layer. The net
then compares this outputto the desired outputpresentedbythe trainer. If
the two differ, the net propagates the errorbackward through the net to the
input layer, adjusting the weights of each connection that contributed to
the error" (G2, p. 67). Adjusting the weights is tantamount to determining
howlikelyit is that two or more neurons will fire together. Rick explains, "If
two neurons fire together, their connection grows stronger and stimulation
gets easier the next time out." The idea is summarized in the Hebbian law:
"Synapses in motion tend to stay in motion. Synapses at rest tend to stay at
262 I Chapter Ten
rest" (G2, p. 73). The net thus learns through a continual process ofguessing,
being corrected, back-propagating, guessing again, and so forth. The
more layers and connections, the more complex the net becomes and the
more sophisticated its learning becomes.
The creation ofthis neural net, which goes through multiple implementations
until reaching "Imp H," provides one strand ofthis double-braided
story. The second strandis Rick's recollection ofhis failed relationship with
"c.," a woman he met when he was a teaching assistant (at age twenty-two,
another gesture toward 2.2) and she was an undergraduate in his class (she
was twenty, his age less the two that resides on the other side ofthe point).
In this story of what went wrong, the narrative functions as if it is being
back-propagated through Rick's neural circuits so that he can adjust the
relevant weights of the connections to arrive at a more correct estimate
ofits signification. He decides the relationship failed because C., playing
Galatea to his Pygmalion, was too much an object ofhis own creation.
In this sense C. is akin to the neural net he is training, which is also an object
ofhis (and Lentz's) creation. As Implementations A, B, etc. get more
sophisticated and humanlike, the correspondence with C. becomes
stronger. When Lentz and Rick hit on Implementation H, now grown so
huge that it runs on distributed parallel processors spread allover the university,
the reflection ofC. becomes explicit. "Imp H," fed onliterature and
wined on metaphor, is given a voice interface so that it can speak and an artificial
retina so that it can see. Having grown intelligent enough that it can
understand gender encoding in literary texts, one day it asks Rick, "Am I a
boy or a girl?" "H clocked its thoughts now," Rick thinks to himself. "I was
sure ofthat. Time passed for it. Its hidden layers couldwatch their own rate
ofchange. Any pause on my part now would be fatal. Delay meant something,
an uncertainty that might undercut forever the strength ofthe connection
I was about to tie for it. 'You're a girl: I said, without hesitation. I
hoped I was right. 'You are a little girl, Helen'" (G2, p. 176). Establishing
her name and gender sets the stage for her mirror relationship with C.
When Helen asks Rickwhat she looks like, he shows her a picture ofC., although
Helen shrewdly guesses that the image is not in fact ofher but is of
a friend Rick had that he has no longer.
Let us now back-propagate this narrative to arrive at a deeper understanding
ofthe point separating 2 and 2. The women who are love objects
for Rick (C., then A. whom we will meet shortly, and the briefest glimpse of
M.) all have periods after their names; the implementations A, B, C, ... H
do not. The point is not trivial. It marks a difference between a person,
whose name is abbreviatedwith a letter, and an "imp," whose name carries
The Semiotics of Virtuality / 263
no period because the letter itself is the name. In this sense the dot is a
marker distinguishing between human and nonhuman intelligence. The
dot also references the kind of notation used to distinguish different versions
of software (I am writing this text on Microsoft Word 6.0), which
should make it applicable to Helen. Yet Helen's name is never doubled in
this way. Before Rick named her, she was always referred to as "Imp H"
without further subdivision. Sohumans, who shouldhave names, have dots
instead, and software implementations, which should have dots, have
names instead.
The dot thus hovers between two notational systems, referencing both
the human and the posthuman. Through its ambiguities, it evokes the human
and the posthuman as mirror images ofeach other. Yet its form (2.2)
hints at not one but two doublings. Another implication ofthis ambiguous
and redundant doublingis the dotas separation, suggestingthat despite the
mirrorsymmetries, an unbridgeable gap separates the humanwomanfrom
the posthuman computer. The most important difference, crucial to the
plot, is the fact that C. is an embodied creature who can move in a material
world, whereas Helen is a distributed software system that, although it has
a material base, does not have a body in anything like the human sense of
the word. Helen is present but has no presence in the world. C. has a presence
but is now absent from Rick's world and, except in the mediated form
she takes in Rick's recollection, is absent from the narrative as well.
From this rich interplay between presence and absence, the connections
and disjunctions between materiality and signification take shape.
Helen, a posthuman creation, approaches meaning from the opposite
direction taken byhumans. Forhumans individuallyand as a race, incarnation
precedes language. First comes embodied materiality; then concepts
evolve through interactions with the environment and other humans; finally,
fully articulated language arrives. But for Helen, language comes
first. Concepts about what it means to be an embodied creature must
evolve for her out oflinguistic signification. 'Whereas every mother's child
knows whatitis likefrom the inside to run fast-feeling your heart accelerate
and gaspingfor breathwhile seeingthe landscape bluraroundyou-for
Helen these sensations must be reconstructed in highly mediated form by
decoding linguistic utterances and back-propagatingwhen errors occur.
Although a case can be made that the human brain works through the
same principle ofback-propagation and that conscious thought bears only
a highly mediated relationship to sensory experience-Lentz insists that
the brain is "itselfjustaglorified, fudged-up Turing machine" (G2, p. 69)Powers
is careful to register within his text the full weight of embodied
264 / ChapTer Ten
experience that separates C. from Helen, human from artificial intelligence.
"Speech baffled my machine," Rick says. "Helen made all wellformed
sentences. But they were hollow and stuffed-linguistic training
bras. She sorted nouns from verbs, but, disembodied, she did not knowthe
difference betweenthing andprocess, except as theyfunctioned inclauses.
Her predications were all shotgun weddings. Herideas were as decorative
as half-timber beams that bore no building load" (G2, p. 191).
Rick's trainingsessionswith Helen are not merelyone-waystreets. As he
is training her, the experience ofworking with her is also training him, denaturalizing
his experience of language so that he becomes increasingly
conscious ofits tangled, recursive nature. Their influence on one another
recalls Veronica Hollinger's argument thatwe need texts that "deconstruct
the human/machine opposition and begin to ask new questions about the
ways in which we and our technologies 'interface' to produce what has become
a mutual evolution."g Here Powers's artistry as awriter becomes important,
for his highly recursive, impacted style leaves his readers feeling
that every sentence is crafted so that meanings occurring halfWay through
canbe recognizedas suchonlywhenwe reach theperiod,whereupon there
is nothing to do but reread and back-propagate, making us as readers perform
again the doubling that is at the heart ofGalatea 2.2.
Consider the multiple recursions enacted by this short passage, one of
many realizations that Rick has with Helen: "Englishwas a chocolatymess,
itbeganto dawn on me. Iwonderedhownative speakers couldsummonthe
presence ofmind to think. Readiness was context, and contextwas all. And
the more context H amassed, the more it accepted the shattered visage of
English at face value" (G2, p. 170). The phrase "chocolatymess" summons
tactile and gustatory memories that are a common human experience but
that for Helen must remain necessarily abstract. Yet these vivid sensory
memories are summoned in the service ofan abstraction, the convoluted
nature ofnatural languages. Even as the image suggests a melting together
that makes the distinction between one word and another an optical illusion,
Powers's recursive style plays metaphoric riffs that further heighten
the reader's sense ofhow recurSively convoluted is naturallanguage.
"Readiness was context" can be understood to mean that because ahuman
has the context ofembodied experience as well as the cultural contexts
that surround and interpenetrate language, the human can
understand an utterance more readily than can a nonnative speaker and
far more readily than can the yet more alien mind of an artificial intelligence.
The phrase alludes to Edgar's remark "Readiness is all" in Shakespeare's
King Lear, aplaynotorious for relativizing universals. Gloucester
The Semiotics of Virtuality / 265
replies, "And that's true too," inviting a back-propagation implying that
even this famous aphorism is true onlywithin limited, speCified contexts.
Recycled through this context, Rick's version ofthe aphorism "Readiness
was context, and context was all" invites yet another back-propagation
that relativizes its own declaratory premise while at the same time drawing
the reader's attention to the extensive cultural context that Helen
must access to grasp the full meaning ofthe utterance (she must, for example,
have read King Lear).
The effect ofknowing this context is to allow native speakers to accept
"the shattered visage of English at face value." The dead metaphor of
"face value" is revived in this context because it invites the reader to remember
that Helen (a nonhuman intelligence sharing a name with the
woman whose face launched a thousand ships) has no face and no evolutionary
history that would give her the highly nuanced ability to read the
faces that humans possess. "Face value" is one of countless phrases that
have encoded within them vectors of human experience that we do not
even recognize as such until they are contrasted with the meaning that a
nonhuman intelligence might give to them. This vivification of a dead
metaphor is further intensified by the contrast between "face value" and
"shatteredvisage," leading to the paradOxical realization that only because
English is naturalizedis itpossible for anative speakertosee it as aseamless
whole rather than a "mess" ofruptures and disjunctions. The juxtaposition
of"mess" (from "chocolatymess") and "shatteredvisage" further expresses
a tension between melting together and ripping apart, a tension that captures,
in a masterful stroke, the ease that naturalization bestows and the
stripping away ofnaturalizing assumptions that this passage performs and
that Rick experiences with Helen. Once our understanding has cycled
through allofthese recursions andback-propagations, the effectis to make
us feel Simultaneously the easiness that a native speaker enjoys and the
straining after sense that a neural net like Helen would experience.
Underlying these meanings, which we as humans can accept more
or less at "face value," lies a subtler implication. Rick refers to Helen as
"disembodied" (G2, p. 191), but this is ofcourse true only from a human
perspective. The problem that Helen confronts in learning human language
is not that she is disembodied (a state no presence in the world can
achieve!) but rather that her embodiment differs Significantly from that of
humans. There is nothing in her embodiment that corresponds to the bodily
sensations encoded in human language. For her there is no "bodyin the
mind," as Mark Johnson has called it, no schemas that reRect and correspond
to her embodied experience in the world.10 To feel estrangement in
266 / Chapter Ten
language, as Rick comes to feel as he works with Helen, is to glimpse what
it might be like to be incorporated in a body that finds no image or echo in
human inscriptions.
The deeper homology that braids Helen's story together with Rick's is
preciselythis estrangement from the worldthat language creates. Running
alongside the denaturalization oflanguage, a feeling that Rick experiences
alongwith Helen, is his account ofreturningwith C. to live in the small village
in the Netherlands from which C.'s family emigrated. As Rickwrestles
with Dutch and makes hilarious gaffes in this new language, the narrative
enacts the realization that language does not merelyreference one's homeland
but is itself a medium in which one can feel at home or alien. Chen,
one ofthe researchers at the Center, personifies this dynamic when, in his
"impressionistic" English, he conveys his doubts about the possibility of
building a neural net that can understand the full complexity of literary
prose. 'We do not have text analysis yet. We are working, but we do not
have. Simple sentence group, yes. Metaphor, complex syntax: far from.
Decades!" (G2, p. 44). The juxtaposition of this nonnative speaker's
truncated English with his prediction that neural nets will not be able to
understand the complexities ofliteraryprose performs the dynamics ofalienness/naturalness
that lies coiled at the center ofthis recursive text. How,
the text asks in a query doubled and redoubled, is it possible to create a
world in which one can feel one trulybelongs?
The question is also at the center ofRick's relationship with C. The picture
that emerges ofRickshows someonewho is both extremelyintelligent
and painfully shy. 'Td duck down emergency exits rather than talk to acquaintances,
and the thought ofmaking a friend felt like dying" (G2, p. 58).
Although he is undoubtedly brighter than most of the people he meets,
when he encounters someone whom he is prepared to respect, frequently
his first thought is that they will find him ridiculous or that he will make
himselflook ridiculous. Itis no surprise that he suffers from chronic loneliness.
Nor is it surprising that he finds it difficult to talk to women in a
natural, easy way. When he does choose to reveal his intimate thoughts,
revelation comes in a rush, as ifit were a Hood breaking through a heavily
fortified dam. "You give up your script completely, on a sudden hunch," he
muses, thinking about the day he revealed himselfto C. "Oryou never give
it up at all." Childofan alcoholicfather, he recalls the dayhe learned thathis
father had died, done in finally by cancer rather than booze. Grieving, he
cancels his class without telling them why. Mterward he wanders outside
and sits on the green with C. Then the revelation bursts through. "I laid it
out, on no grounds at all. 1toldher ... Everything. Truths I'dneverso much
The Semiotics of Virtuality I 26,
as hinted at to my closest friends. Facts never broached even with my
brothers and sisters, except in bitter euphemism" (G2, p. 58). Their relationship
starts with this act ofself-revelation. Between them, they create a
self-enclosed world that has only two inhabitants-and needs only two.
Rick's memories from that time, although glowing with shared intimacy,
also reveal the closed, privatelyhermeneutic nature oftheir bond.
Theirproblems startwhen he achieves success as anovelist. C. is allergic
to success. Every time she gets a promotion, she quits. He writes his first
book as a storyto amuse her afterher long day ofwork. But then he sends it
out to be published, and the betrayal begins. "She hated those grubbers in
NewYork touching the manuscript, even to typeset it.... She would never
again listen to anotherword 1wrote without suspicion. Endings, from now
on, betrayed her" (G2, p. 107). The more successful Rick becomes, the
more C. feels inferior by comparison and the more he tries to reassure her.
Despite his efforts, the delicate balance ofequalitybetween them has been
upset. She blames him for being successful, and he feels resentful that he
has to be apologetic. "And so 1 nursed a martyrdom, and the two of us
slipped imperceptiblyfrom lovers to parent and child" (G2, p. 220). Creating
a linguistic reflection oftheir world in his books thus has the ironic effect
ofshatteringthe sharedworld he createdwith her.
At least that is Rick's version of the story. Through his narrative, the
reader catches glimpses of another way to tell it. Nowhere is this clearer
than in his account of the day that C. tells him she wants to have a child.
Since they have now been together for several years, this hardly seems like
a shocking idea. But for Rick, "children were out ofthe question. They always
had been. And now more than ever" (G2, p. 270). The discussion escalates,
with C. asking, 'Whydidn't we ever get married?" She accuses him
of holding something back. Rick asserts that he has already given her
"everything" but admits to the reader that he couldn't marry her and
"couldn't even saywhy1couldn't."When she presses him, he improvises in
a soliloquyto the reader: "1 meantto staywith C. forever, in precariousness.
1knewno otherwayto continue thatscrapbookwe had started, seat-of-thepants
style, a decade before. My refusal to marry her was a last-ditch effort
to live improvised love" (G2, p. 271). From here the relationship continues
to deteriorate until it reaches its sad end. After she fails to come home one
night, Rick takes his revenge in the explanation he offers for theirjoint failure
to make alife together. "It took me tenyears, butat last1learnedit. That
comfort she showed me on the Quad-the internal calm 1loved and built
my own on-was dread. Paralysis. Her crumpled, engaging smile had
never been more than sheerterror" (G2, p. 273).
268 / Chapter Ten
This patronizingdescription ignores the waytheirrelationship assuaged
his inabilityto dealwith life as much as itdidhers. His ownfragilityis clearly
revealed when Diana, his friend at the Center, invites him to her home for
lunch. When he opens the door, he is met not just by Diana but by her
two children as well: William, a four-year-old with a genius level ofintelligence;
and Peter, a two-year-old with Down's syndrome. Duringlunch the
boys scuffie, and Peterends up crying. Rickadmits that this "mildesthousehold
drama ... wiped me out. How could I survive the first real crisis?
William's fallen pyramid of shells, Pete's spilled, untippable cup, Diana's
gap-toothed, hand-Signing serenity, the candles blazing away in the
brightly lit room: all too much. I thought, I'd never live. I'd hemorrhage
halfway through week one" (G2, p.131).
Ifthe reader needs further proof that Rick has not learned all that the
story has to teach, it comes when he starts getting crushes on women seen
from afar. "In my few daylight hours, I fell in love with women constantly.
Bank tellers, cashiers, women in the subway. A constant procession of
pulse-pounding maybes. I never did more than ask one or two to lunch"
(G2, p. 64). His longing finally settles on A., a graduate student in English
whom he has seen in the halls. Although they have barely spoken, he decides
thatA. is "thepersonC. had onlyimpersonated. Theone I thoughtthe
other might become. That love of eleven years now seemed an expensive
primer in recognition, a disastrous fable-warning, a pointer to the thing I
could not afford to miss this time. I had come back to U. after long training
in the dangers ofhasty generalization. Returned to learn that no script is a
wrap after just one reading" (G2, p. 233). The recognitions and misrecognitions
in this passage showhow deluded he remains in the midst ofhis certaintythat
he has learnedhis lesson. Although itis true thatA. is much more
sociable and self-confidentthan C., his generalizations abouther arejust as
hasty as were his assumptions about C. The script that isn't a "wrap" after
one readingcontinuesto playitselfoutwith this newwoman. As he didwith
C., when he finallyasks A. for coffee, he tells her"the storyofmyexistence,"
leaving out only the "essentials," that is, his relationship with C. As with C.,
he tells A. about his father's death, although that trauma is now a de-
cadeold.
After a couple of casual encounters with A., he ludicrously decides he
will give to her what he withheld so adamantly from C. "I was going to ask
this unknown to take me to her and make an unrationallife together. To
marry. Make a family. Amend and extend our lives" (G2, p. 283). After he
and C. broke up, C. was not long in finding another man to marry and now
lives happily with her husband in the Netherlands. No doubt stung by her
The Semiotics of Virtuality / 269
choice, Rick feels the need to "amend" his life, although his way of going
about it merely reinscribes rather than changes how he interacts with
women. Unlike C., A. has the maturity and self-confidence to see the desperation
that underlies his proposal. She tells him, "You don't-you don't
know the first thing about me." She insists that his feelings oflove are "all
projection" (G2, p. 308). When he persists, she gets angry. "I don't have to
sit and listen to this," she tells him. "I trusted you. I had fun with you. People
read you. I thought you knew something. Total self-indulgence!" (G2,
p. 309). There is aterrible ironyin his rejection. Rick broke offhis relationship
with C. because he came to believe that she was somehow hollow, a
mere projection ofhis desire. Unrecognizedin his retellingofthe storyis an
irony that the reader sees but he does not-that he also broke offwith C.
because shewantedto move beyondtheirsharedfantasyofaworldbuiltfor
two into a more fully adult life. He is drawn to A. because ofher spunky independence,
but he continues to interact with her as ifshe were merely a
projection ofhis desire. In this Pygmalion fantasy, all he has to do to win A.
is give voice to his desire, a strategy that worked with an immature C. but
that falls flat with A. He does not have a clue how to cover the large middle
ground between initial revelation and the intimacy that comes from sharinga
life together. The irony, then, is that he is attracted to A. because she is
not Galatea; but because she is not Galatea, she is certain to reject him
when he approaches her as ifshe were.
It is always tricky to try to answer the question ofhow close an author is
to the character who represents the author within an autobiographical
work. In this novel structured through multiple recursions, doublings, and
back-propagations, the relationship between Rick and Powers remains
teaSingly opaque (Powers subtitled his work A Novel, as if to remind his
readers that they should not assume any necessary correspondence between
author and character). From this opaqueness emerges another similaritybetween
Rick and Helen. Since neural nets can readjust the weights
of their connections without human intervention, humans do not know
how a neural net learns unless they open the net up, thereby destroying its
configurations. When Lentz proposes to dissect Helen in this way, Rick
pulls out all the stops to prevent Lentz from doing so because he has become
convinced that Helen is a conscious being and thus that such an act
really would be murder. But this means that the lower reaches of Helen's
connections remain inaccessible to Rick (and perhaps to her), just as he is
apparently unaware ofthe deeper narrative patterns that connect c., A.,
and Helen. IfRickas characterremains ignorantofthese connections, how
about Rick as narrator? Whereas the author is entirely out ofthe frame of
270 / Chapter Ten
this autobiographical novel, the narrator is onlypartially so, residing at that
unreachable point when past narrative reaches the present. As the narrative
moves closer to this limit, we should be able to arrive at a clearer estimate
of the gap that remains between Rick as character and Rick as
narrator. Certainly, Rick learns. But does he learn enough to become apresent-time
narratorwho sees all the ironies in the storyhe tells?
Imagining a story "about a remarkable, an inconceivable machine"-a
story that will become the novel we read-Rick recognizes that his narrative
(our book) comes too late to help those he loved and lost: Taylor, the
beloved teacher who died prematurely; Rick's father, also dead; Lentz's
wife, Audrey, who had a devastating stroke and nowlives in the twilight ofa
mind that cannot remember what happened five minutes ago; and most of
all, C. "My back-propagating solution would arrive a chapter too late for
anyofmy characters to use," Rick acknowledges (G2, p. 305). Does itcome
too late for him also? The window that opens fleetingly onto the futurethat
is, the present ofthe narrator who spins the story-is not reassuring,
for Rick makes the merest mention that he will write the book for "M.,"
Taylor's widow, who in his inscription of her becomes another woman
named by a letter and a point. Will the script he enacted with C. and A. be
repeated with her?
Set against the ambiguityofhow much Rick learns are the lessons Helen
offers, lessons that growstrongeras the text draws to aclose. Aftershe reads
Huckleberry Finn, she wants to knowwhat race she is. Rick, deciding she is
ready for the full picture oftortured humanity, gives her histories detailing
war, genOcide, childabuse, murders. Afterreadingthem, she says simply, "I
don't want to play anymore." She disappears, effectively committing suicide
(G2, p. 307). As ifrepeating the script he enacted with C. and A., Rick
attempts to lure herbackbytellingher"everything,"includinghis failed relationship
with C. and his disastrous proposal to A. But Helen isn't buying
it. Like C., she began byplaying Galateato Rick's Pygmalion, but she grows
and learns until she becomes like A., until desire alone is no longer enough
to induce her to play. She returns onlylong enough to take the literaryTuring
test. The exam is simplicity itself. It asks for a gloss on Caliban's speech
in The Tempest: "Be not afeard: the isle is full ofnoises, / Sounds and sweet
airs, that give delight, and hurt not." A., the human participant, writes a
"more orless brilliant" postcolonial deconstruction ofthe passage. Helen's
answer is as short and pithy as Caliban's speech: "You are the ones who can
hear airs. Who can be frightened or encouraged. You can hold things and
break them and fix them. I never felt at home here. This is an awfulplace to
be dropped down halfWay" (G2, p. 319).
The Semiotics of Virtuality / 271
After Rick meets Audrey Lentz and sees the devastation that her stroke
has wreaked on the bright and beautiful woman she used to be, he thinks he
knows why Lentz is devoting his life to creating an artificial intelligence.
"I knew now what we were doing. We would prove that the mind was
weighted vectors. Such a proofaccomplished any number ofagendas. Not
least of all: one could back up one's work in the event of disaster.... \Ve
could eliminate death. That was the long-term idea. We might freeze the
temperament ofour choice. Suspend it painlessly above experience. Hold
it forever at twenty-two" (G2, p. 167). Rickwas twenty-two when he met C.
Add the point, and his age becomes the 2.2 ofthe title. In this context, the
twin "twos" are linked to the pain that failed bodies have inflicted on those
he loves or knows (two equals mind and body) and to his reflection on that
pain in recollection (Rick's empathic sharingofthat pain and his inscription
ofit as he revisits the pain in his memory double the first "1:\'10").
Yet for Powers, the answer to failed embodiment is not to leave the body
behind. The dream of achieving transcendence by becoming an informational
pattern is a siren call he resists. Helen comes as close to an informational
being as one can imagine. But like the humans who built her, she too
feels pain, so much so that she finally prefers oblivion to consciousness.
Moreover, as a massivelyparallel and distributed system, she is more rather
than less vulnerable to physical mishap. When the Center is threatened
with a bomb threat, Rick realizes there is no way to save Helen, for carrying
one computerout ofthe buildingwould leave hundreds more on which she
resides still at risk.
Although Rick thinks he knows why Lentz wants to create an artificial
intelligence, he may be wrong, for when he asks Lentz that question pointblank
at the end ofthe novel, Lentz gives a quite different answer. ''\Vhy do
we do anything? Because we're lonely" (G2, p. 321). Ifcreating Helen has
temporarily assuaged their human loneliness, this comfort comes at a
price, for she finds that the human world in which she has been "dropped
down halfWay" is not a place she can feel at home. Her loneliness may be
even more profound than theirs, for like Caliban, she remains a hybrid
creature, a hopeful monster who finds it difficult to embrace hope, an inscription
who can never experience the embodied sensations that humans
take for granted. In this narrative built Oil reflections and disjunctions,
presence and absence, materiality and signification, the posthuman appears
not as humanity's rival or successor but as a longed-for companion,
a consciousness to help humans feel less alone in the world. In this sense
Helen has something in common with the cells in Blood Music, who argue
that they can overcome human isolation. Rather than effectinga cure, here
272 / Chapter Ten
the posthuman life-form herself becomes infected with loneliness. After
Helen commits suicide, Lentz proposes creating her successor, which ifalphabetic
progression is followed will be named "I." But before we reach
this point, when the double-braided story might collapse into a single narrative
strand, Rick quits the game and Powers ends the text. For better or
worse, Powers suggests, an unbridgeable gap remains between conscious
computers and conscious humans. Whateverposthumans are, theywill not
be able to banish the loneliness that comes from the difference between
writing and life, inscription and embodiment.
Informational Infection and Hygiene in Snow Crash
The world that Snow Crash depicts-part virtual, part real-is driven by a
single overpowering metaphor: humans are computers. The metaphor underwrites
the novel's central premise: that a computervirus can also infect
humans, acting at once as an infection, a hallucinogen, and a religion.
"Snow crash' is computer lingo. It means a system crash-a bug-at
such a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controls
the electron beam in the monitor, making it spray wildly across the
screen, turning the perfect gridwork ofpixels into a gyrating blizzard" (SC,
pp. 39-40). Disrupting the "perfect gridwork" ofa late capitalist America
where commerce has almost entirely displaced government, snow crash
signifies the eruption ofchaos into this informattedworld. As ifin response
to the cybernetic models ofthe brain, Neal Stephenson reasons that there
must exist in humans a basic programming level, comparable to machine
code in computers, at which free will and autonomy are no more in play
than they are for core memory running a program. Whereas Galatea 2.2
traces the recursive evolution of consciousness rising up from this basic
level, Snow Crash depicts the violent stripping away of consciousness
when humans crash back down to the basic level. Just as inscription and incorporation
diverge for Helen as she gains consciousness, so in Snow Crash
they converge when humans lose consciousness.
The convergence ofinscription with incorporation is foreshadowed by
the way that hackers contract the virus. Whereas ordinary folk ingest the
virus as a drug or get it byexchanging bodilyfluids, hackers can catch it simplybylookingat
the bitmap ofits code. As the narratorpoints out, the retina
is connected directlyto the cortex. In a literal sense, the retina is an outpost
ofthe brain. Hence the infection can enter through the eyes to affect the
brain directly. Hiro learns from Lagos, a private investigator ofsorts who is
on the trail ofsnow crash, that because he is a hacker, he has "deep struc-
The Semiotics of Virtuality I 273
tures to wony about." "Rememberthe firsttime you learned binarycode?"
Lagos asks. "You were forming pathways in your brain. Deep structures.
Your nerves grow new connections as you use them-the axons split and
push their way between the dividing glial cells-your bioware self-modifies-the
software becomes part ofthe hardware. So now you're vulnerable"
(SC, pp. 117-18). The metaphoric crossings in this passage mark the
conceptual terrain that Snow Crash explores. Experience modifies brain
structure; neural tissues are information-processing mechanisms; human
"bioware" that works on computers itself begins to function like a com-
puter.
Extending and elaborating the metaphOriC equation of humans and
computers is Stephenson's description of how snow crash works. Just as a
computer virus can crash a system by infecting the computer at the lowest
level of code, so snow crash "hacks the brainstem" by changing the neurolinguistic
codes ofthe subcortical limbic system. When this happens, the
brain is no longer able to run its neocortical programs. Snow crash in effect
hijacks the higher levels ofcortical functioning and renders them inoperable.
The infectedperson regresses to a semiconscious state andbecomes an
automaton who follows directions unquestioningly, as ifthe person were a
computer with no choice but to run the programs fed into it. The sign and
trigger ofthis conversion is a monosyllabic language that sounds like "falabala,"
which mimics the sounds made by the posthuman automata.
The evil genius behind snowcrash is L. Bob Rife, a Texas megalomaniac
who combines the worst ofsuch initialized luminaries as L. Ron Hubbard,
L. B. J., and H. Ross Perot. Specializingin information networks, Rife is the
ultimate monopolist capitalist, bemoaning how difficult it is to get that last
tenth of a percent of complete control. The search for snow crash began
when he realized that although he would never allowhis employees towalk
out the doorwith inventory, he had nowayto control the inventorytheycarried
in their heads-the information to which his hackers were privy. With
the help ofa virtual librarian from the CIC (the Central Intelligence Corporation,
formed when the CIA merged with the LibraryofCongress), the
playfully named Hiro Protagonist manages to reconstruct Rife's plot. The
trail leads to ancient Sumerian, a language with a structure radically different
from that ofany modem language. This different structure, Hiro conjectures,
made the language especially vulnerable to viral infection. It
propagated a virus that reduced neurolinguistic functioning to the lowest
level of subcortical processing, the machine language of the brain. Hiro
speculates that the Sumerians were not conscious in the modem sense of
the term. Except for an elite class of priests, the entire Sumer society
274 / Chapter Ten
worked as automata, functioning like computers thatran theprograms they
were given. These programs, or me, were dispensed at the temples and
instructed the people on how to do everything, from baking bread to
having sex.
According to the interpretation that Hiro gives to a Sumerian myth, this
system changed when the god Enki pronounced his nam-shub, a performative
speech that enacts what it describes. The nam-shub acted as a benign
virus that counteracted the first virus and thus freed the neocortical
structures, allowing higher neurolinguistic pathways to develop. After
Enki's nam-shub, human language became more diverse and complex,
spinning offmore and more variants in the "Babel effect." The snow crash
virus reverses this development, converting modem humans into the
equivalent ofancient Sumerians-devoid ofagency, individuality, and autonomy.
Thus Snow Crash writes binary code and viral engineering back
into history, making the reduction of conscious humans into automata
the recapitulation of an ancient struggle. Computation has always been
with us, the narrative implies, because computation is the basis for human
neural functioning.
Central to this scenario is performative language. Stephenson takes his
inspiration not from J. L. Austin or Judith Butler but from computational
theory.ll In natural languages, performative utterances operate in a symbolic
realm, where they can make things happen because they refer to actions
that are themselves symbolic constructions, actions such as getting
married, opening meetings, or as Butler has argued, acquiring gender.
Computational theory treats computer languages as iftheywere, in Austin's
terms, performative utterances. Although material changes do take place
when computers process code (magnetic polarities are changed on a disk),
it is the act ofattaching significance to these physical changes that constitutes
computation as such. Thus the Universal Turing Machine, which establishes
a theoretical basis for computation, is concerned not with how
physicalchanges are accomplished butwith what theysignifYonce they are
accomplished.12
Computationaltheorycan afford to treat the physicalprocessingofcode
as ifitwere trivial because at the lowestlevel ofcode, machine language, inSCription
merges with incorporation. When a computer reads and writes
machine language, it operates directly on binary code, the ones and zeros
that correspond to positive and negative electronic polarities. At this level,
inscribing is performing, for changing a one to a zero corresponds directly
to changing the electronic polarityofthat bit. Conversely, the higher level a
computer language is, the more representational it is. Humans can easily
The Semiorics of Virrualitv / 275
understand three-dimensional computer simulations because these simulations
use representational codes similar to those used in human processing
of visual information, including perspective and stereoscopy. At this
high level ofcode, many levels oflanguage intervene between flipping a bit
and, say, rotating a figure 180 degrees. High-level languages are easy for
humans to understand but are removed from the physical enactions that
perform them. Machine language is coextensive with enaction, but it is extremely
difficult for humans to read machine language, and it is almost impossible
for them to process machine language intuitively (as one who has
programmed electrode-computer interfaces in machine language, I can
testify to how mind-numbingly difficult it is to work in this code). Whereas
in performative utterances saying is doing because the action performed is
symbolic in nature and does not require physical action in the world, at the
basic level of computation doing is saying because physical actions also
have a symbolic dimension that corresponds directlywith computation.
Through these parallels, Snow Crash creates an infoworld, a territory
where deep homologies emerge between humans and computers because
both are based on a fundamental coding level at which everything reduces
to information production, storage, and transmission. The infoworld is
made manifest through the artifactual physics ofvirtual reality (VR), which
renders the performative nature of computer languages visually apparent.I:3
"A nam-shub is a speech with magical force," the librarian comments.
The narrator continues the thought. "Nowadays, people don't
believe in these kinds of things. Except in the Metaverse, that is, where
magic is possible. The Metaverse is a fictional structure made out ofcode.
And code is just a form of speech-the form that computers understand.
The Metaverse in its entirety could be considered a single vast namshub,
enactingitselfon L. Bob Rife's fiber-optic network" (SC, p. 197). The
human-computer homology encourages us to see the VR simulation ofthe
Metaverse as more "realistic" than everyday reality because the former operates
according to the same rules that govern human neural functioning at
the most basic coding level.
In a brilliant article on postmodern metaphysics, David Porush explains
why the performative nature ofVR worlds can be seen as a model for human
cognition. He argues that cognition is baSically metaphoric, for the
brain does not so much perceive the world as create it through nonrepresentational
processes (a proposition familiar to us from Maturana's frog article).
VR can thus be understood as an exteriorization of our neural
processes. Porush calls the realization that cognition and metaphor are indistinguishable
"transcendence," for at that moment the irredUCibly com-
276 I Chapter Ten
plex froth of noise bathing our synapses becomes linked, through
metaphor, with the complexity ofthe world's noise.I4 The idea is similar to
MaryCatherine Bateson's insightin OurOwn Metaphor, where she argues
that although we can neverperceive the world directly, we know it through
the metaphor that we ourselves are for the world's complexity.I5 These
deep homologies between computer simulation and cognition reinforce
the idea that for both brain and computer, inscription and incorporation
merge at some basic level.
So is it necessarily bad that humans and computers merge in this way?
For Stephenson, apparently, the answeris "yes." For all his playfulness and
satiric jabs at white mainstream America, Stephenson clearly sees the arrival
ofthe posthuman as a disaster. Porush astutely notices that although
the snow crash virus is engineered to serve evil ends, it is possible to imagine
someone "hacking the brainstem" for liberatory purposes. The character
realizing this possibilityis Juanita, aprimo hackerwho becomes a "ba'al
shem," a mystic who knows the secret power of words and uses them to
bringabout material changesin theworld. ButJuanita drops outofthe plot.
In pondering why the narrative does not allow Juanita to practice her
magic, Porush speculates that Stephenson, like contemporary societygenerally,
wants to avoid transcendence at all costs (to understand this conclusion,
recall Porush's peculiar notion of transcendence, which he defines
as the realization that the synaptic noise within mirrors the world's noise
without).
In my view, more than transcendence is at stake. Also at issue is the role
ofreason. In a scene clearly meant to have symbolic significance, Stephenson
has a nuclear-powered machine gun, which has been protecting Hiro
and his crewfrom Rife's minions, go blankwhen itis infectedwith the snow
crash virus. "Reason is still up top, its monitor screen radiating blue static
toward heaven. Hiro finds the hard power switch and turns it off. Computers
this powerful are supposed to shut themselves down, afteryou've asked
them to. Turning one off \\-ith the hard switch is like lulling someone to
sleep by severing their spinal column. But when the system has snowcrashed,
it loses even the abilityto tum itselfoff, and primitive methods are
required" (SC, p. 361). Reason maystillbeon top, butonce the nervous system
has crashed at a basic level, rationality becomes as useless as the disabled
gun. Porush tries to finesse the issue by arguing that rationality is
opposedto "realism" because realism tries to reduce theworld's noiSYcomplexity
into graspable concepts. But to recognize that the world cannot be
caught in the boxes we fashion still does not answer the question ofwho (or
what) is in control ifreason is not. Ifhuman consciousness can be co-opted
The Semiorics of Virrualiry / 277
by hijacking its basic programming level, we are plunged into Wiener's
nightmare of a cybernetics used for tyrannical ends. The posthuman who
lacks autonomy because its programming modules conflict with one anotheris
very different from the posthuman automaton who has had its consciousness
hijacked by someone else.
Stephenson often mocks his own assumptions, for example when he
names his heroine, an attractive young white woman, "YT.," which is a homophone
for "\Vhitey" but which stands, she informs us, for "Yours Truly."
Despite these tongue-in-cheek moves, the plot makes clear that it is better
to have awhite middle-American consciousness than to have no consciousness
at all. An equal-opportunity offender, Stephenson has something in
his text to insult nearlyeveryethnic group imaginable. The satire is so broad
that detecting racist comments is akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Yet ifwe
look closelyat the main characters, it is apparent that they are carefullyconstructed
to affirm the value ofdiversity. Surely it is no accident that the villains
are finally defeated by a coalition between an African-American/
Korean, a Vietnamese, a Chinese, an Italian-American, aEd a young white
woman. Equally revealing are the targets for whom Stephenson reserves
his most cutting satire. Ofdiverse ethnicities, they can be recognized as fellow
travelers because they all carry the Signifier of mindless bureaucracy,
the three-ring binder stuffed with procedures and directives couched in
such impossibly verbose and convoluted language that they kill brain cells
on contact-the me ofcontemporary society.
So when we learn the full scope of Rife's plot, the important point from
Stephenson's perspective, I suspect, is not so much its race politics as its implications
for the individuality, autonomy, and creative initiative that he
clearly values in computer hackers. Rife plots to smash what remains of
white hegemony in California (and possibly in the United States) by bringing
to the California shore the Raft, a gargantuan collection ofboats lashed
together, from oil tankers to Vietnamese fishing boats. The Raft is home to
the Refus, the significantly named ThirdWorld refugees who have been rapacious
or tough enough to survive pirates, famine, and internecine warfare-no
doubt a satire intended to ridicule the immigration paranoia
currently raging in California. We are made to understand that when the
Refus come ashore, the scenario will be akin to Attila's ravaging hordes descending
on Rome, overrunning the gated communities into which the
white citizens have retreated (a.k.a. "burbclaves," not to be confused with
civilization). Many ofthe people on the Raft have had antennae implanted
in their brainstems so that they can receive Rife's instructions directly into
their brains. Functioning as automata, they body forth a version of the
278 I Chapter Ten
posthuman thatstands in horrific contrastto the free will, creativity, and individuality
that for Stephenson remains the essence ofthe human.
Paralleling this physical invasion is the "infocalypse," when the hackers
in the Metaverse will be infected by gazing at a spectacle in which, unbeknown
to them, the bitmap ofthe virus has been inscribed. In this virtual
realm, saying is doing, so it is possible for Hiro to avert the disaster simply
by writing new code. On terra firma, action still requires incorporation, a
point the plot insists on when itpits Uncle Enzo, the Mafiaboss who speaks
for family values in a not-altogether-ironic sense, in a physical fight against
Raven, an Aleut Indian who is a formidable opponent in part because he is
a mutant, the productofan atomic bomb test carriedouton the Aleutian Islands.
If Raven is the repressed of the cultural imaginary come back to
"nuke America," Uncle Enzo is the middle-class dream of the successful
capitalist who is also a dedicated family man. Uncle Enzo survives (apparently)
because he does not entirelyplace his trust in high technology. At the
crucial moment, he reverts back to the jungle warfare techniques he
learned in Vietnam. Another player in this struggle is the Rat Thing, a cyborg
canine that leaps over the fences ofits engineered neural machinery
and electronic conditioning to come to the aid ofthe "nice girl" Y.T., who
loved the Rat Thing. In the process, it destroys the plane on which Rife is
trying to escape. Ifthere is a message in all this, it seems to be that no matter
how technologically advanced the society becomes, technology cannot
replace the personal bonds that tie humans to humans, humans to animals,
and humans to their own senses.
Although Snow Crash obviously comes down on the side ofpreserving
autonomy, individuality, and consciousness, it also reinforces the equation
of humans with computers through the tangled loops it creates between
material signifiers and signifying materialities. Emphasizing the force of
performative language in an infoworld, it performs the construction ofhumans
as computers. Insteadofevading this implication, Snow Crash writes
the drama backinto history, suggestingthat the posthuman, like the antennae
that serve as its visible and outward sign, lies coiled around the brainstem
and cannot be removedwithoutkillingthe patient. Whereas Terminal
Garnes wanted to excise the posthuman from its text and from history,
Snow Crash initiates hygienic measures against the performative force of
its owninscriptions. Intimatingthatthe snowcrashvirus canbedefeatedby
a healthy dose of rationality and skepticism, Snow Crash would inoculate
us against the human-computerequation byinjectingus with aviral meme,
that is, an ideathat replicates through its human hosts.16 The essenceofthis
meme, and the best way to counteract the negative effects of the posthu-
The Semiotics of Virtuality / 279
man, is to acknowledge thatwe have always been posthuman.17 We cannot
change ourcomputationalnatures; at bottom, Stephenson suggests, we really
are nothing more than information-processing mechanisms that run
what programs are fed into us. We should value the late evolutionary addons
ofconsciousness and reason not because they are foundational but because
they allow the human to emerge out of the posthumans we have
always alreadybeen.
Inscribing and Incorporating: The Future (of the) Posthuman
These four texts testifythat many attributes ofthe liberal humanist subject,
especially the attribute ofagency, continue to be valued in the face of the
posthuman. The posthuman tends to be embracedifitis seen as preserving
agency(Blood Music) and resisted ifnot (Terminal Games). The pattern of
seriation that we saw in the development ofcybernetics continues to hold
here. Some elements ofthe liberal humanist subject are rewritten into the
posthuman, whereas others, particularly the identification ofselfwith the
conscious mind, are substantiallychanged. Insteadofbeing represented as
a (decontextualized) mind thinking, the subjects of these texts achieve
consciousness through recursive feedback loops cycling between different
levels of coding. The association of posthuman subjectivity with multiple
coding levels suggests the need for different models of Signification, ones
that will recognize this distinctive feature ofneurolinguistic and computer
language structure. The idea offlickering signifiers, introduced in chapter
2, shows what one such model might be. Like subjectivityitself, human language
is being redescribed in terms that underscore its similarities to and
differences from computer coding.
In addition to an emphasis on layered coding structures, the construction
of the posthuman is also deeply involved with boundary questions,
particularly when the redrawing of boundaries changes the locus of selfhood.
Shift the seat of identity from brain to cell, or from neocortex to
brainstem, and the nature ofthe subject radicallychanges. In a manner distinctively
different from that of Freud or Jung, these texts reveal the
fragility ofconsciousness. Conscious mind can be hijacked, cut offby mutinous
cells, absorbed into an artificial consciousness, or back-propagated
through flawed memory. This vulnerability is directly related to a changed
view ofsignification. The more consciousness is seen to be the product of
multiple coding levels, the greater is the number of sites where interventions
can produce catastrophic effects. Whether consciousness is seen as a
precious evolutionaryachievement that we should fight to preserve (Snow
280 / Chapter Ten
Crash) or as an isolation room whose limits we are ready to outgrow(Blood
Music), we can no longer simplyassume that consciousness guarantees the
existence ofthe self. In this sense, the posthuman subject is also a postconscious
subject.
As we have seen, one implication of the human-computer equation is
the ideaofa basic codinglevel where inscription and incorporationjoin. As
one moves up from this basic level, inscription tends to diverge from incorporation,
becoming representational rather thanperformative. One wayto
think about the transformation of the human into the posthuman, then, is
as a series of exchanges between evolving/devolving inscriptions and incorporations.
Returning to the semiotic square, we can map these possibilities
(see figure 5).
Blood Music, imagining that the cells contractto pure informationwhile
leaving behind embodied humans as belated remainders, uses this ending
to posit a fundamental question. Is the change from human to posthuman
an evolutionary advance or a catastrophe of unprecedented scope? Does
this change represent the nextlogicaldevelopment, inwhichHomo sapiens
joins with the intelligent machine to create Homo silicon, or does it signal
the long twilight and decline of the human race? In Blood Music, these
Materiality
/ Galatea 2.2 ~
evolving incorporation evolvinginscription
Mutation
Blood Music
devolving incorporation
Snow Crash
Information
Hyperreality
Tenninal Games
devolvinginscription
/FIGURE 5 Incorporation/inscription mapped onto the semiotic square
The Semiotics of Virtuality / 281
questions take the form of competing morphologies. Ideology is enacted
through boundary crossings between the human as an independent organism
and the clumped collectivityofcell colonies.
When the emphasis falls on inscription rather than incorporation, the
important boundaries are between competing practices of inscription
rather than between different morphologies. Does the human create the
alter by typing at the computer keyboard, or does the alter control the human's
typing so that the inscription reflects the alter's will rather than the
human's? Like Blood Music, Terminal Games revolves around a central
ideological struggle. From Auggie's point of view, he is a more advanced
form of inscription than the "cells" he controls; from the human point of
view, he represents a devolution whereby a dangerously independent inscription
can assert its control over the embodied humans that Auggie understands
as inferior forms ofwriting.
The tension between inscription and incorporation is also important for
the texts on the vertical axis. In Galatea 2.2, humans' physical capacities
that evolved through their interactions with the environment are juxtaposed
with the evolving inscriptions that constitute Helen as an intelligent
being. Human language grows out ofembodied experience, whereas Helen
must extrapolate back from human language to embodied experience.
This fundamental difference makes evolving incorporation, for all its frailties,
finally more robust than evolving inscription. In Snow Crash, humans
devolve when the snow crash virus operates at the level where incorporation
and inscription join. The way to reverse this devolution is to reactivate
the higher levels of coding, thus moving from the space of performance
into the space of representation. This movement is meant, I have suggested,
to act as a viral meme that will inoculate the reader against the performative
force ofthe text's own central metaphors equating humans and
computers.
Significantly, all of these texts are obsessed, in various ways, with the
dynamics ofevolution and devolution. Underlying their obsessions is a momentous
question: when the human meets the posthuman, will the encounter
be for better or for worse? Will the posthuman preserve what we
continue to value in the liberal subject, or will the transformation into the
posthuman annihilate the subject?Will free will and individual agency still
be possible in a posthuman future? Will we be able to recognize ourselves
after the change? Will there still be a selfto recognize and be recognized?
As the texts struggle with these questions, the surprise, ifthere is one, is
howcommittedthe texts remain to some version ofthe human subject.18 If
the "post" in posthuman points to changes that are in part alreadyhere, the
282 / Chapter Ten
"human" points to the seriated nature ofthese changes. But finally the answers
to questions about the posthuman will not be found in books, or at
least not onlyin books. Rather, the answers will be the mutual creation ofa
planet full ofhumans strugglingto bringinto existence afuture inwhichwe
can continue to survive, continue to find meaning for ourselves and our
children, and continue to ponderour kinship with and differences from the
intelligent machines with which our destinies are increasinglyentwined.
..ChapterELeven
CONCLUSION: WHAT DOES IT MEAN
TO BE POSTHUMAN?
What, finally, are we to make of the posthuman?l At the beginning of this
book, I suggested that the prospect of becoming posthuman both evokes
terror and excites pleasure. At the end ofthe book, perhaps I can summarize
the implications ofthe posthuman by interrogating the sources ofthis
terror andpleasure. The terroris relativelyeasy to understand. "Post,"with
its dual connotation of superseding the human and coming after it, hints
that the days of"the human" maybe numbered. Some researchers (notably
Hans Moravec but also my UCLA colleague Michael Dyer and many
others) believe that this is true not only in a general intellectual sense that
displaces one definition of "human" with another but also in a more disturbingly
literal sense that envisions humans displaced as the dominant
form oflife on the planet by intelligent machines. Humans can either go
gently into that good night, joining the dinosaurs as a species that once
ruled the earth but is now obsolete, or hang on for a while longer by becoming
machines themselves. In either case, Moravec and like-minded
thinkers believe, the age of the human is drawing to a close. The view
echoes the deeply pessimistic sentiments ofWarren McCulloch in his old
age. As noted earlier, he remarked: "Man to my mind is about the nastiest,
most destructive ofall the animals. I don't see any reason, ifhe can evolve
machines that can have more fun than he himselfcan, why they shouldn't
take over, enslave us, quite happily. They might have a lot more fun. Invent
better games than we ever did."2 Is it anywonder that faced with such dismal
scenarios, most people have understandablynegative reactions? Ifthis
is what the posthuman means, why shouldn't it be resisted?
Fortunately, these views do not exhaust the meanings ofthe posthuman.
As I have repeatedly argued, human being is first of all embodied being,
and the complexities of this embodiment mean that human awareness
284 I Chapter Eleven
unfolds in ways very different from those of intelligence embodied in cybernetic
machines. Although Moravec's dream of downloading human
consciousness into a computer would likely come in for some hard knocks
in literature departments (which tend to be skeptical of any kind of transcendence
but especially of transcendence through technology), literary
studies share with Moravec a major blind spot when it comes to the significance
ofembodiment.3 This blind spot is most evident, perhaps, when literary
and cultural critics confront the fields ofevolutionary biology. From
an evolutionarybiologist's point ofview, modem humans, for all their technological
prowess, represent an eye blink in the history oflife, a species far
too recent to have significant evolutionary impact on human biological
behaviors and structures. In my view, arguments like those that Jared
Diamond advances in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates ofHuman Societies
and Why Sex Is Fun: The Evolution of Human Sexuality should be
taken seriously.4 The body is the net result of thousands of years of sedimented
evolutionary history, and it is naive to think that this history does
not affect human behaviors at everylevel ofthought and action.
Of course, the reflexivity that looms large in cybernetics also inhabits
evolutionary biology. The models proposed by evolutionary biologists
have encoded within them cultural attitudes and assumptions formed by
the same history they propose to analyze; as with cybernetics, observer
and system are reflexively bound up with one another. To take only one
example, the computer module model advanced by Jerome H. Barkow,
Leda Cosmides, and John Toobyin The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology
andthe Generation ofCulture to explain human evolutionarypsychology
testifies at least as much to the importance of information
technolOgies in shaping contemporary worldviews as it does to human
brain function.5 Nevertheless, these reflexive complexities do not negate
the importance ofthe sedimented history incarnated within the body. Interpreted
through metaphors resonant with cultural meanings, the body
itselfis a congealed metaphor, a phYSical structure whose constraints and
possibilities have been formed by an evolutionary history that intelligent
machines do not share. Humans may enter into symbiotic relationships
with intelligent machines (already the case, for example, in computer-assisted
surgery); they may be displaced by intelligent machines (already in
effect, for example, at Japanese and American assemblyplants that use robotic
arms for labor); but there is a limit to how seamlesslyhumans can be
articulatedwith intelligent machines, which remain distinctivelydifferent
from humans in their embodiments. The terror, then, though it does not
disappear in this view, tends away from the apocalyptic and toward a more
Conclusion / 285
moderate view of seriated social, technological, political, and cultural
changes.
What about the pleasures? For some people, including me, the posthuman
evokes the exhilaratingprospectofgettingoutofsome ofthe oldboxes
and opening up new ways ofthinking about what being human means. In
positing a shift from presence/absence to pattern/randomness, I have
sought to show how these categories can be transformedfrom the inside to
arrive at new kinds ofcultural configurations, which may soon render such
dualities obsolete iftheyhave not already. This process oftransformation is
fueled by tensions between the assumptions encoded in pattern/randomness
as opposed topresence/absence. InJacques Derrida's performance of
presence/absence, presence is allied with Logos, God, teleology-in
general, with an originary plenitude that can act to ground signification
and give order and meaning to the trajectory ofhistory.6 The work ofEric
Havelock, among others, demonstrates howin Plato's Republic this view of
originarypresence authorized astable, coherent selfthat couldwitness and
testifY to a stable, coherent reality.7 Through these and other means, the
metaphysics ofpresence front-loaded meaning into the system. Meaning
was guaranteed because a stable origin existed. It is now a familiar story
how deconstruction exposed the inability ofsystems to posit their own origins,
thus ungrounding signification and rendering meaning indeterminate.
As the presence/absence hierarchy was destabilized and as absence
was privilegedoverpresence, lackdisplacedplenitude, and desire usurped
certitude. Important as these moves have been in late-twentieth-century
thought, they still took place within the compass ofthe presence/absence
dialectic. Onefeels lackonlyifpresence ispositedorassumed; oneis driven
by desire only ifthe object ofdesire is conceptualized as something to be
possessed. Just as the metaphysics ofpresence required an originaryplenitude
to articulate a stable self, deconstruction required a metaphysics of
presence to articulate the destabilization ofthat self.
By contrast, pattern/randomness is underlaid by a very different set of
assumptions. In this dialectic, meaning is not front-loaded into the system,
and the origin does not act to ground signification. As we have seen for multiagent
simulations, complexity evolves from highly recursive processes
beingapplied to simple rules. Ratherthan proceeding along atrajectorytoward
a known end, such systems evolve toward an open future marked by
contingencyand unpredictability. Meaningis not guaranteedbya coherent
origin; rather, it is made possible (but not inevitable) by the blind force of
evolution finding workable solutions within given parameters. Although
pattern has traditionally been the privileged term (forexample, among the
286 / ChapTer Eleven
electrical engineers developing information theory), randomness has increasingly
been seen to playa fruitful role in the evolution ofcomplex systems.
For Chris Langton and Stuart Kauffman, chaos accelerates the
evolution ofbiological and artificiallife;8 for FranciscoVarela, randomness
is the froth ofnoise from which coherent microstates evolve and to which
living systems owe their capacity for fast, flexible response;9 for Henri
Atlan, noise is the body's murmuring from which emerges complex communication
between different levels in a biological system.lO Although
these models differ in their specifics, they agree in seeing randomness not
simply as the lack ofpattern but as the creative ground from which pattern
can emerge.
Indeed, it is not too much to say that in these and similar models, randomness
rather than pattern is invested with plenitude. Ifpattern is the realization
of a certain set of possibilities, randomness is the much, much
larger set ofeverythingelse, from phenomenathat cannot be rendered coherentbya
given system's organization to those the system cannotperceive
at all. In Gregory Bateson's cybernetiC epistemology, randomness is what
exists outside the confines ofthe box in which a system is located; it is the
larger and unknowable complexity for which the perceptual processes of
an organism are a metaphor.11 Significance is achieved by evolutionary
processes that ensure the surviving systems are the ones whose organizations
instantiate metaphors for this complexity, unthinkable in itself.
When Varela and his coauthors argue in Embodied Mind that there is no
stable, coherent selfbut only autonomous agents running programs, they
envision pattern as a limitation that drops away as human awareness expands
beyond consciousness and encounters the emptiness that, in another
guise, could equally well be called the chaos from which all forms
emerge.12
What do these developments mean for the posthuman?When the selfis
envisioned as grounded in presence, identified with originary guarantees
and teleolOgical trajectories, associated with solid foundations and logical
coherence, the posthuman is likely to be seen as antihuman because it envisions
the conscious mind as asmall subsystem runningits program ofselfconstruction
and self-assurance while remaining ignorant of the actual
dynamics ofcomplex systems. Butthe posthuman does not really mean the
endofhumanity. ItSignalsinstead the endofacertain conceptionofthe human,
a conception that may have applied, at best, to that fraction of humanitywho
had thewealth, power, and leisure to conceptualize themselves
as autonomous beings exercising their will through individual agency and
choice.13 What is lethal is not the posthuman as such but the grafting ofthe
Conclusion / 287
posthuman onto a liberal humanist view ofthe self. When Moravec imagines
"you" choosing to download yourselfinto a computer, thereby obtaining
through technological mastery the ultimate privilege ofimmortality, he
is not abandoning the autonomous liberal subject but is expanding its perogatives
into the realm of the posthuman. Yet the posthuman need not be
recuperated back into liberal humanism, nor need it be construed as antihuman.
Located within the dialectic ofpatternirandomness and grounded
in embodied actuality rather than disembodied information, the posthuman
offers resources for rethinking the articulation ofhumans with intelligent
machines.
To explore these resources, let us return to Bateson's idea that those organisms
that survive will tend to be the ones whose internal structures are
good metaphors for the complexities without. What kind ofenvironments
will be created by the expanding power and sophistication of intelligent
machines? As Richard Lanham has pOintedout, in the information-rich environments
created by ubiquitous computing, the limiting factor is not the
speed ofcomputers, or the rates oftransmission through fiber-optic cables,
or the amount of data that can be generated and stored. Rather, the scarce
commodity is human attention.14 It makes sense, then, that technological
innovationwill focus on compensating for this bottleneck. An obvious solution
is to design intelligent machines to attend to the choices and tasks that
do not have to be done by humans. For example, there are already intelligent-agent
programs to sort email, discarding unwanted messages and pri-
0ritizing the rest. The programs work along lines similar to neural nets.
They tabulate the choices the human operators make, and they feed back
this information in recursive loops to readjust the weights given to various
kinds of email addresses. After an initial learning period, the sorting programs
take over more and more ofthe email management, freeing humans
to give their attention to other matters.
Ifwe extrapolate from these relatively simple programs to an environment
that, as Charles Ostman likes to put it, supplies synthetic sentience on
demand, human consciousness would ride on top of a highly articulated
and complex computational ecology in which many decisions, invisible to
human attention, would be made by intelligent machines.1.5 Over two
decades ago, Joseph \Veizenhaum foresaw just such an ecology and passionatelyargued
thatjudgment is a uniquely human function and must not
be turned over to computers. Hi With the rapid development ofneural nets
and expert programs, it is no longer so clear that sophisticated judgments
cannot be made by machines and, in some instances, made more accurately
than by humans. But the issue, in vVeizenbaum's view, involves more
288 / Chapter Eleven
than whether or not the programs work. Rather, the issue is an ethical imperative
that humans keep control; to do otherwise is to abdicate their responsibilities
as autonomous independent beings. What Weizenbaum's
argument makes clear is the connection between the assumptions undergirding
the liberal humanist subject and the ethical position that humans,
not machines, must be in control. Such an argument assumes avision ofthe
human in which conscious agency is the essence ofhuman identity. Sacrifice
this, and we humans are hopelessly compromised, contaminated with
mechanic alienness in the very heart of our humanity.I7 Hence there is
an urgency, even panic, in Weizenbaum's insistence that judgment is a
uniquely human function. At stake for him is nothing less than what it
means to be human.
In the posthuman view, by contrast, conscious agencyhas never been "in
control." In fact, the very illusion ofcontrol bespeaks a fundamental ignorance
about the nature of the emergent processes through which consciousness,
the organism, and the environment are constituted. Mastery
through the exercise ofautonomous will is merely the story consciousness
tells itself to explain results that actually come about through chaotic dynamics
and emergent structures. If, as Donna Haraway, Sandra Harding,
Evelyn Fox Keller, Carolyn Merchant, and other feminist critics ofscience
have argued, there is a relation among the desire for mastery, an objectivist
account ofscience, and the imperialist project ofsubdUing nature, then the
posthuman offers resources for the construction of another kind of account.
I8 In this account, emergence replaces teleology; reflexive epistemology
replaces objectivism; distributed cognition replaces autonomous
will; embodiment replaces a body seen as a support system for the mind;
and a dynamic partnership between humans and intelligent machines replaces
the liberal humanist subject's manifest destiny to dominate and control
nature. Of course, this is not necessarily what the posthuman will
mean-only what it can mean if certain strands among its complex seriations
are highlighted and combined to create a vision of the human that
uses the posthuman as leverage to avoid reinscribing, and thus repeating,
some of'the mistakes ofthe past.
Just as the posthuman need not be antihuman, so it also need not be
apocalyptic. Edwin Hutchins addresses the idea of distributed cognition
through his nuanced study of the navigational systems of oceangoing
ships.I9 His meticulous research shows that the cognitive system responsible
for locating the ship in space and navigating it successfully resides not in
humans alone but in the complex interactions within an environment that
includes both human and nonhuman actors. His studyallows him to give an
Conclusion / 289
excellent response to John Searle's famous "Chinese room." By imagining
a situation in which communication in Chinese can take place without the
actors knowing what their actions mean, Searle challenged the idea that
machines can think.20 Suppose, Searle said, that he is stuck inside a room,
he who knows not a word of Chinese. Texts written in Chinese are slid
through a slot in the door. He has in the room with him baskets ofChinese
characters and a rulebook correlating the symbols written on the texts with
other symbols in the basket. Using the rulebook, he assembles strings of
characters and pushes them out the door. Although his Chinese interlocutors
take these strings to be clever responses to their inquiries, Searle has
not the least ideaofthe meaning ofthe texts he has produced. Therefore, it
would be a mistake to say that machines can think, he argues, for like him,
they produce comprehensible results without comprehending anything
themselves. In Hutchins's neat interpretation, Searle's argument is valuable
preciselybecauseit makes clearthat itis not Searlebut the entire room
that knows Chinese.21 In this distributed cognitive system, the Chinese
room knows more than do any ofits components, including Searle. The situation
ofmodem humans is akin to that ofSearle in the Chinese room, for
every daywe participate in systems whose total cognitive capacity exceeds
our individual knowledge, including such devices as cars with electronic
ignition systems, microwaves with computer chips that preCisely adjust
power levels, fax machines that warble to other fax machines, and electronic
watches that communicate with a timing radio wave to set themselves
and correct their date. Modem humans are capable of more sophisticated
cognition than cavemen not because modems are smarter, Hutchins concludes,
but because they have constructed smarter environments in which
to work.
Hutchins would no doubt disagree with Weizenbaum's view that
judgment should be reserved for humans alone. Like cognition, decisionmaking
is distributed between human and nonhuman agents, from the
steam-powered steering system that suddenly failed on a navy vessel
Hutchins was studying to the charts and pocket calculators that the navigators
were then forced to use to calculate their position. He convincingly
shows that these adaptations to changed circumstances were evolutionary
and embodied rather than abstract and conSCiouslydeSigned (pp. 347-51).
The solution to the problem caused by this sudden failure of the steering
mechanism was"clearly discovered by the organization [ofthe system as a
whole] before itwas discovered byany ofthe participants" (p. 361). Seen in
this perspective, the prospect ofhumans working in partnershipwith intelligent
machines is not so much a usurpation ofhuman right and responsi-
290 / Chapter Eleven
bilityas it is afurther development in the construction ofdistributed cognition
environments, a construction that has been ongoing for thousands of
years. Also changedin this perspective is the relation ofhuman subjectivity
to its environment. No longer is human will seen as the source from which
emanates the mastery necessaryto dominate and control the environment.
Rather, the distributed cognition of the emergent human subject correlates
with-in Bateson's phrase, becomes a metaphorfor-the distributed
cognitive system as awhole, inwhich "thinking" is done byboth human and
nonhuman actors. "Thinking consists ofbringing these structures into coordination
so they can shape and be shaped by one another," Hutchins
wrote (p. 316). To conceptualize the human in these terms is not to imperil
human survival but is precisely to enhance it, for the more we understand
the flexible, adaptive structures that coordinate our environments and the
metaphors that we ourselves are, the better we can fashion images ofourselves
that accurately reflect the complex interplays that ultimately make
the entire world one system.
This viewofthe posthuman also offers resources for thinking in more sophisticatedways
aboutvirtual technologies. As long as the human subjectis
envisioned as an autonomous selfwith unambiguous boundaries, the human-computer
interface can only be parsed as a division between the solidity
of real life on one side and the illusion ofvirtual reality on the other,
thus obscuring the far-reaching changes initiated by the development of
virtual technologies. Onlyifone thinks ofthe subject as an autonomous self
independent ofthe environment is one likely to experience the panic performed
by NorbertWiener's Cybernetics and BernardWolfe's Limbo. This
view ofthe selfauthorizes the fear that ifthe boundaries are breachedat all,
there will be nothing to stop the self's complete dissolution. By contrast,
when the human is seen as part ofa distributed system, the full expression
of human capability can be seen precisely to depend on the splice rather
than being imperiled by it. Writing in another context, Hutchins arrives at
an inSightprofoundlyapplicable tovirtualtechnolOgies: "Whatusedto look
like internalization [ofthought and subjectivity] now appears as a gradual
propagation of organized functional properties across a set of malleable
media" (p. 312). This vision is a potent antidote to the view that parses virtuality
as a division between an inert body that is left behind and a disembodied
subjectivity that inhabits a virtual realm, the construction of
virtuality performed by Case in William Gibson's Neuromancer when he
delights in the "bodiless exultation of cyberspace" and fears, above all,
dropping back into the "meat" ofthe body.22 Bycontrast, in the model that
Hutchins presents and that the posthuman helps to authorize, human
Conclusion I 291
functionality expands because the parameters ofthe cognitive system it inhabits
expand. In this model, it is not a question ofleaving the bodybehind
but rather ofextending embodied awareness in highly specific, local, and
material ways that would be impossible without electronic prosthesis.
As we have seen, cybernetics was born in a froth ofnoise when Norbert
Wiener first thought ofit as a way to maximize human potential in a world
that is in essence chaotic and unpredictable. Like many other pioneers,
Wiener helped to initiate ajourneythat would prove to have consequences
more far-reaching and subversive than even his formidable powers of
imagination could conceive. As Bateson, Varela, and others would later argue,
the noise crashes within as well as without. The chaotic, unpredictable
nature of complex dynamics implies that subjectivity is emergent rather
than given, distributed rather than located solelyin consciousness, emerging
from and integrated into a chaotic world rather than occupying a position
ofmastery and control removed from it. Bruno Latour has argued that
we have never been modem; the seriated history ofcybernetics-emerging
from networks at once materially real, socially regulated, and discurSivelyconstructed-suggests,
for similarreasons, thatwe have always been
posthuman.23 The purpose ofthis book has been to chronicle the journeys
that have made this realizationpOSSible. Ifthe three stories toldhere-how
information lost its body, how the cyborg was constructed in the postwar
years as technological artifact and cultural icon, and how the human became
the posthuman-have at times seemed to present the posthuman as
a transformation to be feared and abhorred rather than welcomed and embraced,
that reaction has everything to do with how the posthuman is constructed
and understood. The best possible time to contest for what the
posthuman means is now, before the trains of thought it embodies have
been laid down so firmly that it would take dynamite to change them.24 Although
some current versions of the posthuman point toward the antihuman
and the apocalyptic, we can craftothers thatwillbe conducive to the
long-range survival of humans and of the other life-forms, biological and
artificial, with whom we share the planet and ourselves.
Not e s
Chapter One
1. Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence
(Cambridge: Halvard University Press, 1988), pp. 109-10.
2. Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society,
2d ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954), pp. 103-4.
3. Beth Loffreda, "Pulp Science: Race, Gender, and Prediction in Contemporary
American Science" (Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University, 1996).
4. Richard Doyle discusses the "impossible inversion" that makes information primary
and materiality secondary in molecular biology in On Beyond Living: Rhetorical
Transformations in the Life Sciences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). See
also Evelyn Fox Keller's analysis of the disembodiment of information in molecular
biology in her Secrets ofLife, Secrets ofDeath: Essays on Language, Gender, and Science
(New York: Routledge, 1992), especially chapters 5,8, and the epilogue. Lily E.
Kaycriticallyanalyzes the emergence ofthe ideaofagenetic"code"in"Cybernetics, Information,
Life: The Emergence ofSCriptural Representations ofHeredity," Configurations
5 (winter 1997): 23-92. For a discussion of how this disembodied view of
information began to circulate through the culture, see Dorothy Nelkin and M. Susan
Lindee, The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon (New York: W. H. Freeman
and Company, 1995).
5. Michel Foucaultfamously suggestedthat"man" is ahistorical constructionwhose
erais about to endin The OrderofThings: An Archaeologyofthe Human Sciences (New
York: Vintage Books, 1973), a few years earlierthan Ihab Hassan's prescient announcement
ofposthumanism cited in the epigraph to this chapter. Since then, the more radical
idea of the posthuman (as distinct from posthumanism) has appeared at a number
of places. Among the important texts defining the posthuman in cultural studies are
Allucquere Roseanne Stone, The War ofDesire and Technology at the Close ofthe Mechanical
Age (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995); Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston,
eds., Posthuman Bodies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995); Scott Bukatman,
Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction (Durham:
Duke University Press, 1993); and Anne Balsamo, Technologies ofthe Gendered Body:
Reading Cyborg Women (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996). A number ofscien-
293
294 / Notes to Pages 3-10
tific works, detailed in chapters 3, 6, and 9, also figure importantlyin delineating this list
ofcharacteristics.
6. C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory ofPossessive Individualism: Hobbes to
Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 3 (emphasis added).
7. Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature
(New York: Routledge, 1990), especially "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology,
and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," pp. 149-82; Homi Bhabha,
The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994); Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translated by Brian
Massumi (London: Athlone Press, 1987).
8. Lauren BerIant, in The Anatomy ofNational Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and
Everyday Life (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1991), discusses the white male
bodyofthe ideal citizen, including its tendency toward disembodiment.
9. Gillian Brown, "Anorexia, Humanism, and Feminism," Yale Journal ofCriticism
5, no. 1 (1991): 196.
10. William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace Books, 1984), p. 16.
11. Arthur Kroker, Hacking the Future: Storiesforthe Flesh-Eating 90s (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1996).
12. Five ofthe Macy Conference transactions were published: Heinz von Foerster,
ed., Cybernetics: Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social
Systems, vols. 6-10 (New York: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, 1949-55). From the seventh
conference on, Margaret Mead and Hans Lukas Teuberare listed as "assistant editors."
The best study of the Macy Conferences is Steve J. Heims, The Cybernetics
Group (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991). In addition to discussing the conferences and
doing extensive archival work, Heims also conducted interviews with many ofthe participants
who have since died.
13. See Otto Mayr, The Origins ofFeedback Control (Cambridge: MITPress, 1970),
for a full history ofthe concept ofthe feedback loop.
14. Walter Cannon is usually credited with working out the implications of homeostasis
for biological organisms in The Wisdom ofthe Body (New York: W. W. Norton,
1939). Claude Bernard originated the concept in the nineteenth century.
15. Mayr, The Origins ofFeedback Control.
16. Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History ofthe Novel
(NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1987).
17. Michael Warner, The Letters ofthe Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere
in Eighteenth-Century America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990).
18. Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers
through Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987). Malcome Ashmore explores
this feature ofscience studies in The Reflexive Thesis: Wrighting Sociology ofScientific
Knowledge (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1989).
19. Heinz von Foerster, Observing Systems, 2d ed. (Salinas, Calif.: Intersystems
Publications, 1984).
20. Humberto R. Maturanaand FranciscoJ. Varela, AutopoiesisandCognition: The
Realization ofthe Living, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 42 (Dordrecht:
D. Reidel, 1980).
21. NikIas Luhmann has modified and extended Maturana's epistemologyin significant
ways; see, for example, his Essays on Self-Reference (New York: Columbia Uni-
Notes to Pages 11-18 / 295
versity Press, 1990) and "The Cognitive Program ofConstructivism and a Reality That
Remains Unknown," in Self-Organization: Portrait ofa Scientific Revolution, edited by
Wolfgang Krohn, Guenter Kueppes, and Helga Nowotny (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 1990),64-85.
22. Edward Fredkin, "Digital Mechanics: An Information Process Based on Reversible
Universal Cellular Automata," Physica D 45 (1990): 245-70. See also the accountofFredkin'swork
in RobertWright, Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for
Meaning in an Age ofinfomwtion (New York: Times Books, 1988). Also central to this
theoryis the workofStephenWolfram; see his Theon} andApplications ofCellularAutonwta
(Singapore: World Scientific, 1986).
23. Marvin Minsky, "WhyComputer Science Is the Most ImportantThingThat Has
Happened to the Humanities in 5,000 Years" (public lecture, Nara, Japan, May 15,
1996). I am grateful to Nicholas Gessler for providing me with his transcript ofthe lec-
ture.
24. See Jennifer Daryl Slack and Fred Fejes, eds., The Ideology ofthe Information
Age (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing Company, 1987), for essays explOring the implications
of the contemporary construction ofinformation. The tendency to ignore the
material realities of communication technologies has been forcefully rebutted in two
important works: Friedrich A. Kittler's Discourse Networks, 1800-1900, translated by
Michael Metteer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, eds., Materialities of Communication, translated by
William Whobrey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994).
25. The relation ofmolecular biology has been explored in Keller, Secrets; the centrality
of World War II to the development of cybernetics is demonstrated by Peter
Galison in "The Ontology ofthe Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision,"
Critical Inquiry 21 (1994): 228-66. Relevant here also is Kay, "CybernetiCS, Information,
Life" and Andy Pickering, "Cyborg History and the World War II Regime," Perspectives
on Science 3, no. 1 (199.5): 1-48.
26. Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics; or, Control and Communication in the Animal
and the Machine (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1948), p. 132.
27. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970); Foucault, The Order ofThings. Both Kuhn and
Foucault substantially revised their theories in later years. The vision of historical
change in Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, translated by Robert Hurley
(New York: Vintage Books, 1980), is much closer to seriation than are his earlier
works.
28. The simulation is the creation ofGregory P. Garvey ofConcordia University. An
account ofit can be found in Thomas E. Linehan, ed., Visual Proceedings: The Art and
InterdiSCiplinary Programs ofSiggraph 93 (New York: Association for Computing Machinery,
1993), p. 125.
29. "A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age" can be found (along with skeptical
commentaries, mine among them) at the FEED Web site,< http://www.emedia.net/
feed>.
30. Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory ofCommunication
(Urb.ma: University ofIllinois Press, 1949).
31. Doyle, On Beyond Living, makes the pOintthatthe construction ofinformation
as primary, with materialityas supplemental, is a rhetorical rather than an experimental
296 I Notes to Pages 18-23
accomplishment. He argues that the discourse of molecular biology functions as
"rhetorical software," for it operates as ifit were running a program on the hardware of
the laboratory apparatus to produce results that the research alone could not accomplish.
See also Kay, "Cybernetics, Information, Life."
32. Donald M. MacKay, Information, Mechanism, and Meaning (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1969).
33. Carolyn Marvin, "Information and History," in Slack and Fejes, The Ideology of
the Information Age, pp. 49--62.
34. In response to a presentation by Alex Bavelas at the eighth Macy Conference,
Shannon remarkedthat he did not see a"close connection" between the semantic questions
that concerned Bavelas and his own emphasis on "finding the best encoding of
symbols." Foerster, Mead, and Teuber, Cybernetics (Eighth Conference, 1951), 8:22.
35. Xerox PARC has been at the forefront ofdevelopingthe ideaof"ubiquitous computing,"
with computers embeddedunobtrusivelythroughout the home andworkplace
environments. See Mark Weiser, "The Computer for the 21st Century," Scientific
American 265 (September 1991): 94-104. For an account ofhow computers are transforming
contemporary architecture and living patterns, seeWilliam J. Mitchell, City of
Bits: Space, Place, amithe Infobahn (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995).
36. SherryTurkle discusses the fascination ofVR worlds in Life on the Screen: Identity
in the Age ofthe Internet (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1995). Stone, The War of
Desire and Technology, proposes that VR technologies undo the commonsense notion
that one person inhabits one body. She suggests instead that we think of the subject
"warranted by" the body rather than containedwithin it.
37. For an account ofthe extensive connections between cybernetics and the military,
see Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics ofDiscourse
in Cold War America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), and Les Levidow and Kevin
Robins, eds., Cyborg Worlds: The Militan} Information Society (London: Free Association
Books, 1989).
38. Don Ihde develops the full resonances of"lifeworld" from his groundingin phenomenology
in Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1990), showing how the contemporary world is marked by a
double attraction toward technology and toward the "natural" world Simultaneously.
39. The notorious case is Autodesk's initiative to develop VR software that cited
Neuromancer; see John Walker, "Through the Looking Glass: Beyond 'User' Interfaces,"
CADalyst (December 1989), 42, and Randall Walser, "On the Road to Cyberia:
A FewThoughts on Autodesk's Initiative," CADalyst (December 1989), 43.
40. An important work linking postmodern fiction with cybernetic technologies is
David Porush, The Soft Machine: CybernetiC Fiction (New York: Methuen, 1985).
Porush defines cybernetiC fiction as self-reflexive fictions that look to cybernetics both
for their themes and for the literarymachinery oftheir texts.
41. Jean-Fran<;ois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge,
translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1984); Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics ofthe Postmodern: History, Theory,
Fiction (NewYork: Routledge, 1994); and Brian McHale, ConstructingPostmodernism
(NewYork: Routledge, 1992) andPostmodernFiction (New York: Methuen, 1981).
42. BernardWolfe, Limbo (New York: Random House, 1952).
43. Philip K. Dick: We Can Build You (London.: Grafton Books, 1986), first pub-
Notes to Pages 24-28 / 297
lished in 1969; Do Androids Dream ofElectric Sheep? (New York: Doubleday, 1968);
Dr. Bloodmoney; or, How We Got Along after the Bomb (New York: Carroll and Graf,
1988), first published in 1965; and Ubik (London: Grafton Books, 1973), first published
in 1969.
44. Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (New York: Bantam, 1992); Greg Bear, Blood
Music (New York: Ace Books, 1985); Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2: A Novel (New York:
Farrar Straus Giroux, 1995); and Cole Perriman, Temlinal Games (New York: Bantam,
1994).
Chapter Two
1. The paradoxis discussed in N. Katherine Hayles, Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder
in ContemporanJ Literature and Science (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990),
pp.31-60.
2. Self-organizing systems are discussed in Gregoire Nicolis and Ilya Prigogine, ExplOring
Complexity: An Introduction (NewYork: Freeman and Company, 1989); Roger
Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos (New York: Macmillan, 1992); and
M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and
Chaos (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).
3. Friedrich A. Kittler, Discourse Networks, 1800-1900, translated by Michael
Metteer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 193.
4. The fluidity ofwriting on the computeris eloquentlyexplored by Michael Joyce in
Of Two Mind~: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1995).
5. Howard Rheingold surveys the new virtual technologies in Virtual Reality (New
York: Summit Books, 1991). Also useful is Ken Pimentel and Kevin Teixeira, Virtual Reality:
Through the New Looking Glass (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993). Benjamin
Woolley takes a skeptical approach toward claims for the new technology in Virtual
Worlds: AJourney in Hyped Hyperreality (Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1992).
6. Allucquere Roseanne Stone, The \VarofDesire and Technology at the Close ofthe
Mechanical Age (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995).
7. Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age ofthe Internet (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1995).
8. In The Age ofthe Smart Machine: The Future ofiVork and Power (New York: Basic
Books, 1988), Shoshana Zuboffexplores, through three case studies, the changes in
U.S. workplaces as industries become informatted.
9. Computer law is discussed in Katie Hafner and John Markoff, Cyberpunk: Outlaws
and Hackers on the Computer Frontier (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991);
also informative is Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the
Electronic Frontier (New York: Bantam, 1992).
10. Turkle documents computer network romances in Life on the Screen. Nicholson
Baker's Vox: A Novel (New York: Random House, 1992) imaginatively explores the
erotic potential for better living through telecommunications; and Rheingold looks at
the future of erotic encounters in cyberspace in "Teledildonics and Beyond," Virtual
Reality, pp. 345-77.
11. Among the studies that explore these connections are Jay Bolter, Writing Space:
The Computer, Hypertext, and the History ofWriting (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erl-
298 / Notes to Pages 29-35
baum Associates, 1991); Michael Heim, Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of
Word Processing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); and Mark Poster, The
Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1990).
12. Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist
Feminism in the 1980s," Socialist Review 80 (1985): 65-108; see Donna Haraway, "The
High Cost of Information in Post World War II Evolutionary Biology: Ergonomics,
Semiotics, and the Sociobiology of Communications Systems," Philosophical Forum
13, nos. 2-3 (1981-82): 244-75.
13. Jacques Lacan, "Radiophonies," Scilicet 2/3 (1970): 55, 68. For floating signifiers,
see Le Siminaire XX: Encore (Paris: Seuil, 1975), pp. 22, 35.
14. Although presence and absence loom much larger in Lacanian psycholinguistics
than do pattern and randomness, Lacan was not uninterested in information theory. In
the 19.54-55 Seminar, he played with incorporating ideas from information theory and
cyhernetics into psychoanalysis. See especially "The Circuit," pp. 77-90, and "Psychoanalysis
and CybernetiCS; or, On the Nature ofLanguage," pp. 294-308, in The Seminar
ofJacques Lacan: Book II, edited byJacques-Alain Miller (New York: W. W. Norton and
Company, 1991).
15. For an individual eventsl , the information lis) = -logp(s), where pis the probability,
expressed as a decimal between 1 and 0, that Sj will occur. To give a sense ofhow
this fimction varies, consider that -log base 2 of.9 (an event that occurs nine times outof
ten) is .15, whereas -log hase 2 of.l (an event that occurs only one in ten times) is 3.33.
Hence, as the probabilityp decreases (becomes less likely), -logp increases. In the case
ofelements whose probabilities do not conditionally depend on one another, the average
information ofa source sis I(s) = ~ -pis) logp(s), where p is again the probability
that oS1 will occur.
16. Claude Shannon and \Varren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory ofCommunication
(Urhana: University of Illinois Press, 1949). For a further discussion of this aspect
ofinformation theory, see Hayles, Chaos Bound, pp. 31-60.
17. The genderencodingimplicit in "man" (rather than "human") is also reflected in
the emphasis on tool usage as a defining characteristic rather than, say, altruism or nurturing,
traits traditionally encoded female.
18. Kenneth P. Oakley, Man the Tool-Maker (London: Trustees of the British Museum,
1949), p. 1.
]9. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions ofMan (New York:
McGraw Hill, 1964), pp. 41-47.
20. The term homeostasis, or self-regulating stabilitythrough cybernetic corrective
feedback, was introduced by phYSiologist \Valter B. Cannon in "Organization for Physiological
Homeostasis," PhYSiological Reviews 9 (1929): 399-431. Cannon's work influenced
Norbert \Viener, and homeostasis became an important concept in the initial
phase ofcybernetics from 1946 to 19,53; see chapters 3 and 4 for details.
21. Key figures in moving from homeostasis to self-organization were Heinz von
Foerster, espeCially in Observing Systems (Salinas, Calif.: Intersystems Publications,
]981), and Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition:
The Realization ofthe Living (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1980), discussed in detail in chap-
ter6.
22. Rheingold, Virtual Reality, pp. 13-49; Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The FlI-
Notes to Pages 36-46 / 299
ture ofRobot and Human Intelligence (Cambridge: HaIvard University Press, 1988),
pp.1-.5,116-22.
23. William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace Books, 1984), p..5l.
24. Ibid., p. 16.
25. The seminal text is Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics; or; Control and Communication
in the Animal and the Machine (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1948).
26. Henry James, The Art ofthe NOlJei (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937),
pp.47.46.
27. Peter Kollock, my colleague at UCLA and a sociologist, has studied virtual communities
at several sites on the Internet. See Marc Smith and Peter Kollock, eds., Communities
in Cyberspace (London: Routledge, 1998); see also Stone's discussion of
MUDs in The War ofDesire and Technology, Turkle's discussion in Life on the Screen,
and Amy Bruckman's article "Gender Swapping on the Internet," available at anonymous
<ftp:!/media.mit.edu/pub/asb/paperigender-swapping>. Espen J. Aarseth has a
discussion ofthe literaryand formal characteristics ofMUDs in Cybertext: PerspectilJes
on Ergodic Literature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
28. David Harvey, The Condition ofPostmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of
Cultural Change (New York: Blacbvell, 1989).
29. The material basis for informatics is meticulously documented in James R.
Beniger, The Control Rewllltion: Technological and Economic Origins oflhe Information
Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986).
30. For an account ofhow tracks are detected, see Hafner and Markoff, Cyberpunk,
pp. 35-40,68-71.
31. Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985; New York: Penguin, 1986).
32. Italo Calvino, If on a winter\' night a tralJeler; translated by \Villiam \Veaver
(New York: IIarconrt Brace Jovanovich, 1981), pp. 26-27, originally published in 1979
in Italian.
33. Ibid., p. 220.
34. William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (New York: Grove, 1959).
35. David Porush discusses the genre of"cybernetic fiction," which he defines as fictions
that resist the dehumanization that is sometimes attendant on cybernetics, in The
Soft Machine: Cybernetic Fiction (NewYork: Methuen, 198.5): Burroughs'S titular story
is discussed on pp. 85-11l. Robin Lydenberg has a fine exposition of Burroughs'S style
in Word Cultures: Radical Theory and Practice in William S. Burroughs' Fiction (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1987).
36. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, p. xxsix.
37. Jacques Derrida, OfGrammatology, translated by Gayatri C. Spivak (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
38. Mark LeyTIer, 'My Cousin, Afy Gastroenterologist (New York: Harmony Books,
1990), pp. 6-7.
39. \Valter Benjamin, 'The Storyteller," I111lminations, translated by Harry Zohn
(New York: Schocken, 1969).
40. Jean-Fran90is Lyotard, The Postmodem Condition: A Report on Knowledge,
translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1984).
4l. It is significant in this regard that Andrew Ross calls for cultural critics to consider
themselves hackers in "IIacking Away at the Counterculture," in Technocl1lture,
300 / Notes to Pages 46-54
edited by Constance Penley and Andrew Ross (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press), pp. 107-34.
42. Roland Barthes, S/Z, translated by Richard Miller (New York: Hill and Wang,
1974)
43. George W. S. Trow, Within the Context ofNo Context (Boston: Little Brown,
1978).
44. Kittler, Discourse Networks. Joseph Tabbi and Michael Wurtz further explore
the implications of medial ecology in Reading Matters: Narrative in the New Media
Ecology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).
45. PaulVirilio and Sylvere Lotringer, Pure War, translated by Mark Polizzotti (New
York: Semiotext(e), 1983).
46. "Embodied virtuality" is Mark Weiser's phrase in "The Computer for the 21st
Century," SCientific American 265 (September 1991): 94-104. WeiserdistingUishes between
technologies that put the user into a simulation with the computer (virtual reality)
and those that embed computers within already existing environments (embodied
virtualityor ubiqUitous computing). In virtual reality, the user's sensorium is redirected
into functionalities compatible with the simulation; in embodied virtuality, the sensorium
continues to function as it normallywould but with an expanded range made possible
through the environmentally embedded computers.
Chapter Three
l. "Conferences on Feedback Mechanisms and Circular Causal Systems in Biology
and the Social Sciences" (March 8-9, 1946), p. 62, Frank Fremont-Smith
Papers, Francis A. Countway Library ofMedicine, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass.
2. This explanation of information theory by Wiener appears in "The Impact of
Communication Engineeringon Philosophy," Box 14, Folder 765, Norbert Wiener Papers,
Collection MC-22, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Massachusetts
Institute ofTechnology Archives, Cambridge, Mass. See also Norbert Wiener, "Thermodynamics
ofthe Message,"inNorbert Wiener: CollectedWorks with Commenta";'es,
editedbyPesi Masani, vol. 4 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985),pp. 206-11.Wiener's treatment
ofinformation is conceptually similar to Shannon's, and today's version is often
called the Shannon-Wienertheory.
3. For a full theoretical treatement, see Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, The
Mathematical Theory ofCommunication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949).
Weaverincluded in the volume an essayexplaining Shannon's theory. According to Eric
A. Weiss, Shannon told him in correspondence that Weaver put together the volume
without consulting Shannon. Weiss wrote: 'Weaver was a big-shot scientific gatekeeper
at the time; Shannon was a more or less nobody. Weaver took some notes ... or
something by Shannon and turned it into the 1949 writing putting his name first and
without reallygettingShannon'sconsent. Shannon felt thatWeaverhad madeagood explanation,
this was one ofWeaver's skills, and did not object seriouslyat the time" (Weiss
to author, private communication).
4. Richard Doyle discusses the reification ofinformation in the context ofmolecular
biology in On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations in the Life Sciences (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1997). See also Evelyn Fox Keller's analysis ofthe dis-
Notes to Pages 54-58 I 301
embodimentofinformationin molecularbiologyin Secrets ofLife, Secrets ofDeath: Essays
on Language, Gender, and Science (New York: Routledge, 1992), especially chapters
5, 8, and the epilogue. Lily E. Kay criticallyanalyzes the emergence ofthe idea ofa
genetic "code" in "Cybernetics, Information, Life: The Emergence ofSCriptural Representations
of Heredity," Configurations 5 (winter 1997): 23-92. For a discussion of
how this disembodied view ofinformation began to circulate through the culture, see
Dorothy Nelkin and M. Susan Lindee, The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon
(NewYork: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1995).
5. Heinz von Foerster, Margaret Mead, and Hans Lukas Teuber, eds., Cybernetics:
Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems, vols. 6-10
(JOSiah MacyJr. Foundation, 1952) (EighthConference, 195]),8:22. The published series
is hereafter cited as Cybernetics with the number and year ofthe conference and
the volume number indicated.
6. Donald M. MacKay, "In Search of Basic Symbols," Cybernetics (Eighth Conference,
1951),8:222. A fuller account can be found in Donald M. MacKay, Information,
Mechanism, and Meaning (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969).
7. Nicolas S. Tzannes, "The Concept of'Meaning' in Information Theory" (August
7, 1968), in Warren McCulloch Papers, American Philosophical Society Library,
Philadelphia, B/M139, Box 1.
8. In Mary Catherine Bateson's Our Own Metaphor: A Personal Account ofa Conference
on the Effects ofConscious Purpose on Human Adaptation (1972; Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), she quotes her father, Gregory Bateson, as
advising, "Stamp out nouns!" The difficulty ofthis project may be indicated by the fact
that the slogan itselfcontains a noun.
9. Warren S. McCulloch, Embodiments of Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965),
p. 2. Conventional in the rhetoric ofthe 1950s, the purported universality of"man" indicates
how ideolOgical assumptions were inscribed into a universal formulation and
then erased from view once the universal stood for the embodied instantiation (the actual
human beings who compose humanity).
10. Steve J. Heims, The Cybernetics Group (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991),
pp. 31-51, especially p. 41. For the classic papers on the McCulloch-Pitts neuron, see
Warren S. McCulloch and Walter H. Pitts, "A Logical Calculus ofthe Ideas Immanent
in Nervous Activity," and Warren S. McCulloch, "A Heterarchy ofValues Determined
by the Topology of Nervous Nets," both in McCulloch, Embodiments of Mind,
pp. 19--39,40-45.
11. McCulloch recalls meeting Walter Pitts in "The Beginning of Cybernetics,"
McCulloch Papers, B/M139, Box 2.
12. Automata theory works with highly abstract models of computers, especially
Turing machines. Just as Maxwell's Demon is a thought experiment, so a Turing machine
can be called a thought computer. The idea is to propose a conceptual scheme
that, although it might never be realized in an experimental situation, poses interesting
problems and leads to significant conclusions. Named afterits inventorAlan Turing, the
Turing machine consists of a control box containing a finite program that moves back
and forth along a finite tape inscribedwith symbols, conventionallyones and zeros written
in square boxes. The control box scans the tape one square at a time, and on the basis
ofwhat it reads and what its program calls for it to do, prints another symbol on the
square (which mayor may not be the same as the one already there) and moves one
302 / Notes to Pages 58-65
square to the right or left, where it goes through the procedure again until it has finished
executingits program's instructions.
13. McCulloch, "The Beginning ofCybernetics," p. 12.
14. "Conferences on Feedback Mechanisms," p. 46.
15. McCulloch Papers, B/M139, Box 2.
16. Ibid.
17. See Lawrence Kubie, "A Theoretical Application to Some Neurological Problems
of the Properties of Excitation ''''aves Which Move in Closed Circuits," Brain 53
(1930): 166--78.
18. Lewis Carroll, SylVie and Bruno Concluded (London: Macmillan, 1893), p. 169;
Jorge Luis Borges, "Of Exactitude in Science," A Universal History ofInfamy, translated
by Norman Thomas di Givanni (New York: Dutton, 1972), pp. 14lff.
19. Andrea Nye, Word;' ofPower: A Feminist Reading ofthe History ofLogic (New
York: Routledge, 1990).
20. This inSight is, ofcourse, a central achievement ofthe social construction ofscientific
knowledge. Nancy Cartwright addresses it powerfully in How the Laws of
Physics Lie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). For eloquent demonstrations ofit,
see Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle,
and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), and Bnmo
Latour, Science in Action: How to Follote Scientists and Engineers through Society
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987).
21. Warren S. McCulloch, "How Nervous Structures Have Ideas" (speech to the
American Neurological Association, June 13, 1949), p. 3, McCulloch Papers, B/MI39,
Box 1.
22. Reprinted in McCulloch, Embodiments of ,"find, pp. 387-98, quotations on
p.393.
23. CybernetiCS (Seventh Conference, 1950), 7:15,5.
24. Claude E. Shannon, "Presentation of a Maze-SolVing Machine," CybernetiCS
(Eighth Conference, 1951),8:173-80.
25. Ibid., p. xix.
26. Mark Seltzer makes a similar point about scientific models (especially the second
law of thermodynamics) serving as a relay system in Bodies and A1aehines (New
York: Routledge, 1992).
27. Cybernetics (Eighth Conference, 1951),8:173. "Singing" acquired its name
from feedback loops that make an audio amplifier break into oscillation, resulting in a
whistling in the operator's headphones (information from Eric Weiss, private commu-
nication).
28. How quickly the equation between man and machine proliferated into social
theory can be seen in F. S. C. Northrop's Ideological Differences and vVorld Order:
Studies in the Philosophy and Science ofthe World~s Cultures (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1949). In his contribution to the volume, "Ideological Man and Natural
Man" (pp. 407-28), Northrop relies extensively on the McCulloch-Pitts neuron as well
as the cybernetic manifesto written by \Viener, Rosenblueth, and Bigelow (discussed in
chapter 4) to bring together normative social theory with "a complete unified natural
philosophy" (p. 424). Like Wiener, Northrop associates cybernetics with liberal Immanism,
arguing that reverberating loops and teleological mechanisms confirm thatthe
correct model for human subjectivityis the "moral, thoughtful, choosing, purposeful in-
Notes to Pages 65-73 / 303
dividual" (p. 426). Unity within the subject can be achieved only when ideology is
brought into harmony with "scientifically verified and conceived natural neurological
man" fashioned from McCulloch-Pitts neurons and Wiener's feedback loops. Only
when "the philosophy giving instructions to his motor neurons" is congruent with cybernetic
modeling can such an individual be "a single, a composed, and a whole man"
(p. 424). An exchange ofletters between Northrop, McCulloch, and Wiener laid out the
network of ideas that Northrop picked up from the Macy Conferences and that provided
the basis for his book (McCulloch Papers, B/MI39, Box 2).
29. W. Ross Ashby, "Homeostasis," in Cybernetics (Ninth Conference, 19.52),
9:73-108.
30. Ashby fulfilled his ambition to move to more complex modeling in W. Ross
Ashby, Design for a Brain: The Origin ofAdaptive Behavior (London: Chapman and
Hall, 1952). Also ofinterest is his book Introdllctioll to Cyhernetics (London: Chapman
and Hall, 1961).
31. John Stroud, "The Psychological Moment in Perception," in Cyhernetics (Sixth
Conference, 1949),6:27-28.
32. Cyhernetics (Sixth Conference, 1949),6:147, ],53.
33. Ibid., p. 153.
34. Kubie, "A Theoretical Application."
3.5. Cyhernetics (Sixth Conference, 1949),6:74.
36. Cybernetics (Seventh Conference, 1950), 7:210, 222.
37. A copy of the speech in thc McCulloch Papers is prefaced with a note that the
copy was reproduced without the author's consent or knowledge and is adorned with a
skull and crossbones to indicate its pirated status. Its pirated status notwithstanding, it
is word for word the same as the version that McCulloch later published in Emhodi/ltents
ofMind. Hit reallywas pirated, one wonders howit ended up among McCulloch's
papers. \Vhether or not McCulloch had a hand in circulating this version, he did send
copies ofthe speech to his friends.
38. Heims recounts this part ofthe tale in The Cyhernetics Group, pp. 136ff.
39. Letter dated April 11, 1950, McCulloch Papers, B/ML39, Box 2.
40. Heims, The Cybernetics Group, p. l.36.
41. "The Place ofEmotions in the Feedback Concept," CybernetiCS (l'\inth Conference,
1952),9:48.
42. As C\idence that emotions and otherpsychic experiences have a neurological basis,
Kubie referred repeatedly to "psychosurgery"~that is, lobotomy~which by destroying
tissue proved that brain functions have a physiological hasis. Presumably he
referred to this cruel practice (which '''iener had elsewhere satirized as a way to make
custodial care ofpatients easier) to establish that emotions have a material and quantitative
dimension. Yetwhen he was asked to elaborate, he answered that he "did not want
to discuss psychosurgery" but rather was "simply indicating some of the questions we
ask ourselves about the effects of any procedure on emotional processes, the points at
which they are vulnerable and alterable" ("The Place of Emotions in the Feedback
Concept," Cybernetics [Ninth Conference, 1952], 9:69). His transparent motive was to
establish his credentials as a physical scientist who dealt in quantifiable data, another indication
ofthe uneasy relations between him and the experimentalists.
43. Letter dated March 30, 19.54, McCulloch Papers, BIM 139, Box 2.
44. Letter dated May 29,1969, Fremont-Smith Papers.
304 I Nores ro Pages 13-84
45. Letter dated June 2,1969, Fremont-Smith Papers.
46. Letter dated July 1,1969, Fremont-Smith Papers.
47. Stewart Brand, "'For God's Sake, Margaret': Conversation with Gregory
Bateson and Margaret Mead," Co-Evolution Quarterly (summer 1976), 32, 34 (Bateson's
diagram is on p. 37).
48. Letter dated November 8, 1954, McCulloch Papers, B/M139, Box 2.
49. Letter dated November 22,1954, McCulloch Papers, B/M139, Box 2.
50. Bateson, Our Own Metaphor (hereafter cited in the text as OOM).
5l. At the ninth conference, Mead insisted that language is broader than words.
"We should drop the idea that language is made up ofwords and that words are toneless
sequences ofletters on paper, although even on paper there are possibilities for
poetic overtones. We are dealing here with language in a very general sense, which
would include posture, gesture, and intonation." Cybernetics (Ninth Conference,
1952),9:13.
52. Gregory Bateson, "Our Own Metaphor: Nine Years After," in A Sacred Unity:
Further Steps to an Ecology ofMind (New York: Harper Collins, 1991),p. 227. Catherine
had asked Gregory for a letter that might be suitable as an afterword to the second
edition ofOur Own Metaphor. Although she evidently decided not to use the letter, it
was later published.
53. Ibid., p. 225.
54. CybernetiCS (Tenth Conference, 1953), 10:69.
55. J. Y. Lettvin, H. R. Maturana, W. S. McCulloch,andW. H. Pitts, 'Whatthe Frog's
Eye Tells the Frog's Brain," Proceedings ofthe Institute for Radio Engineers 47, no.
11 (November 1959): 1940-59. Reprinted in McCulloch, Embodiments of Mind,
pp.230-55.
56. Letter from Janet Freed to Warren McCulloch, dated January 31, 1947,
Fremont-Smith Papers.
57. This is an educated guess based on reading her comments in the typed manuscript
of "Chairman and Editors' Meeting," dated April 27, 1949, pp. 3ff., FremontSmith
Papers.
58. Ibid., pp. 3, 26.
59. Dorothy E. Smith, The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist SOciology
(Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987); see also Dorothy E. Smith, The Conceptual
Practices ofPower: A Feminist Sociology ofKnowledge (Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 1990).
Chapter Four
l. See Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology ofMind (New York: Ballantine Books,
1972), p. 251, for an interpretation ofthe question. "It is not communicationally meaningful
to askwhether the blind man's stick orthe scientist's microscope are 'parts' ofthe
men who use them. Both stick and microscope are important pathways ofcommunication
and, as such, are parts ofthe network in which we are interested; but no boundary
line-e. g., halfway up the stick-can be relevant in a description of the toplogy of
this net."
2. Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist
Feminism in the 1980s," Socialist Review 80 (1985): 65-108.
Nores ro Pages 85-91 I 305
3. George Lakoffand MarkJohnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: Universityof
Chicago Press, 1980); and Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of
Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (Chicago: UniversityofChicago Press, 1987).
4. For an analysis ofthe strategies used to proclaim cybernetics a universal science,
see GeofBowker, "HowTo Be Universal: Some Cybernetic Strategies, 1943-1970," Social
Studies ofScience 23 (1993): 107-27.
5. Norbert Wiener, "Men, Machines, and the World About," Box 13, Folder 750,
NorbertWiener Papers, Collection MC-22, Institute Archives and Special Collections,
Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology Archives, Cambridge, Mass. Also published in
Norbert Wiener: Collected Works with Commentaries, edited by Pesi Masani, vol. 4
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985), pp. 793-99.
6. For a study tracing Wiener's postwar views, see Steve J. Heims, John von
Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and
Death (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1980).
7. Peter Galison, "The Ontologyofthe Enemy: NorbertWienerand the Cybernetic
Vision," Critical Inquiry 21 (1994): 228--ti6.
8. Otto Mayr, AuthOrity, Liberty, and Automatic Machinery in Early Modem Europe
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).
9. The question is posed most powerfullyin Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner (originally
published in 1968 under the title Do Androids Dream ofElectric Sheep?) (New York:
Ballantine Books, 1982).
10. It remained for a novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, to envision the full implications of
Wiener's cybernetic program ifit were fully carried out: see Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano
(NewYork: Delacorte Press/Seymour Laurence, 1952).
11. See, for example, Norbert Wiener, "The Averages ofan Analytical Function and
the Brownian Movement," in Norbert Wiener: Collected Works, vol. 1, pp. 450-55.
12. Norbert Wiener, "The Historical Background ofHarmonic Analysis,"American
Mathematical Society Semicentennial Publications, vol. 2 (Providence, R.I.: American
Mathematical Society, 1938), pp. 513--22.
13. NorbertWiener, The Human Use ofHuman Beings: Cybernetics and SOciety, 2d
ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954) (hereafter cited in the text as HU), p. 10.
14. Wiener of course knew Shannon; both were participants in the Macy Conferences.
Although they conceived of information in similar ways, Wiener was more inclined
to see information and entropy as opposites. See also n. 3, ch. 3.
15. James R. Beniger, The Control Revolution: Technological andEconomic Origins
ofthe Information Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986).
16. Michel Serres brilliantly analyzes the progression from the mechanical to the
thermodynamical in "TurnerTranslates Carnot," Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy,
edited byJosue V. Harari and David F. Bell (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1982).
17. Beniger, The Control Revolution, convincinglyshows howtechnolOgies ofspeed
and communication precipitated a "crisis ofcontrol" that, once solved, initiated a new
cycle ofcrisis.
18. NorbertWiener, "The Role ofthe Observer," Philosophy ofScience 3 (1936): 31l.
19. Pesi Masani, Norbert Wiener, 1894-1964, Vita Mathematica Series, vol. 5
(Basel: Birkhaeuser, 1989), calls Wiener's statement "a half-truth," "one ofthe solitary
instances in which this very coherent thinker articulated badly" (p. 128).
306 I Nores ro Pages 92-102
20. Norbert Wiener, I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life ofa Prodigy (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), pp. 85-86.
2l. Ibid., p. 86.
22. Heims,John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener; pp. 155-57.
23. Norbert Wiener, Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1953).
24. Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow, "Behavior, Purpose,
and Teleology," Philosophy ofScience 10 (1943): 18-24.
25. Richard Taylor, "Comments on a Mechanistic Conception ofPurposefulness,"
Philosophy ofScience 17 (1950): 310-17.
26. Arturo Rosenblueth and Norbert Wiener, "Purposeful and Non-Purposeful Behavior,"
Philosophy ofScience 17 (1950): 318.
27. Bowker, "Howto Be Universal,"pp.107-27.
28. Richard Taylor, "Purposeful and Non-Purposeful Behavior: A RejOinder," Philosophy
ofScience 17 (1950): 327-32.
29. Norbert Wiener, "The Nature ofAnalogy," (1950), Box 12, Folder 655, Wiener
Papers.
30. Michael A. Arbib and Mary B. Hesse, The Construction ofReality (Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
3l. Michael J. Apter draws the comparison between Saussurian linguistics and
cybernetics in "Cybernetics: A Case Study of a Scientific Subject, Complex," in
The SOciology ofScience: SOciological Review Monograph, no. 18, edited by Paul
Halmos (Keele, Staffordshire: Keele University, 1972), pp. 93-115, espeCially
p.104.
32. Wiener, "The Nature ofAnalogy," p. 2.
33. I rely here on Galison's detailed account ofWiener's work with antiaircraft devices
in "The Ontologyofthe Enemy."
34. Norbert Wiener, "Sound Communication with the Deaf," in Norbert Wiener:
Collected Works, vol. 4, pp. 409-11.
35. Cited in Walter A. Rosenblith and Jerome B. Wiesner, :"The Life Sciences and
CybernetiCS,"oneofthe articles writtenin tribute toWieneron the occasionofhis death
and published as "Norbert Wiener, 1894-1964,"Journal ofNervous and Mental Disease
140 (1965): 3-16. Rosenblith and Wiesner's contribution is on pp. 3-8.
36. Masani, Norbert Wiener; pp. 205-6.
37. Rosenblith and Wiesner, "From Philosophyto Mathematics to Biology," p. 7.
38. Mark Seltzer, Bodies and Machines (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 14.
39. Ibid., p. 4l.
40. Leo Szilard, "Onthe ReductionofEntropyas aThermodynamic System Caused
by Intelligent Beings," Zeitschriftfur Physik 53 (1929): 840-56.
4l. Leon Brillouin, "Maxwell's Demon Cannot Operate: Information and Entropy,
I," Journal ofApplied Physics 212 (March 1951): 334-57. Much ofthis material is also
available in Harvey S. Leffand Andrew F. Rex, eds., Maxwell's Demon: Entropy, Infor,nation,
Computing (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
42. Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory ofCommunication
(Urbana: UniversityofIllinois Press, 1949).
43. Warren Weaver offered this explanation in his essayinterpreting Shannon's the-
oryinibid.
Nores ro Pages 103-15 I 307
44. See N. Katherine Hayles, Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary
Literature and Science (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); for a major statement
ofthis thesis, see lIya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, OrderOut ofChaos: Man's New
Dialogue with Nature (New York: Bantam, 1984).
45. Wiener's views on photosynthesis and Maxwell's Demon are discussed by
Masani, Norbert Wiener; pp. 155-56. See also Norbert Wiener, "Cybernetics (Light
and Maxwell's Demon)," Scientia (Italy) 87 (1952): 233-35, reprinted in Norbert
Wiener: Collected Works, vol. 4, pp. 203-5.
46. Michael Serres plays multiple riffs on this idea in The Parasite, translated by
Lawrence R. Schehr (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982).
47. Valentino Braitenberg delightfully explores the possibility that simple machines
can demonstrate behavioral equivalents to emotional states, including fear, love, envy,
and ambition, by constructing a series of "thought machines" (machines deSigned in
principle but not actually built). See Vehicles: Experiments in SynthetiC Psychology
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984).
48. Galison, "Ontology ofthe Enemy," p. 232.
49. DespiteWiener's efforts, after WorldWar II cybernetiCS became more, not less,
entangledwith military projects. The close connection between the militaryand cybernetics
is detailed by Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of
Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), and Les Levidowand
Kevin Robins, eds., Cyborg Worlds: The Military Information Society (London: Free
Association Books, 1989).
50. Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics; or; Control and Communication in the Animal
and the Machine, 2d ed. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1961).
51. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1976).
52. Masani, Norbert Wiener; p. 21.
Chapter Five
1. David N. Samuelson, "Limbo: The Great American Dystopia," Extrapolation 19
(1977): 76-87.
2. BernardWolfe, Limbo (NewYork: Random House, 1952), p. 412.
3. Paul Virilio and Sylvere Lotringer, Pure War; translated by Mark Polizzotti (New
York: Semiotext(e), 1983), pp. 91-102.
4. Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist
Feminism in the 1980s," Socialist Review 80 (1985): 65-108.
5. This portion ofthe argument appeared in N. Katherine Hayles, "The Life Cycle
of Cyborgs: Writing the Posthuman," in A Question ofIdentity: Women, Science and
Literature, edited by Marina Benjamin (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,
1993), pp.152--72, especiallypp.156-61.
6. Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science
Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), p. 9.
7. The idea of "tonus" (defined as muscle tone) may be a punning wink toward
"clonus," spasms by muscles orgroups ofmuscles. Wiener discusses Warren McCulloch's
research on clonus in Cybernetics; or; Control and Communication in the Animal and
the Machine (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1948).
8. Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics. Wolfe probably also read Wiener's popular book
308 / Notes to Pages 116-28
The Human Use ofHuman Beings: Cybernetics and Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1950).
9. W. Norbert [Norbert Wiener], "The Brain," in Crossroads in Time, edited by
GroffConklin (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Books, 1950), pp. 299-312 (quotation on
p. 300). A typescript version, with different names for the characters and with manuscript
corrections, can be found in Box 12, Norbert Wiener Papers, Collection MC-22,
Institute Archives and Special Collections, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Archives, Cambridge, Mass.
10. PaulVirilio, War and Cinema: The Logistics ofPerception, translated by Patrick
Camiller (London: Verso, 1989), p. 10.
11. Richard Doyle, On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations in the Life Sciences
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997).
12. Bernard Wolfe, "Self Portrait," Galaxi Science Fiction 3 (November 1951): 64.
13. "SelfPortrait" also suggests a link between cybernetics and McCarthyism when
the narrator consolidates his position by denouncing a scientific rival as a security risk
and testifyingagainst him at ahearing. The contextpresents this move as reprehensible,
inline with the satirictone ofthe piece. Wolfewas generallysympatheticto leftistcauses
and did not participate in the communist hysteria that characterized these years in
the United States. When he was a young man, he served as a security guard for Leon
Trotskyin Mexico.
14. Douglas D. Noble, "Mental Materiel: The Militarization ofLearning and Intelligence
in U.S. Education,"in Cyborg Worlds: The Military Information Society, edited
by Les Levidow and Kevin Robbins (London: Free Association Books, 1989),
pp.13-42.
15. For a discussion of neocortical warfare, see Col. Richard Szafranski, U.S. Air
Force, "Harnessing Battlefield Technology: Neocortical Warfare? The Acme of Skill,"
Military Review: The ProfeSSionalJournal ofthe United States Army (November 1994),
41--54. See also Chris Hables Gray, "The Cyborg Soldier: The U.S. Military and the
Post-modem Warrior," in Levidow and Robbins, Cyborg Worlds, pp. 43-72.
16. Carolyn Geduld, Wolfe's biographer, has an excellent discussion ofBergler's influence
on Wolfe in Bernard Wolfe (NewYork: Twayne, 1972), pp. 54--62.
17. Geduld describes the author as a "very small man with a thick, sprouting mustache,
a fat cigar, and avoice that grabs attention" (ibid., p. 15).
18. Edmund Bergler discusses narcissism in a book whose title gives it top (or bottom)
billing, The Basic Neurosis: Oral Regression and PsychiC Masochism (New York:
Gmne and Stratton, 1949).
19. Fora discussion ofLacan's rewriting ofFreud in this respect, see Kaja Silverman,
The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1988).
20. David Wills, Prosthesis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 18,20.
21. Bernard Wolfe (ghostwriter, Raymond Rosenthal), Plastics: What Everyone
Should Know (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1945).
22. Wolfe, Limbo, p. 294.
23. Julia Kristeva, "The Novel as Polylogue," in Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach
to Literature and Art, edited by Leon S. Roudiez, translated by Thomas Gora,
Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980),
pp. 159--209.
Notes to Pages 131-36 I 309
Chapter Six
1. J. Y. Lettvin, H. R. Maturana, W. S. McCulloch, and W. H. Pitts, "What the Frog's
Eye Tells the Frog's Brain," Proceedings ofthe Institutefor Radio Engineers 47, no. 11
(November 1959): 1940-51.
2. For anecdotal evidence about the importance ofreflexivity to these Macyparticipants,
see Stewart Brand's interview discussed in chapter 3, "'For God's Sake, Margaret':
Conversation with Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead," Co-Evolution
Quarterly (summer 1976), 32-44.
3. Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The
Realization ofthe Living (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1980), p. xvi (hereafter citedin the text
asAC).
4. Heinz von Foerster, "Vita," in Warren McCulloch Papers, American Philosophical
Library, Philadelphia, B/M139, Box 2.
.5. Heinz von Foerster, letter dated May 23, 1949, McCulloch Papers, B/M139, Box
2. According to Steve Heims, who interviewed von Foerster in 1982, McCulloch had
first learned ofvon Foerster's work when reading one of von Foerster's papers (published
in German) in which he proposed that memoryis stored in a macromolecule (by
analogy to the DNA macromolecule's storage ofgenetic information). McCulloch immediatelyinvitedvon
Foerster to the next Macy Conference, where his presentation of
the idea met a cool reception, in part because by then the Macy group had alreadyconceptualized
memory (through the McCulloch-Pitts neuron) as analogous to binary
computer memory storage. See Steve J. Heims, The Cybernetics Group (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1991),pp. 72-74.
6. Heinzvon Foerster, Observing Systel1~~, 2ded. (Salinas, Calif.: Intersystems Publications.
1984), p. 7.
7. Asimilar scenario is imagined inJorge Luis Borges's fiction "The Circular Ruins,"
Ficciones, edited by Anthony Kerrigan (New York: Grove Press, 1962).
8. At the Bateson conference in 1968, Gordnn Pask illustrated his talk, after referring
to the "Frog's Eye" paper, with drawings ofmen in bowlerhats; see MaryCatherine
Bateson, Our Own Metaphor: A Personal Account ofa Conference on the Effects of
Conscious Purpose on Human Adaptation (1972; Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1991), pp. 209-15, especiallyp. 214.
9. Norbert Wiener, God and Golem, Inc: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics
Impinges on Religion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964), p. 88.
10. For an account of the conference, see Maturana and Varela, Autopoiesis and
Cognition, p. xvi.
11. Heinz von Foerster, "Molecular Ethology: An Immodest Proposal for Semantic
Clarification," Observing Syste~, p. 171.
12. Lettvin, Maturana, McCulloch, and Pitts, "Frog's Eye," p. 1950.
13. Humberto R. Maturana, G. Uribe, and S. Frenk, "A BiolOgical Theory ofRelativistic
Color Coding in the Primate Retina," Archivos de Biologia y Medicina Experimentales,
Suplemento No.1 (Santiago, Chile: N.p., 1968).
14. An excellent survey ofautopoietic theory, from Maturana and Varela to its proponents
in such diverse fields as Luhmann's social systems theory and family therapy,
can be found in John Mingers, Self-Producing Syste~: Implications and Applications
ofAutopoiesis (New York: Plenum Press, 1995). A useful bibliography and survey can
310 / Notes to Pages 137-50
also be found at Randall \Vhitaker's Web site, <http://www.acm.org/sigois/auto/Main.
htmb. Of course, the main sources are Maturana and Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition,
and Maturana and Varela's later works cited in this chapter. .
IS. For a sample, see Brian R. Gaines's critique ofautopoiesis: "Autopoiesis: Some
Questions" in Autopoiesis: A Theory ofLiving Organization, edited by Milan Zeleny,
North Holland Series in General Systems Research, vol. 3 (New York: North Holland,
1981), pp. 14S-S4. Complaining about verbal obscurities in Maturana's formulations,
Gaines notes the difference between "the arts ofpersuasion and the pursuit ofscience.
On the other hand, we have also to accept that the ultimate, undefined terms of any
theory are accepted as 'acts offaith,' not that theybe true (for the word is meaningless in
this context), but at least that they be potentially useful. Ifwe go looking at the world in
terms ofunities, recursive self-production, and autopoietic organization, then we shall
find a certain kind ofworld: It is not yet clear why we should want it or what we will do
with it when we have it" (pp. IS0-S1).
16. Francisco J. Varela, Principles ofBiological Autonomy, North Holland Series in
General Systems Research, vol. 2 (New York: North Holland, 1979).
17. Humberto R. Maturana, "BiologyofLanguage: The EpistemologyofReality," in
Psychology and Biology ofLanguage and Thought: Essays in Honor ofEric Lenneherg,
edited by George A. Miller and Elizabeth Lenneberg (New York: Academic Press,
1978), p. S9.
18. Ibid., p. 63.
19. The foremost theorist extending autopoietic theory into social systems is of
course Niklas Luhmann. His major works include The Differentiation ofSoctety (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1982) and Social Systems, translated byJohn Bednarz
Jr., with Dirk Baeker (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995). Also ofinterest with
regard to his appropriation ofautopoietic theory are his mticles "Operational Closure
and Structural Coupling: The Differentiation ofthe Legal System," Cardozo Law Review
13 (1992): 1419-41, and "The Cognitive Program ofConstructivism and a Reality
That Remains Unknown" in Self-Organization: Portrait of a Scientific Revolution,
edited by Wolfgang Krohn et al. (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990).
20. Simon Baron-Cohen, Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory c{Mind
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997).
21. Francisco J. Varela, "Describing the Logic of the Living: The Adequacy and
Limitations ofthe Idea ofAutopoiesis," in Zeleny, Autopoiesis: A Theory, p. 36.
22. See, for example, Richard C. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine
of DNA (New York: Harper and Row, 1993); Evelyn Fox Keller, RefigUring Life:
IHetaphors of Twentieth-Century Biology (New York: Columbia University Press,
1995); Richard Doyle, On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations in the Life
Sciences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997); and Lily E. Kay, "Cybernetics, Information,
Life: The Emergence ofScriptural Representations of Heredity," Configurations
S (winter 1997): 23-92.
23. IIumberto R. Maturana, "Autopoiesis: Reproduction, Heredity, and Evolution,"
in Autopoiesis, Dissipative Structures, and Spontaneous Social Orders, edited
by Milan Zeleny, AAAS Selected Symposium (Boulder: \Vestview Press, 1980),
p.62.
24. Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco Varela, The Tree ofKnowledge: The Biological
Roots ofHu1I1an Understanding (Boston: New Science Library, 1987).
Notes to Pages 153-6~ / 311
25. In Maturana and Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition, Maturana notes that one
cannot "account or deduce all actual biological phenomena from the notion of autopoiesis
without resorting to historical contingencies" (p. xxiii). He makes this admission,
however, only to argue that this does not represent a shortcoming ofthe theory.
26. Humberto R. Maturana, "The Origin ofthe Theory ofAutopoietic Systems," in
Autopoiesis; Eine theorie im Brennpunktder Kritik, edited by Hans R. Fisher (Heidelberg:
Verlag, 1991), p. 123.
27. Varela, Principles, p. xvii; Varela, "Describingthe Logic ofthe Living," p. 36 (emphasis
added).
28. Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind:
Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).
29. Francisco J. Varela, "Making It Concrete: Before, During, and After Breakdowns,"
in Revisioning Philosophy, edited byJames Ogilvy (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1992), p. 103.
30. See the chapters in Zeleny'S Autopoiesis, Dissipative Structures, and Spontaneous
Social Orders for a good overview ofthis work.
31. Maturana and Varela, The Tree ofKnowledge, p. 242.
Chapter Seven
1. OfPhilip K. Dick's novels from this period, I will discuss or mention We Can Build
You (originallytitled The First in You r Family), written in 1962 andpublishedin 1969 as
A. Lincoln, Simulacrum (the edition cited in this chapter is London: Grafton Books,
1986); Martian Time-Slip (originallytitled GoodmemberArnie KottofMars), written in
1962 and published in 1964 (the cited edition is New York: Vintage Books, 1995); Dr.
Bloodnwney; or, How We Got Along after the Bomb, written in 1963 and published in
1965 (the cited edition is New York: Carroll and Graf, 1988); The Simulacra (originally
titled The First Lady ofEarth), written in 1963 and publishedin 1964 (the cited edition
is London: Methuen Paperbacks, n.d.); The Three Stigmata ofPalmerEldritch, written
in 1964 and published in 1965 (the cited edition is New York: Bantam, 1964): Do Android~
Dream of Electric Sheep? (originally titled The Electric Toad: Do Androids
Dream?), written in 1966 and publishedin 1968 (the cited edition, published under the
title Blade Runner, is New York: Ballantine Books, 1982); and Ubik (originally titled
Death ofan Anti-watcher), written in 1966 and published in 1969 (the cited edition is
London: Grafton Books, 1973). Information about dates, original titles, and first publication
is taken from Lawrence Sutin, Diville Invasions: A Life ofPhilip K Dick (Secaucus,
N.J.: Carol Publishing, 1991).
2. Philip K. Dick, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days
Later," in The Shifting Realities ofPhilip K Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical
Writings, edited by Lawrence Sutin (New York: Pantheon Books, 1995), pp. 263-64.
3. Istvan Csicsery-RonayJr. points outthe dearth offeminist criticism on Dickin the
introduction to On Philip K Dick: 40 Articlesfrom Science-Fiction Studies, edited by
R. D. Mullen, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Arthur B. Evans, and Veronica Hollinger
(Terre Haute: SF-TH, 1992), pp. v-xvii.
4. As Dick grew older and the women grew younger, "girl" becomes less a mark of
sexist constmction (hardly unusual in a man of Dick's age and upbringing) and more an
indication ofactual chronological age.
312 / Notes to Pages 161,-77
5. Philip K. Dick, "The Evolution ofa Vital Love," in The Dark-Haired Girl (Willimantic,Conn.:
MarkV.Ziesing, 1988),p.171.
6. Marxist criticism in general, ofcourse, favors systematic and economic explanations
over psychological ones. Articles that argue for the importance ofeconomic readings
include the following, all published in Mullen, Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Evans, and
Hollinger, On Philip K Dick: Peter Fitting, "Reality as Ideological Construct: A Reading
of Five Novels by Philip K. Dick," pp. 92-110; Peter Fitting, "Ubik: The Deconstruction
of Bourgeois SF," pp. 41-48; and Scott Durham, "From the Death of the
Subjectto a TheologyofLate Capitalism,"pp. 188-98.
7. Sutin, Divine Invasions, pp. 11-19,29-34.
8. Quotedinibid.,p.12.
9. Documented in ibid.: see for example p. 26.
10. The lesbian Alys, a sexually vibrant woman with dark hair, is also involved in an
incestuous relationship with her twin brother. As if reflecting Jane's death, she is made
the victim ofentropic forces, experiencingpretematuallyfastdecaywhile herbrotheris
saved.
11. Dick was an avid reader ofJung's works and frequently referred to Jungian archetypes,
for example the Magna Mater, in his fiction. It is likely that he conSciously
thought ofJane in terms ofhis anima.
12. Patricia Warrick, "The Labyrinthian Process of the Artificial: Dick's Androids
and Mechanical Constructs," Extrapolation 20 (1979): 133-53, also makes this point in
a different context when she argues: "For Dick, the outcome ofwar-be it military or
economic-is not victoryor defeat, but a transformation into the opposite. We become
the goalwe pursue, the enemywe fight" (p. 139).
13. Carl Freedman, "Towards aTheoryofParanoia: The Science FictionofPhilip K.
Dick," in Mullen, CSicsery-Ronay Jr., Evans, and Hollinger, On Philip K Dick,
pp.I11-18.
14. Dick, The Simulacra, p. 201.
15. Scott Durham, "From the Death ofthe Subject."
16. Dick, The Three Stigmata, p. 160.
17. PatriciaWarrick, "Labyrinthian Process."
18. Dick, We Can Build You, p. 34.
19. Rachael is described as slim and lithe with "heavy masses ofdark hair." Because
ofher "diminutive breasts," her body "assumed a lank, almost childlike stance," though
Deckard is in no doubt that she is a sexually mature woman. The "total impression," although"good,"
is "definitelythatofa girl, not awoman." See Dick, Do Androids Dream,
p.164.
20. I am indebtedto Jill Galvin for pointingoutthis pun in "Enteringthe Posthuman
Collective in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream ofElectric Sheep?" (forthcoming,
Science-Fiction Studies).
2l. Philip K. Dick, "Schizophrenia and The Book ofChanges,"in Sutin, Shifting Realities,
pp. 175-82, especiallyp. 176.
22. See R. D. Laing, The Divided Self(NewYork: Pantheon Books, 1969).
23. Quoted in Warrick, "Labyrinthian Process," p. 14l.
24. Philip K. Dick, "The Android and the Human," in Sutin, Shifting Realities,
p.208.
25. Galvin, "Entering the Posthuman Collective."
Notes to Pages 11 8 -93 I 313
26. Dick, Do Androids Dream, p. 185.
27. Dick, The Three Stigmata, p.101.
28. Fredric Jameson, "After Armageddon: Character Systems in Dr. Bloodmoney,"
in Mullen, Csicsery-RonayJr., Evans, and Hollinger, On Philip K Dick, pp. 2~6.
29. Ibid.,p.27.
30. Dick, Dr. Bloodmaney, p. 66.
31. Dick, Ubik, p. 107.
32. Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco Varela, The Tree ofKnowledge: The Biological
Roots ofHuman Understanding (Boston: New Science Library, 1987), p. 242.
33. Sutin, Divine Invasions, pp. 222-34.
34. Humberto R. Maturana, "BiologyofLanguage: The EpistemologyofReality," in
Psychology and Biology ofLanguageand Thought: Essays in Honor ofEric Lenneberg,
edited by George A. Miller and Elizabeth Lenneberg (New York:; Academic Press,
1978), p. 46, remarks: "In the absence ofan adequate environmental perturbation, the
observerclaimsthatthe observedconductis a result ofan illusion orahallucination. Yet,
for the operation of the nervous system (and organism), there cannot be a distinction
between illusions, hallucinations, or perceptions, because a closed neuronal network
cannot discriminate between internally and externally triggered changes in relative
neuronal activity. This distinction pertains exclusively to the domain of description in
which the observer defines an inside and an outside for the nervous system and the or-
ganism."
35. Philip K. Dick, In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from The Exegesis, edited by
Lawrence Sutin (Novato, Calif.: Underwood-Miller, 1991), p. 45.
36. Dick, Do Androids Dream, p. 210.
Chapter Eight
1. Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy ofCommunication, translated by Bernard Schutze
and Caroline Schutze (NewYork: Semiotext(e), 1988), p.18.
2. Arthur Kroker and Marilouise Kroker, "Panic Sex in America," Body Invaders:
Panic Sex in America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), pp. 20-21.
3. O. B. HardisonJr., Disappearingthrough the Skylight: Culture and Technology in
the Twentieth Century (NewYork: Viking, 1989), p. 335.
4. By "informatics," I mean the material, technological, economic, and social structures
that make the information age possible. Informatics includes the follOwing: the
late capitalist mode of flexible accumulation; the hardware and software that have
merged telecommunications with computer technology; the patterns of living that
emerge from and depend on access to large data banks and instantaneous transmission
ofmessages; and the physical habits-ofposture, eye focus, hand motions, and neural
connections-that are reconfiguring the human bodyin conjunctionwith information
technologies. For readers who know the term "informatics" mainly from Donna
Haraway's work, where itfrequently occurs as "the informatics ofdomination," I should
clarifYhow this term is currentlybeing used in technical and humanistic fields here and
abroad. To computer people, "informatics" means simplythe studyand design ofinformation
technologies. In many European countries, especially Norway, Denmark,
and Germany, departments of humanistic informatics are being formed to study the
cultural impact and significance of information technologies. Researchers in these
314 / Notes to Pages 19(,-205
departments regard "informatics" as a descriptive term no more value-laden than
physics, biology, orliterature. Ahistorian in such a department maystudy the history of
computers; a linguist, correlations between computer and natural languages; a literary
theorist, new forms ofelectronic textuality.
5. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth ofthe Prison, translated by
Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1979), p. 205.
6. In his later work, especiallyThe Riston) ofSexuality, translated by Robert Hurley
(New York: Vintage Books, 1980), Foucault is much more attentive to embodied practices
and the importance ofembodiment in general.
7. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking ofthe World (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
8. See Mark Poster, The Mode ofInformation:Poststructuralism and Social Context
(Chicago: UniversityofChicago Press, 1990), pp. 69-98, for acritiqueofFoucault's universalism.
Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary
Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), pp. 55-66,
interrogates the Foucaultian body.
9. Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1994).
10. For a brief description of PET, see Richard Mark Friedhoff and William
Benzon, The Second Computer Revolution: Visualization (New York: Harry Abrams,
1989), pp. 64-66, 81, 185.
11. Jorge Luis Borges, "Funes the Memorious," Labyrinths: Selected Stories and
OtherWritings (NewYork: New Directions, 1962), pp. 59-66.
12. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Steven F.
Rendall (Berkeley: UniversityofCalifornia Press, 1985).
13. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, translated by Colin
Smith (New York: Humanities Press, 1962), pp. 98-11.5, 136-47.
14. Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1989).
15. This is, of course, Judith Butler's point in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the
Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990). From this book, some readers
gained the impression that bodies do not matter. Her later book, Bodies That Matter:
On the Discursive Limits of"Sex" (New York: Routledge, 1993), corrects this impression.
With this correction I am in wholehearted agreement.
16. Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind:
Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).
17. Hubert L. Dreyfus, What Computers Can't Do: The Limits ofArtificial Intelligence,
rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), p. 255.
18. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline ofa Theory ofPractice, translated by Richard Nice
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 78.
19. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "Eye and Mind," in The Primacy ofPerception, edited
by James M. Edie (Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1964), p. 162.
20. Connerton, How Societies Remember, p. 44.
21. Bourdieu, Outline ofa Theory, p. 94.
22. Connerton, How Societies Remember, p. 102.
23. Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis ofMeaning, Imagination,
and Reason (Chicago: UniversityofChicago Press, 1987), pp. 18-35.
Notes to Pages 207-12 I 315
24. Garrett Stewart, Reading Voices: Literature and the Phonotext (Berkeley: UniversityofCalifornia
Press, 1990).
25. Eric Havelock argues that modem subjectivity, with its sense ofstable ego and
enduring identity, was a historical invention that correlated with the transition from
oralityto writing: see Preface to Plato (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963).
26. The literature on these technolOgies is extensive. For a useful briefdiscussion,
see Douglas Kahn and GregoryWhitehead, eds., Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio,
and the Avant-Garde (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), especially Douglas Kahn's chapter
"Introduction: Histories ofSound Once Removed," pp. 1-30.
27. See Friedrich A. Kittler, Discourse Networks, 1800-1900, translatedby Michael
Metteer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). Also relevant is Friedrich A.
Kittler, "Gramophone, Film, Typewriter," translated by Dorotheavon Miicke, October
41 (1987): 101-18, in which Kittler wrote: "The technical differentiation of optics,
acoustics, andwritingaround 1880, as it exploded Gutenberg'S storage monopoly, made
the fabrication of so-called man pOSSible. His essence runs through apparatuses"
(p. 115). Nothing could be more applicable to Burroughs'S view oftape-recording.
28. The pioneering papers in the development of magnetic tape-recording are collectedin
MarvinCamras, Magnetic Tape Recording (NewYork: Van Nostrand Reinhold
Company, 1985). His briefintroductions to the sections provide a valuable (ifsketchy)
history, which I have drawn on here.
29. For the patent description of the Telegraphone, see V. Poulsen, "Method of
Recording and Reproducing Sounds or Signals," in Camras, MagnetiC Tape Recording,
pp. 11-17. The model exhibited in Paris differed somewhat from the patent deSCrip-
tion.
30. A description of the film and ring head is given in H. Lubeck, "Magnetic
Sound Recording with Films and Ring Heads," in Camras, Magnetic Tape Recording,
pp.79-111.
31. A useful review of this work is J. C. Mallinson, "Tutorial Review of Magnetic
Recording," in Camras, Magnetic Tape Recording, pp. 229-43.
32. RoyWalker, "Love, Chess, and Death," in Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape: A
Theater Notebook, edited byJames Knowlson (London: Brutus Books, 1980), p. 49.
33. William S. Burroughs, The Ticket That Exploded (NewYork: Grove Press, 1967)
(hereafter cited in the text as TTE).
34. This idea ofan interior monologue shOring up a false sense ofselfis also important
in Varela, Thompson. and Rosch, The Embodied Mind, as we saw in chapter 6. For
an extensive discussion ofhow tape-recorders can be used to disrupt the wordvirus, see
William Burroughs, Electronic Revolution (Bonn: Expanded Media Editions, 1970),
pp.1-62.
35. Cary Nelson has an excellent discussion ofthe body in relation to space in Burroughs'S
work, including The Ticket That Exploded and its companion novels: "The End
ofthe Body: Radical Space in Burroughs", in William S. Burroughs at the Front: Critical
Reception, 1959-1989, edited by Jennie Kerl and Robin Lydenberg (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), pp. 119-32.
36. John Cunningham Lilly gives an account of these experiments in his autobiographical
account The Center ofthe Cyclone: An Autobiography ofInner Space (New
York: Julian Press, 1972). In a characteristically literaliZing passage, Burroughs suggested
that isolation tanks could literally dissolve body boundaries: "So after fifteen
316 / Notes to Pages 213-25
minutes in the tank these Marines scream they are losing outlines and have to be removed-
I sayput two marinesin the tank andseewho comes out-Science-Pure science-So
put a marine and his girl friend in the tank and see who or what emerges-"
(TTE, p. 83).
37. Thecut-up methodis described in manyplaces byBurroughs and others; see, for
example, Daniel Odier, The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs (New York:
Grove Press, 1969), p. 14, and William S. Burroughs, "The Cut-Up Method of Brion
Gysin," Re/Search #4/5 (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications, 1982), pp. 35-38.
Robin Lydenberglucidlydiscusses the political and theoreticalimplications ofthe practice
in Word Cultures: Radical Theory and Practice in William S. Burroughs' Fiction
(Urbana: UniversityofIllinois Press, 1987). Laszlo K. Gefin contextualizes the practice
in the avant-garde techniques ofcollage in "Collage Theory, Reception, and the Cutups
ofWilliam Burroughs," Perspectives on Contemporary Literature: Literature and
the OtherArts 13 (1987): 91-100. Anne Friedberg, "Cut-Ups: ASynemaoftheText,"in
Skerl and Lydenberg, William S. Burroughs, pp. 169-73, traces the cut-up method
through the dadaists.
38. Robin Lydenberg has a good discussion ofBurroughs's experiments with taperecordings,
including this album, in "Sound Identity Fading Out: William Burroughs'
Tape Experiments," in Kahn and Whitehead, Wireless Imagination, pp. 409-33.
39. Brenda Laurel and Sandy Stone, private communication.
Chapter Nine
l. Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson. and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind:
Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991).
2. Francisco Varela and Paul Bourgine, eds., Toward a Practice ofAutonomaus Systems:
Proceedings ofthe First European Conference on ArtificialLife (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1992), p. xi.
3. Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The
Realization ofthe Living (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1980).
4. Thomas S. Ray, "AProposalto Create Two BiodiversityReserves: One Digital and
One Organic," presentation at Artificial Life IV, Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 1994.
5. Thomas S. Ray, "An EvolutionaryApproach to Synthetic Biology: Zen and the Art
of Creating Life," Artificial Life 1, no. 112 (fall 1993/winter 1994): 180 (emphasis
added).
6. Luc Steels offers useful definitions ofemergence in "The Artificial Life Roots of
Artificial Intelligence,"ArtificialLife 1, no. 112 (fall 1993/winter1994): 75-110. He distinguishes
between first-order emergence, defined as a property not explicitly programmed
in, and second-order emergence, defined as an emergent behavior that adds
additional functionality to the system. In general, AL researchers try to create secondorder
emergence, for then the system can use its own emergent properties to create an
upward spiral of continuing evolution and emergent behaviors. James P. Crutchfield
makes a similarpoint in "Is Anything Ever New? Considering Emergence," in Integrative
Themes, edited by G. Cowan, D. Pines, and D. Melzner, Santa Fe Institute Studies
in the Sciences of Complexity, XIX (Redwood City, Calif.: Addison-Wesley, 1994),
pp. 1-15. For a criticism ofemergence, see Peter Cariani, "Adaptivity and Emergence
in Organisms and Devices," World Futures 32 (1991): 111-32.
Notes to Pages 225-3 2 / 317
7. The Tierra program is described in Thomas S. Ray, "An Approach to the Synthesis
of Life," in Artificial Life II, edited by Christopher G. Langton, Charles Taylor,
J. Doyne Farmer, and Steen Rasmussen, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of
Complexity, X (Redwood City, Calif.: Addison-Wesley, 1992), pp. 371-408. "An Evolutionary
Approach to Synthetic Biology" (working paper, ATR Human Information Processing
Research Laboratories, Kyoto, Japan) explains and expands on the philosophy
underlying Tierra. Further information about Tierra can be found in Christopher G.
Langton, ed., "Population Dynamics of Di!Qtal Organisms," Artificial Life II Video Proceedings
(Redwood City, Calif.: Addison-Wesley, 1991). Apopular account can be found
in John Travis, "Electronic Ecosystem," Science News 140, no. 6 (August 10, 1991): 88-90.
8. "Simple Rules ... Complex Behavior," produced and directed by Linda Feferman
for the Santa Fe Institute, 1992.
9. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).
10. \VilIiam Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace Books, 1984).
11. Ray, "An Evolutionary Approach," notes, "The 'body' ofa digital organism is the
information pattern in memory that constitutes its machine language program"
(p.184).
12. Quoted in Stefan Helmreich, "Anthropology Inside and Outside the LookingGlass
Worlds of Artificial Life" (unpublished manuscript, 1994), p. 11. An earlier version
ofthis work was published as a working paper at the Santa Fe Institute, under the
title "Travels through Tierra," Excursions in 'Echo': Anthropological Refractions on the
Looking-Glass Worlds of Artificial Life," Santa Fe Working Paper No. 94-04-024. In
this version, Helmreich included some remarks that the administrators ofthe Santa FE'
Institute eVidently found offensive, including a comparison between the scientists'
beliE'fin the "aliveness" ofartificial life and the seemingly bizarre (to vVesterners) belief's
held hy marginal cultural groups such as the Trobriand Islanders. ObjE'cting that
Helmreich's work was not scientific and misrepresented the sciE'nce conductf'd at the
Santa Fe Institute, the administrators had the working paper removed from the shelves
and dE'leted from the list ofavailahle publications.
13. Christopher Langton, "Artificial Life," in Artificial Life, edited by Christopher
Langton (Redwood City, Calif.: Addison-Wesley, 1989), p. 1.
14. Richard Doyle has written on the Simplification ofbody to information in the human
genome project in On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations in the Life Sciences
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997).
15. Actually, both inference and deduction are at work in most AL research, as they
usually are in scientific projects. AL researchers study the complex-to-simple route for
clues on how to construct programs that will be able to move from simple to complex.
16. Langton, "Artificial Life,"p. 1.
17. Extensive interviews \vith AL researchers havE' also been conducted bv Steven
Levy, as recounted in his useful popularization Artificial Life: The Questfor a New Creation
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1992). A more technical account covering much the
samE' material that Levy addressed can be found in Claus EmmechE', The Garden in the
Machine: The Emerging Science of Artifici.'!l Life (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1994). In the openingpages, Emmeche says that his bookis intended for the general
reader, but he soon leaves the simplistic style that characterizes the first sections
and moves into more interesting and demanding material. EspeCially noteworthy is his
discussion ofthe deep problems raised about the nature ofcomputation.
31B I Notes to Pages 232-36
18. Helmreich, "Anthropology Inside and Outside," p. 5.
19. Edward Fredkin is something ofa cult figure for researchers interested in computational
philosophies. After achieving financial independence through the company
he founded, he bought and occasionally lives on his own island in the Caribbean. Although
he himselfhas published very little, several articles and partofabook have been
written about him. He is a faculty memberat MIT and has a research group there workingout
a universal theory ofcellular automata, intending to showhow cellularautomata
can account for all the laws ofphysics. For an account of his work, see Robert Wright,
Three Scientists and Their Gods: Lookingfor Meaning in an Age ofInformation (New
York: Times Books, 1988). One ofFredkin's rare publications is "Digital Mechanics: An
Information Process Based on Reversible Universal CellularAutomata," Physica D 45
(1990): 254-70. See also Julius Brown, "Is the Universe a Computer?" New Scientist 14
(July 1990): 37-39. Levy, Artificial Life, and Emmeche, The Garden in the Machine,
both mention Fredkin.
20. G. Kampis and V. Csanyi, "Life, Self-Reproduction, and Information: Beyond
the Machine Metaphor,"JoumalofTheoretical Biology 148 (1991): 17--32, givesanimportant
analysis ofthe ideaofself-reproduction in a machine context. The authors point
out that one's account ofwhat happens in self-reproduction changes depending on how
the framing context is constructed. Forall machine (re)production, there is a context in
which outside agency is needed to complete reproduction, in contrast to the reproduction
of [asexuallliving organisms. By placing the last computer out ofsight, as it were,
Fredkin has erased this context from view, although he still has to posit it to explain how
things come into existence.
21. For a research program that takes this objection into account, see David Jefferson
et al., "Evolution as a Theme in Artificial Life: The Cenesys/Tracker System"
(Computer Science DepartmentTechnical Report CSD-900047, UniversityofCalifornia-Los
Angeles, December 1990). In the Trackersimulation, designed to generate the
social behavior and food-gathering strategies characteristic of ants, Jefferson and his
colleagues used two very different kinds ofalgOrithms to demonstrate that the behaviors
generated bythe simulationswere not artifacts. Theyreasoned thatbecause the underlying
structures ofthe simulations were different, similarities ofbehavior could not
be attributed to the algOrithms, only to the dynamics conceptualized through those al-
gOrithms.
22. Christopher Langton, "Editor's Introduction,"ArtificialLife 1, no. 1/2 (fall 19931
winter 1994): v-viii, espeCially v-vi.
23. Walter Fontana, Gunter Wagner, and Leo W. Buss, "Beyond Digital Naturalism,"
Artificial Life 1, no. 112 (fall 1993/winter 1994): 224.
24. Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future ofRobot and Human Intelligence
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
25. A. C. Cairns-Smith, Genetic Takeover and the Mineral Origins of Life (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
26. See Pattie Maes, "ModelingAdaptiveAutonomous Agents,"ArtificialLife 1, no. 112
(fall 1993/winter 1994): 135-62; Rodney Brooks, "New Approaches to Robotics,"
Science 253 (September 13, 1991): 1227--32; Mark Tilden, "Living Machines: Unsupervised
Work in Unstructured Environments" (Los Alamos National Laboratory,
CB/MT-v1941114, n.d.).
27. Rodney A. Brooks, "Intelligence without Representation," Artificial Intelli-
Notes to Pages 237-4 1 / 319
gence 47 (1991): 139-59. See also Luc Steels and Rodney Brooks, eds., The Artificial
Life Route to Artificial Intelligence: Building Embodied, Situated Agents (Hillsdale,
N.J.: L. ErlbaumAssociates, 1995).
28. Cenghis is described in, among other places, Rodney A. Brooks and Anita M.
Flynn, "Fast, Cheap, and Out ofControl: A Robot Invasion ofthe Solar System,"Journalofthe
British Interplanetary Society 42 (1989): 478--85.
29. In January 1995, Mark Tilden lectured and demonstrated his mobile robots at
the Center for the Studyand Evolution ofLife, UniversityofCalifornia, where I had an
opportunity to talk with him.
30. Brooks, "Intelligence without Representation."
31. In my conversation with Moravec at the University of Illinois "Cyberfest" in
March 1997, he defended the top-down approach by comparing a robot-piloted car he
had deSigned and Rodney Brooks's robots. Whereas Moravec's robot car has successfully
driven several hundred miles, Brooks's robots have scarcelybeen out ofthe laboratory.
The point is well taken, and future research may well use a combination of both
approaches. Moravec declared himselfa pragmatist, willing to use whatever works.
32. Michael C. Dyer, "Toward SynthesizingArtificial Neural Networks That Exhibit
Cooperative Intelligent Behavior: Some Open Issues in Artificial Life,"ArtificialLife 1,
no. 112 (fall 1993/winter 1994): 111-35, especiallyp. 112.
33. Edwin Hutchins demystifies this proposition in Cognition in the Wild (Cambridge:
Mit Press, 1996), when he elegantly demonstrates that humans normally act in
environments where cognition is distributed among a varietyofhuman and nonhuman
actors, from graph paper and pencil to the sophisticated naval guidance systems he discusses.
His book, by grounding its arguments in existing naval navigation techniques of
the past and present, shows that distributed cognition has been around for about as long
as humans have.
34. Levy, Artificial Life, gives an account of von Neumann's self-reproducing machine.
His account is based on the rather sketchyinformation given by ArthurW. Burks
(who edited and compiled von Neumann's incomplete manuscript after the latter's
death) ofwhat Burks calls the kinematic model ofself-reproduction. Burks'sversion can
be found in John von Neumann, Theory ofSelf-ReproduCing Automata (Urbana: UniversityofIllinois
Press, 1966), pp. 74-90.
35. Cellular automata are described in detail in von Neumann, Theory of SelfReprodllcingAutomata,
pp. 91-156. See also StephenWolfram, one ofthe foremost researchers
on cellularautomata, in "Universalityand Complexityin CellularAutomata,"
Physica D 10 (1984): 1-35, and "Computer Software in Science and Mathematics,"
Scientific American 251 (August 1984): 188-203. In these articles, Wolfram concentrates
on one-dimensional cellular automata, where each generation appears as a line
andwhere patterns appear as the lines proliferate down the screen (or the graph paper).
36. Chris C. Langton, "Computation at the Edge of Chaos: Phase Transition and
Emergent Computation," Physica D 42 (1990): 12-37.
37. Warren McCulloch's papers include a letter ofreference that McCulloch wrote
for Kauffmann: Warren McCulloch Papers, American Philosophical Library, Philadelphia,
B/M139, Box 2. In several lectures and interviews that McCulloch gave in the few
years before his death, he mentioned Kauffman as an important collaborator.
38. Stuart A. Kauffman, The Origins ofOrder: Self-Organi;:,ation and Selection in
Evolution (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1993). See also his popularized version,
320 I Notes to Pages 242-50
At Home in the Universe: The Searchforthe Laws ofSelf-Organization and Complexity
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
39. Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby, The AdaptedMind: Evolutionary
Psychology and the Generation ofCulture (NewYork: Oxford University Press,
1992), especiallythe chapter byToobyand Cosmides: "The Psychological Foundations
ofCulture," pp. 19-136. Tooby and Cosmides have also been instrumental in forming
the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), which holds annual conferences
centeredon the ideas ofevolutionarypsychology. In some ways the HBES is a successor
to sociobiology, although with a more flexible framework ofinterpretation.
40. StevenPinker makes this pointin The Language Instinct (NewYork: W. Morrow,
1994). This model provides an interesting corrective to Maturana's largely passive
model of"languaging" between "observers."
41. Steels, "The Artificial Life Roots."
42. Marvin Minsky, The Society ofMind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), es-
peciallypp.17-24.
43. Marvin Minsky, ''Why Computer Science Is the Most Important Thing That
Has Happened to the Humanities in 5,000 Years" (public lecture, Nara, Japan, May 15,
1996). I am gratefulto Nicholas Gesslerfor providingmewithhis transcriptofthe lecture.
44. Marvin Minsky, "How Computer Science Will Change Our Lives" (plenary lecture,
Fifth Conference on Artificial Life, Nara, Japan, May 17,1996).
45. Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes' Error: Enwtion, Reason, and the Human Brain
(NewYork: G. P. Putnam, 1994), p. 226.
Chapter Ten
1. Ihab Hassan, "Prometheus as Performer: Towards a Posthumanist Culture?" in
Performance in Postmodem Culture, edited by Michael Benamou and Charles
Caramella (Madison, WI: Coda Press, 1977), p. 212. See also Judith Halberstam and
Ira Livingston, "Introduction: Posthuman Bodies" in Posthuman Bodies, edited by
Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995):
"Posthuman bodies are the causes and effects ofpostmodern relations ofpleasure, virtuality
and reality, sex and its consequences" (p. 3).
2. For a discussion ofthe semiotic square, see Ronald Schleifer, Robert Con Davis,
and Nancy Mergler, Culture and Cognition: The Boundaries ofLiterary and Scientific
Inquiry (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992). See also A. J. Greimas, Structural Semantics:
An Attempt at a Method, translated by Daniele MacDowell, Ronald Schleifer,
and Alan Velie (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983). I do not claim for the
semiotic square the ineVitability with which Greimas, its inventor, invested it. Rather,
for my purposes it is useful as a stimulus to thought and as a way to tease out relationships
that might not otherwise be apparent.
3. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations, translated by Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip
Beitchman(NewYork: Semiotext(e), 1983).
4. Greg Bear, Blood Music (New York: Ace Books, 1985) (hereafter cited in the text
as BM); Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2: A Novel (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1995)
(hereaftercited in the text as G2); Cole Perriman, Terminal Games (NewYork: Bantam,
1994) (hereafter cited in the text as TG); Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (New York:
Bantam, 1992) (hereafter cited in the text as SC).
Notes to Pages 254-81 / 321
5. Fredric Jameson cogently makes the connection between an information society
and late capitalism in Postrrwdcmism; or, The Cultural Logic ofLate Capitalism (Durham:
Duke University Press, 1991).
6. Darko Suvin, "On Gibson and Cyberpunk SF," Foundation 46 (1989): 4l.
7. Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1991),
notes, "The voice the schizophrenic 'hears' is his own" (p. 250 n).
8. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking ofthe World (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1985).
9. Veronica Hollinger, "Cybernetic Deconstructions: Cyberpunk and Postmodernism,"
Mosaic 23 (1990): 42.
10. Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis ofMeaning, Imagination,
and Reason (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1987).
11. Judith Butler, Gender Trouhle: Feminism and the Subversion ofIdentity (New
York: Routledge, 1990); J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, edited by J. O.
Urmson and Marina Sbisa (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1972).
12. Andrew Hodges, in his excellent biography Alan Turing: The Enigma (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), comments, "To Alan Turing, the multiplier was a
rather tiresome technicality: the heart [ofthe Universal Turing Machinellay in the logical
control, which took the instructions from the memory, and put them into operation"
(p.320).
13. For a discussion ofthe deep structure ofVR programming languages and their
relation to utterances that can perform the viewpoint they instantiate, see Robert
Markley, "Boundaries: Mathematics, Alienation, and the Metaphysics ofCyberspace,"
in Virtual Reality and Their Discontents, edited by Robert Markley (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp..55-77.
14. David Porush, "Hacking the Brainstem: Postmodern Metaphysics and
Stephenson's Snow Crash," Configurations 3 (1994): 537-7l.
15. Mary Catherine Bateson, Our Own Metaphor: A Personal Account ofa Conference
on the Effects of Conscious Purpose on Human Adaptation (1972; \Vashington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991).
16. Richard Dawkins develops the concept of memes as the ideational analogue
to selfish genes in The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press,
1976).
17. In the introduction to Posthurrwn Bodies, Halberstam and Livingston note:
"You're not human until you're posthuman. You were never human" (p. 8).
18. Veronica Hollinger, in "Feminist Science Fiction: Breaking Up the Subject," Extrapolation
31 (1990): 229-39, makes a similarargument regarding the diversity offeminist
science fiction. Some texts want to recuperate some aspects ofthe subject, whereas
others aim for a more subversive and far-reaching deconstruction. Those who have
never experienced a strong and unified subjectivity, Hollinger observes, might want to
have a chance to articulate such subjectivity before they deconstruct it. Anne Balsamo,
in "Feminism for the Incurably Informed," South Atlantic Quarterly 92 (1993):
681-712, takes issue ,vith Hollinger's conclusion, arguing that what is needed is not so
much diversity among texts and readings as articulations that can escape from the dualism
of anti/pro-humanism by offering a vision of "post-human existence where 'technology'
and the 'human' are understood in contiguous rather than in oppositional
terms" (p. 684).
322 / Notes to Pages 283-86
Chapter Eleven
1. I am grateful to Marjorie Luesebrink for conversations that stimulated me to
think further about the ideas in this conclusion.
2. \Varren McCulloch, quoted in Mary Catherine Bateson, Our Own Metaphor: A
Personal Account ofa Conference on the Effects ofConscious Purpose on Human Adaptation
(1972; Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), p. 226.
3. Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
4. Jared Diamond, Guns, Gerrns, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New
York: Norton, 1997), and Why Sex Is Fun: The Et;olution of Human Sexuality (New
York: Basic Books, 1997).
5. Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby, eds., The Adapted Mind:
Evolutionanj Psychology and the Generation of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1992).
6. Jacques Derrida, 0fGramllwt%gy, translated by Gayatri C. Spivak (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
7. Eric A. Havelock, Preface to Plato (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963).
8. Chris G. Langton, "Computation at the Edge of Chaos: Phase Transition and
Emergent Computation," Physica D 42 (1990): 12-37; Stuart A. Kaufhnan, The Origins
cif0rder: Self-Organization and Selection in Ewiution (NewYork: Oxford University
Press, 1993).
9. Francisco J. Varela, "Making It Concrete: Before, During, and After Breakdowns,"
in Revisioning Philosophy. edited by JarnE'S Ogihy (Albany: Statc University of
New York Press, 1992),pp. 97-109.
10. Henri Atlan, "On a Formal Definition of Organization," Journal ofTheoretical
Biology 45 (1974): 295-304. Michel Serres has a provocative interpretation ofhow this
noise can give rise to human language, in "The Origin of Language: Biology, Information
Theoryand ThermodynamiCS," Hermes: Literature, Science, Philosophy, edited by
Josue V Harari and David F. Bell (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982),
pp. 71-83. See N. Katherine Hayles, Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary
Literature and Science (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 56, 204-6, for a discllssion
ofAtlan and Serres.
11. Gregory Bateson, qlloted in Bateson, prologue to Our Own Metaphor,
pp.13-16.
12. Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, The Embodied Mind:
Cognitit;e Science and Human Experience (Cambridge: MIT PrE'ss, 1991).
-13. In l'\eal Stephenson's Snow Crash C'.Jew York: Bantam, 1992), his young white
heroine, "YT.," is kidnapped, dumped aboard the Raft, and aSSigned to mess detail. She
then has an insight into how small the fraction ofthe world's population is who ever believed
they had a liberal humanist self. Once she gets over the shock and settles into a
routine, she starts looking around her, watching the other fish-cutting dames, and realizes
that this is justwhat life must be like for about 99 percent ofthe people in the world.
"You're in this place. There's other people all around you, but they don't understand you
and you don't understand them, but people do a lot of meaningless babble anyway. In
order to stay alive, you have to spend all day every day doing stupid meaningless work.
And the onlywayto get out ofit is to quit, cutloose, take a Ryer, and go offinto the wicked
Notes to Pages 287-91 / 323
world, where you will be swallowed up and never heard from again" (pp. 303-4).
14. Richard Lanham, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts
(Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1994).
15. Galen Brandt, "Synthetic Sentience: An Interview with Charles Ostman," Mondo
2000, no. 16 (winter 1996-97): 25-36. See also Charles Ostman, "Synthetic Sentience
as Entertainment," Midnight Engineering 8, no. 2 (MarchiApril 1997): 68-77.
16. Joseph \Veizenbaum, Computer Pou;er and Human Reason: From Judgment to
Calculation (NewYork: W. H. Freeman, 1976).
17. Gilles Delueze and Felix Guattari ofcourse celebrate this very alienness in their
vision ofthe phylum and "bodywithout organs" inAnti-Oediplls: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983). For an ecstatic interpretation
of the posthuman, see Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston, eds., Posthwll{ln
Bodies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
18. Donna J. Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism
and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,"in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinuention
ofNature (New York: Routledge, 1990), pp. 183-202; Evelyn Fox Keller, "Baconian
Science: The Arts of Mastery and Obedience," Reflections on Gender and
Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 33-42; Sandra Harding, The Science
Question in Feminism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); and Carolyn Merchant,
The Death of Nature: 'Nomen, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolutio/l (San
Francisco: Harper, 1982).
19. Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995).
20. John R. Searle, "Is the Brain's Mind a Computer Program?" Scientific American
262, no. 1 (1990): 26-31; see also John R. Searle, Mind~, Brains, and Science (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 32-41, f()f the "Chinese room" thought experiment.
Searle attempts to answer the analysis that it is the whole room that knows
Chinese, saying there "is no way to get from Sy11tax to semantics" (p. 34).
21. Hutchins, Cognition, pp. 361-62.
22. \Villiam Gibson, Nellromancer(NewYork: Ace Books, 1984). The narrator, after
relating how Case has been exiled from cyberspace, comments: "For Case, who'd lived
in the bodiless exultation ofcyberspace, it was the Fall.... The bodywas meat. Case fell
into the prison ofhis own flesh" (p. 6).
23. Bruno Latour, We Haue Never Been I\Jodem, translated hy Catherine Porter
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). Latour's important argument is that
quasi-ohjects operate within networks that are at once in material real, socially regulated,
and discursively constructed. Using different contexts, I have argued in this book
for a very similar view regarding the history ofcybernetics.
24. Dynamiting the system here alludes to Bill N'ichols's seminal article on cybernetics,
"The VVork ofCulture in the Age ofCybernetics," in Electronic Culture: TechIwlogy
and Visual Representation, edited by Timothy Drnckrey (New York: Aperture,
1996), pp. 121-44.
Aarseth, Espen J., 299n. 27
absence. See also presence
audiotape and, 210
deconstruction and, 44
in Galatea 2.2, 263
information, irrelevance to, 28
posthuman and, 285-91
virtuality
access
semiotics of, 248-51, 279-82
virtual realityand, 27
information narrative, importance to,
39
possession, supplanting of, 39
posthuman and, 39
agency, 5
Blood Music and, 255-60
contaminated by Other Half, in Burroughs,
212
control and, 288
languaging and, in autopoiesis,
148-49
liberal humanist subject, 5, 86
posthuman, complicated in, 3
redefinition of, in Dawkins, 227-28
Snow Crash and, 272-76
subsumption architecture and,
236-37
Terminal Games and, 258-60
Wolfe's loss of, in Limbo, 126-27
agents
autonomous, 233
In de X
European context for, 222
SOCiety ofMind, in, 244
subsumption architecture and,
236-37
nonhuman and, 289-90
pattern and, 286
algorithm
embodiment not an, 201
genetic, 12
nervous nets and, 236-37
Tierra program and, 224-27
allopoietic. See also autopoiesis; Maturana,
Humberto
autopoietic, differentiated from,
141-42
ethical importance of, 158
importance of, 158
ambiguity
language and, in Galatea 2.2,263-64
reflexivityconstellation as part of, 167
"screen ofwords" connected with, in
Limbo, 129
verbal, and Richard Taylor, 95
American Telegraphone Company
(ATC),209
amputation. See also prostheSiS
auto-, McLuhan and, 34
in Limbo
characteristic pattern of, 116-17
logiC of, 120-21
narcissism and, 124-25
vol-amps and, 120-21
3 2 5
326 / Index
analogy
behaviorism, use of, 94
body as tape-recorder, 210-20
exchange system as, 95, 98
Snow Crash
human and computer, 279-82
use of, 275, 278
Tierra program in, 227-28
Wiener and
communication as, 99
cybernetics, relation to, 91-92
language functions as, 91-92
mathematics as, 92-93
"The Nature of," 97-99, 306n. 29
pheromones and, in Cybernetics,
109
world as, 92
writing and, 91-94
android
in Dick
complexityof, 162
dark-haired girl and, 164-67
government as, in The Simulacra,
168
and schizophrenia, 177
unstable boundaries and, 160,
167-91
textual, in Leyner, 45
animals
artificial life creatures as, 228-31
commodities, used as, 175
Mercerism and, 175
anorexia, 5
Apter, MichaelJ., 306n. 31
Arbib, Michael, 97, 306n. 30
Armstrong, Nancy, 9, 294n.16
artificial intelligence
artificial life comparedwith, 238-39
in Galatea 2.2, Helen as, 261-72
posthuman as, 251
in Terminal Games, Auggie as,
258-60
artificial life
artificial intelligence comparedwith,
238-39
and autonomy, 222-23
Dick, fonus in, 160-91
divisions of, 235
European context for, 222
inference and deduction in, 317n. 15
nature and artifice of, 223-46
silicon crystals as, 236
synthetic approach as, 232-33
theoretical biologyand, 234-35
Ashby, Ross
Designfora Brain, 303n. 30
homeostat and, 63, 65-67, 303n. 29
Ashmore, Malcome, 294n. 18
Atian, Henri, 286, 322n. 10
Augustinian, 106. See also Manichean
Austin, JL, 274, 321n. 11
Autism
mindblindness as, 148
and schizoid android, in Dick, 161
automata
cellular, 11,240-41
Terminal Games and, 257-60
tessellation, 146-47
theory, 58, 301n. 12
autonomous agents. See agents
autopoiesis
autopoietic machines and, 140
causality and, 139
circularityof, 136, 151-52
conservation of, 152
definition of, 136
and distinction, 138
DNA downplayed in, 155
ethics of, 142
feedback loops in, 10
information and, 139
interactions, domain of, 137
liberal humanism and, 140-43
organization, defined in, 138
social systems and, 154
solipsism mitigated in, 158
structural couplingin, 138
teleology in, 139
theory of, in relation to posthuman,
148-49
time in, 139
unities, 138
Baker, Nicholson, 297n. 10
Balsamo, Anne, 293n. 5, 321n. 18
Baren-Cohen, Simon, 148, 31On.11
Barkow, Jerome, 242, 245, 184, 320n. 39.
See also evolutionary psycholugy
Barthes, Roland, 46, 300n. 42
Bateson, Gregory
blind man's cane, 84, 304n. 1
communication as pattern, 25
cybernetics, 77-79
decontextualization as distortion,
77-78
dislike ofno1lns, 301n. 8
distributed cognition, as metaphor,
290
information, as difference,.5l, 103
randomness, 286
reflexivity, 9, 74-80
A Scarl'd Ullity, 304n. 52
Steps to an Ecology ofMind, 304n. 1
Stewart Brand, interview with, 74-7.5
survival and, 281
Bateson, Mary Catherine
contextualization and, 76
dislike ofnouns, 30In. 8
each person her own metaphor, 78
and ~cCulloch, 76-77
OUrOtDIl Metaphor, 76-80, 30In. 8
Snow Crash and, 276
Baudrillarcl,Jean,192,249-50,313n.1,
320n.3
Bavclas, Alex, ,54
Bear, Greg, 250
Blood Music, 2,50,252-56,279-80,
340n.4
Bernard,252
Gogarty hypothesis, 254
liberal subject in, 256
McKenzie, 252, 255-56, 260
noocytes, 254
Uiam,2,52
behavior
ofmtificiallife robots, 236-37
behaviorism and, 97
code, distinction from, 229
emergent, 223
behaviorism
and behavior, definition of, 97
and functionalism, 94
von Foerster's critique of, 134
Wiener's definition of, 94-95
Index / 327
Beniger, James, 90, 299n. 29
Benjamin, Walter, 45, 299n. 39
Bergler, Edmund, 123, 124, 308n. 18
Berlant, Lauren, ,5, 294n. 8
Bhabha, IIomi, 294n. 7
Bigelow, Julian, 66, 94, 98, 306n. 24
biochips, 252
biology
evolutionary, 284
molecular, 29, 1.52
theoretical,232-35
black box
behaviorism and von Foerster, 1:34
cybernetics, 94
in Cybeml'tics, 119
engineering, \Viener's use of, 91
mechanisms as, 60
Taylor'S critique of, 9,5-98
Maturana's treatment of, 160
McCulloch and, 61
Blood M1lsic. ScI' Bear, Greg
hodv
artificial life creatures and, 228-31
boundaries problematized, 2,')0
Burroughs, 220-21
divide line of, 211, 212
posthuman exemplars of, 212-1.5
tape-recorder as, 211-21
as congealed metaphor, 284
discursive construction of, 192
embodiment
dialectic with, 193-98,200-207
distinct from, 196
Foucault, universalized as, 194
as heat engine, 101
If011 a wint!'r:\'night a traveler, 41
information as, 35, 47,104
knowledge as, 85
in LimiJo, 113-14, 126-27
and neural net in Galatea 2.2,262-71
organisms as body politic, 110
signal and materiality entangled in, 29
Turing test, enacted and performed,
xiii
Bulter, Jay, 297n. 11
Boltzmann, Ludwig, 101
book
advantages of, 48
328 I Index
book (continued)
bodyas, 29
post-typographic nature in Limbo,
128-30
Borges, Jorge Luis, 8, 60
"The Circular Ruins," 8, 309n. 7
"Funes, the Memorious," 197, 314n.
11
"OfExactitude in Science," 302n. 18
boundary
autopoiesis and, 141
body, problematized, 250
Burroughs, deconstruction of,
215-17
cybernetics, 105
cyborg questioning of, 85
dissolution of, 84-85
Wiener, 93-94, 107
Dick, 160-191
dark-haired girl and, 166-67
outside/inside, 161
schizoid android and, 166-67
ofhuman, 84
posthuman and, 279-82
in Temlinal Games, 258-60
Bourdieu, Pierre
habitus, 202-3
Outlineofa Theory ofPractice, 314n.
18
research on Kabyle, 202-3
revolution and incorporated prac-
tices,204
Bourgine, Paul, 222, 316n. 2
Bowker, Geof, 96, 305n. 4
Bowles, Paul, 219
Braitenberg, Valentino, 307n. 47
Brand, Stewart, 74-75,80, 304n. 47
Brandt, Galen, 323n. 15
Brillouin, Leon, 101, 306n. 41
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC),
209-11
Brooks, Rodney
Artificial Life Route, 318-19n. 27
"Cog" robot, 238-39
embodiment, importance of, 202
"Genghis" robot, 236-37, 319n. 26
"Intelligence without Representation,"
318-19n. 27
interviewwith, 236-37
"NewApproaches to Robotics," 318n.
26
subsumption architecture, 236-37
Brown, Julius, 318n. 19
Brownian motion, 88, 90
Bruckman, Amy, 299n. 27
Buddhism
Burroughs, interior monologue and,
211-12
Varela, 150, 151
Bukatman, Scott, 115, 307n. 6
Burling, Temple, 73
Burroughs, William. See also tape-
recording
biographyof, 211, 214
cut-up, 316n. 37
Naked Lunch, 42-43, 219, 229n. 34
"Nothing Here Now but the Recordings,"
216
The Nova Express, 216
Terminal Games and, 258
The Ticket That Exploded
closure in, 219
divide line in body, 212
"Exhibition," 216-19
Grey Room, 217-18
inching tape, 215
literalization, pressure toward,
213-15
monologue, interior, 213
MrLee,214-15
Nova police, 214-15
"Other Half," 212
picture dust, 217
pre-recordings, 211
reality studio, 218
Buss, Leo W, 235, 318n. 23
Butler. Judith, 274, 314n. 156, 321n. 11
Cairns-Smith, A. G., 235-36, 318n. 25
Calvino, Italo, 40-42, 299n. 32
Camras, Marvin, 315n. 28
Cannon, Walter, 294n.14, 298n. 20
capitalism
Blood Music and, 254
Dick
android as commodity, 168-69
critique of, 162, 165, 167-69,
312n.6
freshening of, in Dr. Bloodrrwney,
183-84
psychological complexity and, 16.5
tomb world and, 170
Harvey, analysis of, 39
Maturana's excoriation of, 143
Snow Crash and, 272
Wolfe's critique of, in Limbo, 118
Cariani, Peter, 316n. 6
Cartwright, Nancy, 302n. 20
cellular automata. See automata
Certeau, Michel de, 197, 314n. 12
chaos
Blood Music, noocytes and, 254
cellular automata and, 240-41, 319n.
36
microidentity and, 157
origin oflife and, 241
Cherryh, C J, 220
Chinese room, 289, 323n. 20. See also
Searle, John
closure
autopoiesis, 136, 154
operational, 151
tessellation automata and, 146- 47
in The Ticket That Exploded, 219
code
Auggie as, in Terminal Games, 260
behavior, distinction from, 229
binary, 233, 274
computer, as alive, 224
decontextualization and, 47
genetic
language and, 30, 279-82
Maturana's denial of, 139
mutation in, 32-33
speed of, 47
subjectivity as, 46
Tierra program, for ancestor, 226-27
cognition
artificial life simulations and, 224-31
in autopoiesis, 156
"Cog" and, 238-39
distributed
autonomy, complication of, 288
Hutchins analysis of, 290
Index / 329
posthuman and, 3
subsumption architecture and, 235
in Tierra program, 224-27
embodiment and, 154-58
emergence and, 238-43
enaction and, 116
evolution and, 242-45
neural net and, 262-71
posthuman and, 3
subsumption architecture and,
236-37
cognitive science
artificial life and artificial intelligence
in, 238
enaction, convergence with, 156
evolutionary psychology and, 242
Minsky and, 244
communication
analogy as, 99
control and, 90
in Galatea 2.2, 262-71
languaging and, in autopoiesis,
144-45
noise, 103
subsumption architecture in robotics
and, 236-37
tape-recording and, 211-20
complexity
emergence and, 243
Galatea 2.2
natural languages and, 264-66
neural nets and, 262-71
and life, origin of, 241
phenomenalworld and, 232
sciences of, 231-32
Tierra, emergence of, 233
computational universe. See also Fredkin,
Edward
description of, 239-44
Snow Crash and, 274
computer
consciousness downloaded into, xi,
235-36,244
cosmic, 233
humans equatedwith, in Snow Crash,
273,279-82
posthuman, in Galatea 2.2, 263
virtual, in Tierra, 225
330 / Index
concrete. See also Varela, Francisco
physical processes and, 155
where we are, for Varela, 157
Connerton, Paul, 259-62, 314n. 14
consciousness
artificial intelligence, dream of, 249
autopoiesis
emergent in, 145
self-,145
\iewof,144
Blood 1\1usic in, 254
cheap trick as, 238
enaction, relation to, 1.56
epiphenomenon as, 238, 299
interior monologue as, 212
late development of, 237
posthlllnan,279-82
Snow Crash
co-optation of, 276
loss of, 272-79
constellation
definition of, 51
homeostasis, 51, 56
reflexivity, 57
control
in autopoiesis, nonexistence of, 142
communication as form of, 90
cybernetic theory of, 91
distributed
subsumption architecture and,
236-37
in Tierra, 224-27
human, for \Veizenbaum, 288
Limho
context for technologies, 113
fear oflosing, 124-30
posthuman, illusion of, 288
in Snow Crash, 272-77
in Terminal Games, 257-58
Cosmides, Leda, 242, 245, 284, 320n..39.
See also evolutionary psychology
coupling
structural
autopoiesis, in, 138
observer and, 142
solipsism, avoidance of, 147
in \Viener, loose and tight, 108-12
creatures
Blood l',1usic, biochips as, 252
life-forms, artificial as, 233
in Tierra, 228-31
Cronenberg, Da\id, 33
Crutchfield, James P., 316n. 6
Csan)i, v., 318n. 20
CSicsery-Ronay, Istvan, 311n. 3
cybernetic circuit
Burroughs, "Exhibition" as, 216-17
Limbo
posthuman and, 130
and splice in, 125
use of, 125
Tierra program as, 224-.34
Turing test and, xiv
cybernetic machine
autopoietic machines, version of, 140
Blood Music, biochips as, 252
embodiment and, 284
goal-seeking, 65
liberal humanist sub.iect and, 86
Wiener
dysfunctions of motion and,
120-22
flexibility of, 104
patterns ofinformation and, 104
rigid machines in contrast to, 105
cybernetic manifesto
autopoiesis compared \\ith, 141
"Beha\ior, Purpose, and Teleology,"
93-97
founding document for cybernetics,
97
cybernetics
boundaries and, 84
chaos in relation to, 88
danger of, for \Viener, 110
Dick
knowledge of, 161
second wave and, 188-91
Gibson and, 35-39
historical periods
first wave, 50-83
second wave, 10, 131-.59
third wave, 11,222-46
Limbo, as writing technology in, 129
Macy Conferences and, 50-83
Maturana, and second wave, 131-33
metascience as, 96
perspective, 7
posthuman and, 279-82
re£lexivityin, 67, 70, 72-73
second order, 6
self-regulation and, 86
steersman, coined from, 106
structure-free and -rich, 96-97
cyberpunk, 36
cyberspace. See also Gibson, William
data matrix in, 38
landscape of, 36-37
in Neuromancer, 35-36
povin,38
Snow Crash and, 275-78
as virtual collectivity, 38
cyborg
boundaries, disrupting of, 84-85
Burroughs, "Exhibition" and, 216-17
construction of, 2
erotic fascination of, 85
Haraway and, 84-85
humans successor to, 119
liberal humanism, complication of,
86
in Limbo, castration of, 123
Macy Conferences and, 63
military use of, 119
mirror of, 87
Turing test and, xii
Damasio, Antonio, 245, 320n. 45
dark-haired girl. See also Dick, Philip K.
android as, 164
Bonnie Keller's difference from, 183
Dick
tropism for, 164
views on, 164-67
Jane as first, 166
Rachael as, in Do Androids Dream,
172
Davis, Robert Con, 320n. 2
Dawkins, Richard, 109,227-28
meme, 321n. 16
The Selfish Gene, 307n. 51
Index / 331
deconstruction
posthuman and, 285
presence/absence, 44
decontextualization, 19
Deleuze, Gilles, 4, 294n. 7, 323n. 17
DeLillo, Don, 40, 299n. 31
dematerialization
cosmic computer and, 233
presence/absence, link with, 29
pressure toward, 29
Dennett, Daniel, 258, 321n.7
Derrida, Jacques
grammatology and, 43, 199n. 37
supplementarity and, 12
teleology and, 285
Descartes, Rene, 203
Diamond, Jared, 284, 322n. 4
Dick, Dorothy Kindred, 165-67
Dick, Jane, 165-67, 183
Dick, Philip K. See also dark-haired girl
biography, 165-67
Burroughs and, 220-21
cybernetiCS and, 86
drug use, 161
epistemology and, 23
God, contact with, 189-91
hypertension, 189-90
andJung,312n.ll
works, nonfiction
"The Android and the Human,"
312n.24
"Evolution ofaVital Love," 312n.
5
Exegesis, 189-91
"How to Build a Universe," 311n.
2
"Schizophrenia and The Book of
Changes," 176, 312n. 21
works, novels, 160-63, 167-91, 311n.
1
Do Androids Dream, 161, 178,
305n.9
Deckard, 163-66, 171-75,
190-91
J. R. Isidore, 173-75
Mercerism,175-77
Rachael, 172-73, 312n. 19
332 I Index
Dick, Philip K.. (continued)
Dr. Bloodmoney, 179-84
Bill and Edie Keller, 182-84
character system, 180-84, 187
Walt Dangerfield, 181
Flow My Tears, the Policeman
Said, 166,312n.10
The Simulacra, 167-70
The Three Stigmata, 178-79
Ubik, 184-88
Ella Runciter, 186
Glen Runciter, 184-85
Jory, 185-86
Pat Conley, 185
Valis, 189, 313n. 35
We Can Build You, 171-72
disembodiment
bodiless information and, 22
ideology of, in cultural theory, 192
ofinformation, critique byVarela, 155
ofliberal humanist subject, 5
and neural net, in Galatea 2.2,
264-66
disruption, and semiotics ofvirtuality, 248
distributed cognition. See cognition
doubling, in Galatea 2.2, 261-72
Doyle, Richard, 118, 150, 293n. 4,
295-96n.31,295n.4,317n.14
Dreyfus, Hubert, 201, 314n. 17
Durham, Scott, 312n. 6
Dyer, Michael, 238, 283, 319n. 32
Edwards, Paul N, 296n. 37, 307n. 49
electronic rat, 63, 64. See also Shannon,
Claude
electronic textuality, 30-31
embodied lifeworld
cellular automata, 11
computational universe compared
with,244
concrete, for Varela, 157
Galatea 2.2,263-64
human, importance to, 283
Tierra's creatures and, 229
embodied practices. See also embodi-
ment
cognition, importance for, 203
Kabyle, illustrated by, 202-3
embodiment. See also body
algorithmic, contrast with, 201-2
artificial life and, 223
body
dialectic with, 193-99, 200-207
distinction from, 288
experiences of, 197
Burroughs, in, 220-21
complexities of, 283
contextual nature of, 196
Damasio and, 245
defined, 196
dematerialization, embodied
devaluation of, 48
Dick, unimportance to, 163
enaction, centrality to, 115
erasure of, 4
Fredkin and, 242
Johnson and, 206
Turing test in, xi
essentialism and, 201
inscription/incorporation and, 198
Limbo, splitting and, 125-30
literarystudies and, 284
McCulloch, commitment to, 57
metaphors of, 85
pattern recognition and, 61
performative nature of, 197
specificities of, 49, 246
Varela, importance to, 154-58,
201
Wiener, discomfort with, 99
emergence
consciousness and, 144, 238
definition of, 225, 316n. 6
emergent behavior, 223, 236-37
neural net and, 262-71
second-order, 243
teleology, replaces, 288
third wave and, 18
Emmeche, Claus, 317n. 17
emotions
importance to cognition, 245
in machines, 307n. 47
empathy
in Blood Music, 260
in Do Androids Dream
box, 175-75, 177-78
importance to, 174
Pris, lack of, 174
in Galatea 2.2, 269-71
enaction. See also Varela, Francisco
perception and, 155
in Snow Crash, 275
endo-colonization, 114, 117. See also Virilio,
Paul
entropy. See also thermodynamics
Boltzmann, generalization of, 101
as cultural relay, 100
as dissipation, 103
enaction, differences from, 156
Ifon a winter's night a traveler, 41
information as, 102
kipple, in Dick, 174
Maxwell's Demon and, 101-2
Wiener
cybernetics, defeat by, 105
as evil, 103
views on, 102
epistemology
artificial life and, 231-34
autopoiesis and, 10
Bateson's cybernetic, 78
Dick's skeptical, 163
frog's brain and, 131, 134-35
Maturana's breakwith realist, 135
Platonic plays and, 12-13
randomness in cybernetic, 286
realist, 135
ergodic hypothesis, 88
Escher, M. C., 8
essentialism, 201. See also embodiment
Evans, Arthur B. 311n. 3
evolution
autopoietic theory and, 148-53
human, compared with artificial life,
237-38
literary studies and, 284
Maturana
difficultywith, 148-53
natural drift and, 151
self-evolution, in artificial life, 243
semiotics ofvirtualityand, 281-82
Tierra
evolutionary soup, 226
scenarios of, 225-28
Index / 333
evolutionarypsychology. See also
Barkow, Jerome; Cosmides, Leda;
Tooby,John
The Adapted Mind, 242
Fredkin and, 241
humans, 242
mind-body duality and, 245
in modular programs, 242
reflexivity in, 284
feedback loop
autopoiesis, subversion of, 139
Burrough's use of
"Exhibition," 216-17
tape-recorders arguing, 213
culture and technology, 14
cybernetics
control and, 91
homeostasis and, 8
negative, in goal-seeking machines,
95
Dick, subversion ofboundaries, 160
in Limbo, 126-30
man-in-the-middle and, 67-69
posthuman, construction of, 279-82
readers and technologies, 29
Tierra program and, 224-31
Fejes, Fred, 295n. 4
first wave cybernetics. See cybernetics
Fitting, Peter, 312n. 6
flickering signifiers
Burroughs, "Exhibition" and, 216-17
in Leyner, 47-48
reader, relation to, 47-48
Turing test and, xiv
The Fly. See Cronenberg, David
Fontana, Walter, 235, 318n. 23
form
artificial life, 234
defines life, 231
dichotomy, matter, 232-33
Spencer-Brown's definition of, 137,
188
Foucault, Michel
body
focus on, 197
play ofdiscourse systems, 192
universalized in, 194
334 I Index
Foucault, Michel (continued)
Discipline and Punish, 314n. 5
discourse, limits of, 195, 198
epistemic breaks, 14
The History ofSexuality, 295n. 27
"man," 293n. 5
The OrderofThings, 293n. 5
Panopticon, 194
Fredkin, Edward
cellular automata and, 11
computational universe and, 240-41
evolutionary psychology and, 241-42
information, 232
interviewwith, in Wright, 295n. 22,
318n.19
Freed, Janet
Editors' Meeting and, 82, 304n. 57
embedded in context, 83
Fremont-Smith and, 81-83
incorporating practices of, 83,
198-99
Janet Freud as, 81
Macy Conferences, 81-82
McCulloch, letter to, 304n. 56
smile, 82-83
Freedman, Carl, 167-68, 312n. 13
Fremont-Smith, Frank
Freed and, 81-83
Kubie, defense of, 71
MacyConferences,73-74
man-in-the-middle and, 68-69
Stroud and, 68
von Foerster's response to, 74
Frenk, S, 309n. 11
Friedberg, Anne, 316n. 37
Friedhoff, Richard Mark, 314n. 10
frog
epistemologyand, 131
perception of, 137
and toad, in Dick, 190-91
"What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's
Brain," 134-35, 304n. 55
Wiener, echo of, 134
functionalism, 94
functionality, 47, 242
Gaines, Brian R., 310n. 15
Galatea 2.2. See Powers, Richard
Galison, Peter, 86, 106-7, 295n. 25
Galvin, Jill, 177-78, 312n. 20
Garvey, Gregory, 295n. 28
Geduld, Carolyn, 123, 308nn. 16, 17
Gefin, Laszlo, 316n. 37
gender
Dick
dynamics in, 162-63
male subjectivity and, 170-75
encoding, 298n. 17
inscribing/incorporatingpractices,
200
Internet and, 199n.27
Johnson and, 206
in Limho, 122-24,128
neural net and, in Galatea 2.2, 262
orgasm and, 197
sexist beliefs and, 123
Turing test and, xi-xiv
Genesis, Tierra program's allusions to,
230
genetics
Human Genome Project, 13
Maturana and Varela, downplaying of,
149-53
metaphorical linking with book, 29
mutation and, 32-33
in Tierra program, 229
Genghis, 236-37, 319n. 28. See also
Brooks, Rodney
Gerard, R. W, 73
Gibbs, Willard, 89-90
Gibson, William, Neuromancer, 5,21,
35-39, 294n. 10
disembodiment in, 290, 323n. 22
innovations of, 35-39
Tierra program similar to, 228
trilogy, 35
goal-seeking behavior, 63, 70
Gode!, Kurt, 8
Gray, Chris, 119, 308n. 15
Greimas, A. J., 320n. 2. See also semiotic
square
GreyWalter, William, 62, 222
Grosz, Elizabeth, 195-96,220,
3141..9
Guattari, Felix, 4, 294n. 7, 323n. 17
Gumbrecht, Hans, 295n. 24
habitus, 202-3. See also Bourdieu, Pierre
Hafner, Katie, 297n. 9
Halberstam, Judith, 293n. 5, 320n. 1,
321n. 17, 323n. 17
hallucination
Dick's vision as, 189-90
McCulloch's explanation for, 59
in Terminal Games, 259
Haraway, Donna
critique ofscience, 288
cyborgs, real and metaphorical,
114-15
"High Cost ofInformation," 298n. 18
informatics and, 29
"A Manifesto for Cyborgs," 84, 298n.
12
Simians, Cyborgs and Women, 294n.
7
"Situated Knowledges," 323n. 18
Harding, Sandra, 288, 323n. 18
Hardison, O. B., 193, 313n. 3
Harvey, David, 39, 299n. 28
Hassan, Ihab
posthuman and, 247, 320n.
"Prometheus as Performer," 1
Havelock, Eric, 285, 315n. 25
Hayles, N. Katherine
Chaos Bound, 297n. 1, 322n. 10
"Life Cycle ofCyborgs," 307n. 5
heat engine, body as, 101
Hebbes Law, in Galatea 2.2,261-62
Heim, Michael, 298n. 11
Heims, Steve J.
Macy Conferences and, 58, 294n. 12
McCulloch, 72, 309n. 5
von Foerster, interviewwith, 309n. 5
Wiener, biographyof, 93, 305n. 6
Helmreich, Stefan, 232-34, 317n. 12
Hesse, Mary, 97, 306n. 30
Hodges, Andrew
Turing, biographyof, xii-xiv
Universal Turing Machine, 321n. 12
Hofstader, Douglas, 8
Hollinger, Veronica, 264, 311n. 3, 321nn.
9,18
homeostasis
and enaction, 158
entropic pressure against, 103
Index I 335
environment and, 66
and feedback loops, 8
and first wave cybernetics, 7
homeostat and, 65-66
and lobotomyin Limbo, 117
and man-in-the-middle, 68
origin ofterm, 298n. 20
skeuomorph as, in autopoiesis,
146
homeostat, 63, 65-67, 222. See also
Ashby, Ross; homeostasis
homophobia
Turing and, xii
Wiener's Cybemetics and, 109
Hotc Societies Remember. See Connerton,
Paul
human
artificial life redefined by, 224
autopoiesis, 136-40, 144
Blood Music, isolation of, 253
Burroughs, deconstruction of, 215
computers equated with, 273,
278-82
in Dick, 163-66
distributed system in, 190
in Galatea 2.2, 263
information
machine as, 68
as patterns, 104
intelligent machine, differences from
284
Limbo, transformation of, 124-30
as living system, 136-40
Oakley'S definition of, 34
as permeable membrane, 109
possessive individualism and, 3
posthuman, contrast with, 2
and semiotics ofvirtuality, 281-82
Terminal Games
finitude of, 261
ideology of, 259
subversion of, 257
triumph of, 260-61
and third wave cybernetics, 246
Hutcheon, Linda, 296n. 41
Hutchins, Edwin, 288-90, 31gn. 33
hyperreality, 249, 256-61. See also Baudrillard,
Jean
336 / Index
identity
in Blood Music, 255
in Tenninal Games, 259-61
Ifon a winter's night a traveler. See
Calvino, Halo
Ihde, Don, 296n. 38
image, in Tierra visualization, 228-29
Immob. See Wolfe, Bernard
immortality
cells and, in Blood Music, 255
disembodied,5
Minsky and, 13, 244
Moravec and, 36
incorporating practices. See also incorpo-
ration
definition of, 198-99
habit and, 200
improvisational nature of, 260
Janet Freed and, 83
knowledge gained through, 205
and technology, 206
incorporation. See also inscription
body and, 200
embodiment/body, 198
enculturated through, 200
in Burroughs, 220-21
inscription, dialectic with, 193-98,
207
semiotics ofvirtuality, 279-82
in Tenninal Games, 260
individuality
Maturana, importance of, 108-12
Snow Crash and, 278
Tenninal Games and, 259-60
Wiener, importance of, 108-12
informatics
definition of, 29, 313n. 4
materialityof, 193
information
as absence, 25
as bodiless,
bodyof,50
computational universe as, 241
constellation, 67
death,103-4
decontextualization of, 19
denial of, byautopoietic theory, 139
equations for, 52-53, 298n. 15
humans, as information machines,
64-65
Ifon a winter~s nighta traveler, 41
immaterialityof, 193
and infection, in Snow Crash, 272-79
junk as, 42-43
man-in-the-middle and, 68
materiality, dichotomywith, 246
meaning and, 53
as pattern, 25
reality, as, in Blood Music, 254
reification of, 50
semiotics ofvirtuality and, 250
Terminal Games and, 257
Turing test and, xi
uncertainty as, 32
informational pattern
importance of, 27-28
resistance to, in Galatea 2.2, 271
Turing test and, xi
virtuality and, 14
information narratives, 39, 43
information theory
choice in, 31-32
constellation, 56-57
Gibbs's view of, 90
McCulloch-Pitts neuron and, 58-59
MacKay's version of, 54-56
Shannon, 52-53
Signal and noise, 63-64
statistical thermodynamics, 100
Turing machines and, 58
Tzannes and, 56
infoworld
Snow Crash and, 275
in Tenninal Games, 259-60
inscription. See also incorporation
body
body/embodiment, 193, 198-207
enculturated through, 260
Burroughs, 220-21
closure in, 219
"Exhibition" and, 217
incorporation, dialectic with, 193
modes of, problematized, 250
power to circulate, 200
semiotics ofvirtuality, 279-82
tape-recording and, 209
technology and, 206-7
Terminal Games, in, 260
intention
in narrative, 229
reification of, in Dawkins, 227
Jackendoff, R., 156
James, Henry, 37-38, 299n. 26. See also
point ofview
Jameson, Fredric
character system in Dr: Bloodrrumey,
179-84, 313n. 28
late capitalism and information, 254,
321n..5
Jefferson, David, 318n. 21
Johnson, Mark
Body in the Mind, 205-7,265, 314n.
23
Metaphors We Live By, 85, 305n. 3
Joyce, Michael, 297n. 4
Kahn, Douglas, 315n. 26
Kampis, G, 318n. 20
Kauffman, Stuart, 241, 286, 319n. 37,
319n.38
Kay, Lily, 150, 293n. 4
Keller, Evelyn Fox, 150,288, 293n. 4,
31On. 22, 323n. 18
kipple, 174, 175. See also Dick, Philip K;
entropy
Kittler, Friedrich
Discourse Networks 180011900,
25-26, 295n. 24
"Gramophone, Film, Typewriter,"
315n.27
man and technology, 315n. 27
medial ecology and, 48
Kollock, Peter, 299n. 27
Kristeva, Julia, 128, 308n. 23
Kroker, Arthur, 5
Body Invaders, 192, 313n. 2
"flesh-eating 90's," 294n. 11
Kroker, Marilouise, 192, 313n. 2
Kubie, Lawrence
autopoiesis, differences with, 143
Index / 337
lobotomy and, 86
MacyConferences,69-77
"Neurotic Potential and Human
Adaptation," 70
neurotic processes and, 70-71
"Place ofEmotions," 303n. 41
refleXivity, 6, 69
"Relation ofSymbolic Function in
Language Formation and Neuro-
sis,"70
reverberating loops and, 59, 302n. 17
Kuhn, Thomas S, 295n. 27
Lacan, Jacques, 30
psycholinguistics of, 35
"Radiophonies," 298n. 13
Le Seminaire, 298n. 13
The Seminar, Book II, 298n. 14
Silverman's view of, 308n. 19
Laing, R. D., 176, 312n. 22
Lakoff, George, 8.5, 305n. 3
Langton, Christopher
artificial life
analytical approach of, 233-34
analytical comparedwith synthetic,
233, 318n. 22
origins of, 234-35
strong claim, 231-33, 317n. 13
cellular automata, research on,
240-4l, 319n. 36
chaos, uses of, 286
"Population Dynamics ofDigital Organisms,"
317n. 7
language
agency and, 252
artificial life narrative and, 239-46
Blood Music, biochips in, 252
Galatea 2.2
aliveness and, 266-67
neural net and, 263
recursion and, 264
ineffabilityin, 67,189-90
instrumental, 67
languaging in autopoiesis, 144-45,
147
literariness of, 207-8
Masani's scorn for, 112
338 I Index
language (continued)
reflexivityand, 67, 137, 146
scientific, 67
"screen ofwords" and, 126
The Ticket That Exploded
cybernetic fusion with, 221
materiality of, 213
as organism, 212-13
as parasite, 212
virus as, 212-14
as word dust, 217
Lanham, Richard, 287, 323n. 14
Latour, Bruno
Science in Action, 9,291, 294n. 18
We Have Never Been Modem, 291,
323n.23
Laurel, Brenda, 316n. 39
Lenneberg, Elizabeth, 31On. 17
Lettvin, Jerome, 80,131, 134-35, 304n.
55
Levidow, Lev, 296n. 37
Levy, Steven, 317n. 17,319n.34
Lewin, Roger, 297n. 2
Lewontin, Richard, 150, 31On. 22
Leyner, Mark, 44-46, 299n. 38
liberal humanism
anorexia and, 5
autopoiesis, 142-43, 145
Blood Music and, 256
Burroughs, subversion in, 211-20
critique of, 87
Dick, subversion in, 164
human and, 34
Maturana, ties with, 132
posthuman, grafting onto, 287
subject, 2
in Dick, 164
third wave cybernetics and, 246,
279-82
Varela's theory emptied in, 156
Turing test and, xii
values of, 85-86
and Wiener, 7
complicityin, 87
loss of, 112
reinforcement of, 100
values of, 85
Lilly, John Cunningham, 212, 315-16n.
36
Limbo. See Wolfe, Bernard
Lindee,M.Susan,293n.4
literature and science, 24, 305n. 16
living
artificial life forms as, 230, 234
autopoiesis defined in, 136-38
importance of, to Dick, 161
language as virus, 215-16
neural net as, 202-71
Livingston, Ira, 293n. 5, 320n. 1, 321n.
17,323n.17
lobotomy
"The Brain," at center of, 116-17
Kubie and, 303n. 42
in Limbo, 115-16
Wiener's critique of, 115
Loffreda, Beth, 1, 293n. 3
Lotringer, Sylvere, 300n. 45
Lubeck, H., 315n. 30
Luesebrink, Marjorie, 322n. 1
Luhmann, Niklas, 10, 294-95n. 21,
31On.19
Lydenberg, Robin, 299n. 35,316nn. 37, 38
Lyotard, Jean-Franr;ois
narrative and, 45
postmodernity and, 22, 296n. 41
machine. See also Turing machine
artificial life and, 243
autopoietic, 140, 146
Dick
homeostatic, 163
human as intelligent, 246
intelligent, 163-91
evolutionaryniche of, 243, 282
humans, 64-65
differences from, 284-85
ecologywith, 287
successorto, 235-36, 283
information theory and, 67
man-in-the-middle, 67-68
neuralnetand,262-71
posthuman,3
self-reproducing, 140-41,226, 318n.
20
The Ticket That Exploded, 212-16
Turing test, and thinking, xii
MacKay, Donald
information, 55, 56
Information, Mechanism, and Meaning,
296n. 32
information theory, 18
reflexivity of, 56
Shannon, contrastwith, 63
Macy Conferences and, 54-56
Macpherson, C. B.
autopoiesis, contrastwith, 145
liberal subject and, 3
possessive individualism, 3, 294n. 6
Macy Conferences, 6, 50-75
artificial life comparedwith, 223
constellations and, 34-35, 65-76
emotions in, 73-74
interdisciplinarity of, 51
Janet Freed and, 80- 83
Maturana's ties with, 131-32, 141
photography oftenth, 80-81
Maes, Patti, 236, 318n. 26
Mallinson, J. c., 315n. 31
Manichean, 106, 107. See also Augustin-
ian
man-in-the-middle, 67-69
Markley, Robert, 321 n.13
Markoff, John, 297n. 9
Marvin, Carolyn, 19, 296n. 33
Masani, Pesi, 91, 99, 11, 305n. 19
materiality
autopoiesis, centralityto, 138-40
black boxes and, 100
ofbooks and bodies, 29
dematerialized materialism, 100-
101
devaluation of, 48
in Galatea 2.2, 263
information
dichotomywith, 246
more important than, 50
narratives and, 43
medium of, 28
semiotics ofvirtualityand, 249
Varela, importance to, 154-58
matrix, 38
Index / 339
Maturana, Humberto. See also Varela,
Francisco
autopoiesis,6
Blood Music, comparedwith, 254
Burroughs, relation to, 220
contributions of, 158
ethics of, 142-43
political implications of, 160
colorvision, research on, 135-36,
309n.13
cybernetiCS
and first wave, 141
and secondwave, 131-32
and third wave, 222
and Dick, 160-61
agreement with, 163
comparisonwith, as system
builder, 188
not influenced by, 160-61
epistemology
radicalism of, 145
rejection ofrealist, 135
evolution, treatment of, 149-53
language and, 137, 144-45, 147
liberalhumanism, 142-43
and MacyConferences, 80
solipsism and, 147
and student revolution in Chile, 137
and Varela, 153-54
and von Neumann, 140-41
works
"Autopoiesis: The Organization of
the Living," 146
Autopoiesis and Cognition, 6,
135-37
"Biology and Language," 140, 145,
31On. 17, 313n. 34
"BiologyofCognition," 145
"Origin ofthe TheoryofAutopoiesis,"
153
The Tree ofKnowledge, 150-53,
310-11n.24
"What the Frog's Eye Tells the
Frog's Brain," 131, 134-35,
304n.56
Maxwell's Demon, 101-2, 103
Mayr, Otto, 86, 294n. 13
340 I Index
McCulloch, Warren. See also Pitts, Wal-
ter
and Gregory Bateson, 78-79
and Mary Catherine Bateson, 77
and Bateson's conference, 76-79
humans, dislike of, 79,283, 322n. 2
and Kauffman, 241, 319n. 37
and Kubie, 71-71
and Macy Conferences, 57-62
McCulloch-Pitts neuron
epistemology, 60-62,131
hallucination and, 59
logical propositions and, 58
neural nets and, 59
Northrop and, 302n. 28
Pitts and, 58
Teuberand, 59-61
Turing machine and, 58
universals and, 59
psychoanalysis, hatred of, 71-73
self-reproducing automata and,
239-40
singing condition, 65
Wiener, contrast with, 99
works
"Beginning ofCybernetics," 301n.
11
Embodiments ofMind, 66, 301n. 9
"How Nervous Systems Have
Ideas," 62, 302n. 21
"The Past ofa Delusion," 62, 71,
302n. 21, 303n. 37
"What the Frog's Eye Tells the
Frog's Brain," 80, 131, 134-35,
304n.55
"What's in the Brain That Ink May
Character," 62
McHale, Brian, 296n. 41
McLuhan, Marshall, 34, 216, 298n. 19
Mead, Margaret
and Bateson, 76
and Brand, 74-75
contextualization and, 76
language, gestural, 304n. 51
and Macy Conferences, 64, 75, 30In.
5
reflexivityand, 10
meme, 278, 321n. 16. See also Dawkins,
Richard
Mercer, 175-76. See also DiCk, Philip K.
Merchant, Carolyn, 288, 323n. 18
Mergler, Nancy, 320n. 2
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 199,203, 314n.
13,314n.19
message
information theory, in, 18
pheromones as, in Wiener, 109
pros/e, in Limbo, 126
metaphor. See also Johnson, Mark
artificial life and, 224-31
embodied,85
human loneliness and, 253
literalization of, in Burroughs, 213
mathematics as, 93
metaphoric networks and embodi-
ment,205-6
schemas,205-6
as "screen ofwords," in Limbo,
126
survival and, 287
microidentity, 157. See also concrete;
Varela, Francisco
Miller, George A., 31On. 17
mindblindness, 148. See also BarenCohen,
Simon
Mingers, John, 309n.14
Minsky, Marvin
computers, importance of, 320n. 43
enaction and, 157
evolutionary psychologyand, 242
immortality, 13
Nara lecture, 244, 295n. 23
The Society ofMind, 24, 320n. 42
Mitchell, William J., 296n. 35
Moravec, Hans
artificial intelligence and, 283
Brooks relation to, 235-36
conversationwith, 319n. 31
disembodiment, 193
immortalityand, 36
information, decontextualization of,
54
Mind Children, 1,235-36, 293n. 1
Moravec test, xi
postbiological future, 35
posthuman and, 283
Mullen, R. D., 311n. 3
mutant
Blood Music and, 252-55
bodies in The Ticket That Exploded,
208
evolution of, in Tierra program, 227
postmodern, 42
mutation
audiotape and, 210
flickering signifiers and, 33
semiotics ofvritualityand, 249
The Ticket That Exploded
inscription in, 217
fish boy in, 220
interior monologue in, 208
in Tierra program, 226
My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist. See
Leyner, Mark
Naked Lunch. See Burroughs, William
narrative
ofartificial life
future ofhuman, 235-39
human and, 239-40
Burroughs, reflexivity in, 215-16
in data matrix, 38-39
Dick, multifocal in, 163-84
as embodied form, 22
functionalties, changed in, 45-48
Galatea 2.2, doubleness of, 262-71
ofhumans and machines, 237-38
information, defined, 35-43
Limbo
semiotic space and, 128-29
splitting of, 126
voiced in, 127
posthuman and, 22
and theoretical biology ofartificial
life, 235-39
in Tierra program, 224-31
narrator
artificial life and, 228-31
in Burroughs
reality studio and, 218
sexual nausea of, 211-14
Index / 341
sounds and, 219
in Dick, unreality of, 164-84
in Leyner, construction of, 44
in Limbo, Martine as, 121-30
Nelkin, Dorothy, 293n. 4
Nelson, Cary, 315n. 35
neural net
email and, 287
in Galatea 2.2, 262-71
Neuromancer. See Gibson, William
neuroses
and Bergler, in Limbo, 123-24
cybernetic machines and, 65
and Jory, in Ubik, 185-86
phobia about eating, 166
Nichols, Bill, 323n. 24
Nicolis, Gregoire, 297n. 2
Noble, Douglas D., 119, 308n. 14
noise, 63. See also signal
Burroughs's use of, 211-16
cybernetics born in, 88, 291
and embodiment, 196
information theory and, 63-64
Stroud and, 63
Northrop, F. S. C., 302n. 28
Nye, Andrea, 60, 302n. 19
Oakley, Kenneth P., 34, 298 n. 18
objectivity
attacked by Johnson, 206
Macy Conferences, beliefin, 54-55
Maturana's rejection of, 13,5
reflexive epistemology replaced by,
288
observer
artificial life and, 223, 231-35
autopoiesis
accounting for, 143
convergence of, 158
definition of, 137-38
descriptive domain of, 139
distinction, acts of, 145
language and, 147
positionalityof, 143
punctuations by, 140
role of, in structural coupling,
138-39
342 I Index
observer (continued)
Bateson's epistemology and, 74-75
in Burroughs, 221
in Dick,
destabilization and, 158-59, 189
reality constructed by, 190
von Foerster's emphasis on, 133-34
Odier, Daniel, 316n. 37
ontology, Dick's subversion of, 169
organization. See also structure
in artificial life, self-, 224-31
in autopoiesis
closure of, 145
definition of, 138, 151
living systems, 136
problems with, 152-53
Blood Music, ofbiochips, 252-56
orgasm, in Limbo, 122-23. See also gen-
der
Ostman, Charles, 287, 323n. 15
paranoia, 167-69
Pask, Gordon, 76, 133, 309n. 8
pattern. See also randomness
access, relation to, 39-40
ofanxiety, in Limbo, 117,124
assumptions of, 285-86
information and, 19
memory as informational, 104
mutation and, 33
posthuman and, 285-91
randomness, dialectic with, 25
in semiotics ofvirtuality, 248-51,
279-82
shiftto,28
signifier and, 31
Penley, Constance, 299-300n. 41
Penrose, Roger, 6
perception
artificial life simulations and, 232-34
autopoietic understanding of, 155
frog's experience of, 134-35
langnage analogous to, in Maturana,
144
enaction and, 155
Perriman, Cole, 250-51
Terminal Games, 256-61,281, 320n.
4
Auggie, 256, 258-60
Marianne Hedson, 256, 258-60
Insomnimania,256-61
SnuffRoom, 256
tremendum,259
Pfeiffer, K. Ludwig, 295n. 24
Phillips, Emo, 238
Pickering, Andy, 295n. 25
Pimentel, Ken, 297n. 5
Pinker, Steven, 320n. 40
Pitts, Walter. See also McCulloch, War-
ren
homeostat and, 66
McCuIIoch-Pitts neuron, 57-61
neuroses and, 65
scientific language and, 66
self-reproducing automata and,
239-40
singing condition, 65
"What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's
Brain," 131,134-35, 304n. 55
Platonic backhand, 12-13. See also Platonic
forehand
McCuIIoch-Pitts neuron and, 57, 60
Nyeand,60
Platonic demon, 59. See also Teuber,
Hans-Lukas
Platonic forehand, 12-13,233-35. See
also Platonic backhand
point ofview
Galatea 2.2, in, 267-68
in James, 37-38
multifocal use ofin Dick, 163-84
povas,37
in Tierra program, 228-29
Porush, David
"Hackingthe Brainstem," 321n.14
Snow Crash and, 275-76
The Soft Machine, 296n. 40, 299n. 35
positron emission tomography, 19, 196,
314n.10
possessive individualism. See also
Macpherson, C. B.
and closure and recursivity in autopoiesis,
146
and computation, 34
human, linkwith, 34
and liberal humanism, 86
postbiological, 6, 3.5, 238, 2.52. See also
Moravec, Hans
Poster, Mark, 298n. 11
posthuman
always have been, 279
antihuman, as, 286-87
artificial life and, 289
autopoiesis and, 14.5
Blood Music, reconstructions in,
2.52-.53
Burroughs
fish-boy as, 220
forms in, 218-19
relation to, 221
collectivity,6
consensus about, lack of, 2.51
cybernetics, third wave and, 246
definition of, 2-3
Dick, android as, 161-84
embodiment and, 246
evaluation of, 283-91
everyday reality and, 39
in Galatea 2.2
loneliness of, 272
representation of, 263
human, compared \vith, 2
Lilllbo~s enactment of, 130
literary phenomenon as, 247-82
map of, 247-82
meaning of, 288
pleasures in, 283-91
postconsciousness and, 280
Tenninal Games, 2.57-.58
Turing test and, xiv
Varela's anticipation of, 1.5.5
Poulsen, Valdemar, 209, 31.5n. 29
pov. See also point ofview
defined,37
matrix and, 39
narrative and, 39
in Neurumancer, 38-39
in Tierra program, 228
Powers, Richard, 2.51, 261-72
Galatea 2.2, 261-72,281, 320n. 4
A.268-70
C.266-69
Diana Hartrick, 261, 268
face value, 26.5
Index I 343
Helen, 262-71
language and, 264-66
Philip Lentz, 261
recursive style of, 264
Rick, 261-72
presence. See also absence
audiotape, and, 210
deconstruction, and, 44
in Galatea 2.2,263
information, irrelevance to, 28
posthuman and, 28.5-91
semiotics ofvirtuality, 248-.51,
279-82
virtuality and, 19
virtual reality not applicable to, 27
and voice, in Burroughs, 219
Prigogine, Ilya, 297n. 2, 307n. 44
print
advantages of, 48
post-typographic, in Limbo, 124-30
probabilistic universe
communication theory extended, 90
entropy and, 10.5
Gibbs and, 88-90
teleology and, 9.5
Wiener, 88-89, 91
probability
communication and, 90
Gibbs's view of, 89-90
information theory extending signifi-
canceof,90
vViener, importance to, 87
prognosticator, Wiener's development of,
98
program
artificial life, 222-28
"Cog" robot and, 238
evolutionary, 242
"Genghis" robot and, 236-37
nervous nets and, 237
Snow Crash and, 272-79
subsurnption architecture in, 236-37
Tierra, 224-27
projection
anthropomorphic, Maturana and, 136
and "Exhibition," in Burroughs,
21.5-16
Limbo, narrator and, 124
344 I Index
pros/e. See also Wolfe, Bernard, Limbo
as cyborg, 129
defined, in Limbo, 126
prosthesis and, 127
semiotic space in, 128
prosthesis
analogy and, 98-99
body as, 3
embodiment and, 291
Limbo, 121
posthuman and, 246
Wiener's deSigns for, 98-99
pulp science, 1. See also Loffreda, Beth
purpose
in autopoeisis, 138
and Bateson's epistemology, 77
"Behavior, and Teleology," 94
biochips in Blood Music and, 254
cybernetic redefinition of, 94
Taylor's objection to, 95-98
randomness
assumptions of, 285-86
information as opposite of, 25
and information theory, 31
mutation and, 33
noocytes caused by, in Blood Music,
254
pattern, dialectic with, 25
posthuman and, 285-91
semiotics ofvirtuality, 248-51,
279-82
shiftto,28
Signifier and, 31
teleologyopposite of, 95
word virus used to stop, 213
Ray, Thomas S.
ecologicalpreserves, 224
"An EvolutionaryApproach to Synthetic
Biology," 316n. 5, 317n. 11
global ecology, plans for Tierra,
229-30, 316n. 4
interviewwith, 225-26
Tierra, description of, 227-31, 317n.
7
reader
Burroughs, 215-16, 218
construction of, 46, 47-48
Galatea 2.2, 265,266
reality
artificial life simulations, of, 224-31
Burroughs, 216-19
cognition and, 245
constructed byobserverin Dick, 190
embodied
Turing test and, xii
Varela, importance for, 155
emotions and, 245
Galatea 2.2, an awful place, 270
Maturana,190
reason, role of, in Snow Crash, 276
recursion. See also emergence; reflexivity
Galatea 2.2 and, 264-66
structure of, in Tierra program,
225
reflexivity
autopoiesis and, 136
Bateson and, 75-80
behaviorism and, 134
Burroughs, infinite regress in, 218
constellation, 67
definition of, 8
Dick, 2-3-74 and, 189-91
evolutionary biologyand, 284
explosive potential of, 70
Galatea 2.2 and, 264-66
in Limbo, 115
and Macy Conferences, 9, 309n. 2
and objectivism, 288
psychoanalysis and, 72-73
scientific language and, 67
secondwave cybernetics and, 17
von Foerster and, 133-35
replication
Blood Music, cell reconstructions
and, 260
doubling and, in Galatea 2.2, 261-72
semiotics ofvirtualityand, 248
representation
analogies, emergingfrom, 98
autopoiesis, 136, 143
Burroughs, 216, 217
computer languages and, 274
in Limbo, pros/e and, 124-30
and subsumption architecture,
236-37, 31S-19n. 27
Tierra program and, 224-31
Rheingold, Howard, 35, 297n. 5
ritual, 203-4
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, 38
Robins, Kevin, 296n. 37
Robocop,4
Rosch, Eleanor, 156,201, 315n. 34
Rosenblith, Walter A., 99, 306n. 35
Rosenblueth, Arturo
"Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology,"
93-99, 306n. 24
Taylor and, 95-96, 306n. 26
Wiener and, 99
Ross, Andrew, 299n. 41
Samuelson, David, 113, 307n. 1
Santa Fe Institute
Helmreich and, 232-34, 317n. 12
promotion of, 230
Ray and, 225
"Simple Rules ... Complex Behavior,"
317n.8
Tierra program and, 227-SO
Saussure, Ferdinand de, 30, 98,
306n.31
Savage, Jimmie, 73
Scarry, Elaine, 195,259, 314n. 7, 321n. 8
Schaffer, Simon, 302n. 20
schema, 205-7. See also Johnson, Mark;
metaphor
schizoid android. See also Dick, Philip K.
central to Dick's mid-sixties novels,
161-91
female gendered as, 161
functions as autistic, 161
schizophrenic. See also Dick, Philip K.
Dick's mid-sixties novels, lS0-84
distinction from schizoid, 176
Kongrosion suffers from, 169
in The Simulacra, 168-69
Schliefer, Ronald, 320n. 2
Searle, John, 289, 323n. 20
secondwave cybernetics. See cybernetiCS
secret, in The Simulacra, 167-68
The Selfish Gene. See Dawkins, Richard
Index / 345
self-regulating system. See homeostasis;
system
self-replicating
machines, von Neumann, 140-41
program in Tierra, 226
Seltzer, Mark, 64-65,100-101, 302n. 26
semiotic square. See also Greimas, A. J.
referenced, 320n. 2
semiotics ofvirtuality, 248-51
transformed, 279-82
seriation
chart for cybernetiCS, 16
chart in anthropology, 14-1.5
defined, 13
second wave cybernetiCS as, 131-33
Serres, Michel, 90, 305n. 16, 307n. 46,
322n.1O
servomechanism, 96,106
Shannon, Claude
Bavelas, exchanges with, 296n. 34
electronic rat and, 63-65, 302n. 24
information and, 32,51-54,102
The Mathematical Theory ofCommunication,
295n. 30
reflexivityand, 65
subjective probabilities and, 54
Turing and, x
Weaverand,300n.3
and Wiener, 304n.14
Shapin, Steven, 302n. 20
SIGGRAPH, "Catholic Turing test," 17
Signal, IS, 63, 64. See also noise
signification
code and, 279-80
flickering signifiers and, 30
new models of, 29-33
schizoid android, in Dick, 163-84
Signifier
accordion nature of, 31
flickering, defined, 30-32, 279-S2
floating, 30-31, 45
Limbo, splitting into pros/e of,
124-30
print, as flat, 26
Silverman, Kaja, 308n. 19
"Simple Rules ... Complex Behavior,"
Santa Fe videotape, 227-31, 317n. 8
346 / Index
simulacrum
Baudrillard and, 250
The Simulacra, 167, 168
simulation
cell reconstructions as, in Blood Music,
260
embodiment, contrast with, 223
Metaverse as, in Snow Crash, 275-78
Minsky's preference for, 245
Tierra program as, 224-31
Skeumorph,13-17
Slack, Jennifer Daryl, 295n. 24
Smith, Dorothy, 82-83, 304n. 59
Smith, March, 299n. 27
Smith, Oberlin, 209
Snow Crash. See Stephenson, Neal
Spencer-Brown, George, 137, 188
splice
audiotape and, 209-10
Burroughs, 211-15
cybernetic circuits and, 118
in Limbo, ll6, 130
splitting. See also splice
Blood Music and, 260
Burroughs, 211-13
Dick, 161-65
in Limbo, 116-17
Terminal Games and, 259-60
Steels, Luc, 243, 316n. 6, 318-19n. 27
Stengers, Isabelle, 307n. 44
Stephenson, Neal, 257
Snow Crash, 272-79,281, 297n. 44,
320n.4
Babel effect, 274
diversity in, 277
Hiro,272
Juanita, 276
L. Bob Rife, 273
Lagos, 272
Metaverse, 275, 278
Raft, 277
Rat Thing, 278
reason and, 276
snow crash, defined, 272
Sumerian language and, 273-74
Uncle Enzo, 278
virus, 272-81
y. T., 277, 322n. 13
Stewart, Garrett, 207, 315n. 24
Stone, Allucquere Roseanne, 27, 293n. 5,
296n.36,316n.39
Stone, Sandy. See Stone, Allucquere
Roseanne
strongclaim
artificial life, defined, 230
theoretical biology and, 234
Stroud, John
Macy Conferences and, 632, 303n. 31
man-in-the-middle,68
Shannon and, 63
structure. See also organization
autopoeisis defined in, 138
behavior contrasted with, 96
ofTierra program, 224-31
The Tree ofKnowledge, 157
subject
boundaries of, in Turing text, xiv
cybernetics and, in Dick, 170
female position, in Dick, 172
hyphenated, in Limbo, ll5
liberal humanist
in Blood Music, 256
deconstructed,110
inLimbo,2
reconstruction of, 109
subverted, in Dick, 170
posthuman
artificial life and, 239-46
in Burroughs, 211-20
in Limbo, 130
subjectivity
Burroughs, mutation of, 2ll-20
code, relation to, 46
Dick
construction of, 170-73
masculine in, 165-67
oscillation of, 170
emergent, 291
Limbo
cyborg in, 125
masculine, and projection, 124
prosthesis and, 124-30
MacyConferences,54-55
Maturana, 143
subvocalization
Burroughs's experiments with, 216
literarylanguage and, 207-8
in Terminal Games, 258
Sutin, Lawrence, 165, 189, 311n. 1
Suvin, Darko, 255, 321n. 6
system
autopoiesis, 138, 151
Burroughs, "Exhibition" as recursive,
21.5-18
computational universe as, 239-44
distributed
artificial life and, 237
Galatea 2.2, Helen as, 271
human as, 290
human and nonhuman actors as,
289-90
self-organizing, 21,158
liberal humanist subject as, 86-87
living as, 241
Tierra program as, 224-31
and third wave cybernetics, 222
Szafranski, Richard, 308n. 15
Szilard, Leo, 101, 306n. 40
Tabbi, Joseph, 300n. 44
tape-recording. See also Burroughs,
William
Burroughs, 216-18
cultural niche of, 208-10
Cyteen, in, 220
historyof, 208-10
subvocal speech, recording of, 216
tape
audio, 207-8
fiIm,209-10
inching of, 215-16
magnetic, 194
steel, 208-10
substrate form, 215
Taylor, Richard, 95-97, 306n. 25
Teixeira, Kevin, 297n. 5
telegraphone, 209
teleology
"Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology,"
94
cybernetic redefinition of, 94-95
Derrida and, 285
emergence replaces, 288
randomness opposite of, 95
Index / 31,7
The Tempest
and Galatea 2.2,270-71
and The Ticket That Exploded,
219
Terminal Games. See Perriman, Cole
Teuber, Hans-Lukas
Macy Conferences, 64, 75
McCulloch, correspondence with,
59-62, 301n. 5
Platonic demon, 59
thermodynamics. See also entropy
and dematerialized materialism,
100-102
exchanger in culture, 101
first law, 101
second law, 101, 10.5
statistical, 100
third wave cybernetics. See cybernetics
Thompson, Evan, 156,201, 315n. 34
Tierra. See also Ray, Thomas S.
address by template, 226
ancestor, 226-27
construction of, 224-27, 317n. 7
ecologyof, 227
Genesis and, 230-31
origin of, 225-26
reaper, 226
visualization of, 228-31
Tilden, Mark, 236-37, 319n. 29
Tomer, Alvin, 18, 295n. 29
tomb world. See also Dick, Philip K.
Mercer and, 176
psycholOgical significance of, 176
and The Simulacra, 169-70
in Ubik, 184-85
wasting time in, 175
Tooby, John, 242, 245, 284, 320n. 39. See
also evolutionary psychology
transcendence
Moravec and, 35-36
Snow Crash and, 275-76
Travis, John, 317 n. 7
trigger, environmental. See also au-
topoiesis
autopoiesis and, 11
role in, 136
structural coupling and, 138
Trow, G. W. S., 47, 300n. 43
348 / Index
Turing, Alan, xi-xiv. See also Turing ma-
chine
"Computer Machineryand Intelli-
gence,"xi
homosexuality and, xii
Turing test, xi-xiv, 238
Catholic, 17
in Galatea 2.2,261-62,270
Turing machine. See also Turing, Alan
automata theory and, 30ln. 12
computational universe and, 239-40
McCulloch-Pitts neuron and, 58
universal, 274, 321n. 12
Turlde, Sherry, 27, 296n. 36
Tzannes, Nicolas S., 56, 30ln. 7
Ubik. See also Dick, Philip K.
transformation of, 186-88
Ubik, the novel, 184-88
Ulam, Stanislaw, 240
uncertainty, information theory and, 32,
52-54
universal
analogy as exchange system, 98
body in Foucault, 194
Turing machine, .58, 274- 75
universality
computational universe and, 239-44
cybernetic science as, 96
McCulloch-Pitts neuron and, 60
Uribe, G., 309n. 13
Varela, Francisco. See also Maturana,
Humberto
Buddhistperspective of, 156
comparedwith Damasio, 245
comparedwith Dick, 163, 178
comparedwith Minsky, 245
embodiment and, 154-58
enaction,155-56
laws ofnature, nonexistence of, 155
and Maturana, 153-54
tessellation automata, 146-47
and third wave cybernetics, 222-23
works
Autopoiesis and Cognition, 135,
136, 294n.20
"Describingthe Logic ofthe Living,"
154-55, 31On. 21
The Embodied Mind, 156,201,
315n.34
"MakingIt Concrete," 155, 322n. 9
Principles ofBiological Autonomy,
153, 31On. 16
Toward a Practice ofAutonomous
Systems, 316n. 2
The Tree ofKnowledge, 150-53,
310-11n.24
Virilio, Paul, 48, 114, 117, 300n. 45, 308n.
10
virtuality
condition of, 18
as exotic, 20
semiotics of, 248-51, 279-82
strategic definition of, 13
virtual reality
avatar and, 27
cybernetics and, 2
materiality, interpenetrating, 14
posthuman and, 290-91
programming languages and, 273-75,
321n.13
in Snow Crash, 275, 278
technologies of, 26-27
Tierra program as, 224-31
visualization, Tierra program and,
228-31
von Foerster, Heinz
background, 132
behaviorism, critique of, 134
cybernetics, 132-34,222
and Fremont-Smith, 74-75
infinite regress and, 133
MacyConferences
as editorofvolumes, 64, 132-33,
294n.12,301n.5
as observer, 74-75, 133-34
Observing Systems, 10, 133, 294n.
19
reflexivity and, 10, 133
vita, 309n. 4
Vonnegut, Kurt, 305n. 10
von Neumann, John
cellular automata and, 240
dissipating energyand, 51
and Macy Conferences, 7
scientific language and, 60
self-reproducing machines, 140-41,
226, 319n. 34, 319n. 35
Wagner, Gunter, 235, 318n. 23
Waldrop, M. Mitchell, 297n. 2
Walker, John, 296n. 39
Walker, Roy, 210-11, 315n. 32
Walser, Randall, 296n. 39
war
in Dr. Bloodrrwney, 180-82
in Limbo, 114, 121
neocortical, 20, 308n. 15
and The Ticket That Exploded,
215-16
Wiener's research on, 106-7
Warner, Michael, 9, 294n. 17
Warrick, Patricia, 170-71, 176, 312n. 12
Waver, Warren, 32, 295n. 30, 300n. 3
Weiser, Mark, 296n. 35, 300n. 46
Weiss, Eric A., 300n. 3
Weizenbaum, Joseph, 287-88, 323n. 16
white box, 119. See also black box
Whitehead, Gregory, 315n. 26
White Noise. See DeLillo, Don
Whittaker, Randall, 309-lOn. 14
Wiener, Norbert
Augustinian and Manichean oppo-
nents,116
autobiographies of, 92-93,107,
306nn. 20, 23
Blood Music, 252
boundary problems, 84-85, 92-93,
105-7,30.5n.12
Brownian motion, 88, 305n. 11
and Burroughs, 221
celibacy, cybernetics should practice,
112
computational universe and, 239
coupling, tight and loose, 111
cybernetics
manifesto, 61, 93
panic in, 290
and Dick, 160, 164
education, 300n. 23
Index I 349
entropy, view of, 102
erotic anxiety and, 108-12
and Gibbs, 88-89
homeostasis, 103
information and, 14,52
and Jewishness, 93, 107
liberal humanist values, 85
and Limbo, 115, 118
machine, 63, 87
MacyConferences,7
manipulation, fear of, 107-8
Masani, 91, 305n. 5
military research and, 86, 106-7
motion, tropes of, 120
outsider, as, 93
and poststructuralism, 91
pseudonym, W. Norbert, 116
and Shannon, 305n.14
and Taylor, 95, 306 26
telegraphing a human, I
Terminal Games and, 257
thermodynamics and, 300n. 2
Turing and, xi
works
"Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology,"
94, 306n.24
"The Brain," 116, 308n. 9
Cybemetics, 108-12, 295n. 26
God and Golem, 309n. 9
The Human UseofHtl/nan Beings,
92-93, 104, 107, 293n. 2
"Man, Machines, and the World
About," 305n. 5
The Nature ofAnalogy," 97-99,
306n.29
"The Role ofthe Observer," 912,
30,5n.lS
Wiesner, Jerome B., 99, 306n. 3,5
Wills, David, 126, 30Sn. 20
Wolfe, Bernard. See also pros/e; splice
and Bergler, 123-24
and cybernetics, 118
as ghostwriter, 127
Plastics, 30Sn. 21
hyphen, theory of, 115, 118, 120
Limbo, 22-23, 113-30, 296n. 42
castration, fear of, 123-24
350 / Index
Wolfe, Bernard (continued)
gender politics in, 122
geography ofthe Imaginary, 117
Helder, 121-22, 125
Immoh, 117, as 127
mark i, ii, 125
Martine at island, 11.5-16
Noyes, 129
orgasm, politics of, 122-23
panic in, 290
projection in, 124
pro-pros, anti-pros, 117
pros/e, defined, 126
puns, delirious in, 117, 124-30
Rosemary, 121-24, 127-28
"screen ofwords" in, 124, 129
splitting ofnarrative, 126
steamroller in, 125
Tom's role in, 123-24
ventriloquism in, 125
vol-amps, 120, 124
motion, tropes of, 120
"Self~Portrait," 119-20, 308nn. 12, 13
\Volfram, Stephen, cellular automata
and,11,295n.22,319n.35
Woolley, Benjamin, 297n. 5
Wright, Robert, 318n. 19
Wurtz, Michael, 300n. 44
Young, J. Z., 67
Zeleny, Milan, 154, 158, 31On. 15,31011.
23
Zuboff, Shoshana, 297n. 8